Photos "unsupported file format"

[Chris Sandiford]

I'm having problems with photos yet again.

It started when I couldn't upload to Facebook. Last time that happened, my SD card was corrupt but not this time.
In fact the photos are there but they aren't viewable on anything but the phone.
Email - nope, read from SD when connected by cable - nope, MMS attachment - nope, use photo as contact photo - nope, try to edit in Creative Studio - "unsupported file format" or "Something went wrong".
The only way I can do anything with my pics is to use the Skydrive upload and download it to Saved.

The annoying thing is it isn't EVERY photo, but it's started from mid-September.
It's as sporadic as it is annoying.

What the hell is going on?!

Anyone?!

 

[Laura Knotek]

How large are the photos?

 

[Chris Sandiford]

Between 1.2 and 3 MB. A couple of 4MB's.

It's a Lumia 820. Size has no bearing on it though, it will unhappily not open a 1.44 MB one as it will a 3.88 one.

It starts at the 21st September - that was the last photo that I took that will open and can be manipulated. Now all photos I take are ok until I restart my phone, then they all appear as above.

 

[N_LaRUE]

When I first saw this post the first thing I thought about was a corrupt SD card. You've stated that this isn't the issue. I would like to point out that even new SD cards can become corrupt in a short period of time. It's one of the issues with SD cards.

I would suggest doing a hard reset (after removing all personal data and photos and the SD card) Replace the SD card and format it in the phone and then see if the issue persists. I suggest taking photos that you don't care about losing so that if they are unaccessible you won't be upset.

I don't know what kind of SD card you bought but I would suggest buying the best quality (read reviews) to avoid being unhappy. Cheap SD cards are 99% of the issues surrounding SD cards.

My wife lost a bunch of photos due to a corrupt SD card on her 820. She's quite upset about it. Worst part is that the photos look like they are there, size and so on but there's no header data so the file is completely useless with no way to fix it. So I know how you feel.

 

[rohirrimp]

did you try putting it in a card reader and scanning for errors.

 

[N_LaRUE]

did you try putting it in a card reader and scanning for errors.

I've had two corrupt SD cards. Scanning for errors does nothing. You're best to buy a new good quality SD card and toss the old one away to avoid issues with it.

 

[Chris Sandiford]

Thanks for your replies. I think that @N_LaRUE has the answer - my card is unbranded and is probably corrupting data. I've had problems before with it and didn't want to believe that it was the card, as I'd just spent ?20 on it and other people were also having problems with duplicate pics, corrupted music etc..
It makes me wonder if a lot of the problems we are slagging off MS for is down to cheap cards

I've ordered a 32GB SanDisk now so hopefully that should fare better.

 

[N_LaRUE]

Thanks for your replies. I think that @N_LaRUE has the answer - my card is unbranded and is probably corrupting data. I've had problems before with it and didn't want to believe that it was the card, as I'd just spent ?20 on it and other people were also having problems with duplicate pics, corrupted music etc..
It makes me wonder if a lot of the problems we are slagging off MS for is down to cheap cards

I've ordered a 32GB SanDisk now so hopefully that should fare better.

I have to agree with you that some of the issues surrounding SD cards are probably due to poor quality ones, however there were issues with duplicate songs etc due to WP OS. Which has been fixed with GDR2. If there are still issues I would suspect the SD card first over the OS.

 

[rohirrimp]

But same thing is happening with 16GB sandisk on my dad's 620. Still have to troubleshoot it. Anyways, goodluck with the new MicroSD card.

 

[N_LaRUE]

But same thing is happening with 16GB sandisk on my dad's 620. Still have to troubleshoot it. Anyways, goodluck with the new MicroSD card.

Once a SD card is corrupt it's done. Honestly, I tried with mine. If your dad has the same issues with the pictures, then they're lost. Even Sandisk has had issues with corrupt SD cards. I've read a lot of reviews prior to buying a new card. No SD card is perfect and after a while they will eventually become corrupt. Checking them out is fine but I wouldn't trust any SD card once it's corrupted files. Get rid of it.

 

[rohirrimp]

will get it replaced if possible. Thanks

 

[Chris Sandiford]

I have to agree with you that some of the issues surrounding SD cards are probably due to poor quality ones, however there were issues with duplicate songs etc due to WP OS. Which has been fixed with GDR2. If there are still issues I would suspect the SD card first over the OS.

Funny.. When I was checking my card in a card reader I threw some more music on it.
When back inside the phone I had one album with duplicate tracks..!
This is with GDR2.
Yesterday, I put the GDR3 preview on it and restarted and the duplicate tracks had gone.

GDR2/3 + decent quality card = the future.. (I hope)

 

[Chris Sandiford]

Unfortunately GDR3 + SanDisk 32GB card still didn't solve my problem.
I suspect the Hard Reset may have cleared the problem and not the workings of the new OS.

I dragged and dropped from my old troublesome card in a card reader onto my newly formatted card in phone and still had duplicates - 2 in Music&Videos and 3 in Nokia Music.
Then I started doing some testing and found this way.

1. Turn off all XBox crap in Music&Videos settings.
2. Format card
3. Turn off and restart after format
4. Plug in, drag and drop music and don't use phone til unplugged.
5. Also remove spurious artist files that are in the Phone->Music folder that still linger after formatting (convinced that isn't helping and why they are on the "Phone" and not the "SD card" I have no idea)
6. Unplug.
7. Check music area.

Once you have a clean build of your SD card format and have removed odd files as per 5. it seems stable.
I found looking at the music while still plugged in seemed to compromise the data too - I didn't operate the phone til it was unplugged and I had finished.
A lot of this is suspicion (and superstition!) but this worked for me.