Cannot open .jpg or .png files all of a sudden when using Chrome

All of a sudden I'm getting errors when I save jpeg or png files with Google Chrome on Ubuntu, then try to open them.

If I use Firefox, saving the images to Desktop and opening them is NOT a problem.

I've tried several different websites just to make sure it's not the website. I've also asked others to open it on their computers (with Ubunutu installed) and they said it opened fine (of course, I forgot to ask if they were using Chrome at the time).

Here is the error I get when trying to open the file:

Error interpreting JPEG image file (Not a JPEG file: starts with 0x52 0x49)

when I run the file command on several different files form different sites:

file Verlag_Poster_Large_23.jpg
Verlag_Poster_Large_23.jpg: RIFF (little-endian) data

file R-2153295-1287083265.jpeg.jpg
R-2153295-1287083265.jpeg.jpg: RIFF (little-endian) data

file cover.jpg
cover.jpg: RIFF (little-endian) data

edit: Not 100% yet, but I think it was the Wappalyzer extension. I "reloaded" it and now it's fine but will keep it watched.

Solution 1:

Actually, if the file starts with "0x52 0x49", then it's a .webp image. Just replace the file name extension from 'jpg' or 'jpeg' with 'webp'. If you'd like to convert it to a 'jpg' or 'png' then open it with something like Gimp and re-save the image in the desired format.

P.S. Yes I know this question is old but it's the first in the list of answers so it should have the correct information.

Regards, Professor Techie

Solution 2:

After short investigation it seems like the files never finished the downlod process completely and was left as chunks.

Disabling all chrome plugins seems to fix the problem, it is up to the author to find which one is causing the problem.