Ok, so I've been trying to sort this issue out for almost half a year now.
All of a sudden my phone just stopped being able to 'see' all the current media on it, I initially noticed this because my ringtone changed back to a standard one, when I checked the gallery it was empty.
At first I thought it was a .nomedia file hiding everything but I couldn't find any, and when I took new photos they appeared in the gallery as if everything before them had just been deleted.
I installed a different gallery app that had the option to "view hidden files" and there it all was, but the thing that puzzled me was that the new photos and videos were in the same folders as the old ones.
Even weirder anything I downloaded couldn't be seen, literally the only media the phone would see is media it created ITSELF (photos, videos, sound recordings and screenshots).
I became curious and checked the files on the PC and the main difference was that many of the media details like photo dimensions and video duration were missing on all the old non-visible media while it was present on all the new media.
I copied a few photos and videos over to the PC, let it add it's own info to the files, checked them to make sure dimensions and durations were all there, then copied them back to the phone to see if they would show up and all the information disappeared! Which explains why I can't see new files downloaded from the internet ect.
List of things I've tried:
- .nomedia files
- force stop/delete cache of gallery
- force stop/delete cache of media storage
- wipe phone cache from boot menu
- repopulate/rescan for media using a large number of app including fx, ex file explorer, media re.scan ect ect
- backed up all media onto PC and deleted from phone, then replaced from back-up
I'm honestly at a complete loss, does anyone know what could be causing this?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Do you have any app locker/privacy locker apps installed?
Thanks for the reply, I had a look through and wasn't able to find anything, I never knowingly installed an app like that.
There is the standard 'private' setting on the phone but turning it on or off makes no difference.
Faawks said:
Ok, so I've been trying to sort this issue out for almost half a year now.
All of a sudden my phone just stopped being able to 'see' all the current media on it, I initially noticed this because my ringtone changed back to a standard one, when I checked the gallery it was empty.
At first I thought it was a .nomedia file hiding everything but I couldn't find any, and when I took new photos they appeared in the gallery as if everything before them had just been deleted.
I installed a different gallery app that had the option to "view hidden files" and there it all was, but the thing that puzzled me was that the new photos and videos were in the same folders as the old ones.
Even weirder anything I downloaded couldn't be seen, literally the only media the phone would see is media it created ITSELF (photos, videos, sound recordings and screenshots).
I became curious and checked the files on the PC and the main difference was that many of the media details like photo dimensions and video duration were missing on all the old non-visible media while it was present on all the new media.
I copied a few photos and videos over to the PC, let it add it's own info to the files, checked them to make sure dimensions and durations were all there, then copied them back to the phone to see if they would show up and all the information disappeared! Which explains why I can't see new files downloaded from the internet ect.
List of things I've tried:
- .nomedia files
- force stop/delete cache of gallery
- force stop/delete cache of media storage
- wipe phone cache from boot menu
- repopulate/rescan for media using a large number of app including fx, ex file explorer, media re.scan ect ect
- backed up all media onto PC and deleted from phone, then replaced from back-up
I'm honestly at a complete loss, does anyone know what could be causing this?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you know the folder where they are all saved the just check the name because maybe there can be a dot(.) Before the folder name thus making it hidden
If yes,then just rename it without the dot and your work will be done
It is also possible that the properties of the folder maybe somehow changed thus in that case, connect your device to pc and right click on the folder and goto properties. If you see 'read only' , 'hidden' etc.. Then goto advance settings and change the properties to 'full control'
Hope this helps
Regards,
milkyway3
Related
Hi,
My apologies if this has already been asked. I tried searching, but didn't find anything.
I like to keep my photos organized, so that if I snap a pic of my son, I later go into Astro File Explorer and move it to a folder called "Our son" (or such).
Problem is, when I open the Album -app, it still remembers the old locations and shows only grey squares where the photos used to be. If I try to view them, the Album -app crashes.
So, how would I go about refreshing the database Album uses for what photos I have on my sd card? If I kill the Album -app, it tells me "scanning sd for images" when I restart it, but still shows the old locations with grey squares.
