Wallpaper crashing Android phones is circulating on internet, which phones are prone?

On May 31, 2020, a tweet emerged warning android phone users to not download a specific wallpaper image as it would crash their device. Samsung phone users especially were being told to heed this advice and abstain from downloading the wallpaper crashing android phones. This popular tweet was put up by a Twitter tech account named 'Ice universe'.

The image shows a peaceful looking lake surrounded by mountains and trees while the sky is coloured with a peaceful sunset. Under the tweet, some twitter and android users commented confirming that the news about the wallpaper crashing android is true. As per the reports posted on a tech portal from Android users, when the image is downloaded and used as a wallpaper, it can 'brick' certain android devices. This leads to the device not powering on or functioning properly anymore. Some smartphones which operate on Google's Android operating system have reportedly crashed due to downloading the image.

ALSO READ | Flipkart Sale 2020: Up To 40% Discounts On Mobile Phones, Laptops & Fashion Products

ALSO READ | Best IOS 13.5 Tweaks For Jailbroken IPhones To Improve User Experience

Which Android phones are crashing due to the image?

On some tech portals users of OnePlus and Nokia phones as well as Samsung's Galaxy and Google's Pixel devices have complained of the wallpaper crashing android. These devices got ‘soft-bricked’, resulting in the phone crashing constantly. From the reports of users so far android phone users whose phones were running on Android 10 software were impacted by downloading this image.

ALSO READ | Popular Apps From China: 10 Apps Found On Almost Every Smartphone

Why is the wallpaper crashing android phones?

A developer explained on a tech news blog that the bug is affecting android phones because the Android system struggles to process the color space of the image. This means that just trying to process it bricks android phones. The image supposedly has a larger colour space so the value goes above 255 causing an “Out of Bounds Exception” error resulting in the android systems User Interface crash. Android phones try to recover the System UI but as it cannot change the wallpaper, the crash repeating.

A popular tech blog has reported that devices such as the Huawei Mate 20 Pro and some OnePlus phones have remained reportedly unaffected. The bug is affecting photo viewing apps such as Google photos heavily. As per some reports Google has been informed about the wallpaper crashing android phones and it will soon act on it.

ALSO READ | Technical Guruji Trends On Twitter As YouTuber Deletes TikTok From His Phones