Database Users

[Q] External SD Card/Storage Issues

Hi all i'm fairly new to the xda forums but I just recently had a strange occurrence happen on my S4 that I was hoping someone could help me resolve or at the very least explain it to me.
Ok well I have the sprint galaxy s4 with a 32 gb external SD card if i'm not mistaken. Well I enjoy downloading videos and files to my phone instead of using the internet to watch them because I get bad service where I work. So it's much more convenient to just download them beforehand and watch with no buffering.
Well after awhile of doing this I downloaded androzip file manager so i could rearrange my files so I knew exactly what was on my phone. Well as of yesterday my total space on my device was 16GB and my available space was around 7.2gb. My SD card as i said was about 32 or so and my available space was around 14 to 15GB.
Well I went to try to download a 4 and a half long video in high quality and it all of a sudden said that my memory was full. As far as i knw this video was about 4 gb or so...which should have fit on my device or SD card. Well after finding this unfinished download then deleting it I decided to try to free up some space on my phone to hopefully have more room. Well I googled it and alot of people said an app called SHREDroid was the way to go and that it would completely erase files that I had previously deleted so it wouldnt take up unnecessary space on my phone. Well i used it on my internal and external memory and now my storage looks really funny. My available space on my device is somewhat normal at 7.82 GB. But my SD card is just strange. I havent downloaded anything else and it went from that 14 or 15 GB down to 2.82GB.
How in the world could this have happened. I have nothing new in my external card as far as i know. Can anyone please help me with this?
Sorry for the long post i just wanted to be clear and concise. Please feel free to tell me any details i may have left out
Thanks everyone!

Lots of reports of bad SD cards, so that's a real possibility here.
But what I'd do is backup everything on the SD card to a PC. Then I'd format the SD card (Settings>More>Storage - Scroll to the bottom). Then copy everything back onto the card from the PC and see if that fixes it.

Is your sd card formatted to FAT 32?
Sent from my SPH-L720 using xda app-developers app

Help Please! MAJOR SD card issues!

New to XDA, not new to Android.
Phone: Moto X Play
Rom: Stock Marshmallow 6.1
Issue: SD Card disappears randomly (formatted as internal storage!!!)
Bootloader never unlocked, never rooted.
I have a sandisk 32gb micro sd card that works when I first start the phone. The problem is that it will randomly, completely, disappear.
Now I'm not, IMO, a complete noob. I am fairly (99%) sure it is indeed the sd card at fault. Ok, not an issue, I can always replace it with a new one.
The issue is, of course, that EVERYTHING is on my SD card, most importantly, my photos.
Even without accessing a file manager (phone idle, browsing web, playing games) the sd card will eventually fail leaving it inaccessible until the phone is restarted. When attempting to access my photos, which is what I need most, it fails MUCH quicker.
Having not used the "Google Photos" app before (just Gallery), I am not at all sure if my photos were ever backed up online, If they were, I'm not sure where to look.
Trying to access them via usb, wifi file transfer, bt tranfer, and even from file managers on the phone itself, result in an almost immediate failure of the sd card. 5 seconds or so tops.
The card is formatted as "Internal Storage" and I have not been able to find a way to get a computer or anything else to read it, and I would imagine for security reasons, there is no way.
Here's the question: Is there any way to get photos off the sd card, that wont take me three million years in 5 second intervals, while having to restart the phone every bleeping time the sd card fails to get it to recognize the sd card again?
Suggestions please!
Thanks in advance,
Canabian

Canabian420 said:
New to XDA, not new to Android.
Phone: Moto X Play
Rom: Stock Marshmallow 6.1
Issue: SD Card disappears randomly (formatted as internal storage!!!)
Bootloader never unlocked, never rooted.
I have a sandisk 32gb micro sd card that works when I first start the phone. The problem is that it will randomly, completely, disappear.
Now I'm not, IMO, a complete noob. I am fairly (99%) sure it is indeed the sd card at fault. Ok, not an issue, I can always replace it with a new one.
The issue is, of course, that EVERYTHING is on my SD card, most importantly, my photos.
Even without accessing a file manager (phone idle, browsing web, playing games) the sd card will eventually fail leaving it inaccessible until the phone is restarted. When attempting to access my photos, which is what I need most, it fails MUCH quicker.
Having not used the "Google Photos" app before (just Gallery), I am not at all sure if my photos were ever backed up online, If they were, I'm not sure where to look.
Trying to access them via usb, wifi file transfer, bt tranfer, and even from file managers on the phone itself, result in an almost immediate failure of the sd card. 5 seconds or so tops.
The card is formatted as "Internal Storage" and I have not been able to find a way to get a computer or anything else to read it, and I would imagine for security reasons, there is no way.
Here's the question: Is there any way to get photos off the sd card, that wont take me three million years in 5 second intervals, while having to restart the phone every bleeping time the sd card fails to get it to recognize the sd card again?
Suggestions please!
Thanks in advance,
Canabian
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Format the card using computer (Not quick format )
Quick format didn't worked for me.
And don't make card as internal, use it as portable

with the sd card in the phone, go to settings - apps, show system apps. then select External Storage, force stop it or clear it cache. do the same to Media Storage. reboot the phone, once everything loaded wait for 5-10 minutes especially if you have lots of files in a large sd card. once that done, connect the phone to your pc (use mtp if i'm not mistaken) and hopefully you can now access the internal (sd card) contents.

