Filesystem is virtualized, I think. But not correctly. - General Questions and Answers

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?

Related

Apps disappearing after reboot?! [CM6]

Ive had a weird problem the last day or so, when I reboot my device, apps mysteriously go missing. Each time I reboot, like 5 or 6 different apps disappear. This only happens to SD card apps though. This started happening a few days ago but yesterday it got alot worse AFTER I had reformatted my card. Could there be something wrong with my SD card? The apps still appear to be installed in "manage applications" but they look like "com.aac.cachemate.demo" as the name of the app, instead of "Cachemate" and etc...?
did you use link2sd ?
com....whatever in manage applications usually means, that the apk file is missing, while the application data is present
the mess as described, can be seen if your ext partition is mounted too late ...
nadlabak has some fix about it
https://github.com/nadlabak/android...mmit/e5b9b3195687e04af7a7929f8637e77e1efae9a1
but i can't remember where is part of setting the property, after checking and mounting the whole card ...
nikctsh said:
did you use link2sd ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did not, I used the standard apps2sd built into CM6. Every time I reboot, different apps are missing and then some come back that were missing the time before...They all still appear in manage applications though so they might be intact but I'm not sure if all are, they show up with the default generic android icon, and weird names. "mobi.mgeek.tunnybrowser." (Dolphin Browser) and "net.flixter.android" (Flixter) etc...The storage sizes of the missing apps appear to be different then they are supposed to be. (Maybe)
(This might have something to do with it) Yesterday for hours (before I reformatted) the phone was stuck at "Preparing SD card, checking for errors" so I went online and followed the suggestion an xda member who suggested in another thread to delete the "fsck_msdos" file from "system /bin" which disables the SD card check to see if the SD card has been properly mounted and checked. It seemed to fix my other SD card issue for the rest of the day. could this be related?
Just share my experience , when I was in 2.1 , I used link2sd , and if I boot without sdcard , all my linked apps will happen like that , I think maybe this is the same case as apps2sd . So , what I do is just uninstalled all those apps , and reinstalled some of it ( it's quite annoying to reinstall over 100 apps ) . As you said , all those apps remained as it's package name , so I'm kinda sure our case is almost the same . But when I was in 2.2 , once I booted with sdcard inserted , but after boot completed , all my user apps dissapear , yes , ALL . But anyway , after scan for sdcard problem in OR , all my apps recovered , with no force close , just like nothing happen during the last boot . So also , try to scan for sdcard problem in OR .
It says my card is mounted (about half of my sd card apps show up) but when I bring up the gallery, it says "SD card unmounted or not present." When I try to unmount it in settings, it never unmounts, I just click "unmount" and nothing happens....
donovanx3 said:
It says my card is mounted (about half of my sd card apps show up) but when I bring up the gallery, it says "SD card unmounted or not present." When I try to unmount it in settings, it never unmounts, I just click "unmount" and nothing happens....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It sounds like you have corruption in your sdcard filesystem. I would take your sdcard out, put it directly into a Windows PC and run chkdsk (alternately fsck.msdos on a linux PC).
Mioze7Ae said:
It sounds like you have corruption in your sdcard filesystem. I would take your sdcard out, put it directly into a Windows PC and run chkdsk (alternately fsck.msdos on a linux PC).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok I will run a chkdsk when I get some time to sit down at the computer later. I think it probably is corruption.
Mioze7Ae said:
It sounds like you have corruption in your sdcard filesystem. I would take your sdcard out, put it directly into a Windows PC and run chkdsk (alternately fsck.msdos on a linux PC).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
SD card fixed with error checking in windows!! Thanks!
Fast Boot option may be the culprit
The advice about checking SD card on Windows or Linux sounds good and I will keep it in mind, but I did not need to fix this sort of problem. I am not familiar with CyanogenMod (CM) in any version, but if it has a fast boot option, read on...
CUT TO THE SOLUTION BELOW -- SEARCH FOR ////
Some (not all) of my apps moved to SD (all by Titanium Backup Pro) have begun to disappear and (sometimes) reappear without warning after I began to add and delete large Virtual Machines created in QEMU from my 16GB SanDisc class 10 microSD card on my HTC Droid Incredible running rooted stock Verizon Android Froyo 2.2.3. I know this thread is far from my phone's "home base", but from what I can tell this problem with disappearing apps located on an sdcard is NOT determined by hardware or even Android version.
I also happen to use LauncherPro by Federico Carnales instead of the built-in HTC Sense launcher. I noted elsewhere on XDA that a user had suggested that because at least some (maybe all) launchers start before the SD Card that this may be a problem, especially if changes are made to the sdcard that the launcher did not perform, or was not active during their performance by other apps such as Titanium Backup. That fits my situation, because I unmounted the SD, physically removed it to a PC, and added/deleted large VM files to save (lots) of time. No problems of this sort before I did this, so there must be some connection.
I noted that other users have tried reformatting SD, substituting different brands of SD, using newer/older SD etc. None of these reliably helped. So I skipped these options.
//// The (simple!) solution I tried that SEEMS to work (only time will tell!) is buried in the main Android Settings (accessed from the Menu button while in Home screen). Under "Applications" there is a setting "Fast Boot" that I checked long ago and forgot about (it seemed like a good thing to do at the time). The text warns "Turn off to use some Market apps" (that shows the age of my 2-yr old used phone and Android OS -- ohmygosh!-- because it refers to Market rather than Google Play Store!) Anyway, I unchecked the option and rebooted the phone.
Yes, it took a bit longer to boot (maybe a whole minute!), but after waiting about another minute ALL my home screen apps had normal icons and loaded properly. Titanium Backup Pro batch scenarios confirmed there were no apps in a forced uninstalled state (i.e. I had not done the deed, the system somehow had done it or at least rendered the apps "invisible" to Titanium, which decided they needed reinstallation).
The only odd behaviour was that auto brightness was turned off after I unchecked Fast Boot and rebooted. Going into Android Settings > Display and rechecking "auto brightness" took care of that. No other oddities or strange behaviours thus far (but it has only been about an hour).
I will report back here on this thread only (Samsung Fascinate > Fascinate Q&A > What just happend? apps on sdcard) if anything else requires reporting. Silence implies success!
link: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1873670
(I am copying this post to other relevant threads, but will not post anything further elsewhere -- only there. This is a bit arbitrary (although this thread appears to be the most recent active one on this topic), but I hope this approach pleases the XDA sysops/admins) :angel:
Sorry for opening up old thread. My HDC Note3 clone phone having the same/similar issue. The phone have 8G ROM which partition into 2 different name, internal phone (1G) and SD card (5G). Whatever Apps that I install on the SD card will disappear from home menu every-time I re-boot using the power button. However, it it still there when the phone do their own reboot due to something
I try unchecked "Fast Boot" but disappearing act still happen. Any suggestion to resolve the issue?

