How to Disable the Camera Noise: Full Guide

[Guest Zebas_Xasada]

The camera noise is really annoying and no-one seems to have posted a complete method on how to remove it.

Apparently developers were forced to make their phone cameras play a ridiculous shutter noise on full volume whenever a picture is taken due to "privacy laws" somewhere. To the best of my knowledge they don't apply in the UK (quote me the Act if I'm wrong!), so for the sake of preserving neighbourhood peace and not breaching the country code with excessive noise everytime you want to photograph a shrub, here is how to remove it:

New Method: Update zip

Attached to post

I found an update .zip by Ivan Stojanovic (see attached) and modified it to work on the Blade by setting the correct mount points. It solves all problems by replacing the original camera and recorder .ogg files with silent ones.

Prereqs:

*The script assumes /system is mounted on /mtdblock5, /data on /mtdblock6 and /cache on /mtdblock4. If your phone isn't set up this way, or you have no idea then have a look at the problems section below. Running the script if these are incorrect shouldn't do any damage.

To use:

*Copy across to your phone's root directory

*Boot into clockworkmod (or other recovery mode)

*Install update from .zip

Now every time you install a ROM, run the update zip.

Problems?

If it's not working then run terminal emulator, type "mount" and look at the locations of the /data, /system and /cache partitions. Then go into the zip file, META-INF>com>google>android and edit the "updater-script" file. Open it with notepad, check the mount locations are correct, and save it as a UNIX script file to get the line endings correct. Finally rename and replace the original then send to your phone.

NB: The zip isn't signed (I directly edited the script) but it worked on my phone (CM7), and I don't think there's much potential for damage as it's a very simple script.

With grateful thanks and acknowledgement to Ivan Stojanovic for creating the zip.

===

Manual Method

To remove it you will need a rooted phone and a terminal editor.

# Check the location and permissions for the /system partition

mount

You should see the system partition location (the /dev/block... /system bit) and if it says say r/o (read-only) you need to remount it as read/write

# Go superuser and remount the system partition as read/write - change the mtdblock and yaffs to what you found above.

su

mount -o rw,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock5 /system


# Access the camera noise directory

cd /system/media/audio/ui/


# Move the file out of the way

mv camera_click.ogg camera_clickoff.ogg

To restore move the file back.

Always a good idea to reboot to get those permissions set back to default.

Now you can take photos in true digital camera style!

cam_nosound_ZTE.zip

Edited May 26, 2011 by Zebas_Xasada

[Guest Lew247]

If you have a windows computer simply use Android Commander and do it in Windows, couple of clicks and it's done - simple

You can also do it with ADB

[Guest Azurren]

Still waiting for a simple flashable zip that:

Replaces the camera shutter sound with a silent ogg

Removes the video recorder sounds altogether

:D

[Guest Lew247]

Why? Just delete the sounds - much simpler than flashing

As stated above using Android Commander navigate to the /system/media/audio/ui/ folder and delete both camera_click.ogg and VideoRecord.ogg files

or use adb -

type adb-windows shell rm /system/media/audio/ui/camera_click.ogg to remove the camera click

or type adb-windows shell rm /system/media/audio/ui/VideoRecord.ogg to remove the video sound

Or just delete them from any rom you want to flash onto the phone

[Guest SqueakyG]

Still waiting for a simple flashable zip that:

Replaces the camera shutter sound with a silent ogg

Removes the video recorder sounds altogether

:D

You would want that the other way around. The camera functions just fine with camera_click.ogg deleted, but the video gets broken if you delete VideoRecord.ogg, so for video you would need a silent ogg file with the same name. You can make one with a sound editing program like Audacity.

I don't know how to create update.zips, I'm sorry.

But it's not too hard to tinker with the files themselves. The easiest way is before installing a custom ROM: look inside the contents of the ROM's zip installation file and browse to /system/media/audio/ui, then make changes to the two relevant ogg files. Then install the ROM. (This is also good advice for removing apps or ringtones you don't want from a ROM before you've installed it.)

If your ROM is already on there, it's a bit trickier to get to the files. It involves installing device drivers and ADB on your computer (there's a convenient thread providing both things here if you search), then using a terminal/command line on your computer.

How to remove camera shutter sound with ADB:

Have device drivers for the phone installed

Be rooted

Have USB Debugging enabled

Have adb.exe on your computer

On a custom ROM where everything has been made easy, it could be as simple as this:

Open command prompt (search for "cmd" in the start menu search box), and navigate to the directory on your computer containing adb.exe. In this example it's a folder on the C:\ drive called "adb".

cd\

cd adb

Check that your phone is connected to your computer and recognised:

C:\adb>adb devices

List of devices attached

(your device) device

Then:

C:\adb>adb remount

C:\adb>adb shell

# rm /system/media/audio/ui/camera_click.ogg

rm /system/media/audio/ui/camera_click.ogg

Then reboot.

On the stock Orange 2.1 ROM it may be trickier:

Open command prompt and navigate to the directory on computer containing adb.exe:

cd\

cd adb

Check that device is connected:

C:\adb>adb devices

List of devices attached

(your device) device

The adb remount command might fail:

C:\adb>adb remount

remount failed: Operation not permitted

Make sure you have the superuser permissions of being rooted when you go into the shell:

C:\adb>adb shell

$ su

su

Your prompt should turn into a #. On your phone, Superuser Permissions may ask to be granted, press "Yes". Now try to remove the camera shutter sound file:

# rm /system/media/audio/ui/camera_click.ogg

If this gives you a "Read-only" error, you need to change the system folder from read-only to writeable:

# mount -o rw,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system

mount -o rw,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system

# chmod 777 /system

chmod 777 /system

Now try again to remove the camera shutter sound file:

# rm /system/media/audio/ui/camera_click.ogg

rm /system/media/audio/ui/camera_click.ogg

Now restore read-only status:

# chmod 755 /system

chmod 755 /system

You can exit the terminal back to ADB commands:

# exit

exit

$ exit

exit

Reboot the phone.

C:\adb>adb reboot

Edited February 15, 2011 by SqueakyG

[Guest Zebas_Xasada]

Still waiting for a simple flashable zip that:

Replaces the camera shutter sound with a silent ogg

Removes the video recorder sounds altogether

Found (modified) an update script :P (See top post)

Edited May 26, 2011 by Zebas_Xasada

[Guest slitz]

For a moment there I thought it was talking about the noise on the photos taken, oh I was so wrong. :P

Turns out it was just disabling the shutter sound.

Edited May 26, 2011 by slitz

[Guest ms20]

In some roms there is a line in the build.prop: ' ro.camera.sound.forced=1' (or something like that) couldn't this just be set to 0?

[Guest Zebas_Xasada]

Is CWM (via update script) capable of amending a line in a file rather than replacing the entire file (which would have to be modified for each new ROM install)?

[Guest ilchkai]

...

Thanks for the explanation

that worked a treat

Cheers

[Guest sm4tik]

Only if there was a way to remove that BEEEEPP when using "hold to focus" function (or whatever it was called), that's really pissing me off! ..though turning vol down is still a workaround.