[Q] USB storage says it mounts, but it doesn't really. It lies! - General Questions and Answers

I have moved an SDCard to a new phone with Android 4.4.
Since that time I cannot see the camera files when connected mass storage in a windows 7 machine. The files that are visible on the computer are from last year, before the move of the card to a new phone. They are all on the SDCard, removable. I removed the SDCard from the phone and all the old files are there.
The camera app is apparently saving new pictures to internal storage. Which does not mount USB.
I should say, a while ago my internal storage got full and I went through and selected "Move to SDCard" on most apps. I don't think that is related, but I am no expert.
I have two camera items in gallery. I can see all the files, new and old, and can send any of them with an SMS message. No problems. When I removed the SDCard gallery only had one camera item.
So to troubleshoot, I have downloaded ESFileExplorer. That can see all the files.
But when I connect to USB and enable USB storage, I can only see the removable card. To test I removed the SDCard from the phone and installed it in a card reader, I can see all the files now.
I do notice one difference now, when I connect the phone to USB with no SDCard installed I get the usual message to enable USB storage, and I click the button, it chuggs, and goes back eventually to the same message, and the USB storage is indeed not mounted. So the stock phone with no SDCard will not mount USB storage, though it offers to.
I have two notifications in the notification pane, one "USB connected" with the robot and the button "turn on usb storage".
I also have a different notification "connected as mass storage" which when selected has four entries, SDCard, which is selected, and PTP, MTP and Charging.
But it seems even though SDCard in checked, it's not actually mounted for some reason.
Any ideas, or is the idea of putting an SDCard in an android phone now a bad idea because of this?
My reading indicates this might be a problem introduced with the permissions changes with KitKat. If so, they really need to fix that. But judging on all the fighting on security issues on Bugzilla which results is just plain wrong development decisions, well, I get it. But I just had to ask you guys who probably actually know.

Firstly, try to be more concise when have problems, post the things you have tried in numbers or columns so somebody who might want to help can quickly know what you have tried and suggest something.
I did not read past your 2nd paragraph.
Secondly, I had a problem with my own sdcard, a kingston 16gb, in the past. Long story short, it became unreadable in my phone. Try to connect it to a PC, if you have an adapter, and back your files there.
The only solution for me was formatting it in my PC. After the format, it works for now.
I also switched phones, formerly a phone running CM11, now a phone running stock Sony 4.4 firmware.
Lastly, it might have to do with the fact that, whatever phone you switched to, some folder naming causes issue for the OS to read.
Again, back your files up, format the SD card.

shadowcore said:
Firstly, try to be more concise when have problems, post the things you have tried in numbers or columns so somebody who might want to help can quickly know what you have tried and suggest something.
I did not read past your 2nd paragraph..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm.. Well, then thanks for the response.
shadowcore said:
Secondly, I had a problem with my own sdcard, a kingston 16gb, in the past. Long story short, it became unreadable in my phone. Try to connect it to a PC, if you have an adapter, and back your files there.
The only solution for me was formatting it in my PC. After the format, it works for now.
I also switched phones, formerly a phone running CM11, now a phone running stock Sony 4.4 firmware.
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As I said, the card is readable on a pc, and on the phone. It's hard for me to think that is the answer. I did all that, and posted it.
shadowcore said:
Lastly, it might have to do with the fact that, whatever phone you switched to, some folder naming causes issue for the OS to read.
Again, back your files up, format the SD card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now that's an idea.
Before I try that I will see if anyone else has any ideas.
But that doesn't explain why the USB storage does not mount when I connect USB with the SDCard removed from the phone. It tries but never mounts. I think that is a clue.
I was gonna post a link to esr's "how to ask questions the smart way", but I don't have enough rep to post the outside link to catb.org.
I do try to follow that approach, and though I am new here I am NOT new to forums. I have been doing this, well, longer by far than most. A lot.

Well, still no change. I may just get another SDCard, put that in and see if that one exhibits the problem.

