How to fix Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Camera that takes pictures sideways

One of our readers emailed us seeking assistance because her Samsung Galaxy Note 3 started taking pictures sideways. Honestly, the first thing that comes to mind is the orientation. If the phone’s display was set not to auto-rotate, this problem may happen.

Our reader didn’t actually say how and when it started, although, she did some basic troubleshooting procedures like reboot and soft reset to no avail. This post is intended for our readers who are not really techie enough. Read on to know how to troubleshoot this kind of problem. But before that, here’s the actual message from our reader…

“When I take a picture with my phone the position is always to the side. If I straighten out the picture and send it in an email, it comes in the email sideways or in Instagram it will turn sideways. I have turned off my phone and rebooted I have took the battery out and put it back in. I don’t know how to fix this problem can you help me? Thank you.” — Nina

If you have other problems with your phone, visit our Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Troubleshooting page as it contains hundreds of issues we addressed before. Find problems related or the same as yours and try the solutions we provided. If they won’t work for you, you can always contact us. Just fill up this form and hit submit. Try to include as much information as possible so we can make our solutions more accurate.

Step-by-step Troubleshooting

The purpose of this troubleshooting is to determine whether the problem is caused by misconfiguration in the Display settings or something else. The steps I used here are all safe for your phone and data but it’s up to you if you follow them or not. As usual, we start from basic troubleshooting and progress to more complicated ones if necessary.

Step 1: Verify the screen auto rotation is enabled

If the display is set not to auto rotate, the camera may take pictures upright or sideways and in this case, it’s the latter. So, this must be the first thing you need to check.

1. From the Home screen, tap the Apps icon.
2. Find and touch Settings.
3. Touch Display.
4. Make sure the checkbox next to “Auto rotate screen” is ticked.

Alternatively, you can just swipe with two fingers from the top of the screen going down to pull down the Notification panel. From there, you can turn on or off Screen rotation; if the icon is neon green, it’s on, otherwise, it’s off.

Once you’ve verified that screen rotation is enabled, try to open the Camera and snap a picture or two in portrait mode and see if the output is still in landscape, and if so, then proceed to the next step.

RELATED POST: Fix Samsung Galaxy Note 3 “Unfortunately, Gallery has stopped” & “Camera failed” errors

Step 2: Clear the cache and data of the Camera app

First, I assume that you are using the stock Camera app, if not, then uninstall third parties. There have been reports of problems like this and based on testimonies of owners who experienced it, clearing the cache and data will do the trick, and it does make sense. Clearing the data will reset the Camera app to default settings and deleting the cache will force the phone to create a new cache for the app.

1. From the Home screen, tap the Apps icon.
2. Choose Settings, and tap General tab.
3. Scroll down to Device manager section and tap Application manager.
4. Scroll to the right to display contents of ALL screen.
5. Scroll down to find Camera.
6. Now tap the Clear Cache button.
7. Tap the Clear Data button, then OK.

After clearing both the cache and the data and the camera still takes pictures sideways, then we now know it’s more complicated than we thought. Now, let’s go to more complicated procedures…

Step 3: Boot the phone in safe mode

This will isolate the problem but it will give you an idea whether or not the problem is caused by a third-party app or not. It’s necessary to do this so don’t skip this step.

1. Turn the device off.
2. Press and hold the Power key.
3. When ‘GALAXY Note 3′ appears on the screen, release the Power key. Immediately after releasing the Power key, press and hold the Volume down key.
4. Continue to hold the Volume down key until the device finishes restarting.
5. ‘Safe mode’ will display in the bottom left corner of the screen.
6. Release the Volume down key when you see ‘Safe Mode.’

Once your Note 3 is in safe mode, try to take pictures to see if they still sideways. If the problem was fixed, then an app or some apps might be causing the problem. Find out which app it is and uninstall it to fix the problem. If you don’t have any idea, then proceed to step 5 immediately.

However, if the problem remained in safe mode, try step 4.

Step 4: Wipe the cache partition

The Camera app is pre-installed on your device and since you already cleared its cache and data and the problem wasn’t solved, then it’s time to wipe the directory that stores all caches including that of other services. The issue might not be just because of the camera app but also with other services.

1. Turn off the device.
2. Press and hold the following three buttons at the same time: Volume Up key, Home key, and Power key.
3. When ‘GALAXY Note 3′ appears on the screen, let go of the Power key but continue to press and hold the Volume Up key and the Home key.
4. When the Android System Recovery screen appears, release the Volume Up and Home keys.
5. Press the Volume Down key to highlight ‘wipe cache partition.’
6. Press the Power key to select and wipe the cache.
7. With ‘reboot system now’ highlighted, press the Power key to restart the device.

Once your phone has rebooted, try once again. If this step failed, then step 5 is the end of it.

RELATED SOLUTIONS: How to Fix Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Camera Issues

Step 5: Perform full hard reset

Now that you’ve cleared the cache and data of the app, made sure auto rotation is enabled and emptied the cache partition to no avail, it’s time for a more complicated procedure that will delete all your apps, bring the phone back to its factory settings and reformat the data partition–full hard reset.

Before you actually follow the steps below, make sure you backed up every bit of data that you don’t want deleted. You may transfer them to your microSD card.

1. Turn off the device.
2. Press and hold the following three buttons at the same time: Volume Up key, Home key, Power key.
3. When ‘GALAXY Note 3′ appears on the screen, release the Power key but continue to press and hold the Volume Up key and the Home key.
4. When the Android System Recovery screen appears, release the Volume Up and Home keys.
5. Press the Volume down key to highlight ‘wipe data / factory reset.’
6. Press Power button to select.
7. Press the Volume down key to highlight ‘delete all user data.’
8. Press Power button to select and start the master reset. When the master reset is complete, ‘Reboot system now’ is highlighted.
9. Press the Power key to turn the restart the device.

I hope this procedure fixes the problem for you because if not, it’s time you brought it to a technician; it might be a hardware issue.

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