How to keep your media files from being deleted off of SDCards - G Tablet General

So I searched and searched and never found a definitive answer on how to keep your media files from being automatically deleted off of SDCards on reboots. There were guesses but no report back on what actually worked.
I noticed after it happened about 5 times. You copy files (m4v, mkv, others) to your SDCard and after you reboot they are gone. This happens on Vegan as well as others I had read.
TLDR:
To keep this from happening, in the root of your SDCards (For me /mnt/sdcard and /mnt/sdcard2), create a DIRECTORY called .nomedia You cannot use Windows to do this, you must do it on a linux/unix machine or from iFilemanager,Astro or another file manager type application.
I haven't had trouble since.

I have also had success with the .nomedia file placed in directories containing media. However if this .nomedia directory can ward off the indexing for my entire SD card that would be even better.
.nomedia feels like having to smear blood over the door frame so the the angel of death won't take my firstborn. Unleavened bread anyone?

Several reboots now and no issues.... thank goodness I was about to chuck it through the window...

I still don't understand why some people have this issue. Is it specific to a ROM?
I have a number of AVI files and many folders of MP3s that have been on my SD card since the day I got it (4 months+).
Never had anything delete itself from there. Running VEGAnTab since the 2nd day of ownership.

I dunno, but it happened to me last night (before I found this thread). Added the directory via eStrong, buried a potato under a stump and tied a chicken foot around my neck for good measure. We'll see what happens.

Thank you for posting. This solved a major frustration of mine, but it appears to be solved now.

My media files went away for the forst time. (I was stock until yesterday.)
I added .nomedia and the files are safe, but my music players and photo viewers cannot find the files now.
Anyway to get them protected but viewable?

snowzach said:
So I searched and searched and never found a definitive answer on how to keep your media files from being automatically deleted off of SDCards on reboots. There were guesses but no report back on what actually worked.
I noticed after it happened about 5 times. You copy files (m4v, mkv, others) to your SDCard and after you reboot they are gone. This happens on Vegan as well as others I had read.
TLDR:
To keep this from happening, in the root of your SDCards (For me /mnt/sdcard and /mnt/sdcard2), create a DIRECTORY called .nomedia You cannot use Windows to do this, you must do it on a linux/unix machine or from iFilemanager,Astro or another file manager type application.
I haven't had trouble since.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How can I creat a DIRECTORY. I used Actro and ifilemanager. I don't know where to input .nomedia. Thanks for your help.
---------- Post added at 06:43 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:05 PM ----------
It work and thanks

Related

missing file issue?

Since I can't post in the q & a forum I am posting here but mods feel free to move it. So I have a wm6.1 device and a Mac computer and I regularly send files, like cab and music files with out an issue. However, today I noticed that I send a music file like usual and the file is no where to be found on the devices however space about the same size as the file is being taken up. So I send another two files(one music and one cab file) with out an issue at all. Then later on I send a cab file, but I don't see it on the device even though space is being take up. This may have happened prior to this, but I didn't realize it or something. So how can A) regain that space by deleting those files not showing up, or B) find the files that are not showing up and use them as I intended to. I am loosing space because of this. Option of last(and I mean last) resort is a hard rest which I don't like to do. Thank you....
yrsmart said:
Since I can't post in the q & a forum I am posting here but mods feel free to move it. So I have a wm6.1 device and a Mac computer and I regularly send files, like cab and music files with out an issue. However, today I noticed that I send a music file like usual and the file is no where to be found on the devices however space about the same size as the file is being taken up. So I send another two files(one music and one cab file) with out an issue at all. Then later on I send a cab file, but I don't see it on the device even though space is being take up. This may have happened prior to this, but I didn't realize it or something. So how can A) regain that space by deleting those files not showing up, or B) find the files that are not showing up and use them as I intended to. I am loosing space because of this. Option of last(and I mean last) resort is a hard rest which I don't like to do. Thank you....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
get a good file browser and search for the missing files. You may want to use a wild card search (*.cab,*.mp3)
if you still can not find them look in the folders in /Windows and /Temp or or equivalent on the device
well i am using total commader so I dunno how good that is or not. Not to mention I have done what you suggested and even searched for files added with in the last 3 days and nothing on all fronts but yet the sapce is being taken up by something that I can't seem to find on my device. Memory maid was no help either(granted I only did a clean up). But thank you.
have you tried using the default file explorer?