Virtual?
I did get another SDCARD, no difference.
I need to find the issue here.
I noticed I have two camera items in gallary, one has a camera icon and one has a folder icon.
The one with the camera icon only contains old pictures, from before migration.
The one with a file folder icon contains current pictures, taken by this phone.
When I plug into a computer as USB storage, only the old one mounts, the one with the camera icon. The new pictures (folder icon in gallery) do not mount.
Clearly this seems like a virtual filesystem that has it's pointers slightly wrong.
The camera app is saving it's photos in a directory that is not mounted when USB storage is used. It's not in the SDCARD, but it is in the internal memory.
The camera subdir that is a folder icon should be the one mounting as USB storage, and the other folder should be virtualized as a part of that.
I guess the problem is Kitkat does not save camera pictures on the SDCARD if available, as previous android versions did.
Can anyone suggest steps to isolate this problem?

Related

Can't access the SD card via usb.

At first it actually worked and I got a few apks loaded up, but now it absolutely won't cooperate and I have been wrestling with this all night. Getting various errors, basically the PC just won't recognize either the phone or the SD card. Can anyone help me out here?
Douchewithaphone said:
At first it actually worked and I got a few apks loaded up, but now it absolutely won't cooperate and I have been wrestling with this all night. Getting various errors, basically the PC just won't recognize either the phone or the SD card. Can anyone help me out here?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
don't move apps to the sdcard.
uninstall whatever apps you moved to sdcard, reboot, reinstall them and keep them in internal memory.
I didn't move any apps to my SD card. I installed them from it. They were apk files. Installed in internal memory.
Douchewithaphone said:
At first it actually worked and I got a few apks loaded up, but now it absolutely won't cooperate and I have been wrestling with this all night. Getting various errors, basically the PC just won't recognize either the phone or the SD card. Can anyone help me out here?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Known issue. Mine will also just stop seeing the SD card randomly. I'll know it when the phone rings and the ringer is some default garbage instead of the ringer I had assigned from the SD card.
I've yet to see any actual working solution. Simply rebooting the phone will usually fix it for awhile. Will probably have to wait for a Moto update.
what class is the sdcard?
people have been having issues with class 10 cards (although i have not).
try backing up everything on the sdcard, go to settings > storage and format the sdcard using the phone. move your stuff back onto the card and see if the problem continues.
svtfmook said:
what class is the sdcard?
people have been having issues with class 10 cards (although i have not).
try backing up everything on the sdcard, go to settings > storage and format the sdcard using the phone. move your stuff back onto the card and see if the problem continues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Been there done that. Mine is a class 4 Sandisk 16GB.
Make sure you don't have any apps on your SD card. When you plug in your USB cord in it unmounts the SD card. If you have any apps on the card that are running is when you run into the problems being described as the phone is trying to unmount the card but can't due to the apps running.
Card is the stock 2gb, don't know what class.
No apps running from the card. Tried rebooting the phone a few times, turning USB debugging on and off, using different connection modes... No dice.
Def keep USB debugging on. When you plug your phone in does the USB icon show up in the notification bar?
Yeah, it does. And it charges.
OK grab the USB icon and pull it down just like a notification. You should see either 3 or 4 options, charge only, windows media share, etc. Sounds like you have charge only picked. Choose the media or data one and hopefully that will get you squared away
Douchewithaphone said:
Card is the stock 2gb, don't know what class.
No apps running from the card. Tried rebooting the phone a few times, turning USB debugging on and off, using different connection modes... No dice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If u pull the card you should see a number on it in a tiny circle, the number in that circle indicates what class the card is. I had this problem once, after I rooted. Did factory reset and its been all good since....this was 2 weeks ago.
Sent from my MB865 using XDA App
I've tried all the USB connection options multiple times.
I had to uninstall moto drivers and then reinstall them on my pc. All was good after that.
Also done that multiple times.
For now I'm just using my ghetto rigged card reader - digital camera and micro sd-sd adapter. Hahahha.
Probably just going to have to wait for an update and some more moto support for this phone on the pc side. Speaking of updates, this phone's been out for a month. Getting to be about time we at least saw a few bug fixes.
I'm sure you did a battery pull. I just went through this with my device, and that fixed the issue...
Actually, I didn't.
It seems that if there are any apps installed on the sdcard, it can't be accessed via usb.
Mine actually just started doing this as well. It was working fine, and now I cannot get it to mount as a mass storage drive on several different computers. I had three apps installed on the card, all games. I uninstalled all of them and still no mass storage.
So I've been making sure no apps get installed on my sd, or even any app databases because sometimes an app will install internally, but put its database on the sd. So none of that! I enjoyed a few days of being able to use usb mass storage, then a couple days ago it became inaccessible again. I checked for apps that may have slipped something onto the sd but didn't find anything noteworthy.
I left the issue alone, praying for a fix materialize from the etherworld, when something interesting happened today. I unmounted the sd and installed a new app, and a notification came up saying the app could be moved to the sd; but the notification used a wierd sound to alert me, presumably because it couldn't find the default audio file on the unmounted sd. So I then wen't to settings/sounds...oops... android crashed and rebooted with the sd card mounted; and I have access to usb mass storage again. Prayer answered?

