Database Info

[Q] Can't access "My Photos" - via Gallery - on my microSD card anymore; HELP!

[Q] Can't access "My Photos" - via Gallery - on my microSD card anymore; HELP!
I don't know WHAT I may have done, but a few weeks ago, I updated my Droid 1's ROM to one of Bugless Beast's variants... and in the process, must have forgotten how to reselect my Gallery settings to recognize My Photos directory on the SC Card. I only get one folder with a bunch of logos in it, and that's it.
I can access all files and folders on my SD Card, and can even open each desired image - one-at-a-time in most file managers, but - try as I can, I can't seem to recall how to get Gallery to "see" the others on the SD card.
I even moved everything from the SD Card to my computer's hard drive (some 9 GB of files...) and did a format of the card - thinking it needed a wicked cleaning. Moved everything back, and - business as before... as in: "no luck". Still can't access any of the photo or movie files within Gallery.
...any takers??
Try as I might, I can't seem to find ANY location of a cache or data reference to Gallery. I used to be able to simply view ALL file folders that contained images... and now, it seems to be limited to a select few that have nothing to do with the "My Photos" folder or its respective sub folders. I wiped the cache and data on the device a good half dozen times prior to installing the latest Bugless Beast ROM V0.5, and yet - I still can't get it to "see" any of the desired image files on the microSD card. I even wiped all data on the card, formating it, and reinstalled all of the files. Still, no luck.
As an added bit of frustration, I attempted other ROMS, and had similar issues. Wasn't like this before I installed the latest 2.2...!
UPDATE... What's more, I also used to be able to select one of my sound files on my MicroSD card, and make it my ringtone, as well as assign similar audio files as alerts, etc. Now - I can't.
As my kids often text... "WTFIGO...?!?"
Any help would be greatly appreciated! Feel free to comment here, in this venue - so it might assist others, as well as post me - directly, to: [email protected]
Thank you for your kind assistance with this matter.

UPDATE STATUS REPORT:
After many attempts at trying different ROMS (Miui... VERY buggy; ShadowROM, Liquid Frozen Yogurt) I STILL had the same results - where only a few images still showed up in my Gallery (when I knew that NOT to be the case) and none of my audio files would save as ringtones, regardless of what I tried... I opted to go to "plan B" and to remove all files, reformat and reinstall the data to the 16 GB MicroSD card, resulting in the very same as before. VERY upsetting as noted earlier.
As I happened to have an extra 2 GB microSD card kicking around, I figured it wouldn't hurt to try to copy from my desktop - a few images of various kinds, as well as some audio files, and copy them into similarly desired and titled folders on the 2 GB card... then install same directly into the Droid 1.
Well, problem SOLVED. It was the ol' 16 GB microSD card. For future reference, it is marked as follows: "MicroSD HC C2 16 GB C16G Japan". I got this for my Samsung Omnia... a few years ago. I guess they really DO wear out after a while! Shame that. At least it's figured out! Thanks for listening to my rant...

[Q] .Thumbdata3 file

Whenever I try and upload a file to Google Drive or add a picture from my gallery to instagram, my phone creates a file called .thumbdata3 in the thumbnails directory on my SD card. The problem with this is not the creation of the file, it's that the file is exactly the size of all the free space on the memory card... When plugged into the computer it displays "0 Bytes Free" on the SD card...
So when I choose a file from the gallery to upload to google drive or instagram, it will hang on a black screen until this file has been created (filling up the SD card), and then upload... Then i check the free space, and it is 0Bytes.
Anyone else had this and fixed it?
PS Sorry for being a noob here

Bumping this...
Anyone had this? Or have a solution?

Same thing here, unfortunately no solution. Apparently it is safe to delete the file, but it will be recreated at some point, taking up all the space on the SD card again.
For me, it grew up to 400 MB and even beyond (IIRC), which seems a bit excessive, even taking into account that there are > 2000 pictures in the DCIM folder of my SD-card at the moment. Still, 400 MB is more than a quarter of the 1.4 GB that the pictures take up, which surely does not make much sense if that is supposed to speed up the process of reading/displaying the thumbnails!?
Does anybody know a fix? Is it ICS related? I'm on Stock 4.0.3 ICS BTW, and I never noticed this behaviour before the update...

