FAQ

How can I save photos and video to an external SD card?

With android 4.3 and earlier simply set the storage location to the path for your external sd card, on Samsung devices this is /storage/extSdcard/. For android 4.4 Google made a change which means apps can no longer store media to an external card except to a special location. All data stored to this location will be deleted if the app is uninstalled. On some early versions of android 4.4.2 there was a workaround where you could use the mediastore location provider to access the entire card but this no longer works on all versions of 4.4. The app has a setting called “use mediastore” which uses this workaround but be aware that it has some issues and won’t work on all devices.

When choosing a storage location you can go to the special location on the external card by selecting “external SD card”.

The only way around this restriction on android 4.4 is to root your device and modify an android configuration file.

For android 5.0 Google added a new mechanism called “Storage Access” this allows access to the external card but only through a special content provider. Version 6.5.0 and later of the app supports this mechanism but it has some issues and so is optional. To use storage access enable the “Use Storage Access” setting in the “Other” menu. When you then click on “Storage Location” a different dialog appears. Initially this will be empty, press menu and select “Show SD Card”, the external card should appear in the pull out menu. Click on it and then hit “Select SD Card” at the bottom of the screen. If there is an existing DCIM/Camera folder on the card that has been created by a different app you may not have permission to write to it. In this case you will need to choose a different folder.

Storage access works for storing photos and videos but not for photos saved from the editor, these will appear on the internal storage in a folder called “Edited Online Photos”

If storage access doesn’t work try putting the sd card into a card reader and making sure it has a “label”. Some people have reported that cards without a label don’t work. You may need to reformat the card to give it a label.

Android 5.0 also has a special location available on the external card for media . This usually works better than using Storage Access but  remember it will be deleted if the app is uninstalled. Select “external SD card” from the “Storage Location” screen with “Use Storage Access” off.

I get error code -24 when trying to install the app, what does that mean?

You have had a previous version of the app installed and it hasn’t been uninstalled correctly. This should only be possible if you are rooted. The solution is to delete /data/data/com.marginz.snap using a root file manager.

Can you add an icon to the main screen to switch to/from the front camera? Can you disable the gallery?

These are both available after version 4.0.23, you can join the beta test community to get recent versions of the app or install them from the xda thread.

Video recording crashes sometimes on the Nexus 5

On the Nexus 5 you need to enable “Video Snapshot” in the video settings tab.

Video recording crashes on the dual core Galaxy S3 running Cyanogenmod

You need to enable “Video Snapshot” and “Full Size Snapshots”

Why do I see two “Camera” albums even though I only have one folder with photos in it? Why don’t I see photos taken with other apps sometimes?

Media in Android is indexed by the MediaStore content provider, this stores the path to each photo/video along with some other information and is available to all apps. The problem is that the path to a photo album is not necessarily unique. For example on most Samsung devices /mnt/extSdCard and /storage/extSdcard are both the same physical location. You need to make sure you are using the same path as other apps. You can see which path a photo uses by selecting “Details” from the gallery menu. For Samsung, you need to use /storage/extSdcard.

Does the app let you pause video recording?

Most Samsung and LG phones can do this and an “Allow Pause” setting will appear in the video settings menu. However, the standard Android API doesn’t support pause. We will try to implement pause on more devices in the future. Pause will only work on phones running a “stock” ROM. Most cyanogen ROMs don’t support pause.

I enabled Zero Shutter Lag and the preview freezes when I take a photo, why?

This means zsl isn’t supported on your phone. When zsl is working the preview keeps running while you are taking a photo. If zsl is not working the preview will be stopped. The app can’t know for sure if it will work or not so the setting often appears in the menu. It does work on a lot of devices though so it is worth checking.

Android Camera App