How A Photo Mysteriously Caused Android Phones To Crash
Due to an unusual issue, many Android users are finding their phones crash when using a certain photo as their wallpaper. Here's what happened.
When an Android phone starts to crash, the owner might immediately jump to the conclusion that the phone has been affected by a malicious program although in this case, it was a photo shared online. Even though companies label phones as smartphones, it is important to remember that technology is constantly evolving to improve and sometimes, some very dumb things can have massive consequences.
The Android operating system supports a variety of phones, including models from Google, Samsung, and LG. Like other mobile devices, people can customize their phones by setting an image as their wallpaper. Considering that there are over two billion Android devices, the use of custom wallpapers is big business. Furthermore, due to the custom and more open nature of Android, compared to iOS, there are even ways to convert an iPhone into an Android phone to take advantage of some of those additional features.
A charming photo of Saint Mary Lake in Glacier National Park recently went viral on Twitter. The reason was not for the photo's beauty, but the fact that it was crashing some Android phones. The photographer was unaware of the issue and had shared the photo on the popular image hosting website, Flickr. The bug itself forces phones to blink on and off, and trying to restart the phone in safe mode seems to be ineffective. As a result, some affected users may require a factory reset to regain the full functionality of their phones.
No, malware was not the issue. As NokiaMob points out, the reason Android phones broke is due to the colors in the image. Basically, Android phones have a limited range of colors that a screen can display. The values that can determine the range of color space is within the standard Red/Green/Blue (sRGB) limit. While some other devices have a wider spectrum of shades, the bigger range should convert to fit the smaller sRGB.
Some Android phones could not perform the conversion and as a result, the picture crashed the phones. Additionally, the photographer did edit the image using Adobe Lightroom and this edit might have changed the image’s original color space, resulting in a compatibility issue. Other phones, including some Android models, appeared to be unaffected by the same issue - as they were able to convert the photo.
Interestingly, one pixel created the error because of how bright the image is. A phone’s formula converts an image’s luminance, so a pixel’s display value cannot surpass a sum of 255. Some phones crash because the formula for the default Google color engine rounded up the pixel’s color value, causing it to barely exceed the 255 value limit. The issue starts when a person sets the image as a wallpaper as this causes the phone to constantly restart in an attempt to fix itself. By creating a bootloop, the phone goes through a cycle of repeatedly crashing and restarting. While the issue was unintentional, it is possible that future Android updates will look to prevent phones from improperly converting colors.
Source: Ice universe/Twitter, NokiaMob