Why is the camera on my Galaxy S9 taking pictures but not saving them?

[reneepooh]

The icon on the bottom will show a new picture has been taken, but when I come back later to view it, the picture is not in my gallery or DCIM folder. If I am using my camera from QuickLaunch and I click on it to view, a message pops up that no pictures were taken since my phone was last unlocked. I can see the thumbnail of the picture, but not the full picture. Where are they? Can they be recovered?

 

[VidJunky]

First when taking pics from the lock screen it will, mine anyway, only show pics taken during this session. So for example you wake the phone, open the camera take a pic or two and then touch the thumbnail. A small gallery opens and shows you the two pics you just took. It will not show you the full gallery because the phone hasn't been unlocked. Another example is you wake the phone, take a couple of pics, put the phone to sleep, wake the phone again, take another couple of pics, then try to view the pics. It only displays the pics taken during the most recent session and not the ones from before, even though you didn't unlock or lock the phone in between. The phone won't display the pics of the earlier session because you can only view current session pics until the phone is unlocked.

As for not being able to find the pics, since you are using file names I will assume that you are using a file manager to locate the files. First go to your camera settings and see where photos are being sent. I'm not sure how many options you will have but often there is a choice between internal and external memory, but some may have options to save to cloud or a cloud service, while others may also have the option to direct the photos to a specific folder. You need to first determine where your photos are going to have an idea of where and how to look for them. I cannot think of any reason that you would be able to take photos and them not be saved. If it was a low memory issue it seems that you would be directed to either identify an new save location or reduce data to make room for the new additions. Without knowing what your settings are it would be pure speculation on my part to try and help you locate the photos and there are too many possible scenarios to attempt that. When you reply with your settings we can help you more.

 

[reneepooh]

Yes, I am not trying to access the full gallery from quicklaunch, just the ones I took in that session, and it's not always working. It is like the phone is telling me no pictures were taken, even though I can see them.

I am using the Files app in the phone. All my pictures are being saved in the DCIM folder, being backed up on Google. I had it backup on Wifi only, but changed it to mobile data, hoping it can catch these pictures that seem to fall through the cracks, but no luck so far. It is not a memory issue as the phone is new and empty.

A new issue I realized is that the interface for my camera seems to be different from what I read the S9 phone should be, mainly I am missing a toggle for zoom and the buttons look different. I am running on Android version 9, the pie update. I wonder if this may be part of the issue? That my camera may be faulty?

 

[VidJunky]

I will say that I've only heard rave reviews of Pie but I lie. Actually I haven't heard too much good about it at all, and that is the truth. Meanwhile even in all of the things I've heard none of them have involved the camera or photos. That's not to say you didn't develop a bug just the same because during OS updates there are often one off bugs. Another common practice after OS updates is factory resets. With your camera missing items or options it wouldn't be outside of the realm of possibility that something buggy happened, but before I would advise you to factory reset I'd want to you to be sure that this is the case.