Stay on Top of Emerging Technology Trends Get updates impacting your industry from our GigaOm Research Community

Here’s an odd situation some new Raspberry Pi 2 owners are experiencing: The small $35 computer, which debuted this past week, can freeze up when you take a picture of it. This only happens if you have a very specific type of flash on your smartphone or camera, but it’s still a bit strange and certainly unexpected.

Neowin noticed talk of the Pi 2 selfie shutdown on the official Raspberry Pi 2 forums, where the issue was first reported and then replicated. Some trial and error by forum members determined that it’s only a Xenon flash bulb that causes the Pi 2 to shut down, so if you have an LED flash, go ahead and take all the Pi 2 pictures you want. Here’s one example of the computer freezing due to a flash photo:

It’s not uncommon for Raspberry Pi device owners to use the computer without a case; there’s something extra-geeky about seeing a few visible chips and some blinking lights when using one of these small computers. Putting the hardware inside a small, inexpensive shielded case might help with this problem though, as would covering one of the chips with a small amount of blue tack, as forum members have found out.