Cannot access internal or external storage...

Hi,
Did a search but could not find anything like this.
Problem with my new Gemei G9T Android 4 Tablet. Until 3 nights ago it functioned normally, but 2 days ago I switched on and there was a problem accessing storage. File Browser and ES File Explorer cannot access internal SD, nor can QuickPic, MoviePlayer, or Music. Icon continuously shows ‘preparing SD card’. Settings accesses most functions, except ‘storage’ and ‘developer options’ which cause it to freeze. Tried factory reset – did not work. Most apps work fine, but not Camera or Gallery. Cannot access external SD or USB storage, or connect to laptop. Entering sleep mode causes power off. Normal powering on and off now require two presses with time gap between. All of these functions were fine previously. Have you any suggestions, please?
Brian44 said:
Hi,
Did a search but could not find anything like this.
Problem with my new Gemei G9T Android 4 Tablet. Until 3 nights ago it functioned normally, but 2 days ago I switched on and there was a problem accessing storage. File Browser and ES File Explorer cannot access internal SD, nor can QuickPic, MoviePlayer, or Music. Icon continuously shows ‘preparing SD card’. Settings accesses most functions, except ‘storage’ and ‘developer options’ which cause it to freeze. Tried factory reset – did not work. Most apps work fine, but not Camera or Gallery. Cannot access external SD or USB storage, or connect to laptop. Entering sleep mode causes power off. Normal powering on and off now require two presses with time gap between. All of these functions were fine previously. Have you any suggestions, please?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try to take out your SD card and put it in a Card reader, remember to do it while your device is off or unmount it from memory settings, try to swtich on your device later and connect it to your computer and check if it connect through USB or not.
Try some system tools?
Brian44 said:
Hi,
Did a search but could not find anything like this.
Problem with my new Gemei G9T Android 4 Tablet. Until 3 nights ago it functioned normally, but 2 days ago I switched on and there was a problem accessing storage. File Browser and ES File Explorer cannot access internal SD, nor can QuickPic, MoviePlayer, or Music. Icon continuously shows ‘preparing SD card’. Settings accesses most functions, except ‘storage’ and ‘developer options’ which cause it to freeze. Tried factory reset – did not work. Most apps work fine, but not Camera or Gallery. Cannot access external SD or USB storage, or connect to laptop. Entering sleep mode causes power off. Normal powering on and off now require two presses with time gap between. All of these functions were fine previously. Have you any suggestions, please?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm guessing databaiz's suggestion to take out the card isn't an option because it's the internal sd card, right? If so, for the one-in-a-million chance that the external card is screwing with the bus, I'd take the external card out and reboot anyway, just to make sure; if it works OK then, I would check the external card as databaiz suggests. But assuming it still doesn't work, next question is, do you have a terminal app installed? Please try the 'mount' command and let us know what you see. One other question, will it still go into fastboot mode? Can you see it from your computer when in fastboot mode (the details of how to do this depend on whether you have windows or linux/macOS - I can maybe help with the latter, but not the former).
It could be bad card
It could be bad card.... Remove and test in card reader...
cannot access internal or external storage
Thanks guys, I have been booting without external memory, with problems still the same. So, cannot be problem with external SD.
The internal SD card is not accessed properly. When I go to settings>Apps>All, the line at bottom shows Internal storage 4.1 MB used, 798MB free. (I have uninstalled most apps to see if that helped – it did not.) So, something is accessing the internal SD, also apps are running which must be off the internal SD.
I do not know what a terminal app is, Urilabob. I have downloaded it but what do I do with it?
At: [email protected]:/ $ I keyed in # mount [enter] , making:
