Gallery Won't Open

**deSandot** · 12-26-2010, 10:28 PM

My photo gallery will not open. It just stopped working today. Battery pull did not fix it either. Any ideas?

**Cyber Warrior** · 12-26-2010, 10:58 PM

Can you access the gallery from your computer with the phone plugged into the usb? Just wondering if the sd card is doing weird things on you. Try and shut the phone down, remove battery, remove sd card. Then put it all back and see if its back?
If not you might be looking at a factory reset.

**wormeyman** · 12-26-2010, 11:03 PM

Before you do a factory reset we can try clearing the apps cache.

That link will show you how

**deSandot** · 12-27-2010, 08:01 AM

Wipe trick didn't work, neither did pulling the sd/battery. Would a reinstall of the gallery apk do the trick?

**ottscay** · 12-27-2010, 10:32 AM

The answer should be "yes", but you probably can't just click on the apk and install it without superuser access, since it's a system program.

**lsmunoz** · 12-27-2010, 12:52 PM

I had this happen last week. Another post recomended pulling all files off SD onto PC, then formating SD, followed by pulling files back onto SD from PC.

That worked well for me.

**m0nti13** · 12-27-2010, 06:24 PM

Originally Posted by lsmunoz

I had this happen last week. Another post recomended pulling all files off SD onto PC, then formating SD, followed by pulling files back onto SD from PC.

That worked well for me.

I had this issue a week or two ago as well.. reformating the sd fixed it for me too.. remember to save your data first..

**Johnly** · 12-27-2010, 06:35 PM

A new SD card fixed my issue. The generic ones that come preloaded aren't the most reliable.

**billfisher1** · 12-29-2010, 09:32 AM

I am experiencing the same thing. I open the gallery and it flashes on for about a tenth of a second and then closes. I put 3D gallery on and it works fine, all pictures show but I prefer the original gallery. Very strange.

**beckerfj** · 12-29-2010, 12:47 PM

A couple weeks ago, I experienced the same thing as changefromBB did on how my gallery just flashes and closes. Couldn't do anything.

After doing a little research, I decide to install Gallery 3D as some had suggested as a replacement.

I didn't really care for the Gallery 3D compared to the Moto Gallery (I think I might be the only one).

What I found (for me at least) is that some game images (shown as a separate folder in Gallery 3D) were causing the problem. I found this out because I didn't want those game images in my Gallery and I removed the album.

Once I removed the album (and maybe after rebooting), my Gallery worked! It happened again after I installed another game (for what it's worth, the games I believe affected it were Dungeon Hunter and Hero of Sparta both from Gameloft) and I did the same thing and it worked again.

Kind of a pain, but it doesn't seem to happen all the time and I feel confident I can fix it (plus I don't install too many game apps anyway).

(Yes, I did the .nomedia file trick too but they were still showing as a folder for some reason - for what it's worth, the .nomedia trick didn't work for my audio files either).

So, try something like this before re-formatting your SD card.

**Sailmaker** · 12-30-2010, 11:12 AM

Here is what worked for me...no reformat required:

Go to:
Settings >> Applications >> Manage Applications >> All tab
For each of the following, I clicked on Clear data and Clear cache: (Just clearing Gallery did not do it for me)
Gallery
Media Container Service
Media Storage
Then I restarted phone by holding down power button, clicking Power Off, then held it again to turn on and working great! It did take a few minutes for the Gallery to get all the thumbnails again the first time I started it, but works!
I was afraid I deleted all files on SD but they are all still there. Just be patient, will take several minutes for Gallery to repopulate.

**mnasholm** · 12-30-2010, 12:43 PM

^THAT WORKED, Thanks so much!!!!

**Bob61** · 12-30-2010, 03:31 PM

^^ Worked for me too.

**LMO** · 01-03-2011, 11:36 AM

I just had this problem surface today! Cache wipe, battery pull, etc. did not work. I will try what Beckerfj did before I do the whole SD reformat thing.

