rpicam: IMX283 Camera frontend timeout detected on Raspberry Pi 5

Start with the IMX283 driver and the runtime power-management change using pm_runtime_set_autosuspend_delay(imx283->dev, 0), then reproduce with the provided rpicam-still command and resolution matrix. Done means determining whether the timeout is caused by the sensor failing to resume during reconfiguration and validating a fix across the listed preview and capture resolutions.

Describe the bug

We are encountering a "Camera frontend has timed out" error when attempting to capture an image using an IMX283 sensor on a Raspberry Pi 5 using rpicam-still.
The application starts, configures the streams (first for preview resolution, then for full capture resolution), but then fails with the frontend timeout error immediately after switching to the high-resolution capture mode. It attempts to restart and fails again. You can find the error logs in the attached screenshot.

Steps to reproduce the behaviour

1. Connect the IMX283 sensor to the Raspberry Pi 5.
2. We found that the timeout error frequently occurs when the viewfinder (preview) resolution is lower than the capture resolution.
3. However, if we set the viewfinder to the sensor's maximum resolution (5472x3648), capturing at any resolution works perfectly.

Here is the command to reproduce the failure (Low Res Preview -> Medium Res Capture):
rpicam-still -t 5000 --viewfiner-width 1824 --viewfinder-height 1216 --width 2736 --height 1824 -o imx283_test.jpg

Below is the matrix of our testing results.
✔ = Success / ✖ = Timeout Error

Preview Resolution	Capture Resolution	Result
1824x1216	1824x1216	✔
	2736x1824	✖
	5472x3648	✖
2736x1824	1824x1216	✔
	2736x1824	✖
	5472x3648	✖
5472x3648	1824x1216	✔
	2736x1824	✔
	5472x3648	✔

Device (s)

Raspberry Pi 5

System

cat /etc/rpi-issue

Raspberry Pi reference 2025-10-01
Generated using pi-gen, https://github.com/RPi-Distro/pi-gen, 7dadcf1fc5ce1648ab09409ab978831690c9a955, stage4

vcgencmd version

2025/05/08 15:13:17
Copyright (c) 2012 Broadcom
version 69471177 (release) (embedded)

uname -a

Linux raspberrypi 6.12.47+rpt-rpi-2712 #1 SMP PREEMPT Debian 1:6.12.47-1+rpt1 (2025-09-16) aarch64 GNU/Linux

Logs

Please see it above

Additional context

We attempted to troubleshoot the issue at the driver level and found a workaround related to Runtime Power Management (Runtime PM).
We observed that setting the autosuspend delay to 0 fixes the timeout error.
Specifically, modifying the driver code as follows:
pm_runtime_set_autosuspend_delay(imx283->dev, 0);
Results after modification:
With this change, we can successfully capture high-resolution images (e.g., 5472x3648) even when the preview is running at a lower resolution (e.g., 1824x1216). The "Camera frontend has timed out" error no longer appears.

Request for advice:
This suggests that the issue might be related to the sensor powering down (or failing to resume correctly) during the brief gap when reconfiguring the stream for the new resolution.
We would appreciate any insights on whether this is a valid fix or if it hides an underlying driver state machine issue.