[email protected]:/ $ # mount [enter]
But nothing happened, just another line of: [email protected]:/ $
Also, what is fast boot mode – this is not the same as sleep mode? This is all new to me. Appreciate your help.
My laptop is Windows 7.
Brian44 said:
Thanks guys, I have been booting without external memory, with problems still the same. So, cannot be problem with external SD.
The internal SD card is not accessed properly. When I go to settings>Apps>All, the line at bottom shows Internal storage 4.1 MB used, 798MB free. (I have uninstalled most apps to see if that helped – it did not.) So, something is accessing the internal SD, also apps are running which must be off the internal SD.
I do not know what a terminal app is, Urilabob. I have downloaded it but what do I do with it?
At: [email protected]:/ $ I keyed in # mount [enter] , making:
[email protected]:/ $ # mount [enter]
But nothing happened, just another line of: [email protected]:/ $
Also, what is fast boot mode – this is not the same as sleep mode? This is all new to me. Appreciate your help.
My laptop is Windows 7.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, I replied earlier but it seems I messed up so the reply didn't appear.
My problem is I know unix fairly well, and android is very similar, so I forget what is the same and what's different. Sorry, the command you need in the terminal is "df". That will show you a list of what partitions are mounted on your system. I'm guessing you're going to see /system, but not /mnt/sdcard. Why, I don't know. It's possible that the sdcard partition has got corrupted - but suspicious that the external card is also having problems. Is it possible that either the tablet or your pc crashed while you were copying files between them? Or that you disconnected the cable between them before telling the tablet to go out of connected mode? Either of those could explain corrupted partitions. Unfortunately fixing them may not be easy.
There are three different ways to connect your tablet to a computer. One is so it looks like external disks. I got the impression you already discovered this, and that it has now stopped working. The other two require you to install (parts of) the android development system on your computer. The simplest one is adb mode. Please google it to see how to use it. This might give you a chance to check the state of your partitions. The other is in fastboot mode. Fastboot mode is an alternative way of starting your computer, that goes into a fairly bulletproof, but very simple, mode that allows you to do various things on your tablet (it gives you very low level access to the tablet - powerful but dangerous). I'm pretty sure it will still be working. How you get into fastboot mode depends on your tablet; you'll need to google it. And how you access it in fastboot mode is fairly different on windows. So I'm not the best adviser. But please be careful - it's easy to brick the tablet in fastboot mode, you need to make sure you completely understand any steps you might take, especially any that might write to the tablet (of course, reading from it is safe). And of course the simplest alternative is simply to completely reinstall the tablet (sorry, I forget the android term for this). That should restore things OK, but it will mean you lose all your data and will have to reinstall all your applications.
cannot access internal or external storage
urilabob said:
Sorry, I replied earlier but it seems I messed up so the reply didn't appear.
My problem is I know unix fairly well, and android is very similar, so I forget what is the same and what's different. Sorry, the command you need in the terminal is "df". That will show you a list of what partitions are mounted on your system. I'm guessing you're going to see /system, but not /mnt/sdcard. Why, I don't know. It's possible that the sdcard partition has got corrupted - but suspicious that the external card is also having problems. Is it possible that either the tablet or your pc crashed while you were copying files between them? Or that you disconnected the cable between them before telling the tablet to go out of connected mode? Either of those could explain corrupted partitions. Unfortunately fixing them may not be easy.
