[Q] Question about MTP in "new" Android phones - General Questions and Answers

Hi! I've always had this question and ignored it so far (looking for alternatives). Maybe there is some solution or workaround... I haven't found any convincing one yet...
I have an Xperia Z now. Before I had a Nexus 4 and before that a Motorola Atrix.
In my Motorola Atrix and previous Android devices I could access my data on the phone normally from Windows. SD and internal memory. They look like a pen drive or a common disk... Since I have the Nexus, the way of accessing the device changed. It's more like a "multimedia" purpose and not so free, I would say. In my Xperia it's like that also...
The problem is when I'm accessing certain files that a "mean" (?) user would not want to access (maybe Whatsapp database files, some zips, backup files, etc). It's like they are "cached" and the version I can "see" is much older, so I had some trouble once restoring not the very last Whatsapp databases. From the phone, much more (and newer files) are there, but from Windows I can only access some of them (and pictures, videos, etc with no problem)... Is there any way of being able to see everything as in the older phones without using an SD card? Or at least be sure that what I'm seeing and copying is the last or full version of what I'm trying to copy?
I'm transferring them through WiFi as a "solution".
Thank you in advance!

Yeah so to the best of my knowledge on the newer devices there is no way to use anything other than mtp through a cord transfer because of a difference in the partition layouts. I have a nexus 4 and am used to the USB mass storage mode that is also not present on the nexus 4, so I am stuck with MTP and WiFi transfer like you.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using XDA Free mobile app

you could try software data cable

jpl90 said:
Hi! I've always had this question and ignored it so far (looking for alternatives). Maybe there is some solution or workaround... I haven't found any convincing one yet...
I have an Xperia Z now. Before I had a Nexus 4 and before that a Motorola Atrix.
In my Motorola Atrix and previous Android devices I could access my data on the phone normally from Windows. SD and internal memory. They look like a pen drive or a common disk... Since I have the Nexus, the way of accessing the device changed. It's more like a "multimedia" purpose and not so free, I would say. In my Xperia it's like that also...
The problem is when I'm accessing certain files that a "mean" (?) user would not want to access (maybe Whatsapp database files, some zips, backup files, etc). It's like they are "cached" and the version I can "see" is much older, so I had some trouble once restoring not the very last Whatsapp databases. From the phone, much more (and newer files) are there, but from Windows I can only access some of them (and pictures, videos, etc with no problem)... Is there any way of being able to see everything as in the older phones without using an SD card? Or at least be sure that what I'm seeing and copying is the last or full version of what I'm trying to copy?
I'm transferring them through WiFi as a "solution".
Thank you in advance!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
have u tried this one?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2297888
i use it every time i need to mount the sdcard on a pc or a device that needs to read the sdcard and mtp dont work.
its very useful but it needs root. try it out
---------- Post added at 11:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:10 PM ----------
rivenroth740 said:
have u tried this one?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2297888
i use it every time i need to mount the sdcard on a pc or a device that needs to read the sdcard and mtp dont work.
its very useful but it needs root. try it out
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ahh.. i forgot to say that to mount ext3/4 on windows u can use some 3rd party apps like ext2explore http://www.howtogeek.com/112888/3-ways-to-access-your-linux-partitions-from-windows/

