Troubleshooting: Droid Gallery

Update: The problem came back and I got sick of fighting it.  So I found an excellent replacement from the Market: 3D Gallery.  It's essentially the same program, so you get all the same functionality, even the nifty eye-candy, but it doesn't crash.  I call that a win.

Still, if you would like to struggle with the built-in Gallery, read on.

I still love my Droid, but lately the built-in gallery has been acting funky.  I'm sure there are very nice alternatives, but as I've said before, I prefer to use the built-in features if I can.  Unfortunately this particular problem is a tough nut to crack; seems like that's the only kind I get.

Here are the errors I was getting:

the application gallery (process com.cooliris.media) has stopped unexpectedly

the process android.process.media has stopped unexpectedly

First, here's what I tried that didn't work:

Change settings:

• Settings -> From the home screen tap Menu->Settings->Applications->Manage applications->Menu->Filter->All->Gallery and than tap Clear data
• Settings > Accounts & sync > Untick Background data & Auto-sync > Then turn them back on

Delete folders:

• Delete the SD card/Android/data/com.cooliris.media directory
• Delete Earth.Rot folder (for a live wallpaper I used to use)
• Delete the contents of \DCIM\.thumbnails
• Delete agilefusion folder (Not sure where this came from - some sort of news app I installed at some point?)

Here's what worked:

The gallery would start showing thumbnails before it crashed, so I waited to see which thumbnails didn't show up.  My theory: if a thumbnail isn't showing up, it's because the gallery is having trouble with that picture.  Looks like my phone really hates .gif's, for some reason.  I heard that used to be a problem before Android 2.1 (I'm running 2.2).

I deleted all the pictures that seemed to be troublesome.  Culprits included cover art from music albums and a couple letters of recommendation I'd scanned in.  I also deleted any other folder on the phone that had images or thumbnails, just to be on the safe side.

It worked.

I'm still bothered that Google would release software that would fail so spectacularly when confronted with something as simple as a .gif.  This is why critics say the iPhone is still better than Android, even though Google has been trying to catch up for years.  Android 2.2 introduced the Cooliris gallery which has neat 3D effects, but crashes.  How about working on stable software that actually works, Google?

Another option that seemed popular in the chat forums: Delete EVERYTHING on your SD card, wipe the card, and then start over.  Load your media in small batches so you can identify the culprit.  That's essentially what I did, but in reverse.

Another popular option: find a third-party gallery app.  There are plenty out there.  If this problem comes back or seems untenable, that's exactly what I'll do.

(Funny enough, I loaded some of the offending photos back onto my phone and they don't seem to have caused any new problems . . . yet.)

J<