Isn't it interesting how this seems to be popping up with a lot of people recently though? I am wondering if one of the Market app updates hosed our galleries? BTW, FWIW, I did recently do the .nomedia trick to a few folders that I did not want showing up in Gallery. However this issue did not suddenly pop up after I did that... so not sure if that's even related or a possible cause.

**LMO** · 01-03-2011, 11:47 AM

Yes!!! Tried Sailmaker's suggestion first, and it worked!! Media Storage and Media Container Service were the key. Thanks so much!!!!

**tricia4652** · 01-10-2011, 08:58 AM

Originally Posted by Sailmaker

Here is what worked for me...no reformat required:

Go to:
Settings >> Applications >> Manage Applications >> All tab
For each of the following, I clicked on Clear data and Clear cache: (Just clearing Gallery did not do it for me)
Gallery
Media Container Service
Media Storage
Then I restarted phone by holding down power button, clicking Power Off, then held it again to turn on and working great! It did take a few minutes for the Gallery to get all the thumbnails again the first time I started it, but works!
I was afraid I deleted all files on SD but they are all still there. Just be patient, will take several minutes for Gallery to repopulate.

Were all of the pics/video files deleted after clearing the data and cache? I wanted to know if I needed to back them up on my computer prior to trying this fix.

**Sailmaker** · 01-10-2011, 02:28 PM

Originally Posted by tricia4652

Were all of the pics/video files deleted after clearing the data and cache? I wanted to know if I needed to back them up on my computer prior to trying this fix.

No. After clearing the multiple data & caches, all data was still intact on the SD card. (although I got a little nervous) Just be patient...like I said in my OP, it will take a few minutes to repopulate your gallery pics.

**RHChan84** · 01-10-2011, 03:18 PM

It did take a little longer to load up the videos and picture initially but after that, it was fine and still works now.

**WAldenIV** · 01-12-2011, 09:38 AM

Originally Posted by Sailmaker

Here is what worked for me...no reformat required:

Go to:
Settings >> Applications >> Manage Applications >> All tab
For each of the following, I clicked on Clear data and Clear cache: (Just clearing Gallery did not do it for me)
Gallery
Media Container Service
Media Storage
Then I restarted phone by holding down power button, clicking Power Off, then held it again to turn on and working great! It did take a few minutes for the Gallery to get all the thumbnails again the first time I started it, but works!
I was afraid I deleted all files on SD but they are all still there. Just be patient, will take several minutes for Gallery to repopulate.

This works! Thanks, Sailmaker. I recommended this as a news tip for the site because it could help a lot of other people.

**john_ecko** · 01-12-2011, 07:55 PM

I had this problem too.

Didn't get to see Sailmaker's solution before hand though. After I dled 3D gallery, I noticed in my cache folder duplicates of the same picture. The cache is created by the app SyncMyPix. So, I deleted that cache folder and I uninstalled that app and the regular gallery started to work fine again.

**hoarder23** · 01-13-2011, 05:57 PM

Wish I had found this yesterday before I reset my phone and started from scratch. But I guess it's good to clean out all the unused stuff every now and then

**WAldenIV** · 01-13-2011, 08:25 PM

WOOHOO! Made the front page!

Hopefully, this helps a lot of people.

**miamifin33** · 01-13-2011, 11:54 PM

Did this and now the led for incoming SMS with handscent does not work. Any ideas? Settings are all correct.

**speednut** · 01-14-2011, 12:57 AM

Thank you Sailmaker, your info fixed my gallery crashing issue completely. Media Storage cache was the one buggering it up.

Interestingly enough, like beckerfj, my gallery stopped working at the same time I installed some gameloft games... Hmmm, coincidence?...

Now I just need to search for info about this .nomedia file mentioned in this thread.

@miamifin33: FWIW, My notification sound changed after this fix (easy to configure back), but my LED notification light has remained working as normal.

**daveku1** · 01-14-2011, 01:20 AM

sweet it worked!! thanks for the tip sailmaker. i was stressing about this when it first went corrupt on me, and it's been bothering me ever since lol. but due to this issue, i did discover JustPictures though (which is a great alternative album viewer).

anywho it's good to have the stock gallery back