Whatsapp images showing different image content when viewed from PC

  • Replies:17
Arno Adam
  • Forum posts: 4

May 22, 2016, 9:30:25 AM via Website

Hi, I'm new here, just looking for someone who can explain something strange I noticed this morning:

I tried copying my Whatsapp images to my PC since the folder was starting to grow pretty bloated. However, when looking at the images from my PC, I noticed some of them seemed to be duplicates. I compared them to the ones I still have on the phone (didn't delete them yet) and realized that the content of some images was somehow replaced by other images from somewhere else in the folder.

Here's an example (sorry, not allowed to post links to imgur as a new user, so I have to place the acutal images here):

strange1
Take a look at IMG-20160111WA0003.jpg (the fourth one from the top). It's a picture of the sister of my girlfriend with her little daughter.

I looked at the same folder from my PC, this is what it shows:
strange2
The same picture is now suddenly showing my parents and my grandparents while we're going on a walk... That picture was actually taken over a months after january 11th and it is also there under its correct file name. The picture of the sister of my girlfriend is nowehere to be seen when viewed from PC.

There are some more mix-ups like that throughout my whole Whatsapp imgaes folder. When I look at them on my phone, it shows the correct pictures, but when I look at the same folder from my PC, I get this. If it were just a display issue I could live with it, but it isn't; the images get completely replaced by wrong ones if I try to copy them like this, making it impossible for me to copy the correct originals. Can anyone make any sense out of that?

Sorin

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pentel
  • Forum posts: 251

May 22, 2016, 7:57:46 PM via Website

It looks weird, could be a thumbnail error when you looked at the same folder on your PC.

Copy that file to your PC's harddisc and see if that photo is still showing the error.

Sorin

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Arno Adam
  • Forum posts: 4

May 22, 2016, 8:37:36 PM via Website

I did and it is. Even when opening it with my picture editor, so it's definitely not a thumbnail error; the whole image gets replaced.

Sorin

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pentel
  • Forum posts: 251

May 22, 2016, 8:44:50 PM via Website

And on the phone, if you open the file from Gallery, it showed woman and baby?

Sorin

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Arno Adam
  • Forum posts: 4

May 23, 2016, 12:34:58 PM via Website

The gallery on my phone shows the correct images. But I'm not concerned about that anymore, since I finally managed to find a way, although I had to jump through quite some hoops...

I downloaded the WinRAR app and put all the images into a .zip file. When I tried to copy that file to my PC, for probably the same strange reason as the whole issue, it copied only 176MB of the 434MB original and my PC then naturally complained that the archive was incomplete or broken. Afterwards, I tried moving the archive to my phone's SD card (using my phone to do it, not through the PC connection), then I copied THAT file to the PC. Lo and behold, this one works and I got all the correct images on my PC at last.

I still don't know why I can't copy the WhatsApp images normally, but at least I found a way to do it at all :P

Sorin

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pentel
  • Forum posts: 251

May 23, 2016, 6:12:00 PM via Website

It's a weird problem but glad you got this resolved.

Sorin

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Noor Khan
  • Forum posts: 3

Dec 20, 2016, 12:41:52 PM via Website

Oh man, Even I have the same problem. Finally I found someone reporting the same issue. I have no clue why it happens. Well, as you mentioned in replies about finding a way using winRAR, I will try that myself too. Please let me know if you have out the real issue or a better solution.

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Arno Adam
  • Forum posts: 4

Dec 20, 2016, 12:49:41 PM via Website

No, I never found another solution, sorry. I just keep doing now what I did in May: Compress all the images into a rar file, copy the rar file to my SD Card, then connect the phone to the PC and then copy the file from the SD card onto the PC. It's some extra work, but as long as it works, I'm fine with it xD

Noor Khan

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Noor Khan
  • Forum posts: 3

Dec 20, 2016, 1:11:43 PM via Website

Thanks brother, specially for the quick reply :).

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Noor Khan
  • Forum posts: 3

Dec 20, 2016, 3:19:58 PM via Website

I have found out other ways, which I think are more convenient than winrar method.

Before trying winrar method, I just tried alternate ways to see if they work and to my surprise it worked.

  1. Using shareit : Directly sending files via Shareit is working fine (without replacing actual content of the pic), but the issue here is you can send only 100 files at one time. So this can be cumbersome when you are dealing with large number of files. (You need to have Shareit app both on your mobile and PC, which most probably everyone has)

  2. Directly copying files into Pendrive:
    I have a pendrive with mini-usb pin, so I just copied watsapp folder from Mobile into Pendrive and from Pendrive to PC. This is the best and simple solution according to me. If you dont have Pendrive with mini usb pin, you can use OTG cable and it should work.

Hope you find this useful :).

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anmac1789
  • Forum posts: 3

Mar 1, 2017, 4:19:55 AM via Website

I am having the same problem. I have a picture that I sent to a contact on whatsapp. The picture can be opened with google photos or my note 2's default gallery app and it shows me that it is located in "/storage/emulated/0/WhatsApp/Media/WhatsApp Images/Sent/IMG-20160713-WA0002.JPG" on my phone's internal storage.

When I connect my phone to my laptop and search for the same filename in windows 10 explorer, the image is completely different. It is of another picture with the same filename! i dont understand!

