A mysterious wallpaper is making its rounds that can make a Samsung smartphone to crash. Ice universe (@UniverseIce) shared the news on Twitter and even posted a copy of the image. The photo above looks serene and calm but unfortunately, it does the opposite to your phone. Well, it can make your phone “calm” after crashing. Our source is saying if you receive this photo, do not set it as wallpaper. It can also make other non-Samsung phones crash. It’s better to ignore the image.
How can a seemingly innocent photo become a major bug? A technical explanation is posted HERE. The photo is said to have a bigger color space than normal images available.
Below is the full image:
According to Flowdor Theme Updates, the image’s aosp code has a related piece that contains a value larger than 255. That is already “out of bounds” because the maximum index is only 255.
The group behind Flowdor Theme explains:
The variable y used for accessing the item in the array is calculated here, and as you can see its a sum of the red + blue + green color values. This works fine if the color space is rgb (as color cant go over a value of 255), but with a larger color space colors can go over said value.
The sum exceeds the 255 max value and so it crashes. If you still wish to use the image, you can set the fix by adding this on a line: if (y > 255) y = 255.
Sleepy Kuma (@Kuma_Sleepy) also responded to Ice universe, giving an explanation from another source:
I found the cause in the Korean tech community.
It looks like a ‘Google Skia’ color profile issue.
(P1) Gimp
(P2) S10 default gallery app
(L. Google Skia, R. sRGB)
Some redditors also shared solutions. A certain xanaxdroid_ said the “image has an embedded color profile”. One solution would be to remove the color profile. He did it and the phone didn’t crash.
If you see this photo, don’t set as wallpaper. There are plenty of images you can use anyway. Just not this one unless you are willing to make the necessary changes on your own.