Related

Beta testers wanted: NES, tool to manage data partition

Update 03/08/11
NotEnoughSpace has finally graduated to the Android Marketplace!
Beta testers can currently get it at its "thank you" price of $0.99.
I will set the regular price in a week so hurry
*** *** *** ***
Note #1: your phone needs to be ROOTED to use this application.
Note #2: so far, only tested on Droid Incredible and HTC Desire.
From the built-in help:
About this application
This application's goal is to help you understand and possibly work around a common vexation of using Android; i.e. these messages:
"not enough space"
"Low on space. Application data space is low."
What is happening?
You've checked your phone's vitals and it appears that it has plenty of space left, both internal storage and SD Card storage. So, what's happening?
Android allows your applications to store their data, primarily, in a dedicated partition whose size happens to be much smaller than even the phone's internal storage space. Generally south of 150 MBs.
This is the partition that fills up so quickly and that Android has been complaining about.
And the help goes on and on so I'll stop here.
The short version
Using this application, you can see which applications use up most of your phone's data space and decide what to do with them.
You can also move the biggest directories to the phone's SD Card.
Additionally, you can use the app to cleanup the Dalvik cache but it's not the app's primary function.
Please, help test it!
I will gladly welcome any constructive criticism; I expect most of it to be along the lines of "The tool is not quite accurate" and that's what I wish to address first.
To create a debug report (these are very important):
Simply select the "Debug" menu and follow the on-screen instructions.
The whole email business is so that you can copy/paste from a desktop client.
The .apk can be downloaded from nexus.zteo.com/projects/beta/
Update 12/04/10
The application should now display correct stats for phones/ROMs that use Busybox. If you have already tested it and it said "NaN" please try it again.
This should be interesting, maybe kinda Android GpartED?
cyansmoker said:
Using this application, you can see which applications use up most of your phone's data space and decide what to do with them.
You can also move the biggest directories to the phone's SD Card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Curious, does this mean you can move and symlink data, or are you talking about Froyo Apps2SD?
teorouge said:
This should be interesting, maybe kinda Android GpartED?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Obviously not, he's managing what's there, he's not partitioning anything.. Did you read?
khaytsus said:
Obviously not, he's managing what's there, he's not partitioning anything.. Did you read?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Come on, what's the matter dude? I did read, and from what I read I thought whole partition handling was the only thing this app would be missing. Single files is a good start, but making that "kinda GpartED" would be killer. Though I fear you should be in bootloader/recovery to work on those, don't know how Android deals with them (i.e. in Windows you have programs you can change partitions size "on the fly" with). Now that I elaborated more, are you still angry?
This application would be genius. I'm wondering however, will the phone still be able to access that data once it is moved off of the system memory and onto the SD Card? And is it possible to actually partition the /data/data section so that it will use more than the allowed 150mb that it has, like open it up so that instead of it being partitioned to a small amount, it just roams free with the rest of the 748mb or whatever that is in the system memory.
A promising app, thanks.
Navigon, however, doesn't like its data to be moved to SD card. Even after moving it back with the app, it FCs (Android 2.1). I think I have to reinstall. So be careful if you're trying to do the same.
Edit: After reinstalling the .apk (without doing anything with the maps), Navigon works again. The packet installer didn't ask me if I wanted to replace the existing installation (as is otherwise usual in such a case).
Edit2: There seems to be a general problem. The next app I tried was mediaU. It has a large database which I moved (using NES) to the SD card. It also FCed after having moved its database, and restoring to the old location (again using NES) also didn't succeed. No error message during restore, but app still won't run.
Phone: Galaxy 3, Android 2.1 (original ROM).
mizch said:
A promising app, thanks.
Navigon, however, doesn't like its data to be moved to SD card. Even after moving it back with the app, it FCs (Android 2.1). I think I have to reinstall. So be careful if you're trying to do the same.
Edit: After reinstalling the .apk (without doing anything with the maps), Navigon works again. The packet installer didn't ask me if I wanted to replace the existing installation (as is otherwise usual in such a case).
Edit2: There seems to be a general problem. The next app I tried was mediaU. It has a large database which I moved (using NES) to the SD card. It also FCed after having moved its database, and restoring to the old location (again using NES) also didn't succeed. No error message during restore, but app still won't run.
Phone: Galaxy 3, Android 2.1 (original ROM).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tonight I'm gonna try for sure and report back, this does look promising! Did you succeed with some apps?
teorouge said:
Did you succeed with some apps?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
K9 seemed to work. However, I had to reflash for another reason, and now K9 reports its lib as being in the standard location (reported by NES). For now, I have stopped testing NotEnoughSpace so I can not say more.
mizch said:
K9 seemed to work. However, I had to reflash for another reason, and now K9 reports its lib as being in the standard location (reported by NES). For now, I have stopped testing NotEnoughSpace so I can not say more.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
