iPhone 4S camera not working ("Shutter" remains closed in app)

I have the same problem, and it gets worse, in my experience. First the camera, then all the apps will spontaneously close themselves. I have a genius bar appointment Monday morning, we'll see if they can cure it. Seems to me to be a hardware problem, since it is hitting every app.

Good Luck to you!

I brought my iphone 4s with camera problem to istore and they just gave me a new one

I have the same problem

the camera is working but

when i try to toggle to the rear camera (Screen side - the FaceTime camera) it frozen, i see only the shutter.

One possibly I fand is to reset all settings

Settings > General > Reset > Reset All Settings

After that the camera is working BUT when I try to toggle to the rear camera it happened again…..

My rear camera was working at the beginning,

may be the problem was coming with the update to 5.0.1?

I had the same problem with a 10 day old 4s. Made a "genius" appointment and the guy took my new phone and gave me a "reconditioned" said its never been used (BS).

I had a Zagg screen protector and the guy said tough luck go by a new one... "its not an apple product..."

Great customer service apple (With tones of sarcasm)... take the new phone and give me a reconditioned...

Same problem--shutter is stuck and nothing is fixing it. The ink on my new 2-year contract isn't even dry yet, I've owned my 16Gb 4s for less than 14 hours. The problem manifested itself within the first few hours.

Lucky me.

OK, two additional comments here:

My problems were all apparent in France (on an ATT phone new end of November). I returned to the US on the 18th; the phone was on an eight hour "airplane mode" holiday. When I landed at JFK, all the APP problems disappeared. OK, is it European Electrons? I doubt it.

I'd made a Genius Bar appointment for the 19th, I kept the appointment to see if there were any inherent problems. The tests performed at the GB did not indicate any fundamental problems. I was shown how to open the scroll of 'open apps' (double tap of the home button) and then close the various open apps. I had (I'm guessing) 6 or 7 x 4 apps open; now I'll know to go close them now & again. The theory is that I was consuming too many system resources.

Final test will be upon my return to Europe in January; we'll see if the euro-electron theory holds any water.

update:

What an incredible pain in the... the AT&T store I bought mine at *eventually* made an exchange. The local Apple store would've been glad to help, too, but warned that I might have a problem with the AT&T store if I wanted to exchange later.

Not sure if it helps anyone or if it's related, but I'll note that the shutter-stuck phone I had wasn't connecting properly to iTunes and never got unstuck, no matter what was done or who was doing it.

My replacement iPhone seems to be working just fine.

great... camera is fixed, but now I have this problem https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3404857?start=0&tstart=0 (outgoing call - no audio)

4s is my first iphone and I am already impressed with the quality..

Thanks, this worked for me. My husband had open 12 apps. I had deleted these apps before, but never thought that too many will stop some app to work. Thanks a lot.

I have that problem. When I open the camera app the rear facing camera was black, with no options. FaceTime works but I can't change to the rear facing camera. I would take it to my service provider, but they don't have to do anything. I should take it to an apple store but the closest one is... 795km away. A 9 hour drive.

When the shutter of the rear camera (screen Side) stay closed

I have find this: wipe left the screen then tip on the top richt corner (toggle button)

repeat it several (~10) time, wait a moment, after a while the screen toggle a lot of time between rear and front camera then the front camera is working again.

But not the rear camera (screen Side)!!!

I've had the 4S for about a month now, 32GB white, unlocked. A few days ago I started experiencing the same problems most people mentioned (back camera not working, stuck on shutter. front camera works on facetime, but switching to back camera results in the facetime call being dropped). Anyway, I tried the "Erase all contrent and settings" option from settings, and set it up as a new phone, but it was no use. Then I restored using iTunes from a new restore file, and now it's working. Restored the phone from my backup, and the camera still works. Really glad I didn't have to get it replaced, I just hope this solution is permanent.

Inside camera (or one for Facetime) stoped working with showing sometimes black image with controls, sometimes shutter image with controls.

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Model descriptions:

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iPhone 4S

64GB

White

Purchased in Australia in Nov. 2011

Serial Number: C39GLA45DTDT

Activated with Telstra Prepaid SIM

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Logs from iPhone Configuration Utility:

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Jan 5 13:29:05 jPhone kernel[0] <Debug>: AppleH4CamIn::setPowerStateGated: 1

Jan 5 13:29:05 jPhone kernel[0] <Debug>: AppleH4CamIn::power_on_hardware

Jan 5 13:29:05 jPhone kernel[0] <Debug>: AppleH4CamIn::ISP_Init - No set-file loaded for camera channel 1

Jan 5 13:29:05 jPhone Camera[140] <Warning>: Peer connection went invalid. (Connection invalid)

Jan 5 13:29:06 jPhone kernel[0] <Debug>: AppleH4CamIn::setPowerStateGated: 0

Jan 5 13:29:06 jPhone kernel[0] <Debug>: AppleH4CamIn::power_off_hardware

The message above repeats during the camera app is in front.

Neither of stopping the app or restarting the entire system does not help transiting to outside camera (or one for picuturing), potentially the camera selection state is recorded on the persistent memory (NAND flash) without fallback strategy.

The result of consulting Apple Call Center in Japan was that they are denied to replace and repair the phones bought outside the region, and I must send the problematic iPhone by myself to the shop I purchased, which is Apple Store Chadstone, Victoria, Australia, around 8,000km away.

Still, he gave me some discussion regarding the source of the problem. His explanation was that the camera parts (procurement) for a region is different from another and the difference is blocking the repair compatibility, and I clearly stated my doubt. No electronics designer do such incompatibility into their work. The difference is just quality of the parts, often called "grade".

Conclusion:

Physical cause of the camera issue is faulty camera parts.

The reason I could not use the camera is just a bad luck.

Sending it to original store will solve the problem. I afraid the freight will be my own cost ...

Shall I say good-by to the fruity phone and say hello to the penguin serving a tea?

For all those who dont have warranty and are facing this problem, install this paid app called Camera+. It works better than the camera that the phone came with.

Update on my case.

After several times of revert to factory setting, I coincidentally used Telstra Pre-paid SIM, with which I activated the iPhone for the first time in Melbourne, and the symptom disappeared. It was done with an Wi-Fi connection. The phone said an carrier configuration update is available and I chose to install it. After confirming the camera is working again, I see modem version is altered from 1.0.13 to 1.0.14. Not sure if the carrier update is related to the camera functionality restoration, and would like to have such notification.