If I restart my phone, it sees the new locations and everything works as it should, but I don't like the idea of restarting each time I move a photo...
I'll answer it myself: I recently learned a lot of program "cleanings" can be done from home screen -> menu -> settings -> applications -> manage applications -> the application you want to clean.
So I went to the app "Album" and cleaned the cache. On the next restart it finds all the photos in the right folders.
So if you manually organize your photos, just clean the cache before launching albums again.
Oh , thanks jayjay , I had a photo in my device then I fixed it through a software and I returned it , but the device shows me the old one until I zoom on it !! , but now I can make the device shows it with out zooming on the picture .
Does anyone a the solution to the problem where the gallery just indexes nearly everything it finds? i've placed .nomedia files in folders, i've tried putting a dot in front of the folders (which did make them 'invisible' for file explorer) which also worked for a couple of days, but suddenly gallery started to index even these .name folders.
Does anyone know how to fix this? it's pretty stupid that there is no include/exclude folder option or anything.
Use quickpic and disable the gallery. That's what I did.
You can also install audio manager and do it that way.
Theres only one way that works.
SexyAndIKnowIt said:
Does anyone a the solution to the problem where the gallery just indexes nearly everything it finds? i've placed .nomedia files in folders, i've tried putting a dot in front of the folders (which did make them 'invisible' for file explorer) which also worked for a couple of days, but suddenly gallery started to index even these .name folders.
Does anyone know how to fix this? it's pretty stupid that there is no include/exclude folder option or anything.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is only for music and the indexing of every single bit of album art that the Gallery Pics up, but in most casesthat's the biggest annoyance:
I have tried Gallery Replacements like QuickPic, and they are decent, but I want things to work the way I want them, not to just replace them with an alternative. Hers the only way that I know that works:
You need to have only one Album Cover picture per folder (assuming all your music is in folders) Name it albumart.jpg all lowercase; AlbumArt.jpg will not work (he says after naming DOZENS that way, LOL! It is time consuming, but only needs to be done once, preferably on the PC, where a major file cleanup/renaming operation goes a little faster.
Then just use Cover Art Downloader from the market for all future adds to your music files (it creates the correct filename) and you are set.
This is a known ICS bug. It has been submitted to google for fixing. Sorry I don't have the link to the bug report but a google search should work to find it.
It happens when the media scanner scans a folder prior to a .nomedia file being created. Once media scanner determines there is media in a folder it will forever ignore the .nomedia file.
A fix is to add the .nomedia files to whatever folders you don't want scanned then clear data for the media scanner (and possibly gallery too, although I think a reboot will remove the extra thumbnails).
I'm not sure how your media scanner is scanning your .folders, but whatever. Hopefully clearing media storage will fix that too.
I use the .nomedia trick & it seems to work. Maybe I placed them before the media scanner indexed them?
For example the app Bookworm makes thumbs of all the book covers - and I have 250 - and use this trick to stop them from showing up.
The .nomedia file has to be the first file in a folder in order to ignore media there. If files are already indexed, just rename such folders forth and back (opening the Gallery in the middle) and there you go.
You can use the Nomedia application for creating easily the .nomedia
hello my atrix's entertainment center gets stuck upon selecting to browse each media category. Once I select videos or music I just get that "orange waiting box" for like eternity. I am using this rom http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1169409&highlight=keyboard+language which is the standard international rom for atrix. Any ideas? I have some videos I want to play from internal storage
Freezing on Motorola Entertainment Center Splash Screen
Similar issues on a Bell Atrix 2.3.6.
Mine used to hang when going through the pictures or videos menu..
Now it hangs on the splash screen and doesn't even load. Sometimes the glimmering bit shows and freezes, sometimes it just says "Motorola Entertainment Center." After 30s or less it asks to Force Close or just closes on its own.
System 45.21.78.MB860.BellMobility.en.CA
Android 2.3.6
Webtop WT-1.2.0-167_BELL
Build 4.5.2A-51_OLL-17.8
Any help's appreciated!
