[Camera] If camera-app's access to the camera is revoked, it's hard to tell what's wrong

Bug #1489833 reported by Stuart Langridge
34
This bug affects 8 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Canonical System Image
Fix Released
High
Bill Filler
Ubuntu UX
Fix Released
High
Jouni Helminen
camera-app (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
High
Ugo Riboni

Bug Description

From a discussion between the Ubuntu phone insiders:

with ota6, the camera app asks you for permission to use the camera. need to put yes. not sure how to check whether the phone thinks it got a yes or a no.
yes, i accept and all is black..
I also accepted it, but I needed to activate it somewhere in the settings somehow…
Systen Settings -> Security & Privacy -> Other app access -> Camera
I thought I accidently pressed the wrong button, but I'm not the only one…
yep and if you acc denied then you have no idea what's happening
not to mention that the settings are basically hidden :))
Systen Settings -> Security & Privacy -> Other app access -> Camera 😱
the camera really ought to say "camera access revoked; re-enable in system settings" if it's revoked
yeah, that would be good

It is possible to revoke the camera app's access to the camera. This is, I suppose, OK, but if it's been done then the camera app should display "access revoked" or similar, rather than just a black screen, and explain how to re-enable access.

I suppose letting an app know that it has been revoked (rather than just lying by giving it a black screen and claiming that that's what the camera sees) is a security violation (should apps know they have been revoked?) but the revocation settings are well-hidden (as mentioned) and people will be very confused if they accidentally revoke the camera-app's access to the camera and don't know how to turn it back on; the camera app could be a lot more helpful here.

Related branches

summary: - If camera-app's access to the camera is revoked, it's hard to tell
- what's wrong
+ [Camera] If camera-app's access to the camera is revoked, it's hard to
+ tell what's wrong
Changed in ubuntu-ux:
status: New → Triaged
importance: Undecided → High
assignee: nobody → Jouni Helminen (jounihelminen)
tags: added: affects application camera concerning it me problem. security setting solved the to too. yes
Revision history for this message
Jouni Helminen (jounihelminen) wrote :

Does the camera app really need to ask for permissions to access the camera hardware? It's a system app, I can't think of any other platform where the native default camera app needs to ask user for permission to access the hardware.

Only instance I have seen this is in 3rd party apps that want to use the camera hardware.

Changed in camera-app:
assignee: nobody → Florian Boucault (fboucault)
Changed in ubuntu-ux:
status: Triaged → In Progress
Revision history for this message
Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt) wrote :

So this is two separate problems:

(1) The default Camera app should be whitelisted. (Is that a trust-store bug?)

(2) If you revoke the Camera app's camera permission later (or its video recording permission, or both), it should have a classy error message with a button to send you into the "App permissions" settings to fix it. This error presentation should be so good that the developers of third-party camera apps want to copy it.

Revision history for this message
Jouni Helminen (jounihelminen) wrote :

1) Agree, the default camera app should be whitelisted

2) If it can't be whitelisted, or if the user turns access to the camera hw off, we should display an error in a default dialog. When launching the camera app, if it doesn't have permissions to use the camera for whatever reason, display a dialog saying "Camera app doesn't have permissions to access the camera hardware." with two buttons - Cancel, and "Edit App Permissions" - which should take the user to the relevant part of system settings.

Changed in ubuntu-ux:
status: In Progress → Fix Committed
Changed in camera-app:
status: New → Confirmed
importance: Undecided → High
Changed in camera-app (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → High
status: New → Confirmed
Ugo Riboni (uriboni)
Changed in camera-app:
assignee: Florian Boucault (fboucault) → Ugo Riboni (uriboni)
Changed in camera-app (Ubuntu):
assignee: nobody → Ugo Riboni (uriboni)
Revision history for this message
Bill Filler (bfiller) wrote :

good, lets implement what jouni suggests here:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/camera-app/+bug/1489833/comments/3

Changed in canonical-devices-system-image:
milestone: none → ww02-2016
assignee: nobody → Bill Filler (bfiller)
importance: Undecided → High
status: New → Confirmed
no longer affects: camera-app
Ugo Riboni (uriboni)
Changed in camera-app (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → In Progress
Changed in canonical-devices-system-image:
status: Confirmed → In Progress
Changed in canonical-devices-system-image:
status: In Progress → Fix Committed
Changed in canonical-devices-system-image:
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
Changed in camera-app (Ubuntu):
status: In Progress → Fix Committed
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
Changed in ubuntu-ux:
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
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