Blackmagic Camera App (iOS) Bug?

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ndru920

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  • Joined: Sun Oct 20, 2024 11:34 am
  • Real Name: Andrew Xu

Blackmagic Camera App (iOS) Bug?

PostSun Oct 20, 2024 11:48 am

Hi, I've been experiencing an issue using the Blackmagic Camera App on the iPhone and was hoping to see if anyone else is experiencing this as well, and hopefully can bring attention to the dev team:

Bug: whenever I open the app, there's a 50% chance that the camera will freeze (UI remain responsive), and in the chance that it works, when I change the camera from Main 1x (24mm) to Zoom 3x (77mm) or Ultra Wide 0.5x (13mm), there's a near 100% chance of the camera freezing.
I made a post on reddit with attached video to show this issue (not allowed to post URL here and attachment size is too large), but it's in r/blackmagicdesign titled "Blackmagic Camera app freezing issue"

Workaround: I have to click into the "Media", then back out to camera, which has a 75% chance of unfreezing the camera, and repeat until this works.

Things I've tried: changing shooting modes/encoding etc, reinstall the app, hard restart the iPhone, etc. Bug still exists.

Info about my device/settings:
iPhone 15 Pro 512gb
iOS 18.0.1
Blackmagic Camera app version 2.0.000016
Shooting in 1080p, 60fps, HEVC, Apple Log, + Apple Log->Rec 709 LUT display
Note: the mode doesn't matter as this bug is reproducible even with different resolution, codec, fps, with/without apple log, etc

Any insights/help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!
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ndru920

  • Posts: 2
  • Joined: Sun Oct 20, 2024 11:34 am
  • Real Name: Andrew Xu

Re: Blackmagic Camera App (iOS) Bug?

PostThu Oct 24, 2024 9:46 am

Ok for anyone with this same issue, I've figured out the issue (and hopefully the devs can update the code to prevent this in future versions).

CAUSE:
- corrupt MultiCamConfig, causing error to throw and ultimately CameraClose is forced (i was able to check the logs in xcode, but only top level logs and errors, unfortunately didn't save the log)

REPRO STEPS:
- I believe this happened when I was testing the multi cam feature of v2.1, I had set my iPad as the remote & monitor, and iPhone as the camera, also had the "multi cam record" option on (despite only have 1 camera...), and then disconnect iPad/iPhone, while recording.

TEMP FIX:
- Since reinstalling the app won't fix the bad MultiCamConfig, the error kept causing the camera to freeze onstart, so I did a factory reset which also removes all these config files and start a new.

For Devs:
- I don't have access to the code, but when a camera is turned on or switches lens, in the start sequence which calls for MultiCamConfig, if it throws an error.....maybe it's worth just deleting that config rather than causing CloseCamera to be thrown such that the camera freezes. That way worst case for people is loss in MultiCam settings, rather than unusable app. But you probably know the inner code and limitations a lot more, so hopefully this problem can be addressed in future versions, love the app, keep up the good work, thank you!

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