Thermanshs said:
hello my atrix's entertainment center gets stuck upon selecting to browse each media category. Once I select videos or music I just get that "orange waiting box" for like eternity. I am using this rom http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1169409&highlight=keyboard+language which is the standard international rom for atrix. Any ideas? I have some videos I want to play from internal storage
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
have you tried reducing the number of media files on your device?
I'm still trying to get mine to work too, but trimming the files got me past the splash screen at least. now i'm just stuck with the "Loading" circle and "waiting" inside each category - same as you i guess.
I would say my dcim/thumbnails definitely has an influence on the entertainment center. so maybe the gallery also plays a part. still messing around with deleting the thumbnails folder, refreshing it, etc.
problem solved!
i found the place where the thumbnail data is stored, which was making the huge thumbnail file and crashing Entertainment Center.
it isn't storing the entire ".thumbdata3--1967290299" file (which can be hundreds of mb for some people), rather a large (tens of mb) .db database file that is being used to recreate it on demand.
/data/data/com.android.providers.media/databases
external.db
with Root Explorer i could view the file, and Speed Software also sells an sql editor which you can use to trim the thumbnails table.
*be careful: deleting entries from this file also seems to delete it from the device! i deleted all records from the thumbnails and images tables..
learn from my mistake. i thought it would regenerate, but it deleted all images from /sd card. good thing i backed up all my photos first, but better to use the filter option and trim out only the records for files that are no longer on the device.
".thumbdata3--1967290299" now reappears, but a whole lot smaller.
Gallery opens so much faster now, and Entertainment Center works again!
hope it helps!
whitebreadstyle said:
i found the place where the thumbnail data is stored, which was making the huge thumbnail file and crashing Entertainment Center.
it isn't storing the entire ".thumbdata3--1967290299" file (which can be hundreds of mb for some people), rather a large (tens of mb) .db database file that is being used to recreate it on demand.
/data/data/com.android.providers.media/databases
external.db
with Root Explorer i could view the file, and Speed Software also sells an sql editor which you can use to trim the thumbnails table.
*be careful: deleting entries from this file also seems to delete it from the device! i deleted all records from the thumbnails and images tables..
learn from my mistake. i thought it would regenerate, but it deleted all images from /sd card. good thing i backed up all my photos first, but better to use the filter option and trim out only the records for files that are no longer on the device.
".thumbdata3--1967290299" now reappears, but a whole lot smaller.
Gallery opens so much faster now, and Entertainment Center works again!
hope it helps!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for that, but what if the images are not the problem, but music or videos? I have tons of music on my SDCard and I don't know exactly what to delete in that database.
I tried using SDRescan as proposed here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=28516079&postcount=6, but that didn't help.
I've done some more research and found a solution here: http://www.mobilephonetalk.com/show...in-memory-card&p=311954&viewfull=1#post311954. After I deleted the .thumbdata3 file, created a blank one with Root Explorer and removed write permission to it, the file stays at 0 bytes and Camera and Gallery apps still work fine.
strom87 said:
Thanks for that, but what if the images are not the problem, but music or videos? I have tons of music on my SDCard and I don't know exactly what to delete in that database.
I tried using SDRescan as proposed here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=28516079&postcount=6, but that didn't help.
I've done some more research and found a solution here: http://www.mobilephonetalk.com/show...in-memory-card&p=311954&viewfull=1#post311954. After I deleted the .thumbdata3 file, created a blank one with Root Explorer and removed write permission to it, the file stays at 0 bytes and Camera and Gallery apps still work fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if you still have all the music, deleting entries from the database won't solve anything because they will just be recreated the next time you open gallery.
your fix is probably the best for your situation.
solution... maybe...
Maybe you will find solution here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=35259164&postcount=7
Kyonex said:
Maybe you will find solution here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=35259164&postcount=7
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just want to add, that it's the camera app causing the thumbdata3 to grow, each picture you take. (I verified file size change after taking pictures.) I'm trying the solution by creating the dummy file and making it read only now.