Same here, with a SE Xperia Mini Pro (4.0.4). It happened with me when the phone tried syncing Evernote notes (with pictures attached).
Maybe this topic should be moved to a more generic sub-forum; apparently it's an ICS problem...

thumbdata3
I am also currently having this problem, specially when trying to upload/import photos from gallery to instagram. the ".thumdata3...." file can go as large as 2.5 gig for me, depenending on how much space I have on my SD card before importing pics from gallery to instagram

Same happenned to me - a siolutions that worked for me
Same happened to me the .thumdata3 ate up all remaining space (1.2G) on my Samsung Galaxy S2, android 4.0.3. Any time I deleted it, it was recreated any time I opened the camera app. Then the camera app was unable to take any pic due to sd full. If I deleted this file it was re-created any time I started camera again.
Installing and running the SDrescan app (from play store) helped. Though SDrescan made stock ringtones disappear. However reboot helped that, and the large file did not came back even after restarting camera.
This worked for me, though I am not sure in the reason. Might work for you as well, or not. I must say that android 4.0 is much worse than I expected. Not the first annoying error I have found.
My guess for the reason of the error happening: I once inserted an sd card with LOTS of media content. Then all this was cached somehow in gallery.
My guess for the reason this solution works: the app erases cached SD data thus helps reducing the thumbnail cache.

rasnadas said:
Same happened to me the .thumdata3 ate up all remaining space (1.2G) on my Samsung Galaxy S2, android 4.0.3. Any time I deleted it, it was recreated any time I opened the camera app. Then the camera app was unable to take any pic due to sd full. If I deleted this file it was re-created any time I started camera again.
Installing and running the SDrescan app (from play store) helped. Though SDrescan made stock ringtones disappear. However reboot helped that, and the large file did not came back even after restarting camera.
This worked for me, though I am not sure in the reason. Might work for you as well, or not. I must say that android 4.0 is much worse than I expected. Not the first annoying error I have found.
My guess for the reason of the error happening: I once inserted an sd card with LOTS of media content. Then all this was cached somehow in gallery.
My guess for the reason this solution works: the app erases cached SD data thus helps reducing the thumbnail cache.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had the same issue, but unfortunately your solution didn't help me. Initially I thought it did, but after a reboot and launching Camera app, it hanged and created the .thumbdata3 file once again.
I also tried messing up with databases using SQLite Editor, as described here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=28466334&postcount=9, but that didn't help either.
I've done some more research and found a solution here: http://www.mobilephonetalk.com/show...in-memory-card&p=311954&viewfull=1#post311954. After I deleted the .thumbdata3 file, created a blank one with Root Explorer and removed write permission to it, the file stays at 0 bytes and Camera and Gallery apps still work fine.

