You put an old Tecno, Infinix or itel phone on the shelf as a camera. It is plugged in, the screen is off, the camera app is recording. In the morning you check it, and the recording stopped hours ago. No crash message. No power cut. The app is simply not running any more, or it is "open" but frozen until you touch it.
On these phones this is usually not a fault in the phone or the app. It is the phone's battery management doing exactly what it was built to do. This guide explains which settings cause it, where to find them, and how to test your own phone in ten minutes. It is written for a simple setup: one budget Android phone, no cloud account, no subscription, often with no SIM card and only home or shop Wi-Fi.
Why does my Tecno, Infinix or itel phone stop the camera app when the screen is off?
Because the phone's power-saving system stops apps that run in the background, and a camera running with the screen off is the most "background" app there is.
Tecno, Infinix and itel are sister brands, and their phones share a lot of the same software, including a pre-installed app called Phone Master (on some Infinix models, XManager). The volunteer site Don't Kill My App, which tracks how phone brands treat background apps, describes Tecno's behaviour like this:
"Aggressive battery setting causes app to be completely halted, like frozen in time, so, timers, services, foreground services, all of them stop working until you return manually to the app, this affects all apps across the device."
Read that last part again: foreground services too. A foreground service is the Android feature that a screen-off camera app uses to keep running, with a notification on screen to show the user it is active. On a phone without these extra power rules, that is normally enough. On a phone with them, it may not be, and the app's developer cannot fix it from their side. Don't Kill My App's "Solution for devs" section for Tecno says only: "No known solution on the developer end."
So the fix is in your hands, in the phone's settings. There are four places to look.
The four settings that stop a screen-off camera
Menu names change between phone models and software versions (HiOS on Tecno, XOS on Infinix, itel OS on itel). If a step does not match your phone exactly, use the search box at the top of Settings and type the bold words.
1. Auto-start (in Phone Master)
Where: open Phone Master → Toolbox → Auto-start management, find your camera app, and turn the switch on. On some Tecno phones the path is Phone Master → Application Manager → Auto-start management. On some Infinix phones it is in XManager → Auto Start Management, or Settings → Apps Management → More Settings → Auto-start management.
Why it matters: this list decides whether an app is allowed to start or keep running without you opening it. Don't Kill My App calls the Tecno toggle "Allow app to run in background." If your camera app is switched off here, the phone is free to stop it.
2. Power Saving Management for apps (Battery Lab)
Where: Settings → Battery Lab → Battery Saving Settings, then turn off "Power Saving Management" for your camera app. On Infinix this area can be called Battery Lab, Power Marathon, or Battery and Power Saving.
On some Infinix phones there is also a per-app page: Settings → Apps & Notifications → App Management → [your camera app] → Battery Saver → Allow Background Running, and under Other Permissions, turn on Allow Background Launch and Allow Run in Background.
Why it matters: this is the per-app version of the battery rule. Auto-start can be on, and this can still stop the app after the screen has been off for a while.
3. Android's own battery optimization
Where: search Settings for battery optimization. Change the list from "Not optimized" to All apps, find your camera app, and choose Don't optimize (on newer phones: Unrestricted). On itel phones one route is Settings → Apps → ⋮ → Special app access → Battery optimization.
Why it matters: this one is standard Android, not Transsion-specific. You usually need it and the two settings above. They are separate switches, and turning one off does not turn the others off.
4. Screen-off and night features (the hidden ones)
These are the settings people miss, because they do not have the word "battery" in them. Don't Kill My App lists these on Tecno phones:
- Screen off sleep — turn off.
- Screen off push block and Screen off scheduled push — turn off. These are about notifications, but they are part of the same screen-off rules.
- Power Boost (in Phone Master → Power Marathon) — turn off.
- Sleep Mode Optimization — read this one carefully.
Don't Kill My App says Sleep Mode Optimization "will automatically turn on airplane mode at night when you are not using the phone." For a phone that is only a camera, "not using the phone" is every night. Airplane mode normally switches off Wi-Fi and mobile data. If you watch your camera live over Wi-Fi, or stream it, that stops at night, which is exactly when you wanted to look. Turn it off.