CAUTION: using .nomedia to hide files

Hey All,
I know this topic has been dabbled in across a few threads, but I think it's worth making a dedicated sticky...
The 'accepted' way to hide media files in Android is to either make the hidden by adding a period to the front of the file name (eg: rename file.ext to .file.ext) or to add a blank file named .nomedia at the root of the folder containing the files you don't want picked up by the media scanner.
Works great in theory, but there are some existing bugs in Android (not sure if they're fixed in any release yet), that causes the media scanner to physically delete these files...!!
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=3692
I understand this only happens when the media scanner initiates another scan, which will happen when you power cycle your device, or unmount and remount your storage. So while you might be safe for now, watch out when you run out of battery and wonder where everything's gone...!
I don't know full details, but I suspect it might do the same for any other instructional files, like: .noimage and anything else like that...
There are some theories on how to make it work properly - like creating an empty folder first, containing the .nomedia file, then adding the media - I understand this issue is only due to the media scanner deleting records from already its database - so if it doesn't know about them first, it shouldn't be an issue... Although I'm not 100% on that - so I'd be careful.
Is this still a problem?
not for me so far, and I always turn my tab off whenever I charge (it's better for the battery)
[email protected] said:
Is this still a problem?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes it is. I have brilliant corners 1.3.1 and by god I've tried every thing I could to get it to stop deleting media from me sd2 card, to no avail. If anyone hows why it still deletes after I;'ve installed nomedia in the sd2 card's root directory please advise.

[Q] Pictures being deleted after shutdown on G-tablet with Vegan.

So I have downloaded comics to read, some are in cbr format and some are in folders that are just jpegs. Now my problem is that I can view these jpegs files normally, but whenever I either shutdown or put my tablet on hibernate, the pictures will be gone after I power the tablet up again. The folders are still there but no pictures. ??? I don't understand why this is doing this, I've also had other pictures deleted too. The files are mainly stored on my 16gb microsd that I have installed. This has happened to me about 3 times now. Is it the app I am using or some setting in the tablet that for some reason deletes photos after viewing?
I also read somewhere on another forum that this is a known issue with Vegan and to solve this problem I am supposed to create a file and call it ".nomedia" and am supposed to put this file where my picutres are on my microsd card. I have also tried this to no avail. Now maybe I am doing this wrong, I only created a text file and then called it ".nomedia" I also copied this file into every folder and sub folder where my pics are getting deleted.
Oh yeah my g-tablet is rooted with Vegan.
Please help me because this problem is very annoying.
Thanks,
Afrowookie
Any suggestions
is there anyone not experiencing the same problem?

Google Docs OFFLINE directory

Google Docs App on Android now allows for Offline caching.
Where is the offline file cached to?
I need to know in case there is a need to copy out to a SD Card.
bump it up
I went to /data/data/com.google.adndroid.apps.docs and opened all the folders in it like 'cache' etc but didn't find the exact files I saved for offline viewing.
Go take a look and tell me if yours are there.
edit: they are in '/sdcard/Android/data/com.google.android.apps.docs/files/pinned_docs_files_do_not_edit' with no particular file extension. So I guess you would have to convert....
no, it's not there for me either.
Worse yet, even when online, there seems to be no way to just DOWNLOAD the file.
So you can't truly use it like you can with DropBox.
What a disappointment, I was almost about to switch after I found out about Insync.
Edit: you are a genious!
weird, that folder is not there. Even though there are other folders like it:
ie:
com.google.android.apps.maps
com.facebook.katana
edit:
On my Samsung Galaxy S, it appears to be in /sdcard/external_sd/Android/data/com.google.android.apps.docs/files/pinned_docs_files_do_not_edit
The biggest problem now is figuring out which file is which once you have more than a couple files that are set to offline cache.
does renaming them to .docs/xls/ect... help? or opening them with the adequate app?
you have to know what file it is before you know what to rename them as. Seeing as how all files are named by number sequence, there are little to no clues as to what the cached file is.
true
unless you have a ton of files to rename, you can always give it a try.
---------- Post added at 06:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:52 PM ----------
any luck with renaming them randomly?
I haven't tried, but before you do, turning off Encryption for offline files might help !
alright will do

