Camera preview shows unwanted tiles only on Android 4.2.2 (S4, full HD screen)

Question

My app runs with many devices but 2 users have send me simular images as below. As far as I know the behaviour is only seen on Android 4.2.2 (Samsung S4).

On the full HD screen there seem to be 3 compressed tiles of 160x600 pixels. I have tried an AVD with full HD screen but that fails to start. On 4.03 devices I don't see this. I don't use tiles. Does anybody have a hint what or where this goes wrong ?

Iodoform

If you want assistance, explain what you are doing here. How do you set up the surface, how do you choose the preview size, etc. – Crosslet

@AlexCohn is right-- it's hard to give advice when we don't know what the code looks like, or even exactly what the screen should look like (or the app should do). Can you give us more info/code, and possibly a working screenshot? It seems like a camera initialization or SurfaceView problem. – Semiliquid

I am also having same issue of having tiled images in 4.4.2 Samsung Note 8 device. – Soandso

Answer 1

This looks like a possible bug in the Android platform on Samsung's S4 devices with that particular Android version. My experience tells me that it's a very real possibility. It could also be that you do something wrong in your app that only causes actual problems on that version (and maybe even only on that device), but there is no indication of that from what you tell. Android 4.2.2 should be backwards compatible with 4.0.3, so in general it should work on the later version too, of course.

I would advice you (or anyone in the same situation) to try it out on other devices with the same Android version if possible. Also, double check that you're not violating anything in the Android API documentation.

Please add more info about what you're doing and how if you need more detailed answers. I guess you've probably found a solution or workaround by now, but still adding my answer here.

Lydell