Decoding File to Bitmap sometimes works and sometimes does not

Question

I am using EasyImage library to take pictures.
I then convert those Files to Bitmap and then I convert Bitmap to Base64 and upload it to server.
I know, it's not a good way to do it, but that's how I currently do it.

When a picture is taken:

@Override
public void onImagePicked(File imageFile, EasyImage.ImageSource source) {
    uploadImage(imageFile);
}

This is the first line inside "uploadImage" method:

Image image = new Image(LoginManager.getInstance(getApplicationContext()).getUsername(), file);

This is the constructor:

public Image(String userName, File imageFile) {
    this.userName = userName;
    this.imageFile = imageFile;

    createBase64(getBitmap());
}

Inside "getBitmap" is where the problem begins. These 2 lines in particular:

bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeFile(imageFile.getPath());
bitmap = Bitmap.createScaledBitmap(bitmap, 100, 100, false);

imageFile is never null.
I checked with debugger at least a 100 times and it is never null. It also always has path.
getPath() is never null.
However, it still often fails to create bitmap.

Sometimes it is successful and everything is OK, but most of the times, the bitmap is null.
I don't know why.
File (the picture taken) is always created successfully and is never null, but it just fails to create the Bitmap for some reason.

Answer 1

From the documentation

Returns
the resulting decoded bitmap, or null if it could not be decoded.

This can have various reasons, most of the times the bitmap is too large and the space could not be allocated.

Check that the path to the image exists and that you have read / write permissions to the URI specified.

If you do have access but it is still failing you should add BitmapFactory.Options to the method call and set inSampleSize to load a smaller version of the image.

If set to a value > 1, requests the decoder to subsample the original image, returning a smaller image to save memory.

Also you should always check for null returned when working with bitmaps, since memory can always be an issue.