There are three different ways to connect your tablet to a computer. One is so it looks like external disks. I got the impression you already discovered this, and that it has now stopped working. The other two require you to install (parts of) the android development system on your computer. The simplest one is adb mode. Please google it to see how to use it. This might give you a chance to check the state of your partitions. The other is in fastboot mode. Fastboot mode is an alternative way of starting your computer, that goes into a fairly bulletproof, but very simple, mode that allows you to do various things on your tablet (it gives you very low level access to the tablet - powerful but dangerous). I'm pretty sure it will still be working. How you get into fastboot mode depends on your tablet; you'll need to google it. And how you access it in fastboot mode is fairly different on windows. So I'm not the best adviser. But please be careful - it's easy to brick the tablet in fastboot mode, you need to make sure you completely understand any steps you might take, especially any that might write to the tablet (of course, reading from it is safe). And of course the simplest alternative is simply to completely reinstall the tablet (sorry, I forget the android term for this). That should restore things OK, but it will mean you lose all your data and will have to reinstall all your applications.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, Urilabob. The command df had an effect!
Shows Filesystem with figures for Size, Used, Free, and Blksize (4096), next to each of the following:
/dev, /mnt/asec, /mnt/obb, /system, /data, and /cache. The figures are all different except Blksize.
/mnt/sdcard is not shown.
Does this tell you anything useful?
I have never been able to access the tablet from my laptop with Windows 7. My son’s laptop has an earlier Windows, so I checked today and found that his Windows Explorer finds the tablet (as 2 disks, A and F) and asks “Please insert a disk into Removable Disk H:” (and same for F.
By the way, this problem started when I downloaded the (automatic) firmware update direct to the tablet, not via laptop. But the wifi signal was weak, and files may have been corrupted. I have since downloaded the complete, latest firmware to the laptop (with strong wifi signal), but do not know how to get it into the tablet!
Have not yet done anything on adb or fastboot modes. Will Google adb tonight.
Not worried about losing data or apps.
Thanks again, Brian.
I'm guessing that your tablet is rooted? If so, do you have an app like superuser? I remember having to go through some options to give my file explorers access to my SD card. You may have accidentally set you SD card to be off-limits or something. If you haven't already done it, see if giving an app like ES File Explorer superuser access will help.
Also see if you can enable USB debugging. For my nook color, I have to enable in order to access usb mass storage for one of my memory units. See if you can access your internal SD card content through USB debugging.
cannot access internal or external storage
SacTappingUni said:
I'm guessing that your tablet is rooted? If so, do you have an app like superuser? I remember having to go through some options to give my file explorers access to my SD card. You may have accidentally set you SD card to be off-limits or something. If you haven't already done it, see if giving an app like ES File Explorer superuser access will help.
Also see if you can enable USB debugging. For my nook color, I have to enable in order to access usb mass storage for one of my memory units. See if you can access your internal SD card content through USB debugging.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your thoughts. My tablet is not rooted. And I cannot enable USB debugging, because Settings freezes when I tap Developer Options to get to USB debug. I am just learning about Android - seems to be 2 partitions on the internal storage, one about 2.6GB with apps and other things on (which is accessible), and the other partition must be about 13GB, but has not been accessible since the automatic firmware update.
Sounds like the update caused you issues. If you have everything backed up with your Google account I recommend that you do a factory data reset and see if that fixes your issue.
cannot access internal or external storage
MissionImprobable said:
