Photo Compression has made my photos unreadable by all other apps

[QPR_FC]

On CCleaner for Android I used the suggested save space on your mobile feature to 'Compress Photos On Your Device' to approx 90% of original size.

I thought that it would be ok to lose a little bit of quality to save some space and so I selected ALL my entire photo album and left the phone on charge for a few hours to complete the process.

However, I have had a disastrous outcome as NONE of my newly compressed photos can be used in any application now like WhatsApp, Messenger, LINE, Viber, WeChat, Zalo, Telegram etc The message appears as 'Invalid photo format" if I try to attach a photo to send through a message application.

 

Please help as I really need access to these photo files and would like them back in their original format (uncompressed).

Edited January 21, 2021 by QPR_FC
typos

[QPR_FC]

So no replies on this forum neither any response from Customer Support via email I sent on the same day (9 days ago!)

Disgusting support service and I'm now left with 15 years of ruined photo memories!!

[Dave CCleaner]

1 hour ago, QPR_FC said:

neither any response from Customer Support via email I sent on the same day (9 days ago!)

While we did have higher customer support volume than usual last week due to a sales promotion that was running, I checked and there are no unanswered priority customer support tickets that old. When you contacted customer support you would have received a receipt that would have mentioned that:

If you have an active paid CCleaner subscription, priority support means that we make every effort to prioritize your email requests and queries. It's a benefit that's not available to the free users of our products.

And that:

If you are a paid CCleaner subscriber, all you need to do is reply to this email with your Cleverbridge order reference number. For customers of CCleaner for Android, this would be your GPA order number from your purchase via the Google Play app store. Providing us with these details helps us identify you, making it easier to get back to you as quickly as possible.

Did you respond to this identifying yourself as a paying customer of CCleaner Android?  Or did you leave yourself as anonymous?

 

With regards to your photos:

• Were you using Google Photos to back up your photos?
• What phone model are you using, and what version of Android?
• What you ran the compression, did you keep them as JPG or did you change the file format to HEIC?  HEIC is more efficient, but not currently well supported outside of the Apple/iOS space.
• Did you keep the default option to keep the originals, or elect to delete the originals?
• For the photos that you say are reported as "invalid photo format" by WhatsApp, etc - are you able to open them in Google Photos or your device's default "gallery" app?  If not, you should also be able to locate them using your device's file manager. When you check the image properties, what does it show the file size, photo resolution and file type as - eg: are the file names still .jpg? Has the filename had "_optimized" added to it?
• If the files you are trying to send are 0 bytes and don't have the word "_optimized" in the file name then it sounds like you are trying to send some temp files left over from the compression process, rather than the actual photos themselves.  
• Also, if the files you are trying to send are extremely small and excessively pixellated then it sounds like you may be trying to send the thumbnail previews instead of the photos themselves.

 

[katc421]

I have the same issue where i compressed photos, asked to keep originals. my files still have the .jpg with 0B but the patient states internal storage/DCIM/Optimized photos. still have blank photos. I am not a paid customer but have used this for many years, at my father's recommendation, who has also used for many years. If I can get these recovered, I will certainly consider purchasing if can help prevent this from happening again. thank you for your time!

[katc421]

sorry, meant it to say "path" not patient-- my nurse typing got out faster than my brain output!

[Dave CCleaner]

@katc421 I had a similar experience when trying to replicate OP's issue - but those blank 0b files turned out to be temp files rather than either the actual original or optimised versions.  So your all your photos are almost certainly still in there somewhere.  To help point you in the right direction, are you using Google Photos, the Samsung File Manager, the Android Gallery app, or something else to browse your photos?