Android(JB) Gallery broken? - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hi there,
Whats the deal with Google not fixing/improving the current Gallery? Right now i have installed a new SD card for dedicated camera storage for ease of transferring to/from my computer.
But upon copy my DCIM/Camera folder over, the gallery now decides to sort my media by grouping the entire Video selection at the front of my gallery in the correct date order, followed by all my photos in the correct date order? Why aren't they mixed together in date order and instead grouped in the "media type", and does anybody know a fix?
I have tried to check the filenames and they are fine. When I open the camera directory on my computer, the files appear fine and all in the correct date/filename sorting.
My device in a GS3 running stock rom, have asked in there but figured its more of a general Android/JB problem and here would have more chance of a helping hand.
Thanks!

Related

[Q] External_sd time metadata lost after moving files

Hi everybody at xda,
The reason I started this thread (and registered to xda) is my specific question:
I bought myself a brand new 16gb micro sd card today. :victory:
Storage space was getting low so I moved my media/storage_consuming files (Camera stuff, Music, Clockworkmod Backups) onto /external_sd using the app Solid Explorer, this all worked fine, but upon moving them over, all of the time metadata (last modified) of the files has changed to 1.1.1980-00:00. The folders have gotten the time they were moved.
Somehow this issue seems related to solid explorer, since with the default file manager everything moves just fine.
I suppose there isn't a way to get the information back, but maybe one of you guys has got an idea.
And for everybody else, maybe just stay away from solid explorer.
Strangely enough tough the gallery shows the pictures still in chronological order.
Any help is appreciated
TribeWars said:
Hi everybody at xda,
The reason I started this thread (and registered to xda) is my specific question:
I bought myself a brand new 16gb micro sd card today. :victory:
Storage space was getting low so I moved my media/storage_consuming files (Camera stuff, Music, Clockworkmod Backups) onto /external_sd using the app Solid Explorer, this all worked fine, but upon moving them over, all of the time metadata (last modified) of the files has changed to 1.1.1980-00:00. The folders have gotten the time they were moved.
Somehow this issue seems related to solid explorer, since with the default file manager everything moves just fine.
I suppose there isn't a way to get the information back, but maybe one of you guys has got an idea.
And for everybody else, maybe just stay away from solid explorer.
Strangely enough tough the gallery shows the pictures still in chronological order.
Any help is appreciated
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why is the time metadata "last modified" important for you?
You can move the files again with another file explorer to get the current date/time for last modified.
But I don't get the reason, why it is important
In Gallery the pictures are still in the correct order ... so it is OK, isn't it?
with the app quickpic you can set the file-time "last modified"
equal to the EXIF time that the pictures were created.
René

[Q] Gallery not finding pictures in the correct location

Okay, so hear me out.
I've been switching ROMS a lot lately (and I think this have played a part) and I've just landed back on ViperROM (4.1.1) from Carbon (4.2.2) and all of my old app/camera/etc data from Carbon was placed on /sdcard0/0/ (or /mnt/sdcard/0/). Now, I didn't care for it because it was mostly junk I wanted gone anyway. The only thing I wanted was my pictures (both taken on the phone and downloaded via facebook, browser, etc.). So, after a couple days using the ROM, I wanted to tidy up files and folders and remove the damn 0 folder because I'm not on 4.2.2 anymore. So I took my DCIM, downloads, etc and merged them with the respective folders under /sdcard0/ (or /mnt/sdcard/). Everything looked fine until I checked the Gallery and none of them are showing up when viewed (I get the exclaimation point in a triangle warning sign when I do) and the "View Details" option shows that they're "stored" under /sdcard0/0/.
In attempts to remedy the above stated situation, I tried to clear the cache/data of the camera and gallery apks. Doing so (and rebooting) lead the gallery to rebuild the photo cache!... and populate the old, broken photo links.
So what gives XDA? I can't wrap my head around this.
TL;DR:
Switched from ViperROM to Carbon back to ViperROM, moved /sdcard/0/ 4.2.2 folder back to /sdcard/ 4.1.1 folder, pictures are "stuck" on /0/ in Gallery but have been moved to /sdcard/
EDIT:
The camera even continues the naming pattern (say, I took 400 pictures on my "old" phone setup and they were IMAG000.jpg through IMAG400.jpg, if I take a picture, it labels the new one IMAG401.jpg)
It's not even that it's bothering me that it won't catch the old ones, but it's refusing to recognize that they aren't there anymore.

