This image is crashing Android phones — don't download it

(Image credit: Tom'south Guide)

An image of an idyllic lake is wreaking havoc on Android phones, causing some to get caught in crash cycles and become 'soft-bricked.' This is effectively forcing users to reset their smartphones.

The outcome was flagged by leaker Water ice Universe, who noted that a uncomplicated paradigm could cause some Android phones to continually turn the brandish on and off if the image is fix as a wallpaper. Once in this loop, there's no manner to become out of it, fifty-fifty if the telephone is rebooted. So any y'all do, don't download and use the image on your phone.

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Once an Android telephone is caught in the crashing loop, the just fashion to become out of this soft-bricked status is to reset the handset, which could cause a lot of data loss for some people who don't back their phones upward to cloud services.

Not every phone is afflicted. OnePlus and Huawei handsets are seemingly immune, simply Samsung Galaxy phones seem particularly prone to the crash-causing image.

WARNING！！！Never set this film equally wallpaper, especially for Samsung mobile telephone users!Information technology volition cause your telephone to crash!Don't endeavour it!If someone sends you this picture, please ignore it. pic.twitter.com/rVbozJdhkLMay 31, 2020

It'due south not articulate exactly what is causing this image to crash Android phones. But Ice Universe reckons information technology's something to do with how the color space on the image is configured and how that colour profile reacts with the Skia graphics engine Android uses. Effectively, metadata backside the image could be causing issues with Android.

Ice Universe tweeted that when the image was uploaded to Weibo, the service altered the colors slightly, which so seemed to prevent the epitome from crashing a telephone when used as a wallpaper. 9to5Google did some more digging and noted that the problem is down to the color space Android wants to display.

When I tried to upload the original image (left) to Weibo, I found that its color to change (right). At this time, the image became harmless, but when uploaded to twitter, the original paradigm still does not change colour, notwithstanding harmful. So I doubtable information technology may be related to color gamut flick.twitter.com/0A1PlUqlpvMay 31, 2020

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Android phones tend to like the sRGB color space, but the image uses the RGB color space which Android 10 doesn't play nice with. In Android 11, the color space is converted to sRGB and so such crashes aren't an issue, significant if yous have a Pixel four Xl y'all should be pretty safety from the problem.

There'south no word on where the prototype came from, with people avoiding posting links to it then as to curtail the spread of the dissentious image. But suffice to say, if you see the image or y'all get sent information technology past someone, we very much suggest you avoid it. If you have already fallen foul to the prototype issue, so you'll need to factory reset your phone to get rid of information technology.

Roland Moore-Colyer is U.K. Editor at Tom's Guide with a focus on news, features and stance articles. He often writes most gaming, phones, laptops and other bits of hardware; he'southward also got an involvement in cars. When not at his desk Roland can be found wandering around London, frequently with a look of curiosity on his confront.