Also, with other pictures, the filename AND the image completely changes as well. I have cleared WhatsApp cache in application manager as well. I do not understand why android is unable to find the correct picture in windows explorer. If anyone knows why, please suggest so :)

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anmac1789
  • Forum posts: 3

Mar 28, 2017, 7:44:24 AM via Website

does anyone have a clear answer to this yet ? thanks

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Quique Schamann
  • Forum posts: 1

Nov 18, 2017, 11:34:20 AM via Website

Unfortunately, I noticed the issue a few days before I copied the files, and the phone was already formatted... I lost a lot of pictures

I believe that is a driver issue, and will pay more attention next time.

BTW, do someone tried to sync with Google Photos, and then sync back to do the restore.

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Stuart Sampson
  • Forum posts: 1

Jan 17, 2018, 4:31:18 AM via Website

I have the same problem. Whatsapp image sent to me is different when viewed on PC. It happens on 3 different PCs, 2 windows 7 pros and 1 windows 10 home. I used google drive to upload the pictures and then downloaded them to the pc I wanted so I was able to transfer the correct images. I realised 'wrong' pictures that were superimposing over the 'right' pictures when connected to the pc were deleted images. Then I decided to go back to the sender to see what I could discover. I saw some were deleted and some not, so I deleted them from message and and the media and voila! No more 'wrong' pictures super imposed over 'right picutres'. I believe it how the whatapp is treating the deleted pictures. Or not treating them as the case may be. This particular message was from a family group which I can't close, so I suspect that the media got corrupted or only partially deleted...

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Ted Faison
  • Forum posts: 1

Apr 25, 2018, 3:24:02 AM via Website

The problem is caused by a "filename collision", where multiple files (pictures) have the same name. The Android file system handles this situation differently than Windows, so you see different photos. For example Windows might show the first colliding photo while Android shows the last one. 
The main cause of collisions is the simplistic way Whatsapp names pictures: using the date and then a sequence number e.g. 20180423-WA0000 for the first Whatsapp picture of 2018-4-23 (April 23, 2018). On everyone's phone in the entire world, the first picture of the day will have the same filename. If two people send your their first picture of a given day, both pictures will obviously have the same file name. The second picture will end with 0001, then 0002, etc. Where Whatsapp screwed up was in leaving out the TIME of a picture. Practically every camera app in existence uses the date AND the time to name pictures, e.g. something like 20180423-174355, where the time is 17:43:55, or 5:43:55 pm. It's far more unlikely to get a file collision this way, because pictures would have to be taken at the exact same time, down to the second. 
The solution? The colliding files have to be renamed. Use your phone's photo app to find those photos that don't appear on your computer. These are the collisions. Rename those photos, perhaps just adding an "A" to the filename. Download the pictures to your computer and the renamed pictures will be there. If some pictures are still missing, it means there were more than two colliding pictures using the same filename. Find the missing ones again on your phone and add a "B" to the filename, then download them. 
The more people send you pictures via Whatsapp, the greater the likelihood of filename collisions. 
At some point i would hope Facebook fixes Whatsapp. The filename naming convention used is incredibly naive for a company with over a billion members.

AkhilJames Watson

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James Watson
  • Forum posts: 1,590

Apr 25, 2018, 3:37:32 AM via Website

Ted Faison

The problem is caused by a "filename collision", where multiple files (pictures) have the same name. The Android file system handles this situation differently than Windows, so you see different photos. For example Windows might show the first colliding photo while Android shows the last one. 
The main cause of collisions is the simplistic way Whatsapp names pictures: using the date and then a sequence number e.g. 20180423-WA0000 for the first Whatsapp picture of 2018-4-23 (April 23, 2018). On everyone's phone in the entire world, the first picture of the day will have the same filename. If two people send your their first picture of a given day, both pictures will obviously have the same file name. The second picture will end with 0001, then 0002, etc. Where Whatsapp screwed up was in leaving out the TIME of a picture. Practically every camera app in existence uses the date AND the time to name pictures, e.g. something like 20180423-174355, where the time is 17:43:55, or 5:43:55 pm. It's far more unlikely to get a file collision this way, because pictures would have to be taken at the exact same time, down to the second. 
The solution? The colliding files have to be renamed. Use your phone's photo app to find those photos that don't appear on your computer. These are the collisions. Rename those photos, perhaps just adding an "A" to the filename. Download the pictures to your computer and the renamed pictures will be there. If some pictures are still missing, it means there were more than two colliding pictures using the same filename. Find the missing ones again on your phone and add a "B" to the filename, then download them. 
The more people send you pictures via Whatsapp, the greater the likelihood of filename collisions. 
At some point i would hope Facebook fixes Whatsapp. The filename naming convention used is incredibly naive for a company with over a billion members.

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Nisha Joshi
  • Forum posts: 38

Nov 21, 2018, 12:06:56 PM via Website

You also want to find all the similar image and delete them, but you don't have a much time to delete them one by one - it will take more time to removing then - so how can you resolve this issue in a min???

a week ago i also seek from this problem that time i tried many free or paid tool for detecting all the similar images and remove them by pressing a key

here i would like to share my experience with you after many tools then i got the solution of this problem which help you to resolve this in a min

did you know about the best duplicate image - "duplicate photo fixer"
this is an amazing software which help you to get a solution of your all problems regarded all the duplicate and similar images in your devices - it can be resolve all the issue by using -

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Sorin
  • Forum posts: 104

Nov 21, 2018, 1:43:43 PM via Website

I've enabled photos uploaded through WhatsApp to be saved in Google Photos, and then I have direct access to all the photos. Personally, I have not noticed any changes to the photos, which are kept in their original size. For me, this sync is very useful.

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