[Q] Album not showing all of the pics

Hi there,
first, I'm a new xda forum user. I've been using linux on desktops for over 10 years, so linux is familiar to me. But this Xperia Z2 is my first smart phone ever, had it 6 months now. The phone is with latest firmware, rooted with instructions found on this forum. Thats enough with introductions.
The problem: I had my internal storage space nearly filled up, the phone suggested to move stuff to sd card. I was stupid enough to do so, I let the phone move my pictures to sd card. Shortly after that the sd card failed. I used linux programs and a card reader to salvage the pictures from the card. I copied them back to internal storage, using File Commander. Now the pictures don't show up in the Album anymore. Which came first, not showing in the Album after moving files to sdcard or not showing because the card failed? I don't know, because the card failed before I used Album next time... Either I copied them in the wrong directory or I am missing something I should have also done. They have done a marvelous job in obfuscating the directory structure from "normal" linux system...
After I copied the pics back to internal storage, I got the placeholders showing in Album, in place of thumbnails... and clicking the placeholders I get a full screen placeholder pic. And the videos taken previously with some other phone or Z2, those get a different placeholder (kind of Play button), clicking them I get a "Cannot play video" message. All these pics/videos are viewable with PC.
Now, the questions:
What is the right directory where I should copy the previously taken pictures?
Does the Album create thumbnails again automatically, where should those be located?
How does the Album decide the timeline of the pics? Exif, file creation time, some other method?
Can I make a symbolic link to have that picture directory to hold it content on the sdcard?
Settings>Apps>all>Media Storage>Clear Data/Clear Cache
once you have wiped the data of this package it should start Fully Indexing your Storage Devices
Info
Flexy_75 said:
Hi there,
first, I'm a new xda forum user. I've been using linux on desktops for over 10 years, so linux is familiar to me. But this Xperia Z2 is my first smart phone ever, had it 6 months now. The phone is with latest firmware, rooted with instructions found on this forum. Thats enough with introductions.
The problem: I had my internal storage space nearly filled up, the phone suggested to move stuff to sd card. I was stupid enough to do so, I let the phone move my pictures to sd card. Shortly after that the sd card failed. I used linux programs and a card reader to salvage the pictures from the card. I copied them back to internal storage, using File Commander. Now the pictures don't show up in the Album anymore. Which came first, not showing in the Album after moving files to sdcard or not showing because the card failed? I don't know, because the card failed before I used Album next time... Either I copied them in the wrong directory or I am missing something I should have also done. They have done a marvelous job in obfuscating the directory structure from "normal" linux system...
After I copied the pics back to internal storage, I got the placeholders showing in Album, in place of thumbnails... and clicking the placeholders I get a full screen placeholder pic. And the videos taken previously with some other phone or Z2, those get a different placeholder (kind of Play button), clicking them I get a "Cannot play video" message. All these pics/videos are viewable with PC.
Now, the questions:
What is the right directory where I should copy the previously taken pictures?
Does the Album create thumbnails again automatically, where should those be located?
How does the Album decide the timeline of the pics? Exif, file creation time, some other method?
Can I make a symbolic link to have that picture directory to hold it content on the sdcard?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the Album will scan all storage when u open it but always it s not problem with Album app
some picture files cannot be scanned by any media app. (just by file managers)
for example u may use 3rd party camera app and its photo not appear on Album so it s not the album problem u should ask that developer to set MediaScan on her app files.
:good:
Geeks Empire said:
the Album will scan all storage when u open it but always it s not problem with Album app
some picture files cannot be scanned by any media app. (just by file managers)
for example u may use 3rd party camera app and its photo not appear on Album so it s not the album problem u should ask that developer to set MediaScan on her app files.
:good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Vast majority of the pics are taken with this phone. Even they don't show up more than as a placeholder pic. Every pic/video showed OK before these events I wrote in the opening post.
Envious_Data said:
Settings>Apps>all>Media Storage>Clear Data/Clear Cache
once you have wiped the data of this package it should start Fully Indexing your Storage Devices
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They are corrupted somehow, again. I'll just have to ditch the pics and see if new pics show up as they should.

My phone doesn't see a lot of the media on it. (not a .nomdeia issue)

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

Some recently taken photos/videos are only accessible by Google Photos, appear to be in its app data and not movable

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?

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