[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ezadj:
Hi All,

This is the first time I have posted but have used this site to diagnose issues all the time so I thought I would give back to the community on what I have found to fix the dreaded Nexus 5 "Cannot connect to Camera" issue.

The day I brought this phone I thought it was one of the best devices around for money and the hardware was nothing to joke about, but over time the smaller cracks started to show which became quite a hassle such as Camera and Battery.

Camera Issues:

Cannot connect to Camera

Grey Screen with the image logo on it

After an hour or so the Camera cannot connect

Typical Fixes:

Clear Camera Cache (Temporary or no effect)

Reboot Phone (Temporary)

Uninstall software (Possible fix but at what cost)

Run in Safe Mode (Not of much use apart from diagnosing)

I have found most of these to be quite useless if not unproductive.

So a brief history on what I have found with the Nexus 5 Camera, it appears that when Google partnered up with LG to design this phone they skimped on a few things and unfortunately the Camera was one of them, its unclear whether this is a hardware or software issue but I have been able to solve it. I had googled dozens of pages read through hundreds if not thousands of comments and none have seemed to have fixed it permanently until now.

Common things that you will find when trying to find fixes for the Nexus 5 Camera.

So I have the following steps which should help you fix the camera issue and possibly battery life in one go!

1. First thing to do is to confirm its not a hardware/software (can it be fixed or do you need to return it for replacement) is to put it into Safe mode, to do this push and hold the power button till the "Power Off" menu come up and hold the soft button till you get the "Reboot to Safe Mode" (make sure you Camera cannot connect before doing this or you will be wasting your time).

2. Once in safe mode open up the camera app and see if it starts up, if it doesn't then its most likely a hardware issue and will need to be RMA'd and take a pic or two then just exit out by pressing the back button. next is to let it sit for an hour or so then try again (this will also check if its a bug in the ROM/Hardware). Chances are if you could get the camera working fine in safe mode it will continue to do so. If it fails check the rom or RMA.

3. If the Camera continues to work fine Reboot the phone into normal mode by just shutting it down and starting it back up. From here we can pretty much say its a software issue, now reading all these forums and comments it seems that it can be almost a dozen different apps that cause the camera to drop off and not reconnect, the resolution? App Ops (Unfortunately I cannot post the link but its not hard to find, search name exactly) this handy program lets you control the permissions for each individual application on your phone and the time they last accessed it, do note this does require ROOT access.

4. Next step is to run App Opps and go to the media tab, just note or take a screen shot of everything running, now go to the camera and take a picture and exit it via the back button and go do something for an hour or 2 or when you suspect the Camera to fail (best to not use your phone/camera during this time for more accurate diagnostics). After your break, test the camera, if it still works just take a break till it fails.

5. Now that the camera has failed go back to App Ops and check the media tab, you will see a list of programs that last tried to access you media hardware/software with a time and what they tried to access, in this instance mine was Viber, which tried to access the Camera in the last 10 minutes of it failing.

6. From here you want to go into the app in App Ops, scroll down to the setting that uses the camera and disable it (set it to off) this will prevent the application from using your camera without a manual input.

It doesn't prevent me from using the Camera in Viber but it does prevent Viber from automatically opening the Camera and then leaving it in an unusable state. I have had this going for about 2 days now and have been able to open my Camera up every single time and it also seems a lot more responsive.

It might take you a while to find out exactly which app it is but it will be well worth it to get the camera going like a normal smart phone should.

If you found this guide helpful please let others know and give some stars to App Ops for such a great program.

Tested on Stock Lollipop 5.0 but I do not see why it would not work for Kit Kat or Custom Rom's.

If you have any questions feel free to ask.

Battery Save?

Another thing I forgot to add in this is that App Ops also controls start up and keep awake applications, just like the Camera function you can disable the Keep awake and Auto start up applications to prevent unnecessary battery drain, I have managed to get it from 1.5% to 0.8% battery drain per hour while in sleep mode, of course this will only be effective if you have multiple programs which keep your phone awake (please note it may also stop notifications coming through so choose wisely what you disable).