"A generic error occurred in GDI+" when attempting to use Image.Save

Question

I am developing an Outlook 2010 Add-In, and am loading an image from a serialized XML file. The image loads fine, and am able to assign it to a pictureBox object on a Winform no problem. The object is saved in

[XmlIgnore]
public Bitmap Image
{
   get { return this.templateImage; }
   set { this.templateImage = value; }
 }

When, I attempt to save the physical file onto the harddisk however, I am doing:

string filePath = Path.Combine(dirPath, item.Id + ".jpg");
try
{
    item.Image.Save(filePath, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Jpeg);
}
catch (Exception e)
{
    Debug.WriteLine("DEBUG::LoadImages()::Error attempting to create image::" + e.Message);
}

and am getting an A generic error occurred in GDI+. I've checked the write permissions on the folder, and it does have write permissions. I'm unsure what is wrong here. I've also changed the ImageFormat to bmp and png and so forth to see if it was a conversion problem... but it isn't. Would anybody suggest something to try?

There are so many possible reasons for this error.. its very frustrating. Some things to try: 1) Write to a different folder. 2) Check the dimensions of the file. If it's too large (somewhere in the range of 4000x4000) it will also throw this error. 3) Make sure the file is not in use by anything else (including your code). — Simon Whitehead, Feb 14 '13 at 02:04
@Simon Whitehead thanks for the suggestions. I tried writing to the parent directory, also to C:\temp but that didn't work. The dimensions of the file is 64x64 pixels (small). #3 is the only one I didn't try yet. I guess I could copy the Image to a new object and try writing that one. Will report momentarily. — Magnum, Feb 14 '13 at 02:06
@Simon Whitehead WORKED! It was the fact that my code was using item to iterate through so it seems that the GDI+ couldn't dispose it once it was done. — Magnum, Feb 14 '13 at 02:10

Magnum · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-14T22:03:04.477

28

Thank you to Simon Whitehead for answering this in the comments. He said, "3) Make sure the file is not in use by anything else (including your code)."

So the problem was that my own code was using the item.Image object, and was preventing GDI+ to call the dispose() method on it. The solution was to copy the object into a new object, then use that object to "Write." The resulting code is as follows:

try
{
   using (Bitmap tempImage = new Bitmap(item.Image)) 
   {
      tempImage.Save(filePath, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Png);
   }    
}
catch (Exception e)
{
    Debug.WriteLine("DEBUG::LoadImages()::Error attempting to create image::" + e.Message);
}

edited Feb 14 '13 at 22:03

answered Feb 14 '13 at 02:13

Magnum

1,555
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3

That still doesn't fix it, you must dispose *tempImage* to release the lock on the file. Use the *using* statement. – Hans Passant Feb 14 '13 at 02:43
@HansPassant thanks, I modified my answer to reflect your comment. – Magnum Feb 14 '13 at 22:04
Thank you very much! This is the reason I was having an issue. Creating a new Bitmap object in a using block solved this issue for me. – Richard Powell Feb 11 '15 at 16:13

score 8 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 17 '13 at 04:14

I too faced same error for code line:

wmImg.Save(BrandImgPath,ImageFormat.Png);

BrandImgPath = "D:/XYZ/fileName;

Found cause:

XYZ folder didn't exist in D: drive. So my code was creating this folder later. One should ensure if that path exist or not.

if (Directory.Exists(@"D:/XYZ")) return;

Hope it will help someone to solve his code mistakes.

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 16 '14 at 06:00

1. Make Sure That your destination folder have read/write permission (check it twice!).
2. Using Server.MapPath is better
3. Make Sure you have free space on your destination drive or folder. 4. Most of the times we cant user Memory Streamers On Shared Servers, So we should be make sure that provider allow us to use it.

Hope Microsoft Give Detailed Exception Errors instead of "Generic GDI+ Errror" !!!

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 14 '14 at 22:30

1

Had this issue myself, needed to check that the folder existed, GDI didn't tell me what went wrong, would have been nice.

answered Mar 14 '14 at 22:30

gaffleck

428
4
8

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Aug 26 '14 at 15:59

In my case it was a spelling mistake in the path to the directory where I was saving the image:

if (Directory.Exists(directory_path))
{
 image.SaveAs(directory_path + filename);
}

As gaffleck said it would be nice if GDI+ had thrown more informative exception.

smoothumut · Answer 6 · 2015-09-30T13:45:19.480

0

I had the same generic exception, but then I gave write permission to the IIS on parallel plesk file manager. if you are on windows server, make sure to give write permission to IIS user which was IIS_IUSR in my server

also make sure that the folder you are trying to save is correct as mentioned in above comments

edited Sep 30 '15 at 13:45

answered Sep 24 '14 at 10:10

smoothumut

3,423
1
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"A generic error occurred in GDI+" when attempting to use Image.Save

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