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Possible thread race conditions on camera_android initialization #165092

@davidmartos96

Description

@davidmartos96

What package does this bug report belong to?

camera

What target platforms are you seeing this bug on?

Android

Have you already upgraded your packages?

Yes

Dependency versions

No response

Steps to reproduce

There are 2 Android native crashes I'm seeing very often on our Crashlytics. Unfortunately none of them replicable on our devices.

  1. Crash when the user goes back to the foreground. We close the camera and init when going to the paused/resumed state in the app lifecycle
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: CaptureRequest contains unconfigured Input/Output Surface!
    at android.hardware.camera2.CaptureRequest.convertSurfaceToStreamId(CaptureRequest.java:765)
    at android.hardware.camera2.impl.CameraDeviceImpl.submitCaptureRequest(CameraDeviceImpl.java:1307)
    at android.hardware.camera2.impl.CameraDeviceImpl.setRepeatingRequest(CameraDeviceImpl.java:1363)
    at android.hardware.camera2.impl.CameraCaptureSessionImpl.setRepeatingRequest(CameraCaptureSessionImpl.java:313)
    at D3.v.g0(SourceFile:34)
    at D3.v$b.onConfigured(SourceFile:42)
    at android.hardware.camera2.impl.CallbackProxies$SessionStateCallbackProxy.lambda$onConfigured$0(CallbackProxies.java:53)
    at android.hardware.camera2.impl.CallbackProxies$SessionStateCallbackProxy.$r8$lambda$XOBHWVfryPuKTX27fDYaiDBtLvc
    at android.hardware.camera2.impl.CallbackProxies$SessionStateCallbackProxy$$ExternalSyntheticLambda6.run
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1145)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:644)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:1012)
  1. NullpointerException in the following line
    https://github.com/flutter/packages/blob/9cc6f370eff889b2d7b360b8ae586a3fec5a7f92/packages/camera/camera_android/android/src/main/java/io/flutter/plugins/camera/Camera.java#L1288
java.lang.NullPointerException: Attempt to invoke virtual method 'void android.hardware.camera2.CameraCaptureSession.close()' on a null object reference
  at io.flutter.plugins.camera.Camera.closeCaptureSession (Camera.java:1232)
  at io.flutter.plugins.camera.Camera$1.onClosed (Camera.java:347)
  at android.hardware.camera2.impl.CameraDeviceImpl$5.run (CameraDeviceImpl.java:234)
  at android.os.Handler.handleCallback (Handler.java:938)
  at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage (Handler.java:99)
  at android.os.Looper.loopOnce (Looper.java:210)
  at android.os.Looper.loop (Looper.java:299)
  at android.os.HandlerThread.run (HandlerThread.java:67)

Our camera code is just for image processing so it's basically the following. The example app could be used for debugging purposes.

final controller = CameraController(...);
await controller.initialize();
await controller.startImageStream(...);

After digging a bit into the code I think I know what the cause could be. Initialize on the native side will create a captureSession asynchronously on a thread, but it responds to the Dart plugin possibly earlier than when the session gets configured. Then startImageStream will call createCaptureSession on the main thread. This situation could result in the 2 threads overlapping the initialization of the 2 capture sessions, possibly creating the first error exception.
https://github.com/flutter/packages/blob/9cc6f370eff889b2d7b360b8ae586a3fec5a7f92/packages/camera/camera_android/android/src/main/java/io/flutter/plugins/camera/Camera.java#L371

The second error also hints a threading issue because the null pointer happens right after checking for null.

I believe that a simple fix for 1 would be to reply to the Dart side when the session is configured, and not right after startPreview is called asynchronously.

The second error, could also be related to the onClosed callback in the "initialize" section not running on the main thread.

I know that the camerax plugin exists, but we are dealing with critical image recognition code running on many different devices. We are waiting a bit until the camerax plugin gets more mature.
I've read on other cameraX realted issue that there are currently some threading issues, which would be fixed by flutter/packages#8618 . Is this related, but on the original camera_android plugin?

Expected results

No crashes

Actual results

Crashes on a few situations, possible race conditions.

Code sample

The example app can be used, and simply add the streaming right after calling initialize.

Flutter Doctor output

Doctor output
[✓] Flutter (Channel stable, 3.29.1, on Fedora Linux 41 (Workstation Edition) 6.13.5-200.fc41.x86_64, locale en_US.UTF-8) [85ms]
    • Flutter version 3.29.1 on channel stable at /home/david/.local/share/mise/installs/flutter/3.29.1-stable
    • Upstream repository https://github.com/flutter/flutter.git
    • Framework revision 09de023485 (12 days ago), 2025-02-28 13:44:05 -0800
    • Engine revision 871f65ac1b
    • Dart version 3.7.0
    • DevTools version 2.42.2

[✓] Android toolchain - develop for Android devices (Android SDK version 35.0.0) [1,096ms]
    • Android SDK at /home/david/Android/Sdk/
    • Platform android-35, build-tools 35.0.0
    • Java binary at: /home/david/opt/android-studio/jbr/bin/java
      This is the JDK bundled with the latest Android Studio installation on this machine.
      To manually set the JDK path, use: `flutter config --jdk-dir="path/to/jdk"`.
    • Java version OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 21.0.5+-13047016-b750.29)
    • All Android licenses accepted.

[✓] Chrome - develop for the web [17ms]
    • Chrome at google-chrome

[✓] Linux toolchain - develop for Linux desktop [161ms]
    • clang version 19.1.7 (Fedora 19.1.7-3.fc41)
    • cmake version 3.30.8
    • ninja version 1.12.1
    • pkg-config version 2.3.0

[✓] Android Studio (version 2024.2) [15ms]
    • Android Studio at /home/david/opt/android-studio/
    • Flutter plugin can be installed from:
      🔨 https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/9212-flutter
    • Dart plugin can be installed from:
      🔨 https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/6351-dart
    • android-studio-dir = /home/david/opt/android-studio/
    • Java version OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 21.0.5+-13047016-b750.29)

[✓] VS Code (version 1.98.0) [14ms]
    • VS Code at /usr/share/code
    • Flutter extension version 3.106.0

[✓] Connected device (2 available) [125ms]
    • Linux (desktop) • linux  • linux-x64      • Fedora Linux 41 (Workstation Edition) 6.13.5-200.fc41.x86_64
    • Chrome (web)    • chrome • web-javascript • Google Chrome 134.0.6998.35

[✓] Network resources [249ms]
    • All expected network resources are available.

• No issues found!

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    P3Issues that are less important to the Flutter projectp: cameraThe camera pluginpackageflutter/packages repository. See also p: labels.platform-androidAndroid applications specificallyr: fixedIssue is closed as already fixed in a newer versionteam-androidOwned by Android platform teamtriaged-androidTriaged by Android platform team

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