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Android - where are videos taken from intent stored?

Let's say I have a method inside my activity that looks like this:
private void dispatchTakeVideoIntent() {
Intent takeVideoIntent = new Intent(MediaStore.ACTION_VIDEO_CAPTURE);
if (takeVideoIntent.resolveActivity(getActivity().getPackageManager()) != null) {
startActivityForResult(takeVideoIntent, REQUEST_VIDEO_CAPTURE);
}
}
Then if everything works out fine, I access the taken video by its URI:
public void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, #Nullable Intent intent) {
if (requestCode == REQUEST_VIDEO_CAPTURE && resultCode == Activity.RESULT_OK) {
Uri videoUri = intent.getData();
// process video
}
}
Where does the video actually reside at this point? Is it temporarily stored in memory or does it get saved to permanent storage?
If I want my app to reliably access that video at some later point, what's the best way to go about this? Do I have to copy the video to my app's storage folder(s)?

Where does the video actually reside at this point?
It will reside wherever the user's camera app elects to put it. There are hundreds of different camera apps, both pre-installed by manufacturers and user-installed from the Play Store or elsewhere.
Is it temporarily stored in memory or does it get saved to permanent storage?
That is up to the camera app.
If I want my app to reliably access that video at some later point, what's the best way to go about this?
You can try passing a content Uri value via EXTRA_OUTPUT as an extra on your Intent. You can use FileProvider to get that Uri, pointing to some file in a location that you control (e.g., getFilesDir() on Context). Most camera apps should honor this extra, but not all will.
Or, you could copy the video, as you suggest.
Or, you could use a camera library (e.g., FotoApparat, CameraKit-Android) and record the video within your own app.

Android - app goes to launcher after calling CAPTURE_IMAGE intent and taking picture (doesn't return to the fragment)

So I have a Fragment that calls the following method which launches the camera:
private void launchCamera() {
Intent takePictureIntent = new Intent(MediaStore.ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE);
if (takePictureIntent.resolveActivity(getActivity().getPackageManager()) != null) {
startActivityForResult(takePictureIntent, REQUEST_IMAGE_CAPTURE);
}
}
And I expect to receive the picture data in this method in my fragment:
#Override
public void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) {
if (!(resultCode == RESULT_OK)) return;
if (requestCode == REQUEST_IMAGE_CAPTURE || requestCode == REQUEST_GALLERY_IMAGE) {
Uri imageURI = data.getData();
// do something
}
}
However, after I take a picture and confirm it, the app goes to my launcher. After setting breakpoints in the onActivityResult method, the app never even reaches this method before crashing. I've granted made sure to grant all permissions in both the manifest and at runtime.
There are also no outputs to Logcat with this crash, both in the app logs and the device logs. I have also tested on both my device (Moto G5 Plus) & Pixel XL API 26 emulator; both have the same result.

I think you need to call super.onActivityResult().
The fragment is the one making the startActivityForResult() call, but the activity gets the first shot at handling the result so you need to implement super.onActivityResult() to make the fragment handle the result.

the app immediately crashes to my launcher
No, the camera app immediately brings up the launcher. Apparently, the developers of this camera app wrote it to bring up the home screen when the user is done taking the picture. This is a bug, of course, but there is little that you can do about it.
Use ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE when you would like a picture but do not mind if you do not get it, due to bugs in some of the hundreds of camera apps that you are integrating with. Otherwise, use a camera library (Fotoapparat, CameraKit-Android, etc.) to take the picture directly in your own app.
Also, and FWIW, ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE does not return a Uri, so your onActivityResult() code will not work anyway. Given your particular ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE Intent configuration, in onActivityResult(), data.getParcelableExtra("data") will return a Bitmap representing a thumbnail-sized image.

I believe this is yet another manifestation of the Android: Activity getting Destroyed after calling Camera Intent.
The bottom line is, the system restarts your app from scratch and your activity is created but has a chance to restore its state.
So you must implement onRestoreInstanceState(). I am not sure you can guarantee that the fragment will be ready to receive onActiviyResult() timely, so to be in the safe side, I prefer to handle the captured image in activity itself.

So this issue was actually because of an intent flag I had attached to the activity. My activity was started using the NO_HISTORY intent flag, which apparently prevented it from being recreated when returned from a startActivityForResult call.

How to properly error-catch Android camera activity when using the ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE Intent

In Android, taking a picture can be done with this basic setup as seen here.
protected void dispatchTakePictureIntent(){
Intent takePictureIntent = new Intent(MediaStore.ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE);
if (takePictureIntent.resolveActivity(getPackageManager()) != null) {
...
takePictureIntent.putExtra(MediaStore.EXTRA_OUTPUT, Uri.fromFile(photoFile));
startActivityForResult(takePictureIntent, REQUEST_TAKE_PHOTO);
}
}
#Override
protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) {
if (requestCode == REQUEST_IMAGE_CAPTURE && resultCode == RESULT_OK) {
//do stuff with the output file
}
}
However, third-party camera apps are unpredictable and cannot be guaranteed to play nice.
What is the correct way to validate the output / catch any errors? Should I be wrapping startActivityForResult inside of a try/catch block? What are the various types of exceptions I should be trying to catch and what should I do with them?

