Categories: Mobile: Android Samsung LG...

SOLVED: Samsung S3 Android 4.3 Camera Flashes on New Email or Phone Calls

If you have upgraded your Android device (in my case a Samsung S3) to Android 4.3 you likely have found that the camera flash goes off randomly.  Well, it is not so random after all; I found that on the 4 Galaxy S3’s that I experienced this problem, the camera would flash on inbound phone calls and emails.  This got me to thinking about notifications… ya, its not there.  However it IS under ACCESSIBILITY OPTIONS.  This makes sense, if you are near blind or deaf or … having a flash go off when the phone rings might be very useful.

Oddly, in all of my 4 cases the FLASH NOTIFICATION setting was turned OFF, so I clicked it on and then immediately clicked it off and BINGO, the problem was solved.  I did not even have to reboot.

FIX:

  1. Swipe down from the top of your device to bring up the status window
  2. Click the round cog near the top right corner of the screen
  3. Click the MY DEVICE button at the top right corner of the screen
    1. Scroll to the very bottom of this list
  4. Click ACCESSIBILITY (in the middle of the screen on my Samsung Galaxy S3)
    1. Scroll to the very bottom of this list
  5. Click FLASH NOTIFICATION so that it has a check mark  (i.e. turn it on… .ie. the opposite of what you would expect)
  6. Click FLASH NOTIFICATION so that it does NOT have a check mark (i.e. turn if off… i.e. what you expect)
  7. Have a nice day

 

View Comments

  • Thank you. I, like a few other good folk, was getting a little paranoid about this, lol. When I followed your directions and got to the final screen I found that my Notification setting for the flash had the check box on. I turned it off (removed the check) and hopefully that will take care of it. I never would have found this one... Thanks again!

  • Thank you. I, like a few other good folk, was getting a little paranoid about this, lol. When I followed your directions and got to thd final screen I found that my Notification setting for the flash had the check box on. I turned it off (removed the check) and hopefully that will take care of it. I never would have found this one... Thanks again!

  • i have 4.3 jelly bean on my gs3 but the flash notification option doesn't even pop up.

  • Thanks- My setting was disabled - I had to enable and then disable to get this fix to take.

  • My 4.3 does not show "Flash notifications" under ACCESSIBILITY/HEARING, only Sound balance, Mono audio, and Turn off all sounds. Then the MOBILITY section. Now where do I look?

    • That is super strange. I have not seen a Samsung S3 without that setting. I would print off this post and go to your local reseller for more assistance.

  • My S3 has been recently updated to 4.3 I never considered this. I have been hunting for spyware. So I just turned the flash on then turned it off like you suggested. I will see if this is the problem but it does seem to be when an email comes in. I had not thought about that before. I have notifications muted; i wonder if that forced the flash to take over? Thank you for the help.

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Published by
Ian Matthews
Tags: Android 4.3 Camera FlashesFLASH NOTIFICATION
10 years ago

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