Android 11 and .nomedia file

I was about to post a question about this, but I just figured this out myself. My phone recently updated to Android 11. I have an SD-Card which has music on it - along with a lot of album art. Since the update, all these album art photos have been cluttering up my gallery. Every time I add a .nomedia file in here (which also was there before the update), it seems to get automatically deleted (no, not hidden). I tried copying a .nomedia file from elsewhere on the phone. I even tried popping out the SD-Card and adding the file via PC. As soon as Android touches it, it deletes the file again.
So, here is the issue. With Android 11, it is creating some default folders (I wish it wouldn't clutter up things with these empty folders that I never need or use). Those default folders include: Music, Pictures, Movies. These are created at the top level on the SD-Card and on internal storage. So, if you are also using one of those folders for something, it's going to auto delete the .nomedia file. In my case, I just moved my music into a Musics folder instead(and ensured it has a .nomedia file, of course.
Hopefully this will save someone else from wasting their time trying to figure out why this is happening!
pacaveli420 said:
I was about to post a question about this, but I just figured this out myself. My phone recently updated to Android 11. I have an SD-Card which has music on it - along with a lot of album art. Since the update, all these album art photos have been cluttering up my gallery. Every time I add a .nomedia file in here (which also was there before the update), it seems to get automatically deleted (no, not hidden). I tried copying a .nomedia file from elsewhere on the phone. I even tried popping out the SD-Card and adding the file via PC. As soon as Android touches it, it deletes the file again.
So, here is the issue. With Android 11, it is creating some default folders (I wish it wouldn't clutter up things with these empty folders that I never need or use). Those default folders include: Music, Pictures, Movies. These are created at the top level on the SD-Card and on internal storage. So, if you are also using one of those folders for something, it's going to auto delete the .nomedia file. In my case, I just moved my music into a Musics folder instead(and ensured it has a .nomedia file, of course.
Hopefully this will save someone else from wasting their time trying to figure out why this is happening!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This makes no sense, please explain in more detail.
android1977 said:
This makes no sense, please explain in more detail.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you're storing your music files in any of the default folders, Android is going to auto delete your .nomedia file if you try to put one there. Ergo, the solution is you need to store your music in a folder named something else.
pacaveli420 said:
If you're storing your music files in any of the default folders, Android is going to auto delete your .nomedia file if you try to put one there. Ergo, the solution is you need to store your music in a folder named something else.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks that's what I did and got lucky, I was so desperate I signed up to XDA just to comment I gotta say XDA I love your site and been reading for a couple year's now, enjoy the information provided, thanks guy's for all your hard work
pacaveli420 said:
If you're storing your music files in any of the default folders, Android is going to auto delete your .nomedia file if you try to put one there. Ergo, the solution is you need to store your music in a folder named something else.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for saving my media library! I've been tortured by this issue since using the new phone, finally!
hello, i just get Android 11 on my MI A3, and those folders ( music, pictures, movies )appears on my sd card, they are useless for me, is there a way to delete them?
before Android 11, i didn't have this problem because i choosed " use sd as external support " instead of "use sd as extended memory" when inserting the sd card, but now even if i make the same choice, the folders are there and i can't delete them.
Sort of off topic but not really:
How do I stop it from creating these default folders? It's extremely annoying. I don't have my SD card structured that way and never have. I've deleted the default music, movies, etc folders numerous times now as they just clutter up the root directory and they keep reappearing. Is there a solution to this?
This seems to be a part of Android 11s default folder structure which no one ever bothered to do something about. I wouldn't be surprised if it's there for "security reasons" as well as a communist one. As in you only have the option to use these "secure" folders or else it won't show up in your apps at all.