Sounds like the update caused you issues. If you have everything backed up with your Google account I recommend that you do a factory data reset and see if that fixes your issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Factory reset would be great, if it worked, but it does not function.
Can you exchange the device?
Brian44 said:
Factory reset would be great, if it worked, but it does not function.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK, so from your df listing, it's clear that sdcard is not getting mounted. That's a pretty low-level function that is failing. The fact that factory reset also doesn't work suggests (doesn't prove) that the sdcard partition at least has a corrupted filesystem, and quite possibly the partition itself has been corrupted. Could a spotty OTA update do that? I'm surprised - I would have thought they would use fairly high level functions for OTA updates, precisely because any drop-out could cause corruption if you use low-level disk access. But who knows - the mysteries of google? Another possibility is that the sdcard is physically bad, and maybe the update just caused you to get into the bad region (with the dynamic memory mapping in flash memory, once something goes wrong it's almost impossible to figure out what). At this point, I'd be going back to the distributor if possible (you said it was new, right)? I think even if you were an android guru, and knew exactly how to do a complete rebuild from scratch, you would be risking that the device itself is faulty - and that the rebuild would mean you couldn't prove that the device was at fault (rather than your rebuild)...
Best Wishes
Bob
cannot access internal or external storage
urilabob said:
OK, so from your df listing, it's clear that sdcard is not getting mounted. That's a pretty low-level function that is failing. The fact that factory reset also doesn't work suggests (doesn't prove) that the sdcard partition at least has a corrupted filesystem, and quite possibly the partition itself has been corrupted. Could a spotty OTA update do that? I'm surprised - I would have thought they would use fairly high level functions for OTA updates, precisely because any drop-out could cause corruption if you use low-level disk access. But who knows - the mysteries of google? Another possibility is that the sdcard is physically bad, and maybe the update just caused you to get into the bad region (with the dynamic memory mapping in flash memory, once something goes wrong it's almost impossible to figure out what). At this point, I'd be going back to the distributor if possible (you said it was new, right)? I think even if you were an android guru, and knew exactly how to do a complete rebuild from scratch, you would be risking that the device itself is faulty - and that the rebuild would mean you couldn't prove that the device was at fault (rather than your rebuild)...
Best Wishes
Bob
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, Bob for all your help. This seems like the end of the line with this tablet. I expected this might be the case, and emailed DinoDirect two days ago for a refund, as I am heading overseas next week and want to resolve the matter before I go. They responded that "we will contact our related department to process your case priority". I have been aware that any actions I might take could invalidate the warranty, and this has inhibited me a bit. I will forward your latest comments in support of my refund claim.
I learned some basics of Android from all this!
Good wishes, great talking to you.
Brian
Just for a great justice :victory:
Got same bug on my Gemei G6, guess it hapens after i connect dc cabel to a fully charged pad that was charged in off mode and turn on. So i just download last firmware fro Gemeitech.com, unzip it on SD card and tnen turn on pad with pressed Home and Power buttons that must be pressed untill robot with green rotating belly appears what mean start of flashin` Thats it.
Got the same issue in Huawei Ascend P-7, I just switched off the mobile, removed the SD card and turned it back on after 5 minutes ....... and that was it, all issues resolved. Just the thing was that once SD card was re-inserted, problem came up again. So i have decided to copy SD card data to PC via Card Reader and format it or get new SD card