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] 2 Camera directories?

My photos seem to be split randomly into two different "Camera" folders on my phone.
Storage in the camera app is set to SD and still no matter what I've done, I always seem to get 2 camera folders and the pics sent to each one seem rather random to me.
Any input?
Edit: Just looked again and one folder is on the SD card and one is on the phone's internal storage. Photos seem to be randomly sent into one or the other. I've reset the app, wiped the phone, nothing worked.
Anyone?
Just making sure, you know that in the file browser, "SDcard" is the phone's storage, and "extSD" is the memory card.
With that said, if I understand you correctly, you say you selected memory card for the storage in the camera app, correct? I realized a few days ago that for some annoying reason, even when that is selected, the app still creates a "DCIM" folder in the internal memory which it uses to cache thumbnails. Why it can't do that on the external card, I'd like to know.

weird storage architecture/behaviour (sd/emulated/systemfolders/) im getting crazy ;)

Hi,
my last phone was android 4.0.3. everything was perfect (and logical ). i had my internal space and my sd (wich was mounted to /sdcard). when i connected my phone to the pc i could acces my sdcard directly as it was... what a wonderful world
i know android changed the sd access because of security issues. i know the OPO got no sd.
but now i get crazy
OPO shows my something like "internal storage /storage/emulated/0" with an nice sd sign nearby. looked what was inside this, connected my phone as media device onto pc and found the same content. i thougt: well stange path but ok idc.
i placed my titaniumbackup and whatsapp folder there and placed a picture into pictures. then i installed whatsapp (it found my backup and restored it, but the backup folder was still in this place), changed background to the picture and set up everything else.
well, no it starts to get confusing after setting everything up i connected my phone onto pc a moment ago. and what did i saw then? the picture, movies, music,... folders all where gone. the only fodler left inside the whats app folder is media.
the picture i placed in pictures is still my background but cant find the filename with any (root) file brwoser. whatsapp still everything ok but where are the files and folder gone? how can i backup whatsapp in the future?
so im like:
- why are there at least 5 ways to go to the "internal storage" (/sdcard, /mnt/sdcard, /storage/emulated/0, /storage/emulated/legacy, /storage/sdcard0)? (only because diefferent devs using different pathes?)
- why, how and when got this place changed/folders deleted (from system?)?
am i maybe using something wrong? is there another way supposed to do it?
for me everything is really weird at the moment

[Q] USB storage says it mounts, but it doesn't really. It lies!

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?

Categories

Resources