eh? K9 has native use of the SD card if you enable it... Why would you use this on it?
Thanks for doing this testing, guys.
I will install these apps and test them myself.
teorouge: you moved the database/ directory, is that it?
mizch: so, you re-installed K9 after reflashing, right?
Everybody: what about the "free space" numbers reported by the app? Do they seem correct to you? I had to use a dedicated algo to compute them, taking block size in account, and I've had reports of fairly surprising discrepancies.
Free space doesn't seem to update after moving, though I see the difference in the Titanium Backup count: tried for a couple of apps (G Earth and well... don't remember!) and it did move everything, free up space on /data and I can still use those apps. Still afraid to move many apps, just moving one at the time and test.
I just tested it out on my Droid 1, which is running CM6.1RC5 (Not sure if thats relevant or not), and it doesnt seem to work very well on my phone. All apps came back as 4KB, at the top it showed this... Total:261.8MB Used:NaNKB Free: 259.1MB Database NaNKB Files: NaNKB Preferences:NaNKB Cache:NaNKB.
Heres the debug report: 1:/dev/block/mtdblock6 268032 224572 43460 84% /data
2:62855 /data/data
3:4096/0/265352
Sorry - never mind; found the info in FAQ.txt after downloading
cyansmoker said:
Note #1: your phone needs to be ROOTED to use this application.
Note #2: so far, only tested on Droid Incredible and HTC Desire.
From the built-in help:
About this application
This application's goal is to help you understand and possibly work around a common vexation of using Android; i.e. these messages:
"not enough space"
"Low on space. Application data space is low."
What is happening?
You've checked your phone's vitals and it appears that it has plenty of space left, both internal storage and SD Card storage. So, what's happening?
Android allows your applications to store their data, primarily, in a dedicated partition whose size happens to be much smaller than even the phone's internal storage space. Generally south of 150 MBs.
This is the partition that fills up so quickly and that Android has been complaining about.
And the help goes on and on so I'll stop here.
The short version
Using this application, you can see which applications use up most of your phone's data space and decide what to do with them.
You can also move the biggest directories to the phone's SD Card.
Additionally, you can use the app to cleanup the Dalvik cache but it's not the app's primary function.
Please, help test it!
I will gladly welcome any constructive criticism; I expect most of it to be along the lines of "The tool is not quite accurate" and that's what I wish to address first.
To create a debug report:
Simply select the "Debug" menu and follow the on-screen instructions.
The whole email business is so that you can copy/paste from a desktop client.
The .apk can be downloaded from nexus.zteo.com/projects/beta/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you have more details about this program anywhere? I went to the download page but see no further info...
Help Section Typo
Under A Quick user guide in your user guide(?) that prompts when you run the apk for the first time there is a typo in the last sentence:
You can touch any application to explore its content and figure out what is taking up some much space.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So far I havent run into any issues with the apk...
Not to burst anyones bubble, but Choose Install Location has been doing this in a comprehensive way for weeks. http://www.appbrain.com/app/choose-install-location-free/com.beidl.chooseloc
Free Memory?
bdt1995 said:
I just tested it out on my Droid 1, which is running CM6.1RC5 (Not sure if thats relevant or not), and it doesnt seem to work very well on my phone. All apps came back as 4KB, at the top it showed this... Total:261.8MB Used:NaNKB Free: 259.1MB Database NaNKB Files: NaNKB Preferences:NaNKB Cache:NaNKB.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm having the same problem as bdt1995. Running CM 6.1 RC1.. the only difference is the total memory is 196.2 and the free is:194.3 MB cuz I'm using a Nexus.. CM6 might be the problem?
bdt1995 said:
I just tested it out on my Droid 1, which is running CM6.1RC5 (Not sure if thats relevant or not), and it doesnt seem to work very well on my phone. All apps came back as 4KB, at the top it showed this... Total:261.8MB Used:NaNKB Free: 259.1MB Database NaNKB Files: NaNKB Preferences:NaNKB Cache:NaNKB.
Heres the debug report: 1:/dev/block/mtdblock6 268032 224572 43460 84% /data
2:62855 /data/data
3:4096/0/265352
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here (total 196.2MB, Free 194.3MB, all apps 4KB), system details in my sig. Using apps2sdext, over 200 apps.
Debug info:
Code:
1:/dev/block/mtdblock5 200960 112144 88816 56% /data
2:96070 /data/data
3:4096/0/198951
Same problem as above with Cyanogen 6.02, However it looks promising.
I Think that moving data to standard SD can leads to security issue, because SD can be readed and written by any apps. Should be better if the app recognize /EXT partition, if exist, and move data here.
i'd like to try it and i get my lil sis to try it also she gets this problem a lot i have the droid incredible and my sis has the droid eris.
bdt1995, rnh16, britoso, mmorselli:
Thanks for the debug info. Indeed Cyanogen is a tad "exotic" for NES at this point.
Please download the latest version of NES -- I just uploaded it. It contains an extra debug line which should allow me to make it work so please paste your debug output here one more time.
JerseyFF:
Oops, thanks.
lhinsz:
Because it is a beta version, it hasn't been released yet and all the information you may need is contained in the Help screen. I tried to make it comprehensive.
BigNate:
Should work with HTC devices, yes. Could you or you sister paste her phone's debug screen here?
Zandog:
I do not think that both apps share the same goal so no lives should be lost (Seriously, not much of a bubble to burst?)

