Weird Samsung Keyboard bug autocorrecting images and replacing them with asterisk

Just when you thought your phone keyboard was there to help you communicate, a rather bizarre issue has popped up for some Samsung users. I was casually scrolling through Reddit earlier today when I stumbled upon a peculiar thread on the r/oneui subreddit. A user named Smart-University-135 shared a screen recording that made my eyebrows shoot up.

It seems a strange bug in the Samsung Keyboard is causing images sent as comments to be inexplicably replaced with a single asterisk. Yes, you read that right, your carefully chosen GIF or meme could suddenly become a lone star.

According to the original poster, this happens specifically when the keyboard’s spellchecker flags a grammar error with that familiar green underline. Instead of just correcting the text, it bizarrely decides to transform the accompanying image into an asterisk. The user initially thought it was a Reddit glitch, but soon realized the Samsung Keyboard was the culprit after testing with Google’s Gboard. Their temporary fix? Typing the comment first, ensuring perfect grammar, and then attaching the image. Talk about an unexpected extra step!

The comments section of the Reddit thread quickly filled with users echoing the same bewildering experience. Others had also mistaken it for a Reddit bug. I’ve added a few comments from the thread for reference below:

Ayo this happened to me so many times I thought it was a reddit bug😭 – u/AdEasy278

I THOUGHT IT WAS REDDIT UNTIL I SAW THIS – u/HoseanRC

WTF SAME. I thought it was some setting some servers had where you couldn’t comment images or something but it still showed an image. Now I know 😭 – u/EpicCargo

It appears the issue isn’t limited to just Reddit. Another user in the thread mentioned encountering the same problem on Microsoft Teams, further pointing the finger at the Samsung Keyboard.

Interestingly, the Reddit sleuths in the thread managed to pinpoint a likely cause. It seems the Grammarly integration within the Samsung Keyboard might be the unexpected troublemaker. Smart-University-135 later updated their post, suggesting that disabling the “English” text correction under the Samsung Keyboard settings seems to resolve the issue for those affected.

I also spotted another post on Reddit highlighting a similar, if not the same, bug. However, the OP hadn’t mentioned anything about their device.

That said, hopefully Samsung (or Grammarly) will address this asterisk-generating issue soon in a future update, allowing users to once again share their images without the fear of them turning into celestial symbols.