jerryn70 said:
Format the card using computer (Not quick format )
Quick format didn't worked for me.
And don't make card as internal, use it as portable
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This will HOPEFULLY resolve the issue AFTER I get my photos off the card!
What I need help with is getting roughly 10 gigs of data off a card that works intermittently for roughly 5 seconds at a time....
-Canabian

pijes said:
with the sd card in the phone, go to settings - apps, show system apps. then select External Storage, force stop it or clear it cache. do the same to Media Storage. reboot the phone, once everything loaded wait for 5-10 minutes especially if you have lots of files in a large sd card. once that done, connect the phone to your pc (use mtp if i'm not mistaken) and hopefully you can now access the internal (sd card) contents.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will try this and report back.
One question... If the card is formatted as internal storage, clearing data for external storage and media storage will not cause the phone to "forget" the sd card will it?
Thanks,
Canabian.

I think I have come up with a solution to my own problem. If this works satisfactorily, I will let others know as this may help many other people facing this issue.
I am on a linux pc. I am going to try to use RSYNC to copy the files over. This SHOULD copy files over, deleting them from the source folder as it goes. Once the sd card fails, which it WILL, once I reboot the phone and start rsync once again, it should "resume" where it left off.
Here is the command for anyone else that may need it:
rsync -v --progress --remove-source-files --recursive --append-verify /path/to/source/files /path/to/destination/folder
Hopefully this works the way I hope it will. Will post back with my results when I can.
Thanks again,
Canabian.

I had the same problem, and the solution (that maybe someone posted somewhere in the internet) is using a faster SD card. Since I switched to a sandisk extreme pro, the problem disappeared. Be careful, though, when using Samsung SD cards: my moto x play doesn't like them much (I had to replace them twice before buying the sandisk; in some way the partition tables of the Samsung SD cards were damaged, plus they became read-only, resulting in two unusable cards).

jauffre said:
I had the same problem, and the solution (that maybe someone posted somewhere in the internet) is using a faster SD card. Since I switched to a sandisk extreme pro, the problem disappeared. Be careful, though, when using Samsung SD cards: my moto x play doesn't like them much (I had to replace them twice before buying the sandisk; in some way the partition tables of the Samsung SD cards were damaged, plus they became read-only, resulting in two unusable cards).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
which samsung model did you use? I just replaced my normal class 10 strontium card yesterday with a brand new samsung evo plus u1 card and formatted it as internal storage. so far the phone feels a bit snappy with this card.

dude search a little in this section and i hope u find the fix.i just let u know that our device has very sensitive sd pins and many users had accidentally bented them and didn't know the problem!
i hope u are not one of them!so if you are lucky,next time u put the sd be veeeery careful!i personally didn't put it out from the time i bought it...

pijes said:
which samsung model did you use? I just replaced my normal class 10 strontium card yesterday with a brand new samsung evo plus u1 card and formatted it as internal storage. so far the phone feels a bit snappy with this card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It was just a Samsung Evo class 10. The strange thing is that I tried also a Sandisk of the same class, which gave me only the "external memory missing" problem, while the Samsung ones became just unusable plastic. But maybe I should try better Samsung SD cards.

First impressions horrible. Second impressions, love it.

Had the Priv for a few days. I set it up with a 128gb memory card formatted as extended memory.
It was HORRIBLE. So laggy.. Facebook for example kept freezing so badly that android wanted to close it every few minutes. I can't tell you how disappointed I was. ?. I was going to return it.
I noticed that apps took ages to install. Like 5 minutes and more.
I reformatted as external media, reduced the animation times, and now it flies! Not as quick as my Huawei P9, but everything else makes up for it. Loving a more normal Android for a start, the P9 was great but they ruined android.
Now I love my Priv. If you have problems, try what i did with the memory card.
But i wish it had notifications pop up on the edge, when the screen is off.
Sent from my STV100-4 using Tapatalk

RedMist said:
Had the Priv for a few days. I set it up with a 128gb memory card formatted as extended memory.
It was HORRIBLE. So laggy.. Facebook for example kept freezing so badly that android wanted to close it every few minutes. I can't tell you how disappointed I was. ?. I was going to return it.
I noticed that apps took ages to install. Like 5 minutes and more.
I reformatted as external media, reduced the animation times, and now it flies! Not as quick as my Huawei P9, but everything else makes up for it. Loving a more normal Android for a start, the P9 was great but they ruined android.
Now I love my Priv. If you have problems, try what i did with the memory card.
But i wish it had notifications pop up on the edge, when the screen is off.
Sent from my STV100-4 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Picked up a Priv the other day. I flashed the modified AT&T firmware with international software so no ATT bloat. But the phone is so slow and lags. WHen you state you formatted as external media, how did you do this> And are you referring to the internal storage or the SD card? For some reason my Priv will even recognize my SD card (32gb) I place the SD card in my pc and it sees it no problem. I have formatted the sd card to fat32/exFAT/ntfs, etc and no matter the format Priv will not see it....

