Asus ROG Phone 2 video recording issue likely due to firmware mismatch, says company

Asus ROG Phone users are still waiting for an update to Android 9 Pie at a time when the successor to this OS, Android 10, has already started rolling out in stable. Sure, the device has been receiving security updates, but it’s taking them ages to bring Pie.

The original ROG Phone owners should be even more worried about the frequency of software updates now that Asus ROG Phone 2 (ROG Phone II) is already here. The device was unveiled in July 2019 and is already selling in China.

As of this writing, the ROG Phone 2 is also available for pre-orders in several markets across Europe and is expected to cross over the Atlantic Ocean in the coming weeks. But we’ve already had a couple or so things to talk about regarding the device ahead of wider availability.

First was the software update that rolled out to the global variant (WW) last week, tagging along live wallpapers, improvements to camera portrait mode and tons of bug fixes and then came the list of over 100 games supporting above 60fps gameplay.

Today, the ROG Phone II is making headlines once again, but this time for the wrong reasons. Apparently, several cases have popped up through the ZenTalk forums highlighting a video recording issue on this device.

Every time I try to take a video or slow motion or motion tracking, its always say “error video recording failed”. I’m using Asus rog phone ii with the latest version of Android 9.

I have the same issue… I tried resetting the app preference as well as the cache and data but still fails.

Usually, such camera issues can easily be dealt with by clearing the cache/data of the camera app, but as you can see from the statement above, not even resetting does the trick.

As per reports submitted in the forums, it seems this issue is affecting both the front and rear cameras, but only when in video recording mode. As it stands, other camera modes are working perfectly.

Also, it has emerged that affected users are those with the ROG Phone 2 Tencent Edition units meant to be sold in China (with Chinese firmware/ROM), but for some reason, they have the global or international ROM installed.

Yes it is.. Tencent version with WW firmware 12gb ram/512 ROM… the box was sealed when it came so I doubt if there were modifications made. both cameras failed to record video, other camera mode works fine except the video recording. I’m not eager to do a factory reset, maybe it will be fixed after the new update arrives for my serial number… still waiting for it to be pushed. the manual update also fails tried saving the new fw in the root directory but it says update failed..

As you can see from the screenshot above, the ROG Phone II in question is model ZS660KL-1A004CN  (notice the CN? Yea, that stands for China). But under the “Build number” section, there’s WW in there, which usually denotes global/international firmware in Asus phones.

Granted, it seems that someone took the Chinese (Tencent Edition) variant and installed the global firmware (and probably sold it as the global edition). This, according to Asus, could be the be reason behind the “video recording failed” error.

Hi all,

ASUS does not officially sell any Tencent-branded ROG Phone II with so-called “International ROM” or “Global firmware”. We cannot guarantee the functionality of this combination, if you are facing any type of issues – please turn to your reseller where you bought this device – as this is is not a combination we are selling. It is very likely that the “WW ROM” being installed on these Tencent-branded Chinese versions is the culprit causing issues – but this is very much unsupported from Asus side – and not a combination that we officially sell anywhere.
Source

So, there you have it, folks.

Another solution would be to flash the China ROM back into your ROG Phone 2, but then again, Asus warns that such a move may come with a set of other issues as well. Their best recommendation is to take the phone back to where you purchased it.

You may try to flash back the CN firmware and see if that restores functionality to the camera – but of course, that brings about its own set of issues. Our recommendation is that you bring this issue back to the resellers who sold you this type of combination.
Source

But before you think of sending the device back, you might want to try this temporary solution that has already helped several affected users fix the video recording issue on their phones.

Found a workaround from other forums… clearing google cache and storage restored the video recording functionality. Indeed the WW firmware was forced to be installed in Tencent variant. might rollback to CN firmware to avoid any issues.
Source

Note that this is just a temporary fix to this issue since it seems to be caused by firmware mismatch, but it can apparently be made permanent by leaving the Google Assistant turned off.

This is permanent unless you activate the “ok google” assistant… if you activate it, the video recording will fail again.
Source

Unless you can live without the Google Assistant, the best way to deal with this is shipping the device back to where it came from and hopefully, you get a refund or a working unit.

NOTE: There’s more Asus-related coverage here. You can also check out more on gaming here.

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