I have an issue with the size of the thumbdata3 file in DCIM/.thumbnails on internal memory (camera is set to store to ext SD) at the moment it is 314MB on internal memory but the thumbdata3 file in the DCIM/.thumbnail folder on ext SD is less than 1MB (I only have around 100 photos and pictures on my phone) - but camera still works (other than in the scenario described below)
If I delete the large thumbdata3 file from internal memory and then attempt to use the camera, the photo is taken without any problem but when I try to view it in either gallery or QuickPic by clicking through from the 'last image taken thumbnail' in the camera and then click back to carry on taking another picture the camera FC's. It usually does this twice and is then absolutely fine - apart from the fact that the large thumbdata3 file has been recreated on internal storage.
I've tried it numerous times and every time the same results - delete thumbdata3 from internal memory, couple of camera FC's, large thumbdata3 file recreated, no more problems (bar the loss of 314MB of storage)
I've tried replacing the thumbdata3 file on internal memory with a copy of the smaller one from Ext SD, creating a blank thumbdata3 file and setting it as read only/no write permission and neither have helped.
Its a bit weird and annoying but I won't let it take the shine off my fun with CM9, however it would be nice to recover that large chunk of storage space to be put to better use.
All the same, many thanks Arco - Beta 1 is my first CM9 install and its great :good:[/QUOTE]
Hi - haven't full troubleshooted this issue yet, but see my notes here. I have the same issue (GNEX JB 4.1.1 stock) and for me it is caused by the app KeepSafe which hides/unhides pics/videos on your phone. Note I believe this is an interaction issue between this app and the media scanning functionality in JB (and I suspect ICS), and so there are likely other apps that have the same issue. For me it creates 1 or 2 .thumbdata3 db files each around 1.3GB.
Certainly, irrespective of app causing it, you can follow the steps to purge Gallery and Media Storage, resync your gmail account and they should disappear on their own. Opening the camera and taking a photo causes the db to come back at around 400MB with a single thumbnail - one of the test files I was hiding and unhiding with KeepSafe but has since been deleted. Can't really explain this behaviour!
Any way, I made some notes on what I tested, the results and some ponderings in case this helps someone work it out:
Thumbdata3
Hiding in keep safe seems to create both the thumbnails and thumbdata file.
Clearing data/cache for gallery and media storage removes all these files? So far doesn't seem to be the case. File and db still there after. Rerunning the media scanner now. Perhaps they caused it? Also forced resync of all items in gmail account. Thumbs and db now gone. Not clear if it was the media scanning completing or the re-sync, but steps to resolve issue now appear deterministic.
Tested with single pic. Restored. No thumbs. Re-hid, thumbnail appeared for this pic and a 435MB db file.
All thumbs were for pics hidden in keep safe. However previously there were far more thumbs. Speculate - cumulative issue thru successive hide/restore cycles, possibly due to file name collision avoidance.
Deleting pic in file explorer also causes the problem? Does not appear to be the case. Gallery/Media Scanner/Media Storage handles this manual intervention far better under ICS/JB. Previously, manually removing a picture rather than deleting it thru Gallery tended to mean the tile/thumb remained. Scanner didn't or didn't very effectively detect this. Probable algorithm change in ICS. Now it sees the deletion immediately. Possibly implicated in keep safe not correctly interacting with the gallery/media scanner properly under ICS/JB.

I´ve the same problem.
After restarting the phone, the camera freezes for a while and regenerates the file, no matter how many media files are in the phone or sd card, it always growth to 431mg after restarting.
(I also find many lost files in the LOST.DIR (almost 2.300gb...many are dissapeared files that I forget about them!)

The .thumbdata files on my SGSIII take up ~4 GB worth of space. Already a quarter of my phones internal memory is being wasted. I wonder if this is a bug or "working as intended"? It makes me wonder how google can still justify the lack of an external microsd card slot on their nexus phones when there is so much space being mismanaged by the OS.

It's works
strom87 said:
I had the same issue, but unfortunately your solution didn't help me. Initially I thought it did, but after a reboot and launching Camera app, it hanged and created the .thumbdata3 file once again.
I also tried messing up with databases using SQLite Editor, as described here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=28466334&postcount=9, but that didn't help either.
I've done some more research and found a solution here: http://www.mobilephonetalk.com/show...in-memory-card&p=311954&viewfull=1#post311954. After I deleted the .thumbdata3 file, created a blank one with Root Explorer and removed write permission to it, the file stays at 0 bytes and Camera and Gallery apps still work fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's works with me!

that works
That works for me:
1. copy name of thumbdataX--x file
2. delete that file
3. create folder named the same as deleted file; reboot your device
4. look in folders named LOST.DIR (you can find it in the root directory of your internal memory and your SDcard) - huge temporary files may be left in these folders, so delete these files
New thumbdata file can't replace the folder and doesn't appears :victory:

until now the folder solution works :laugh:

Kyonex said:
That works for me:
1. copy name of thumbdataX--x file
2. delete that file
3. create folder named the same as deleted file; reboot your device
4. look in folders named LOST.DIR (you can find it in the root directory of your internal memory and your SDcard) - huge temporary files may be left in these folders, so delete these files
New thumbdata file can't replace the folder and doesn't appears :victory:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It doesn't work, camera still overwrites the .thumbdataX--x folder. And as /mnt/sdacard is using FAT32, I also can't set file permission to 000 or use /dev/null symlink.

