I have recently noticed a huge (>3.5GB) file in the DCIM/.thumbnails folder. I have tried deleting it, but the next time I open the Camera app it rebuilds the file (and locks up the phone, sometimes displaying a "media scanning in progress" message, in the process.)

The total file size of all the (approximately 2,000) photos displayed in the Gallery is around 500MB. There are in addition around 35,000 images in folders which contain .nomedia files to instruct Android to ignore the media therein. The total file size of these is around 1.5GB. The Gallery app is correctly ignoring these images, but I wonder whether the Camera app is misbehaving and actually processing them.

I think this problem has emerged since the ICS upgrade ... either when the phone (Samsung Galaxy Note) was first updated from Gingerbread or at some later date.

Any ideas, please?