A hardware enthusiast has stumbled on a curious vulnerability in the recently released next-generation Raspberry Pi computer: it crashes when exposed to certain types of flash photography and lights.

The bug in the Raspberry Pi 2 was documented over the weekend in a post in the Raspberry Pi Foundation forums and Monday in a blog post by the same nonprofit organization. The discovery was triggered when forum veteran Peter Onion snapped a photo of his new Raspberry Pi 2. Each time he activated the shutter, the tiny computer instantly shut down.

"I've done it three times now and same thing happens each time," he reported. "First two times I didn't realise what had happened as I wasn't looking at the screen at the time and only noticed a few minutes afterwards. Third time I did it just to watch the screen.... Instant power off....."

Raspberry Pi officials investigated the report and were able to determine the cause. The U16—the chip responsible for regulating processor core power inside the new Raspberry Pi—has an extreme reaction when exposed to intense bursts of light, such as those produced by Xenon flashes and laser pointers. The flashes trigger a core voltage drop, causing the device to immediately power down. The behavior is the result of the photoelectric effect, which causes metals to emit electrons when hit by certain types of light. Raspberry Pi Foundation spokeswoman Liz Upton wrote:

This component that’s causing the issue is in a WL-CSP package: a bare silicon die which has solder balls attached. This is a picture of the underside of a similar package (enormously magnified) – each circle is a minuscule ball of solder: WL-CSP packaging is a common technique for more high-tech electronics parts, as it means no further packaging of the device is required. It is also the smallest physical package possible, which designers of mobile things (and people making very tiny computers) really care about.

Most lights, including sunlight, LED bulbs, and photo flashes using non-Xenon sources, have no effect on the device. There's also no permanent damage caused by the attack. Still, people should avoid exposing their Raspberry Pi 2s to this exploit since crashes can potentially corrupt the device's SD cards. Engineers are studying ways to make future models immune to the potential denial-of-service attack. In the meantime, if you know your new Raspberry Pi 2 will be exposed to Xenon technologies or laser pointers, Upton recommended using a small blob of Sugru or Blu-Tak to cover the camera-shy component.