#1346 Camera on lock screen does not close properly

[Arno Welzel]

Device: Google Pixel 6a
OS: Android 17

When I open the camera on the lock screen, it won't close, when I use the "back" gesture. I have to use "back" twice to get back to the lock screen.

Also when I lock the device again with the power button, the camera app keeps running in the background and when I press the power button again, the device turns on with the camera app still running.

A better solution would be:

1. When the using the "back" gesture, the camera closes also on the lock screen
2. When the camera was opened on the lock screen and the device gets locked, the app closes as well

Or did I miss a setting somewhere in the app to control this?

[Arno Welzel]

It seems, this only happens, when the camera app was started once with the unlocked device. As long as the app is still in the list of the recently opened apps, it is still active - even when leaving it with the back gesture.

Steps to reproduce on Google Pixel 6a:

1. Unlock the device
2. Start OpenCamera
3. Use the "back" gesture to leave it
4. Lock the device using the power button
5. Press the power button again to show the lock screen
6. Tap the "camera" shortcut on the lockscreen
7. OpenCamera starts
8. Use the "back" gesture
9. OpenCamera will exit and show again right away - when you now press the power button, the screen will turn off, but when pressing the power button again, OpenCamera will still be displayed right away
10. Use the "back" gesture again
11. Open Camera now exits completely and the lock screen shows again

And to fix this situation:

1. Unlock device
2. Show recents apps
3. Swipe "OpenCamera" out of the list, so the app will be terminated completely

When the camera was only started from the lock screen, it won't show up in the list of recent apps and works as expected.

[Mark]

Thanks for bug report - this is likely device dependent (as launching from lock screen differs between manufacturers), I'll see if I can reproduce on my Pixel 6 Pro.

Regarding running in background - note that Open Camera appearing after turning screen off and on doesn't necessarily mean Open Camera was continuing to run continually - turning the screen off in Android means applications will still be put into a paused state, and then resumed when the screen turns on (or at least that's what should happen...)

[Arno Welzel]

I can reproduce this behaviour also in the Android emulator in Android Studio 2026.1.1 Patch 2 with Android 16 running on sdk_gphone64_x86_64. So it is not only specific to the Google Pixel 6a or Android 17.

Steps to reproduce are the same as on a real device:

1. Configure OpenCamera to show on the lock screen as well.
2. Activate lock screen security (for example using a PIN).
3. Add the camera shortcut to the lock screen
4. Start OpenCamera and leave using the back button.
5. Lock the device pressing the power button.
6. Long press the camera shortcut.
7. You may have to unlock the device once to set OpenCamera as default handler for this action - do this once and then repeat from step 4
8. When OpenCamera was opened from the lock screen using the back button will not leave it. You have to use the back button twice.
9. When OpenCamera is running after being started from the lock screen, using the back button once will turn the screen off, but as soon as you press the power button again, it will open again.

The image I used for the test was "Google Play Intel x86_64 Atom System Image" and API level "API 36.0 "Baklava"; Android 16" with Services "Google Play Store" and Android Studio is running in Kubuntu 26.10 with KDE 6.6.