My Gallery freezes EVERY time I open it!

[Logansmom32]

I have photos and video I recorded fom my son's baseball game and can't open a single one! I bought my 32GB External SD card from AT&T at the same time I bought the S4 & they installed it....on April 27th. The gallery worked fine at that time. Now all of a sudden starting in the past couple weeks, every time I open the gallery to view my photos and videos, it freezes and won't open a single thing! It won't even scroll! I tried opening from Gallery icon and also from the phone but in the top left corner. Help me please! It is totally stock, not rooted in anyway. I'm above average in tech knowledge (I've tried every combination of settings for a fix - including developer options) but far from being knowledgable in programming, developing, or troubleshooting. My last phone was a Samsung Galaxy Nexus with Verizon.....I switched o AT&T for the S4 and because I was tired of being last for everything. I was in contact with a Samsung Tech Support on Twitter and they requested me to take screenshot of my device's info, add them to a website, and send the, the link because they have heard of no one else with this problem. What the heck? After searching, I see the same problem was had on the S3 at one time as well & many have this on the S4 with no fixes. Please I beg of my smart friends here in the Android Community, this is my son's first year pitching and I can't share, or view anything! Help a mom out here? Thank you in advance! :'(

 

[B. Diddy]

Have you tried clearing the cache for the Gallery? Go to Settings/Apps/All, scroll until you find Gallery, select it, then tap Clear Cache.

You could also try a 3rd party gallery app. QuickPic is excellent.

 

[Logansmom32]

Yes, I did clear the cache on the gallery and the camera. However, I did NOT "clear data". I didn't know if that would clear my pics off the SDcard or not lol.

 

[B. Diddy]

No, it shouldn't clear the pics out. The Gallery should just repopulate.

Do you absolutely need to use Gallery? I primarily use QuickPic because it's faster, has a nicer interface, and still allows you to share photos the same way the stock Gallery does.

 

[Logansmom32]

AND, if I download a 3rd party app such as QuickPic, won't all my photos and videos go to the device storage because we can't move apps to ExtSD...I assumed the photos and videos would stay with it on the device? Like I said, I'm above average in tech but far from as smart as many of you here lol. I also know there was a review of the S4 that said the "Gallery Freeze Issue" is so bad that he foresees Samsung issuing an OTA fix for this. Reading that just made me feel relieved that it wasn't just me or my imagination lol.

 

[Logansmom32]

Yes, I do absolutely need the gallery lol....hello, I'm a mom

- - - Updated - - -

And because you say, it "shouldn't" clear the pics.....that one S word makes me nervous lol

 

[Logansmom32]

Although.....I just thought of something....I keep getting alerts of "suggestions for new albums" after taking so many photos or videos in one day.... I'm curious what you know about the almost forcing of putting photos/videos having any affect on the gallery?

 

[B. Diddy]

AND, if I download a 3rd party app such as QuickPic, won't all my photos and videos go to the device storage because we can't move apps to ExtSD...I assumed the photos and videos would stay with it on the device? Like I said, I'm above average in tech but far from as smart as many of you here lol. I also know there was a review of the S4 that said the "Gallery Freeze Issue" is so bad that he foresees Samsung issuing an OTA fix for this. Reading that just made me feel relieved that it wasn't just me or my imagination lol.

Your photos and videos will remain where they're stored. QuickPic will simply read them from where they are, which is what the Gallery app was doing in the first place.

 

[B. Diddy]

Yes, I do absolutely need the gallery lol....hello, I'm a mom

What I meant was, is there a reason you specifically want to use the stock Gallery app over a 3rd party app like QuickPic? The only thing I can think of is that the stock app can access online albums (e.g., on Picasa/Google+) while QuickPic can't. But since you said your photos are all stored directly on the phone's SD card, that shouldn't matter.

 

[jneusch]

I saw this happen with either my GS3 or Note 2 (can't remember). The Gallery was always trying to sync or update with Picasa, Google +, etc and it caused it to freeze or slow down dramatically after a while. I turned off a lot of the sync features and started using Dropbox to back up my pics. I don't have the issue with the GS4 and I just took a lot of videos last weekend with no troubles.

The other thing I am thinking about is that the SD card might have a corrupt section on it. Try removing the SD card and put it in your computer. Copy your photos to your computer for safe keeping, then eject the SD card and put it back in your phone. From there go to settings - More - Storge - SD card and Format. Once the SD card has been formatted on the phone it should cure any corruption issues. You can then "unmount" the card, insert it in your computer and copy your pictures and videos back to the card. Reinsert the card in your phone and try the Gallery.

I hope this helps.

 

[Logansmom32]

I will try that..thanks!

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S4 from AT&T

 

[seinx]

I had the same issue with Gallery, even QuickPic. Both would freeze. I did a factory reset and both work fine now.

 

[Paul Luttmann]

I just crazy with the same problem. I finally went to My Files app to Sdcard directory and noticed about 10 files with weird names like ascii symbols. Thw problem is not gallery. It should be Camera app writing this weird names and then gallery can not read them. I formated the sdcard and everything went back to normal.
Losted my pics

 

[Jade Bone]

My samsung galaxy s4 keeps freezing everytime i try to open and view my pictures in the gallery, then after a few seconds it goes back onto the home screen!. i have tried clearing the data and the cache and its still not working also have tried turning phone on and off and taking the battery out but nothing seems to be working. can anyone help me plese???!!!

 

[Golfdriver97]

My samsung galaxy s4 keeps freezing everytime i try to open and view my pictures in the gallery, then after a few seconds it goes back onto the home screen!. i have tried clearing the data and the cache and its still not working also have tried turning phone on and off and taking the battery out but nothing seems to be working. can anyone help me plese???!!!

Welcome to the forums! Have you tried clearing cache in recovery mode?

Sent from a SlimROM S3.

 

[Jade Bone]

Welcome to the forums! Have you tried clearing cache in recovery mode?

Sent from a SlimROM S3.

How do i do that?

 

[Golfdriver97]

How do i do that?

This should work for every carrier: http://forums.androidcentral.com/sa...ing-into-recovery-mode-galaxy-s2-s3-tab2.html
Hope that helps.

 

[Shon123]

I have an s4 with At&t last week an update came to my phone, build 1337UCAMF3... this update also came with a firmware update for the camera as well. Before this update I also had problems with my gallery freezing and not being able to snap shots with the camera at times. See if there's an update out there, that's the only fix.

 

[Tobias Smullet]

Hi!
I've been experiencing the same problem recently actually, I believe the problem is caused by a corrupted image file in your gallery. If you check out the files on your computer you should see a difference in one of them, try moving them all onto your computer, the corrupt file should be picked up by your file browser software, then you'll just have to delete that image, and all should be fine!
Hope this helps!

 

[HeyLea1]

Highly disappointed in having to fix/find corrupt files that my NEW $600 phone is creating - But I guess I will take that up in therapy.

At first glance, all is well ? but when copying to PC ? all files (pic) are bad. Or at least won?t open. SO with this being said? is the phone saving the file incorrectly, is there a fix for this? Losing all new images