This might be a way for Google to slowly faze out SDCards entirely while only giving you the option to use said folders for your "private" stuff akin to how IOS (kinda) works. In other words, they are doing it on purpose and no one ever bothered to read the fine print.
Obviously private music and other media collections is the root (see what I did there) cause of the problem. They don't want you to have those at all, And want you to use streaming services instead (tinfoil hat). Which is probably what these folders will probably end up being used for.
Netflix and Spotify allow you to store music on your device, but it's encrypted and will probably end up there at some point in Androids lifecycle. Obviously these files don't need .nomedia since the files are encrypted and will only show up in said app either way which makes the above meaningless.
Most of this is speculation obviously, but we've slowly been moving towards this trend if you look at how System apps were split into app and priv-app and so on. At some point in time only certain apps that has had the blessing of Google will be allowed to read anything off your storage. This happened with Chrome not to long ago where they blocked side-loaded extensions from running.
You will slowly see Android turning into IOS because they (Google) and big-tech in general wants 100% control of what you can and can't do. And everything based on AOSP or LOS is gonna follow suit because no one gives a flying fudge because that's too bothersome. The fragmentation of custom builds based on LOS/AOSP in general already shows that this has always been the case for the last 10 years. Linux in general is no different either as can be seen with wokeism. Except that was through decimation via woke people and not big-tech.
I was going crazy thinking this issue was specific to my samsung's stock rom. I started searching about this once I noticed it on LOS 18. Glad I'm not alone
I tend to be a little OCD about my folder structures but at this point I don't mind making a separate folder to avoid album arts in my gallery.
I believe I found a solution to this. It's been about a week or two with no further incident now. My solution was to delete the default folders from the root of the SD card because I don't use them, then create blank files that used those names. Haven't had a problem since.
I use the top level pictures folder because of a compatibility issue with programs that have small file path character limits that cause the program to hang. I don't use them anymore but I haven't had a reason to move it back where I had it previously and that would only make the default folder issue worse if I did. Or at least it would have until now with this discovery.
I do not use the movies and music folders, and if I move my pictures folder back where I had it I won't use that one either. Having them pop up on their own to clutter my root directory on both my SD card and my phone itself was very annoying. After deleting the movies and music folders off of the root of my SD card for the billionth time and getting rid of the empty default folders on my phone again, I created two blank files on my SD card root called Music and Movies. Ever since then the default folders haven't reappeared. On top of that, it hasn't created any ".thumbnails" folders all over the place like it always used to do either. That includes doing so on the internal phone storage. Creating those files on the SD card seems to have broken the whole process. I imagine the same would work vice versa for OP since it sounds like they use those default folders. Find an empty default folder on internal storage, delete it, create a file and name it the name of the folder you deleted (case sensitive), and that should disable the annoying default folder management process too. I can't vouch for that method, but I can vouch for it working when you do so on the SD card.
I just noticed this today on my tab s7+.
From what I can tell, the .nomedia file nolonger does anything on its own. However, if I add the .nomedia file to a folder, then rename the folder placing a . in front, of course it hides the entire folder. When I rename the folder again, removing the ., the .nomedia file now works. No matter how many times I rename the folder, the gallery does not see it until I remove the .nomedia file.
pool_shark said:
I just noticed this today on my tab s7+.
From what I can tell, the .nomedia file nolonger does anything on its own. However, if I add the .nomedia file to a folder, then rename the folder placing a . in front, of course it hides the entire folder. When I rename the folder again, removing the ., the .nomedia file now works. No matter how many times I rename the folder, the gallery does not see it until I remove the .nomedia file.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thank you pool shark.. i tried what you did/suggested and it worked. thanks.

Categories

Resources