Hello,
If I move/delete/create files, Android OS doesn't seem to notice. For example:
– if I use the default music player, it shows deleted songs, doesn't show new songs;
– the picture gallery shows grey squares with file names of deleted pictures/videos;
– cannot select new notification sound after placing new file in Alarms/Notifications/Ringtones folders.
Many apps (e.g. Music Folder Player and Challenger Viewer that I use) have a "refresh file list" option to update folder contents. It seems strange to me that this is even necessary but isn't there such a function for the whole system without needing to reboot every time I move around files?
I've got an Android J7 but I had this issue since S3 already and it annoys me a bit that this hasn't been fixed yet. I wasn't able to find anyone else complaining about this issue though.
Thanks!
Very peculiar issue occurring: there are a fair amount of photos and videos that show up under google photos under library -> photos on device -> camera with SDCard Icon.
But the location for these files is "/external/video/media" or "/external/image/media" under ""On Device (size)." The other files taken in a similar way are correctly on "/storage/9C32-13OC/DCIM/Camera"
When clicking these files, they play normally, clicking share and More or Create Link says "Error, could not download media" and using Google Photos to Move / Copy says "Trouble Moving 1 item"
When ejecting the SDCard and physically removing it while keeping Google Photos open, all the files actually on /storage/<ID> disappear, and all these weird files remain and can be played. This is how I discovered it wasn't just today's videos, which were mysteriously not being uploaded to my nextcloud. No other app can see these videos/images, including the system's gallery app, and they are not in the internal emulated "SDcard"
These are on my SO's phone and I use the exact same model phone. I did discover that I do have some files like these but hey are all older than the oldest file on my SDCard, e.g. Google Photos has somehow decided to cache them. But on my SO's phone, these files are intermingled with the ones she's actually taken
Interestingly when I switch the google photos account to another google user logged on the phone, those files disappear. I did try moving files to the locked folder but it says "Trouble moving to Locked Folder. Try again later"— I did verify I could move files actually on the SDCard there, and they are then removed from all views except Locked Folder.
In this folder, on the top right when clicking the SDCard Icon, it does show the "SD Card folder" as "file:///storage/9C32-13OC/DCIM/Camera" as expected.
I searched for the filename in a file browser as well as in adb shell (using find / -name "filename" 2> /dev/null) and nothing comes up. As there are some lengthy videos in here, I used DiskUsage to see what might be using a lot of space, and the Google Photos app is using 7.55 GB of data, so it seems like they are being stored there. And it makes sense why they can't be found, as /data/data/com.google.android.apps.photos is only accessible by that app or the system, and I'm unrooted.
My SO said she took them the same way she normally takes photos and video, and of course when I take some they show up on the actual SDCard. I suppose in theory I could use adb backup and follow instructions on how to decrypt the data files, but really what the heck is going on?
We aren't on the latest phone or even the latest Google Photos app (could be a bug with this specific version, but then again google photos isn't taking the photos/videos, the system Camera app is). I could try upgrading her google photos but I also don't want to lose these videos of our kid. It does seem like it would back them up, but we don't have enough Google Storage to back them up online (hence why we use nextcloud), and they don't even show up under different google accounts as mentioned.
Phone: LG G7
Android 10
Google Photos: 6.21.0.504361003
robobub said:
EDIT: whoops, can this be moved to https://forum.xda-developers.com/f/android-q-a-help-troubleshooting.1236/ ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Done!
Regards
Oswald Boelcke
robobub said:
I suppose in theory I could use adb backup and follow instructions on how to decrypt the data files, but really what the heck is going on?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well this didn't work, as google photos does not back up with adb, as some apps can specify this.
Some of these videos did get uploaded to google photos, but they are (now) compressed to under 1/8th their size (the original size is noted correctly in google photos), and from 4k to HD.
From what I had recalled, when they are first uploaded, they are available at their original size to be downloaded. So I tried deleting one to get it to re-upload, and now that video no longer shows up on my SDCard under "/external/video/media" so I basically lost the original HQ video of my kid, great.
Any ideas?