[APP] Undelete Beta - recover deleted files on rooted devices

Undelete
Welcome to the open beta of our newest root application - Undelete for Android, an application for root users that allows you
to recover deleted files on your SD card or internal storage.
Features:
- Fast scanning logic
- Restore any file that has not been written over
- Securely wipe/shred files
- Works with images, video, music, archives and binaries
Currently, only FAT is supported. On Tegra devices, only the external SD is supported.
We may write a special version supporting EXT4 if this app is successful.
Be warned: this is an early Beta build, provided "as is" with no support of any kind.
We take no responsibility for any issues that may arise from using the app. In some rare cases attempting to restore files may
corrupt the memory entirely (though we have not seen this problem, it is theoretically possible).
That said it has been in development for a while and well tested on the devices we have at the office - Incredible S, Nexus S,
Xoom, Transformer, Sensation, Galaxy S I/II, Galaxy Ace, Desire.
Market:
https://market.android.com/details?id=fahrbot.apps.undelete&feature=search_result
Screens:
You guys make nice apps!
Thanks. We are pretty awesome. And humble too
Really great idea! Looking forward to support for ext3 and ext4
For most people this will be enough. The only ones who will truly suffer will be those with no sd tablets like the galaxy tab family...
I myself build a variant of cm on ext4, but have no need to restore data from the internal memory.
Just took it for a spin and it found one file I deleted. It also showed an asec file. You might want to filter those out or have it for advanced users only.
I can see a need from some users to undelete from /data/app and /data/data. For example, an accidental app install. If you can tie the apk and deleted app data directory together, it would be even more convenient. I know some might have Titanium Backup but this would cover the cases where they don't or only have an older backup. Just an idea
Damn..I'm impressed. Keep up the good work.
One more question . Do you have plans to implement deeper recovery methods?
As mister morden told londo mollari - one thing at a time
Looking forward to it.
OK, you're going to hate me, but I have another suggestion . Since you opened a can of worms with file recovery some of your more paranoid users will want secure deletion (rewriting the file with junk data or 1s and 0s, etc) I think this would go pretty well in this app. So have a section for users to pick the file to be securely deleted and also give them an option to overwrite files that can be recovered.
doesn't seem to work for me,crashes every time I attempt to restore something
You'll have to be more specific. What file system are you using? What phone? Did you send logs?
Has anyone had problems? Lets get some feedback please!
No problems yet. I tried undeleting a few things and it has worked without a hitch.
ftgg99 said:
You'll have to be more specific. What file system are you using? What phone? Did you send logs?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
incredible,cm7 rom with latest nightly and log was sent
I havent looked at the logs yet, have been avoiding work on my bday. However, there is no guarantee that a file can be recovered, sometimes the data is just corrupted.
If one file doesnt work, another will.
Any issues?
avgjoemomma said:
OK, you're going to hate me, but I have another suggestion . Since you opened a can of worms with file recovery some of your more paranoid users will want secure deletion (rewriting the file with junk data or 1s and 0s, etc) I think this would go pretty well in this app. So have a section for users to pick the file to be securely deleted and also give them an option to overwrite files that can be recovered.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are already apps on the market that do this, look for SHRED, the typical name for this sort thing on PCs. I saw a few, although they all claim that due to journaling it will possibly not work.
Not sure what VFAT they're using, but the ones I know of don't journal So YMMV.
Indeed, deletion may not be right for this application...

