General :: Can't Connect To Camera After App Crash Without Reboot

I am running a CM11 nightly of KitKat 4.4.1 on a VZW Note II, however I have had this issue with other devices, carriers, Android versions, etc. so I have always assumed it is just the way Android works.

Basically if an app that is currently using the camera (Camera app, barcode scanner, etc) crashes or hangs and gets force-closed, opening any camera app after that seems to always give me either a "can't connect to camera" error or a black screen instead of the viewfinder. In these cases, a simple reboot fixes the issue and I can use the camera again, but this is inconvenient for two reasons:

1. A reboot on my phone takes 45-60 seconds, by which time whatever I wanted a picture of is usually gone or changed.

2. Rebooting means that any apps that don't save the data constantly but run in the background are restarted and I lose the progress. Mainly I am referring to Chrome incognito tabs, but also apps that don't save in-progress data such as puzzle games or video players.

With my limited knowledge of Linux and my slightly less limited knowledge of operating systems in general, I know that sometimes a temporary lock file is Created to prevent other apps/programs from modifying or accessing a file or program until the lock is released. Does that kind of situation apply here, such as a camera lock file being created when camera access is started and then not able to be released if the app crashes.? Also, if that does apply, would manually deleting the lock file or creating a script that does it for me when it is run allow access to the camera again without rebooting? And if that doesn't apply, is there any way to regain camera access without rebooting when this occurs?