Today, it is almost impossible to conceive a smartphone that does not have this tool among its characteristics. Even the so-called feature phones, or simple phones, take advantage of the flash of their cameras for this purpose. Mobile lanterns were the grave of lighters at concerts, although they can also fail at the least opportune moment. Let’s take a look at the most common problems with this tool, as well as its best solutions.
As we have already seen on our site on more than one occasion, the mobile light can be turned on in different ways, each one more ingenious. But, the problem lies when precisely we cannot do it, that is, we cannot activate it whenever we want or, worse still, when it turns on by itself, since it can drain the entire battery of the terminal without even realizing it.
If it doesn’t turn on …
There are several options why the phone flash will not turn on. For this reason, we are going to review the most common ones , to resolve step by step the error that has caused us not to be able to activate this tool on our smartphone every time we want.
Enough battery?
This is one of the most common causes, which, far from being a problem in itself, is a limitation in many devices. Many manufacturers do not allow you to turn it on when the battery is below a certain percentage , usually 15% or less.
Not being able to manage until the last milliamp of our battery is frustrating, since if we want the battery to drain with the flashlight, because we need to use it in a certain situation, it should be our decision and not the system’s. In this case, we will have to charge the battery above 15% and re-enter it.
Possible overheating
If before turning it on, we have been playing for a long time, or the mobile has been charging, it is possible that it has overheated . As a security measure, many terminals prevent the mobile flash from turning on in these cases. So we must wait for the device to cool down and try again later.
Blame an app?
There are many applications that can make use of the mobile flash, including the camera app itself, disabling this tool. To see if it is a blockage due to an app, we will have to open the recent apps menu and close all those that are running, and test again if the phone light is activated correctly.
If after this it continues to fail, we will have to try to enter the settings, and check which apps have permissions to use the flash and revoke it if necessary.
Turn it on in different ways
As we have discussed above, there are many different ways to turn on the mobile flashlight . The most common is to touch the shortcut within the taskbar, but we can always turn it on through gestures, a shortcut on the desktop or even ask the Google Assistant. Trying alternative methods is a good way to know if we are facing a specific problem or something more serious.
If it activates alone …
In this case, if it activates on its own, and it does so more than we would like, which is also a problem. This can cause the mobile battery to run out prematurely , due to the high energy required for the flash to be connected.
Buttons tight
It is possible that the flash of our mobile is turned on with some combination of buttons or gestures. For example, leaving the volume button pressed or shaking the mobile . If we have these activation methods, we may find ourselves with the flashlight on on more than one occasion.
Case or casing
It is one of the most common causes for which we find the flashlight on . Many third-party cases can inadvertently press buttons and access device function. We must therefore check that none of the buttons is tight with this type of case or shell.
Guilt of gestures
The smart movements of Android, that is, the gestures of the Google operating system have a quick function to activate it. In most cases we will only have to shake the device to enable it. However, it will not always be a good choice to have this feature enabled on the phone, as it allows it to turn itself on from the home screen or even when the panel is locked. Therefore, to deactivate it, we must go to Settings and use the quick search engine. Here, we will write Shake to turn on the flashlight or similar. And finally, we will turn off this function, if we had it enabled on the phone.
Common solutions
Now is the time to see the general settings that will help us solve both the first and second problems on our Android mobile. However, and like other previous methods, these will also depend on the version of the phone’s operating system, as well as the personalization layer of the terminal that we have.
Try another app
On Google Play there are dozens of flashlight applications. So the idea is to download one of the most popular ones and test if it works properly from now on. We recommend the following app for free:
If it works for you without any type of failure, the error is probably that the system app has corrupted its file system. In this case, we can fix it with a simple system update, although if all else fails, we may have to return the terminal to factory settings. Although, we can always use this software that we just installed and use it from now on to avoid more problems in the future.
Enable safe mode
If it is activated normally within this mode, it is likely that a third-party application is causing the mobile flashlight to turn on by itself or we are not able to activate it. In this case, we will have to delete the suspicious apps and try again. If you want to enter this functionality, and we have the terminal turned on, what we will do is the following steps. First, we will have to press and hold the power button until the power menu appears. Then, we will have to choose the Shut down option, which we will leave pressed until a pop-up window appears asking us if we want to restart the device in Safe Mode . There, we will only have to click on the Accept button.
Restart the phone
With a simple restart of the phone we can end this failure, which in most cases, will be a specific error in the smartphone software. Also, it could be more useful than other more convoluted methods. We just have to turn off and on the mobile after a few seconds to see if the problem is resolved after restarting the device’s operating system.