Enable access to lenses not visible to third party apps (root required)

An unfortunate consequence on the variety of Android device makers and the freedom they have in implementing Android features, specially the camera, means that sometimes certain features are made private by the manufacturer, and third party apps cannot access them. In particular, many devices block specific camera lenses to third party apps, and such lenses are only made available to the default camera app shipped with the device. This is very frustrating, to both end users and developers alike. In some cases there is a solution, but it requires rooting the device.

IMPORTANT: READ THIS!

If root or device rooting says nothing to you, this solution is unfortunately NOT for you. Rooting a device is a risky proposition, WILL void your warranty, is in many cases difficult to perform, the procedure is completely device-dependent, and it might BRICK your device turning it into an expensive paperweight.

WARNING: READ THIS!

We hope to have made it already clear enough, but we take ZERO responsibility if your choose to do this and something goes wrong, we DO NOT guarantee that it will work (in fact in many cases it doesn't) and we DO NOT endorse NOR encourage you to root your device. We only only describe this in case your device is already rooted and you want to give it a shot, and still everything from above applies in this case. If you still device to go ahead, research on the Internet about this and see if there is more up-to-date information, specifically regarding your device. YOU have been warned!

Adding Camera FV-5 to the list of auxiliary camera packages

In many systems where secondary cameras exist but are not made available to third party apps, there is a list where it is specified which apps are given access to the auxiliary cameras (as they are referred as).

With a text editor with root access, open the file /system/build.prop. Depending how the file system is mounted, it might be located on another directory. Back this file up before editing it.

Find the line that begins with vendor.camera.aux.packagelist=. If the line is not there, there is nothing to do. After the equals sign (=) there is a comma-separated list of so-called application package names. In most systems, at most 4 apps can be given access to the auxiliary cameras. Therefore if the list is full, an app must be carefully removed from the list. The application package name of Camera FV-5 is com.flavionet.android.camera.pro for Camera FV-5 Pro and com.flavionet.android.camera.lite for Camera FV-5 Lite.

The file should look like this:

# ...other properties

vendor.camera.aux.packagelist=xxx.xxx.app1,yyy.yyy.app2,zzz.zzz.app3,com.flavionet.android.camera.pro

# ...rest of the file

A device reboot might be needed, and the app might not work, not detect all lenses and/or crash entirely. We do not offer support in this case, so if you are not satisfied with the result, return to be backed up file.