Gallery has stopped - tried many suggestions

[Fran Haselden]

Recently my gallery app has stopped working.

I haven't installed any photo apps recently that might be causing issues. All the apps I have are major (Instagram, Layout etc) and have been installed for a while.

I get "Gallery has stopped" as soon as I launch the app.

I have tried:

- Force quit the gallery app
- Clearing gallery cache
- Clearing gallery data
- Rebooting device
- Moving all files from DCIM to another folder so DCIM is empty

What else can I do?

Android version: 6.0.1
Device: Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+

 

[N4Newbie]

Try using the Google Photos app instead. If it isn't already installed on your phone, get it at https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...com.google.android.apps.photos&token=0BQM5JQL

 

[Fran Haselden]

I'd really rather fix the issue with the current gallery app than just rely on a different app.

 

[N4Newbie]

I'd really rather fix the issue with the current gallery app than just rely on a different app.

Well, the only thing I can think of (that you may not have tried already) is Settings -> Apps -> Gallery -> Permissions and make sure that, at the least, "Storage" is enabled. While you are there, hit "Clear defaults" also.

 

[Fran Haselden]

Tried, same problem

 

[N4Newbie]

Okay, well, you may have to dig very deep to get this one resolved.

I think it would be helpful if you at least installed and tested Google Photos; it may possibly report an error rather than just crashing.

One thing that comes to mind is that you may have a bad image file and/or thumbnail that is causing Gallery to crash. And, no, it doesn't necessarily need to be in the DCIM folder (I know you said you moved everything out of there) because most gallery-type apps scan the entire phone looking for image files. Anyway, if you have a corrupt image file, Google Photos may identify it or, if Photos crashes as well, then we learn something else.

 

[Fran Haselden]

OK, so Google Photos works fine and with no errors.

I've had a look through all the photos in Google Photos to see if there is something weird there, but I can't see anything. It all seems perfectly fine to me.

I'm guessing next step would be to delete the entirety of my images from my phone? So that there is nothing to find? And see if the app still crashes?

 

[N4Newbie]

I've been looking into this further and see that it is a common problem on Galaxy phones after update to Marshmallow.

Besides the things you have already tried, I see:

• Turn off phone, remove the SD card, reboot phone. See if problem still exists without SD card.
• Wipe cache partition (how to: https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-21027 )
• Perform a full factory reset ( How to perform Factory Reset on Android smartphone? ). WARNING: Backup all your data first, as all will be lost.

 

[Fran Haselden]

OK, my phone has no SD card slot so it's not that.

I'll try the other two options.

I've removed every single photos from my phone now (got a backup in a zip from Google Takeout) so I'm trying to see if that helps...