The issue you're having is that you are not formatting the SD card correctly. That particular memory card that you are using was previously formatted as internal storage on another device and is encrypted. It's a fairly simple process through command line. A quick Google search will help you out. If you can't find, let me know and I'll pull it for you.

ozzmanj1 said:
WHen you state you formatted as external media, how did you do this> And are you referring to the internal storage or the SD card?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I factory reset the Priv with a new card inserted. I honestly can't remember the exact procedure, but I'm pretty sure it asked me how I wanted to use it. Either as external media, or to extend the internal memory (So it all appears as internal memory, and encrypted)
For me, the best solution was to use it as external memory.

SD card slowing my phone?

I noticed when using "selective focus" in Camera app that phone freezes for about 10 sec. Also when I am using Gallery app, phone freezes when I try to delete picture. Note that I set Camera to store pictures in SD card.
And now phone is not recognizing SD card at all.
My question is, if it is possible that SD card is causing my phone to freeze and if someone had similar problem to please tell me how you fix it?

Zato-1 said:
I noticed when using "selective focus" in Camera app that phone freezes for about 10 sec. Also when I am using Gallery app, phone freezes when I try to delete picture. Note that I set Camera to store pictures in SD card.
And now phone is not recognizing SD card at all.
My question is, if it is possible that SD card is causing my phone to freeze and if someone had similar problem to please tell me how you fix it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We had this issue a while back on LG. Yes if you have a substandard card.
Moving apps and photos and such to a slower substandard card can cause lags in the system believe it or not

TheMadScientist said:
We had this issue a while back on LG. Yes if you have a substandard card.
Moving apps and photos and such to a slower substandard card can cause lags in the system believe it or not
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for reply, now that my SD card is dead, after removing it from phone, my s8 works perfectly.
A question mr/mrs Mad Scientist: do you use micro SD card on your phone and what class is it?
Also what are your thoughts on SD cards, now that we have phones with bigger storage?

Zato-1 said:
Thanks for reply, now that my SD card is dead, after removing it from phone, my s8 works perfectly.
A question mr/mrs Mad Scientist: do you use micro SD card on your phone and what class is it?
Also what are your thoughts on SD cards, now that we have phones with bigger storage?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did i got a samsung Evo 128 GB class 10 never had any issues out of it.Also had a 32 gb evo before this
I recently came into a jailboken PS Vita So I installed the SD card on it for all my games and no lags their either
But about 45 gb free Im a stickler for free space so I go my bare minimum music i listen too many apps
and what ever else and got like 35 gb free so No issues there
I even use it for download as its fater than my pc normally then just transfer what ever and delete
Most of my photos are backed up on google so no worrys there
So with the increased storage even at a 64 gb model Is more than plenty for my day to day life If it ever runs low Im sure I can clean enough up

But in the past slower or dying cards and such take time to read write if you have moved a bunch of active apps to sd that gets compounded and bottle-necked on read/write speeds Specialy when it comes to videos and big files or games

Mi A1 - new SD card showing double size than it is

Hello,
I just purchased a 64gb micro sd (samsung evo plus) card and inserted it into A1; formatted it as permanent storage, and now it shows as 128gb with half space used with system files. Tried reformatting on the laptop and doing it again in the phone, same result. As far as i can tell, it still works (still 64gb free), but it is annoying as it shows system is using half, so you dont have the real numbers.
I tried googling, found similar problems (a year ago), but no follow up how/if this is resolved. Im running latest 8.1 (november patch).
Any help / ideas?
thanks,
Jaka

After formatting you need to select an SD card as an external memory and then you will have a real state
All of this is done in the seting> memory setting

permanent storage is an extension of internal storage so all correct.

Thanks for clarifying. What is the difference between permanent/removable storage in terms of what the phone can store on it? My phone is full and need the extra space for pictures, cache (streaming apps burn a lot) and, if the card is good enough, apps.
thanks guys, always appreciate the support here on XDA!
jaka

jsuln said:
Thanks for clarifying. What is the difference between permanent/removable storage in terms of what the phone can store on it? My phone is full and need the extra space for pictures, cache (streaming apps burn a lot) and, if the card is good enough, apps.
thanks guys, always appreciate the support here on XDA!
jaka
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't' like an SD as an extension of internal memory, it becomes non removable and if it gets corrupted can cause serious problems with apps crashing. It also needs to be as fast as possible.
I would rather have it set as external/removable, you can still store all your media (music photo video etc) on it but it remains removable and the system does not reply on it.

Hey guys, a bit of an update.. Today a got a notification that i am running out of space, a few days after I have inserted a fresh 64 gig card (first post), but now take a look at these screenshots .. In a few days, my whole storage shows as 100% full, just with system files .. ?
I also do not see this extra space in root explorer (where can I?)
Can someone help with this issue? What is going on here?
Cheers,
Jaka