[Q] Photos and External SD Card

It seems there's a very strange behavior with the stock "Gallery" app:
1) All my photos were previously saved in the internal SdCard ("/storage/sdcard0/DCIM/Camera") as the default "storage" location in the (stock) Camera app settings was "Device".
2) I've now changed from "Device" to "Memory card" the storage setting of the Camera app.
3) New photos are now saved in "/storage/extSdCard/DCIM/Camera" as expected.
4) If I open the Gallery I can see two "camera" albums: one with all my photos taken before changing the storage location and another one with the photos taken after changing the storage setting.
All ok till now...
But if I move all my old photos to the new /storage/extSdCard/DCIM/Camera folder they don't show up in the Gallery!
Furthermore the Gallery doesn't show any other image saved in the external SdCard.
I've tried to clean up the data and cache of both the Gallery and the Media Storage apps and to reboot but that didn't solve the problem (and there's no ".nomedia" file in those folders).
Any suggestion or advice?

I got myself in a right mess when creating new folders within the gallery app and moving photos around, I ended up with empty folders with a kind of broken link symbol for those folders that I thought I had deleted or renamed. I tried clearing the data and cache of the gallery app but it didnt help.
Now as I never turn my tablet off as I just let it sleep when im not using it ( excellent battery !) I wasnt letting the media scanner run which seems to kick in when powering on and the os booting up. After a proper power off and on my folders are all sorted in the gallery . Forgive me if you have already tried this simple step but hopefully it may help you or others who like me never power off their tablet.
Sent from my GT-N8010 using XDA Premium HD app

manmikey said:
I got myself in a right mess when creating new folders within the gallery app and moving photos around, I ended up with empty folders with a kind of broken link symbol for those folders that I thought I had deleted or renamed. I tried clearing the data and cache of the gallery app but it didnt help.
Now as I never turn my tablet off as I just let it sleep when im not using it ( excellent battery !) I wasnt letting the media scanner run which seems to kick in when powering on and the os booting up. After a proper power off and on my folders are all sorted in the gallery . Forgive me if you have already tried this simple step but hopefully it may help you or others who like me never power off their tablet.
Sent from my GT-N8010 using XDA Premium HD app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your reply.
Anyway rebooting (power off and power on) didn't solve my problem. I've seen that the media scanner kicks in with a new reboot. Anyway it seems to ignore the media saved in the external Sd Card.
Strange thing is that the Gallery sees photos taken and automatically stored in the external Sd (after changing the the Camera settings) but not other image files copied in it.

[Q] DCIM folder empty

My DCIM folder weirdly became empty for some reason after I plugged my phone into my computer to download some photos.
I took some 20 or 30 pictures today and thought I had them in my DCIM folder. As I reached home and tried to copy them to my computer, I found that the DCIM folder was completely empty. I tried to search my gallery on my phone but it couldn't find any photos that were camera taken either. I took 1 or 2 photos to see if it stores them and it does. Right in the DCIM folder.
Before this happened, I know I checked my gallery for camera taken pictures yesterday and they were there. I am almost positive that it happened sometime between me starting to take photos today and the time I arrived home and plugged it in.
I am wondering what might cause such a thing to happen. None of my other data on either the phone storage or the SD card is missing from what I can notice, just the DCIM folders are empty. My phone is rooted and changed some system apps, deleted some, added some. I am wondering if this could be something related to memory management of the Camera app, which is the default one.
I think, but I am not completely sure, that as I was taking the photos I could notice the remaining photos count dropping and when I reached home, even though the DCIM folders were empty, the number didn't rise back.
What's even weirder is that I used a data recovery tool from the web and it did indeed find some deleted files on both my sd card and my phone storage but not one single picture of the ones I took.
Any ideas? Has this ever happened to you? Any possible solutions, maybe?
Thanks,
Fred

Update
I found the pictures. I am not sure if they're all of them but I believe so. They were in my LOST.DIR folder, for some reason.
Can you guys think of an explanation for which all of my DCIM contents got moved to LOST.DIR? Also the extensions on all of them was lost. They were files without extensions, like text files in Linux. I had to run a for command in shell to rename them all.

birkhoff_fred said:
I found the pictures. I am not sure if they're all of them but I believe so. They were in my LOST.DIR folder, for some reason.
Can you guys think of an explanation for which all of my DCIM contents got moved to LOST.DIR? Also the extensions on all of them was lost. They were files without extensions, like text files in Linux. I had to run a for command in shell to rename them all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Explanation: You did not safe unmount the storage from your computer, thats why the files were declared as "lost/broken" and moved to LOST.DIR ....

