"Parameter not valid" exception loading System.Drawing.Image

Why am I getting the exception "Parameter not valid" in my code:

MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream(byteArrayIn);
System.Drawing.Image returnImage = System.Drawing.Image.FromStream(ms);

The length of byteArrayIn is 169014. I am getting this exception despite the fact that no value in it is greater than 255.

Solution 1:

I had the same problem and apparently is solved now, despite this and some other gdi+ exceptions are very misleading, I found that actually the problem was that the parameter being sent to a Bitmap constructor was not valid. I have this code:

using (System.IO.FileStream fs = new System.IO.FileStream(inputImage, System.IO.FileMode.Open, System.IO.FileAccess.ReadWrite))
{
    try
    {
        using (Bitmap bitmap = (Bitmap)Image.FromStream(fs, true, false))
        {
            try
            {
                bitmap.Save(OutputImage + ".bmp", System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Bmp);
                GC.Collect();
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                throw ex;
            }
        }
    }
    catch (ArgumentException aex)
    {
        throw new Exception("The file received from the Map Server is not a valid jpeg image", aex);
    }
}

The following line was causing an error:

Bitmap bitmap = (Bitmap)Image.FromStream(fs, true, false)

The file stream was built from the file downloaded from the Map Server. My app was sending the request incorrectly to get the image, and the server was returning something with the jpg extension, but was actually a html telling me that an error ocurred. So I was taking that image and trying to build a Bitmap with it. The fix was to control/ validate the image for a valid jpeg image.

Hope it helps!

Solution 2:

My guess is that byteArrayIn doesn't contain valid image data.

Please give more information though:

• Which line of code is throwing an exception?
• What's the message?
• Where did you get byteArrayIn from, and are you sure it should contain a valid image?