There is also a Short Video Optimization option under Smart Scenes, aimed at apps like TikTok. It is not needed for a camera phone; the site suggests disabling it.
Lock the camera app in Recent apps
Many budget phones have a clean or boost button that closes everything in the Recent apps screen. Pressing it once, or letting Phone Master do it automatically, can close your camera too.
Open Recent apps, find the camera app's card, tap the small menu or down arrow at the top of the card, and choose the option with the lock 🔒 icon. A locked app is not cleared when you clean Recent apps.
Do this even if you have done everything above. It protects you from the person in the house or the shop who presses "clean" because the phone feels slow.
Why this hits phones with 2 GB or 3 GB of RAM harder
Many camera phones are older, cheaper models with little memory. On those phones there are two different things that can stop your camera:
- The brand's battery rules (this guide). These are settings. You can change them.
- Android's low-memory killer. When memory is full, Android itself stops apps, starting with the least important. A foreground service ranks high, but it is not untouchable.
The settings in this guide fix the first one. For the second, the fixes are different: fewer other apps on the phone, no heavy games or social apps running beside the camera, and a sensible video resolution. We explained how Android decides what to stop in A Foreground Service Is Not Immortal: What Android's Low Memory Killer Does to a 24/7 Camera on a 2 GB Phone.
If you have not bought the phone yet, our guide to buying a second-hand Android phone to use as a shop security camera has the checks to do at the counter.
The 10-minute test: does your phone still stop the camera?
Changing settings is not proof. Test the actual phone with the actual app.
- Make all the changes above. Restart the phone once so they take effect cleanly.
- Open the camera app, start recording, and turn the screen off.
- Note the time. Put the phone on the charger and leave it alone. Do not touch it.
- Wait at least 10 minutes. One hour is better. A full night is best.
- If your app has a live view over Wi-Fi, open it from a second phone or laptop during the wait. Does the picture still move?
- Unlock the camera phone and look at the recordings. Do the files continue past the time you noted, with no long gap?
- If there is a gap, write down roughly when it started. A gap after about 10–30 minutes usually points to a battery or screen-off setting you missed. A gap in the middle of the night that lines up with Wi-Fi going away points to Sleep Mode Optimization.
Run the test again after any system update. Updates can bring new power features, or reset switches you changed. The settings belong to the phone's software, and they can change when the software does.
Quick checklist for a Tecno, Infinix or itel camera phone
- [ ] Phone Master (or XManager) → Auto-start management: camera app on
- [ ] Battery Lab → Battery Saving Settings: Power Saving Management for the camera app off
- [ ] Battery optimization: camera app set to Don't optimize / Unrestricted
- [ ] Screen off sleep: off
- [ ] Power Boost: off
- [ ] Sleep Mode Optimization: off (it turns on airplane mode at night)
- [ ] Camera app locked in Recent apps
- [ ] 10-minute test done, then an overnight test
- [ ] Re-test after every system update
If you have a Samsung, or the problem is power
Samsung phones have their own night-time trap: a scheduled automatic restart. That has its own guide: Why Does My Samsung Phone Camera Stop Recording at Night?
If the recording stops because the power went off, that is a different problem from the settings above. See What Happens to a Phone Security Camera During a Power Cut or an Internet Outage?
New to this? Start with Turn an old Android phone into a screen-off security camera (no cloud, LAN-only), then come back to this checklist before you leave the phone alone.
Sources
- Don't Kill My App — Tecno (the "frozen in time" description, Auto-start, Power Saving Management, Recent apps lock, Power Boost, Sleep Mode Optimization, screen-off settings, "No known solution on the developer end")
- Salestrail help — Infinix devices, itel devices, Tecno devices (menu paths; these are a third-party app's guides, not official brand documentation)
- Callyzer help — Troubleshoot for Tecno (Phone Master → Toolbox → Auto-start Management; battery optimization steps)
Menu names in these guides differ from each other, which is itself the lesson: check the words on your own phone, and trust the test, not the menu.
Background Camera RemoteStream turns an Android phone into a screen-off camera: it records with the screen off and keeps recordings on the phone, with no cloud account needed. Its Pro tier adds a live browser view over your own Wi-Fi and YouTube Live streaming; check the Play listing for what is free and what is Pro.
