Camera activity returning null android

I had a similar problem. I had commented out some lines in my manifest file which caused the thumbnail data to be returned as null.

You require the following to get this to work:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CAMERA" />
<uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.camera" />
<uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.camera.autofocus" />

I hope this resolves your issue

If you phone is a Samsung, it could be related to this http://kevinpotgieter.wordpress.com/2011/03/30/null-intent-passed-back-on-samsung-galaxy-tab/

There is another open question which may give additional information

You are getting wrong because you are doing it wrong way.

If you pass the extra parameter MediaStore.EXTRA_OUTPUT with the camera intent then camera activity will write the captured image to that path and it will not return the bitmap in the onActivityResult method.

If you will check the path which you are passing then you will know that actually camera had write the captured file in that path.

For further information you can follow this, this and this

If you are using an ImageView to display the Bitmap returned by Camera Intent you need to save the imageview reference inside onSaveInstanceState and also restore it later on inside onRestoreInstanceState. Check out the code for onSaveInstanceState and onRestoreInstanceState below.

public class MainActivity extends Activity {

    private static final int CAPTURE_IMAGE_ACTIVITY_REQUEST_CODE = 1;
    String mCurrentPhotoPath;
    ImageView imageView;
    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        imageView = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.imageView1);
        setRequestedOrientation(ActivityInfo.SCREEN_ORIENTATION_PORTRAIT);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
    }

    @Override
    public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
        getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.main, menu);
        return true;
    }

    public void startCamera(View v) throws IOException {
        Intent intent = new Intent(MediaStore.ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE);
        File photoFile = null;

        photoFile = createImageFile();
        //intent.putExtra(MediaStore.EXTRA_OUTPUT,Uri.fromFile(photoFile));
        if (intent.resolveActivity(getPackageManager()) != null) {
            startActivityForResult(intent, CAPTURE_IMAGE_ACTIVITY_REQUEST_CODE);
        }

    }

    protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) {
        if (requestCode == CAPTURE_IMAGE_ACTIVITY_REQUEST_CODE
                && resultCode == RESULT_OK) {
            Bundle extras = data.getExtras();
            Bitmap imageBitmap = (Bitmap) extras.get("data");
            System.out.println(imageBitmap);
            imageView.setImageBitmap(imageBitmap);
        }
    }

    private File createImageFile() throws IOException {
        String timeStamp = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd_HHmmss")
                .format(new Date());
        String imageFileName = "JPEG_" + timeStamp + "_";
        File storageDir = Environment
                .getExternalStoragePublicDirectory(Environment.DIRECTORY_PICTURES);
        File image = File.createTempFile(imageFileName, /* prefix */
                ".jpg", /* suffix */
                storageDir /* directory */
        );

        // Save a file: path for use with ACTION_VIEW intents
        mCurrentPhotoPath = "file:" + image.getAbsolutePath();
        System.out.println(mCurrentPhotoPath);
        return image;
    }

    private void setPic() {
        // Get the dimensions of the View
        int targetW = imageView.getWidth();
        int targetH = imageView.getHeight();

        // Get the dimensions of the bitmap
        BitmapFactory.Options bmOptions = new BitmapFactory.Options();
        bmOptions.inJustDecodeBounds = true;
        BitmapFactory.decodeFile(mCurrentPhotoPath, bmOptions);
        int photoW = bmOptions.outWidth;
        int photoH = bmOptions.outHeight;

        // Determine how much to scale down the image
        int scaleFactor = Math.min(photoW/targetW, photoH/targetH);

        // Decode the image file into a Bitmap sized to fill the View
        bmOptions.inJustDecodeBounds = false;
        bmOptions.inSampleSize = scaleFactor;
        bmOptions.inPurgeable = true;

        Bitmap bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeFile(mCurrentPhotoPath, bmOptions);
        imageView.setImageBitmap(bitmap);
    }

    @Override
    protected void onSaveInstanceState(Bundle outState) {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub
        super.onSaveInstanceState(outState);
        System.out.println(mCurrentPhotoPath);
        imageView = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.imageView1);
    }

    @Override
    protected void onRestoreInstanceState(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub
        super.onRestoreInstanceState(savedInstanceState);
        System.out.println(mCurrentPhotoPath);
        imageView = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.imageView1);
    }
}

I am doing it another way. The data.getData() field is not guaranteed to return a Uri, so I am checking if it's null or not, if it is then the image is in extras. So the code would be -

if(data.getData()==null){
    bitmap = (Bitmap)data.getExtras().get("data");
}else{
    bitmap = MediaStore.Images.Media.getBitmap(this.getContentResolver(), data.getData());
}

I am using this code in the production application, and it's working.