Setting this image as a wallpaper bricks some Android phones

midian182

midian182

Posts: 10,715   +142
Staff member
In a nutshell: It’s been discovered that setting a certain image as a wallpaper on some Android phones can soft-brick the devices, causing them to crash and get stuck in a loop that turns the display on and off, making it impossible to get past the lock screen.

Prolific leaker Ice Universe highlighted the issue on their Twitter account. It seems to affect most Android devices, especially Samsung's. Android Authority writes that setting the image as the wallpaper didn’t affect a Huawei Mate 20 Pro, but it did crash a Pixel 2. It also crashed a Pixel 3 XL, according to 9To5Google, which discovered the cause of the issue.

It turns out that the phones don’t support the color space of the image. Instead of using Android’s preferred sRGB, it uses the RGB color space, which Android 10 doesn’t convert. That means any incompatible handsets will be soft-bricked.

Thankfully, the devices can be recovered. You can restart in safe mode and delete the image file, or you can use the bootloader to reset the phone completely.

It’s noted that with the Android 11 preview, the system converts non-supported color spaces, which allowed the image to work on a Pixel 4 XL running Android 11.

It turns out that a similar problem was reported in Google’s Android issue tracker back in 2018, but Google developers said they were unable to reproduce the effect and closed it out.

According to Ice Universe, Samsung received feedback on the bug in mid-May and has resolved the issue. “Just wait for the subsequent firmware update and do not take the risk,” they tweeted.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/85442-setting-image-wallpaper-bricks-android-phones.html

 
And here is me thinking this type of issue can only exist on an iOS device ... O.o
Well that is sad.
 
Red999 said:
Well, they need to put the code within try-catch-finally flow
Click to expand...

Only valid if that specific exception is handled; if you crash within the generic exception handler you're still boned.

Also note using try-catch-finally does have a performance impact, so you typically only want to use it in places where you are expecting problems to occur.
 
You don't get to tell me not to use this picture as my wallpaper. I'm setting it up right now! That'll show you.
 
"Don't set this image as your wall paper."

Don't throw me into the briar patch, Br'er Fox.
 
A brick is not something you can fix. Also, there is no such thing as soft-bricking your device. It's not a thing. It's either bricked or not.

This headline is disingenuous as the wallpaper crashes phones. It doesn't turn them into paperweights.

I'd like to think TechSpot authors know the difference. Or, they do and they intentionally write shameless clickbaity headlines. Neither of these are flattering.
 
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HugsNotDrugs said:
A brick is not something you can fix. Also, there is no such thing as soft-bricking your device. It's not a thing. It's either bricked or not.

This headline is disingenuous as the wallpaper crashes phones. It doesn't turn them into paperweights.

I'd like to think TechSpot authors know the difference. Or, they do and they intentionally write shameless clickbaity headlines. Neither of these are flattering.
Click to expand...
R/WOOOSSSHHH
 
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