you're right. I totally did not do that. thanks

birkhoff_fred said:
My DCIM folder weirdly became empty for some reason after I plugged my phone into my computer to download some photos.
I took some 20 or 30 pictures today and thought I had them in my DCIM folder. As I reached home and tried to copy them to my computer, I found that the DCIM folder was completely empty. I tried to search my gallery on my phone but it couldn't find any photos that were camera taken either. I took 1 or 2 photos to see if it stores them and it does. Right in the DCIM folder.
Before this happened, I know I checked my gallery for camera taken pictures yesterday and they were there. I am almost positive that it happened sometime between me starting to take photos today and the time I arrived home and plugged it in.
I am wondering what might cause such a thing to happen. None of my other data on either the phone storage or the SD card is missing from what I can notice, just the DCIM folders are empty. My phone is rooted and changed some system apps, deleted some, added some. I am wondering if this could be something related to memory management of the Camera app, which is the default one.
I think, but I am not completely sure, that as I was taking the photos I could notice the remaining photos count dropping and when I reached home, even though the DCIM folders were empty, the number didn't rise back.
What's even weirder is that I used a data recovery tool from the web and it did indeed find some deleted files on both my sd card and my phone storage but not one single picture of the ones I took.
Any ideas? Has this ever happened to you? Any possible solutions, maybe?
Thanks,
Fred
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey I've been having some problems with my DCIM folder too. yesterday I connected my Note 3 neo to my PC(running elementary OS) and it showed that DCIM folder was empty, but since it took up almost all of the device storage, I moved that empty folder to my PC and boom! 10 GB freed from my device:good:. But DCIM still empty. And now I can't get those photos and videos back even after moving them back to device.
Can anyone explain what just happened with me and how to fix this?

Recovering deleted videos

I accidentally deleted two videos off my exFAT formatted SD card. One 700mb another 1GB. I didn't notice for a few days but I haven't written anything else to the SD so any activity on the SD should be minimal.
I tried various recovery software (Recuva, R-undelete, photorec)
Most will provide two options, a "quick scan" and a "deep scan"
The quick scan will show the file structure including the two missing files. However if I look at the contents of the file in a hex editor its all "FFFFFF"
If I do a deep scan, it doesnt find the videos.
Even if the videos were overwritten, I find it hard to believe that 1.7GB has been overwritten. Maybe the file header has been overwritten but a large portion of the video must still be somewhere on the card.
I uploaded the videos to Facebook, however for some reason it only uploaded an extremely low quality SD version.
I'd appreciate any suggestions.

eng3 said:
I accidentally deleted two videos off my exFAT formatted SD card. One 700mb another 1GB. I didn't notice for a few days but I haven't written anything else to the SD so any activity on the SD should be minimal.
I tried various recovery software (Recuva, R-undelete, photorec)
Most will provide two options, a "quick scan" and a "deep scan"
The quick scan will show the file structure including the two missing files. However if I look at the contents of the file in a hex editor its all "FFFFFF"
If I do a deep scan, it doesnt find the videos.
Even if the videos were overwritten, I find it hard to believe that 1.7GB has been overwritten. Maybe the file header has been overwritten but a large portion of the video must still be somewhere on the card.
I uploaded the videos to Facebook, however for some reason it only uploaded an extremely low quality SD version.
I'd appreciate any suggestions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try these:
EasUS Data Recovery
M3 Data Recovery
Sent from my SM-S903VL using Tapatalk

EasUS Data Recovery and M3 Data Recovery do the exact same thing as the other utilities (which are free).
I'm looking for something that can look at the free space and pull out anything that looks like video data.
Yes I have a card reader on my computer and already created an image.
My situation seems to be a little different. You recovered your video and found some corruption in the file. For me, there is nothing at all in the file. All "FFFFF" or all 1's.

eng3 said:
Even if the videos were overwritten, I find it hard to believe that 1.7GB has been overwritten. Maybe the file header has been overwritten but a large portion of the video must still be somewhere on the card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think it's possible.Even if you able to recover your data anyhow,it will be corrupted,so no use.