Ask HN: Photos corrupted on Google Pixel phones over time?

I have had this problem for years now: Scrolling through photos on my phone that are maybe a year old or older I notice grey squares here and there in my Google Photos app (used without an account). The files are properly corrupted - can't view them on other devices either. I checked some out in a hex editor and sure enough there is a good chunk of null bytes in the beginning. Sometimes it's just the first byte and changing it from 00 to FF fixes the image. But oftentimes it's a whole lot more 00s to the point where I don't know how to recover the image.

I've been using only Pixel a-series phones for the last couple years (3a, 6a, 9a) and had this happen on all of them. It surely can't be bad storage, can it? I feel like there is a bug in some part of Google's Android OS.

Has anyone of you encountered this issue? I can't believe I'm alone with it.

6 points | by poolnoodle 1 day ago

4 comments

  • RandNOx 11 hours ago
    The same thing has happened to me on a Pixel 7a (maybe also on a 4a). I did not look into it and thought it might be photos that I deleted but the metadata lived on. Very concerning to see it comes from actual data corruption. My strategy is to backup often, now even more so, thanks!
  • MinimalAction 1 day ago
    I remember reading this issue on Reddit. Some folks fixed it by installing an older version of Google Photos. I assume you have already tried the usual (deleting cache, reinstalling the app, restarting the phone, checking on the cloud through another device -- the latter might not be possible since you are using without an account).
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    • poolnoodle 1 day ago
      I don't think it's an app issue once the files are borked. Since I verified there are whole chunks of data missing in the .jpg files I don't see how doing something to the photos app could fix them again.
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      • MinimalAction 1 day ago
        I don't know how Google Photos stores the photos. Unless you have a backup, it is hard to see if this is a change at the level of files, or that Google Photos has a unique way of storing them that introduces changes to HDR-enabled files. As I said, I'm quoting what worked for people who faced this issue before.
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        • poolnoodle 16 hours ago
          I only use Google Photos as a photo viewer, completely offline, no cloud backups. Like I said, there are definitely file level changes which I inspected on a copy of the files on my computer. Anyway, thanks for participating. I hope I didn't come off as rude.
  • MultifokalHirn 1 day ago
    I have heard of this happening before yes. But I am an iPhone user so cannot talk from personal experience.
  • stuxnet79 19 hours ago
    Serious question, now that there is evidence that Pixel phones are corrupting the actual jpegs what is the best way to safely store smartphone photos now? I usually back them up to an external drive every 6 months or so but wondering if someone has a better process for this.

    I mean it's nice that photos are immediately uploaded to the cloud once they are taken but I read that Google Photos does not do 1:1 backups. Apparently the cloud photos are compressed & are worse quality

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    • poolnoodle 17 hours ago
      I think the best way forward is to backup early and backup often to your own computer.