[Q] Some Misc Help

I have two things I need to be able to do: mount as mass storage and use ad hoc WiFi. Does anyone have an idea how to do either of these things?
Pretty sure the first one isn't going to happen since this device uses media transfer protocol.
I know that, but it is a standard Android feature, I believe, and there is a hidden setting for it (albeit that does nothing), so it seems there should be some way, root or hack or whatever, to make it work.
You'll probably have to wait and see what developers are able to do with the tab. I'd also like move to SD to be enabled somehow/.
In the meantime, I've been using FTPDroid instead of connecting MTP. So, I have another question: does anyone know how to mount (on Win7) an FTP folder as a local disk drive? That would serve my purposes for now.
Macadamia Daze said:
In the meantime, I've been using FTPDroid instead of connecting MTP. So, I have another question: does anyone know how to mount (on Win7) an FTP folder as a local disk drive? That would serve my purposes for now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Off the top of my head best thing I can think of is a shortcut to your ftp folder?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using xda premium
Better than MTP, but not fully functional. I can't always freely open/save files in all applications, and I can't run portable apps.
Does anyone know if this is available on any other ROM's out there or is this just something that's not going to happen because if so I'm just going to return it.
This is just absolutely ridiculous. Why would they take this basic functionality away? What the heck? The only tablet i've been happy with on battery life and now I can't sync crap how I used to. Now I have to install the clunky unorganized CRAP software Kies? NOT going to happen.
/rant
Inferiorates me how they built such a nice piece of hardware with such a stupid limitation.
/rant #2
joesee said:
Does anyone know if this is available on any other ROM's out there or is this just something that's not going to happen because if so I'm just going to return it.
This is just absolutely ridiculous. Why would they take this basic functionality away? What the heck? The only tablet i've been happy with on battery life and now I can't sync crap how I used to. Now I have to install the clunky unorganized CRAP software Kies? NOT going to happen.
/rant
Inferiorates me how they built such a nice piece of hardware with such a stupid limitation.
/rant #2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
USB mass storage is impossible with the newest version of android. Previously, Android devices would partition it's flash memory (or have separate memory altogether) to organize its file system. This allowed one partition to be unmounted so it could be controlled by another device. The downside to this was that some andriod devices would indicate they were full before actually reaching the storage limit. To remedy this problem 4.0 treats the entire memory as a unified partition and under the control of the andriod OS. As long as the system is running the storage cannot be unmounted.
Since the memory cannot be unmounted the USB mass storage protocol will not work. MTP was introduced as the new file transfer protocol.
So the short answer is no; it will never be "fixed" because MTP is an improvement on the old andriod file system.