[Q] Really weird problem when syncing to computer (SOLVED)

I have searched the internet for the answer for the last few days, have tried multiple things suggested and nothing seems to fix my issue!
First the problem : When I sync my phone to my computer it syncs like normal, phone gives me all 3 options (Charge, Disk Drive, Tether). I choose disk drive and then my computer asks me what I want to do. I click explore and it opens up the phone folder yet it doesn't show anything on my SD card, just the stuff on my phone.The weird part is when I Search for a folder that is on the SD Card for example "audio" the folder shows up with all it's contents. This has been driving me insane for the last couple of days.
Things I attempted already to fix the issue to no avail : Have tried different computers, have tried 3 different cables at this point, HTC Sync (Doesn't recognize phone at all), I have went into my folder options on my computer and made sure all hidden folders are showing. I have restarted and replaced my SD Card multiple times.
The thing that really gets me is that when I do search for a folder on my SD Card such as audio it DOES show up and I am able to delete/copy/paste stuff into it but everything on the SD Card does not show unless I search for it specifically. I hope someone can help, this is really frustrating me at this point!
Okay, so I deduce windows based on htc sync - you can start by going ahead and uninstalling that. (htc sync)
What version of windows?
Try choosing your usb mode before plugging into the pc.
What brand sdcard? Capacity?
Did you format the card in the doubleshot when you started using it?
What rom are you running on the device?
Or are you sure it's not a virus? I once had a friend who had his USB drive infected with a virus. And same situation as yours. When I plugged in the usb it should that most of the space is used. Yet when I opened the usb there's no folders or even files. But when I plugged it in a linux PC I saw all the folders and found a autorun.inf and an exe file. Deleted it and when plugged back in the windows PC all the files showed up again but as hidden & system files. But all contents are intact.
Ok so to clarify some more things, Yes I am using Windows 7, have already uninstalled HTC Sync.
Next one important fact might be that I'm NOT rooted in which case I'm not sure if I'm even supposed to ask this question in these forums (I did read all the rules pages and understand this site was created for developers and development aspect of phones, did not see any specifics as far as asking questions about unrooted phones, Sorry if that is the case).
I DO have Disk Drive as default setting before plugging up.
It is a SanDisk 16GB SD Card Blue.
Don't think last two questions apply since I'm not rooted.
Also just to clarify something else, I think I actually am seeing folders on my card when plugging in but for some reason it's not showing all of them. I know this because when I search the drive for "audio" it brings up the folder and shows that it is directly under the drive, not in any subfolder.
As far as it being a virus, in that case what should my actions be?
I REALLY appreciate you guys taking the time to reply and answer some of my questions. Thanks again, hopefully I can get this fixed.
Does it do the same thing when you connect to a different PC? I want to say this is a PC OS setting issue.
Hastily spouted for your befuddlement
Coug76 said:
Does it do the same thing when you connect to a different PC? I want to say this is a PC OS setting issue.
Hastily spouted for your befuddlement
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have tried 3 different PCs with Windows 7 and got the same result. This is beyond frustrating at this point!
If it's a virus issue have you already tried browsing the content of your SDCard? If there's a virus using a android file manager like ES Explorer for example you might see some unfamiliar files in there. On most case you should see a .exe file in the root of your SDCard. Also try looking for some odd named folders or RECYCLER.
This is not applicable on a windows OS. So I recommend you to browse through your android phone or try plugging in your device to a linux PC.
Using ES Explorer I did find an exe titled audio.exe and deleted it, restarted phone and that didn't seem to help.
The way I finally fixed my issue though, I had to uncheck "Hide protected system files" in folders options to see the rest of the folders.
Dmitriy305 said:
Using ES Explorer I did find an exe titled audio.exe and deleted it, restarted phone and that didn't seem to help.
The way I finally fixed my issue though, I had to uncheck "Hide protected system files" in folders options to see the rest of the folders.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Classic. Right up there with windows hiding known file extensions, so you end up with some-file.zip.zip but only see one .zip extension and can't fathom why it won't work.
Glad it was something simple and not catastrophic!
Yeah a virus indeed! Just as I guessed on my 1st post better scan your PC then... Cleaning up your phone storage isn't enough as it will just come back once plugged in back to your PC.
And the audio.exe is indeed a virus. Also I'm sure theres more of those in your sdcard. Try to look further specially .exe files in sub directories etc.
Also I suggest these links in fixing your phone storage.
http://imacify.com/2011/02/how-to-recover-hidden-files-from-virus-infected-usb-pendrive/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxTrFSOTdjo

[Q] Internal storage issue

So in preparation for backing up my internal storage for 4.2.1 in case it messes up or I do I was planning on copying everything from my internal device storage onto my computer. When going through the folders to see which ones were empty and I didn't need to copy I came across a folder that I had deleted the contents of earlier that day. Thinking I may have not actually deleted it I did it again.
Before copying the information over I went to check to make sure I had my backup of my nova launcher and noticed it wasn't there, I went to make another backup when I hit restore just to check that there was a back up and there was, and in the folder I had just looked on in my computer.
It was then I realized that the data my computer showed was very old files, things I had deleted months ago and some of the newer files were not being shown. I also noticed that old videos and pictures showed in my gallery app even though I knew I deleted them. I tried rebooting my tablet disconnecting it from my computer and reconnecting it and to no avail I also cleared the gallery app data and that seemed to fix the phantom videos and pictures in the app.
If anyone knows what is going on and how I can correct this issue that would be helpful as it does not seem to be an issue with my phone, Galaxy S3.
Thanks,
Frostbiter
You are using MTP connection to delete files/folder or just a file manager? I had similar issues when i was using my PC to delete stuff from the internal storage so you could try to use a file manager and see if it solves the issue.
I do delete stuff from es file manager, I rarely connect my tablet to my computer but when I do its using MTP and only to put files onto the internal storage or sd card.
The gallery thing happens to more people, we have a thread about a multi-GB cache file somewhere around here.
I have never had it show old files on my pc though. Have you tried rebooting your computer? (I feel a bit like the microsoft helpdesk for saying that... xD) Oh, and a registry cleaner might fix the issue. (for the pc, not the tab.)
I have had my sgs3 not showing up at all every once in a while (i use mtp a lot), but thats probably me being an idiot and killing the media storage process again. (I clear out all non-essential processes when gaming.).
Send from my Samsung Galaxy S3 using Tapatalk 2
I haven't tried rebooting my computer after plugging my tablet it, but I normally turn it off every night and as I said before I rarely plug my tablet it so I don't think it's a cache issues. I'll clean out my registry and maybe I'll uninstall the drivers for my tablet and let them reinstall too.
I was able to fix the issues by switching usb ports I plugged it into, it started showing the proper files when I plugged it into the first usb too. I took a picture while still connected to the first usb port and it showed up in internal storage in my computer so I don't think it's a usb problem.
Thanks for the info on the gallery issue, maybe this cache file and issues I'm having are connected some how.

Filesystem is virtualized, I think. But not correctly.

I have an Alcatel One Touch Fierce 2, and it's not great. But it's working, mostly.
It sometimes reboots spontaneously. heh. A known problem with this one.
Android 4.42.
I migrated to it mostly using the google backup and with the SDCARD from the old phone.
One annoying problem I have is when I plug it into my computer, and the USB mounts.
My pictures do not mount.
I do get a pictures DCIM folder that mounts, but it's on the SDCARD and it contains pictures that predate this phone.
The pictures in the current phone do not mount, nor are they browsable from the computer.
So I can't get the pictures out of the phone without emailing them to myself.
If I start Gallery I have two camera items, one old and one new.
One has a camera icon and contains only old pictures. It's the one on the SDCARD.
The one that mounts when I connect it to a computer and enable USB storage.
The other has a folder icon and contains current pictures. It's the one in the internal memory.
That one does not mount when I connect to USB and enable USB storage.
It did mount and work fine on previous phones with previous android versions. But not anymore!
I think that is backward. And the problem.
The current camera app should be saving on the SDCARD, but it's not.
The funny thing is I don't have a camera APP in the APP list. And if I start the camera APP, and then press menu to go back to the home screen leaving the camera running and then start Advanced Task Killer Free no app named camera is in the list of killable tasks.
The camera app works with facebook, meetup, and gallery, but why doesn't it appear on the list?
Is the camera a kernal module now? Maybe.
Something has become scrambled in the file system on this phone, and I badly want to fix it.
It seems like it's a virtualized filesystem.
And something is just not exactly right.
I did get another SDCard and format it, and I transferred stuff from the old card to the new one as someone suggested before.
As I thought then, that was grasping at straws. None of that is the problem.
The problem here is the virtualized filesystem. And that the KitKat version does not seem to try to use the SDCard much, which is why lots of people run out of storage.
Any ideas?

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