Should I be wrapping startActivityForResult inside of a try/catch block?
Yes, though this has nothing to do with ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE specifically. The user may not have access to a camera app (e.g., the user is running under a restricted profile on a shared device). Any time you call startActivity() or startActivityForResult() with an implicit Intent, you need to deal with the possibility that there is no available app.
What are the various types of exceptions I should be trying to catch and what should I do with them?
In the answer that you linked to, I was pointing out crashes in the camera app. You cannot catch those, as that is not your app.
Beyond ActivityNotFoundException, you also need to think about Android 6.0 runtime permissions, as you need the CAMERA permission to start an ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE activity. Usually, though, this will not involve an exception handler.
The other validations would be not based on exceptions, but based on flawed results:
If you supplied EXTRA_OUTPUT, is there any content at the Uri you specified? In theory, if the user did not cancel out of the camera app, there will be, but that is not guaranteed, due to camera app bugs.
If there is is content, is it plausibly an image file? For example, you might use BitmapFactory with inJustDecodeBounds to see if the image really is an image.
If there is no content, did you happen to get a Uri back in the result Intent in onActivityResult()? The buggy camera app might have stored the image where it wanted to and supplied the Uri to it, even though this is way out of spec for ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE.
If there is no content, and there is no Uri, does getExtras("data") return a non-null value? In that case, you at least got a thumbnail and can save it yourself, even though the image quality may suck.

Android Jelly bean camera return null URI

I'm trying to use the camera to take pictures in my app, and then crop the taken images.
Everything is working for the recent versions for Android, but not for Android Kitkat 4.4.2.
the Camera returns a null URI.
get the URI onActivityReslult :
#Override
protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) {
if (requestCode == CAMERA_CODE && resultCode == RESULT_OK) {
Bundle extras = data.getExtras();
Bitmap imageBitmap = (Bitmap) extras.get("data");
picUri = data.getData();
Intent i = new Intent(PublierActivity.this, CropActivity.class);
i.putExtra("Uri", picUri);
startActivityForResult(i, CROP_CODE);
}
Here is how I call the camera intent :
Intent takePictureIntent = new Intent(MediaStore.ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE);
if (takePictureIntent.resolveActivity(getPackageManager()) != null) {
startActivityForResult(takePictureIntent, CAMERA_CODE);
}
is there any way to make an exception for oldest versions for android to resolve this problem ?

From your code, it would appear that you are trying to use ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE. In that case, there should never be a Uri — data.getData() should always be returning null. If a camera app happens to return a Uri, that may be the image, but since ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE is not documented to return a Uri, you have no way of knowing what that Uri is for.
If you are using EXTRA_OUTPUT on the ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE Intent, you know where the image should be stored, because you told the camera app where to store it. Note that some camera apps are buggy and fail to honor EXTRA_OUTPUT, putting the image wherever they want.
If you are not using EXTRA_OUTPUT, then you will get a thumbnail back in the "data" extra.
Also, please bear in mind that this has nothing to do with Android OS version, and everything to do with the camera app that the user chooses to use. There are thousands of Android device models. These ship with dozens, if not hundreds, of different camera apps pre-installed. The user might also elect to install a third-party camera app. Any of those could be handling your request.

Android camera/webcam emulator in Eclipse keeps crashing

I am trying to take a photo in my Android application using my PC's built-in webcam. I am using the eclipse Android emulator and have set the AVD to use webcam0 as the rear-facing camera, but when I run my program it always crashes, saying "Unfortunately, Camera has stopped". I have added the following line to my Manifest xml:
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CAMERA"/>
though it still does not seem to work. I have read in a few places that there's supposed to be a "Hardware" section in the AVD manager edit/create screen, but mine does not have it.
Am I missing something? Here is the logcat that appears when I try to run the app:
Any thoughts about what might be happening? I've searched for solutions all over the place and can't seem to find any that solve this exact problem. Thanks for the help.
EDIT
Here's my image capture button/method code:
/* Create capture button */
Button capture = (Button) findViewById(R.id.btnCapture);
capture.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
public void onClick(View v) {
//create directory/picture file
count++;
file = dir + count + ".jpg";
File picFile = new File(file);
try {
picFile.createNewFile();
} catch (IOException e) {}
Uri outputFileUri = Uri.fromFile(picFile);
Intent cameraIntent = new Intent(MediaStore.ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE);
cameraIntent.putExtra(MediaStore.EXTRA_OUTPUT, outputFileUri);
startActivityForResult(cameraIntent, TAKE_PHOTO_CODE);
}
});
/* Check if valid photo */
#Override
protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, final Intent data) {
super.onActivityResult(requestCode, resultCode, data);
if (requestCode == TAKE_PHOTO_CODE && resultCode == RESULT_OK) {
Log.d("CameraDemo", "Pic saved");
}
}
This code was mostly created based on a thread I found here on SO, I'm afraid I don't recall which one though.

Have you added:
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE"
in your manifest?

If you feel that you have followed all the right procedures for activating your camera but fails, then as for my case, I had to try the in-built camera in the emulator to rule out any possibility that it is my codes. I realized that the same error was being produced by the default camera app - as you reported.
So, after several trials: (adding space, ram, more manifest files, clearing Google Play Services Data, updating Play Services, etc), I decided to use an Android Studio on Windows 10 x64 machine (the earlier one was Windows 7 x64). To my surprise, the error was gone and the camera did not crash. Now, I don't know if it has to do with OS (Win 7) or the Processor, or any other hardware or software issue. You can try this if you are not already using Windows 10.