[Q] Lost all pictures and videos

Hi guys, just to let you know that I've lost all my "Camera" files (in the Google Camera application (pictures and videos)). They simply disappeared (the ones before the April 30th, 2014).
I did not delete them manually or accidentally
I did not install strange apps
Storage indicate Image & Videos size of 16MBs (instead of 2GBs...)
For what it's worth, I scanned my Nexus 5 with TrustGo, and no bad app was reported
I checked and searched with ES Explorer for all files starting with IMG_* (only the 8 recent pictures were found, even with "deep" search)
I tried some recovery software, but I understand that they won't work because there is no SD card.
My Nexus 5 is not rooted, so I can't use DiskDigger or similar software, and rooting removes all files, right?
Am I definitely screwed or do you see something I missed? Or something I could try?
Thanks for reading!
If you plug into the computer can you find them via windows explorer? There is an internal SD card
Thanks for your suggestion. I tried that too and browsed through the folders (DCIM, media, ...) and nothing.
Nothing you can do then.
Some backup advice here:
[info] Storage: Nexus 5 Data (info / loss / recovery / prevention)
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2534010
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
Thanks rootSU for the useful links. I read your post, then I found http://forum.xda-developers.com/gal...de-internal-memory-data-recovery-yes-t1994705
One of the requirements is: "A rooted Android phone, (try to root with a non-destructive method as this appears to protect those who must root from wiping the device data a second time)".
Do you know any method to root the Nexus 5 with a non-destructive method? So I could copy the internal memory with adb, and so on.
Edit: by http://forum.xda-developers.com/google-nexus-5/help/root-nexus-5-wiping-data-t2650226 we can say that there really is nothing to do. Thanks guys for giving me the info quickly. I can now move back to my work, and try to forgive whatever caused that (probably a faulty app, or an app update). I don't want to sync with cloud, but I'll definitely try to sync with iPhoto from now on. This will serve as a lesson!
You can use foldersync to sync to a computer as long as its on.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Suddenly lost SD access - S7

Literally two days ago I was playing tunes from my SD. Yesterday "access denied" - effectively the SD ceased to exist. In fact, the data is still there when looking through MTP and, of course, mounted on my Linux machine. Why did this fail overnight???
The one possible gotcha is this is an ex-rooted machine. It lost route when I made the mistake of letting SU update its binary. That was a month(?) ago and the phone's been 100% solid (root aside) until two days ago.
Obviously I now feel some pressure to re-root and obviously the SD will be at least feet away from the S7 while doing the go to stock to root process.
If there's a way to regain r/w access (while not rooted) in the meantime...?
I'd try backing up the MicroSD card to the PC, delete/recreate primary partition > formatting it and testing it back in the phone first, if it's working, copy your files back to it
I only wish. The data's there via MTP, so it's readable through that channel, and the SD's readable on my Linux machine.
The problem is why did read/write permission stop working, while MTP still accesses the data. PowerAmp, for example, can't find the SD and neither can Player Pro. I also tried to read the data with FX - access denied.
The only thing I can think of is either an app update or one installation (app to control a GoPro clone) did something ugly. But that seems, to me, to be "reaching for it".
Meh... the phone is beginning to show other bad habits. Rather than work around the problems, I re-flashed to stock firmware, and will go back to root from there.
RBEmerson said:
I only wish. The data's there via MTP, so it's readable through that channel, and the SD's readable on my Linux machine.
The problem is why did read/write permission stop working, while MTP still accesses the data. PowerAmp, for example, can't find the SD and neither can Player Pro. I also tried to read the data with FX - access denied.
The only thing I can think of is either an app update or one installation (app to control a GoPro clone) did something ugly. But that seems, to me, to be "reaching for it".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's only readable on your Linux machine, you can't copy from it?
---------- Post added at 08:19 ---------- Previous post was at 08:18 ----------
RBEmerson said:
Meh... the phone is beginning to show other bad habits. Rather than work around the problems, I re-flashed to stock firmware, and will go back to root from there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Keep us updated
*Detection* said:
It's only readable on your Linux machine, you can't copy from it?
---------- Post added at 08:19 ---------- Previous post was at 08:18 ----------
Keep us updated
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Readable - just copied some music folders to my linux box. (now playing Trauma (remix by Workals) by N'to - electrominimal - now about four years old but still works - 3M+ views on YT)
Since the phone seemed to be generally less than 100% stable, I took it back to stock and will re-root it to Nougat.
My guess is something (an update?) flipped permissions.
I've moved to Nougat. When the phone is back to the way I want it, I'll try rooting. There's no explanation for what went sour, but it's moot now.
So long and thanks for the fish!
I rechecked the SD with H2TestW (v. cool SD tester for Windoze) and... flunk. I've captured the contents and they seem to be intact. But there's now no doubt the SD is toast. So this did begin with SD failure. The good news is I moved to rooted Nougat as a result. I can live with that.

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