Gooday guys,
I've got serious troubles at the moment. 2 days ago I wanted to show a picture to a friend of mine. Opened my gallery > ehm, what is going on here? > there were no photos images anymore.
First I thought that the gallery app got some problemes, rebooted my phone, still the same. Looked up the folders with Solid Explorer, well ... all files got definitely deleted.
I searched for this here on xda and google. Well, all I found out was that it could be ROM related, or that it could have something to do with RomManager (haven't installed it though). The curious thing is that the *.jpg and *.mp4 files got deleted from all folders and subfolders, not only from DCIM and even from the sd card.
I'm not here for any recovery attempts, have done this already
Well this is not all. I've got some *.avi files on my phone (internal and external storage). Theses files were deleted too. BUT not at the same day as the other media files (*.jpg and *.mp4).
So this is the pre story. Now I wanted to know what can I do to discover what is causing this problem, because what's next? Is my phone deleting all my files in a few days?
For me it seems like a script that is searching the whole device for media files and deleting them. (malicious?)
My thoughts were:
to smali all applications and try to find out if a app is causing this
to analyze logcats
Well, These options seems to be very long-lasting, so I ask you if somebody have any ideas on this?
Information about my phone
Phone: Samsung Galaxy S3 (i9300)
ROM: ParanoidAndroid v3.68
Kernel: Googy-Max v1.5.9
I haven't isntalled any apps or updates the last two weeks so I think there are no problems with apps and therefore will not list them.
tldr;
phone is deleting media files
two days ago it deleted *jpg and *.mp4 files from internal and external storage and from all folders (not only DCIM)
today it deleted *.avi files from internal and external storage
could it be a malicious script that is crawling my phone for those files?
how can I find out what is causing this problem?
I hope that somebody could help me *pray pray*
thanks a lot in advance!
Wish you guys a nice weekend
John
Sounds like a nasty software bug
Oooooooooooooo NOT fun! I have seen this before (first time on the S3 though). Sounds like a nasty software bug. Sometimes you can fix this and sometimes you cannot.
What you NEED to do is backup ALL of your phones information. I recommend that you back it ALL up to a computer, even your memory cards information as well.
Then wipe that device clean with a Factory data reset. This will set the phone back to its default settings and will be like a brand new phone.
You might also want to consider formatting your SD card at the same time. Just in case whatever is causing this issue is coming from your Memory Card.
Afterwards I recommend that you try using your phone without any 3rd party applications for a couple days, just to make sure it’s not a bad app causing trouble.
If the phone is still acting up and erasing things then you should file a warranty claim as soon as possible.
Good luck John.
~James~
Related
Hi,
I recently got an atrix [Bell Canada] and have been a happy user. However couple of days ago, I encountered a very strange problem. My phone has lots of free internal storage and a small 1GB memory card. Few days back, when I was taking pictures from the camera [default storage: internal], I noticed that the camera wasn't saving the pictures at all. It would take the picture, I'd hear the shutter sound thingy but the picture wasn't saved [there was no error message]. Upon further inspection, I noticed that all my previous pictures as well as all the songs were gone. I was travelling at that time and just switched the storage location to memory card and camera started saving pictures.
Today when I got home, I connected the phone to pc and my internal storage area is almost empty [just 71MB used by some applications]. I've lost all my pictures and songs from the storage and apparently there's no trace of them. I'm definite that I was listening to music and viewing pictures at least one day before I noticed this problem, and in between I didn't see anything strange on the phone.
Has anyone any clue what might be the cause and if there's a way to recover the old stuff? Searching the forums/google didn't yield anything. Here's the version num etc.
System Version: Blur_version.0.37.23.MB860.BellMobility.en.CA
Android Version: 2.2.2
Baseband version: N_01.77.15P
Kernel Version: 2.6.32.9
Build Number: OLYLA_U4_0.37.23
It is a stock froyo with yet locked bootloader and no root.
I've had the problem where the internal sdcard periodically gets wiped.
I know two causes for this problem:
1. A defective app. The first time it started happening to me was right after I had installed Go Launcher. I saw another user posted about it, and I uninstalled it - and after that, the problem dropped almost completely.
2. If the volume itself is damaged, Android will either attempt a repair, or wipe the entire volume. This most likely will have occurred when people are in the habit of just pulling the USB cable out without properly unmounting the volumes from the PC first. The best way to deal with this is to format the volume (full format, NOT quick format) and make sure to always unmount the drives before pulling the cable. Note that when you format a volume for Android (whether it's the internal sdcard, or the external one), it's best to use a 32k allocation size.
My SD card seems intact. I did plug the phone with the PC but I didn't mount internal storage [selected None in the USB Connection notification]. Also I didn't have any launcher installed. All the apps I had looked pretty harmless [all very common and/or by well known publishers]. Anyway, it seems like the problem would remain a mystery. Everything seems normal now. Thanks for your answer.
Side question: Is it safe to format the internal storage? I assume OS, apps, and other critical data is stored on the ROM which is separate.
faisaliqbal said:
My SD card seems intact. I did plug the phone with the PC but I didn't mount internal storage [selected None in the USB Connection notification]. Also I didn't have any launcher installed. All the apps I had looked pretty harmless [all very common and/or by well known publishers]. Anyway, it seems like the problem would remain a mystery. Everything seems normal now. Thanks for your answer.
Side question: Is it safe to format the internal storage? I assume OS, apps, and other critical data is stored on the ROM which is separate.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First of all, how are you determining that your SD card is intact?
Second, I wasn't pointing at launchers specifically, nor did I say anything about malicious software or shady developers. Go Launcher is a very common app by a respected developer. I wasn't pointing at malware, I was pointing at applications with a bug - which can be any app whatsoever. If all this started happening after you installed something specific, it bears looking at - that's all.
As for your question, it's perfectly safe to format the internal sdcard, just make sure to look it over first, and backup anything you want to keep. Your camera may store the photos you take there, for example. Or Tasker stores the documentation it downloads there, etc... You're not going to harm the system itself in any way, but that doesn't mean there isn't something you'd miss. Just give it a look before you format.
It happened to me again, once again all the data was erased from internal memory. This time, I'm quite confident it was WinAmp app unless my phone has defective hardware (slim chance).
faisaliqbal said:
It happened to me again, once again all the data was erased from internal memory. This time, I'm quite confident it was WinAmp app unless my phone has defective hardware (slim chance).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Even if it was WinAmp, it's probably not a bad idea to reformat the internal sdcard partition. If you choose to do this, I would recommend a full (not quick) format, using a 32k allocation size.
Ok, I formatted the internal storage as you said and then also updated to Gingerbread. I hope it doesn't happen again. It's just a pain in the a$$ to recover all the deleted media.
Keep your important stuff backed up to the external sdcard.
I'm running AOKP JB Build 5, and Dagr8's Kernel.
The rom is awesome, but something is wrong with my Media Storage, ever since I ran this rom.
I am suddenly experiencing duplicates of music files, and pictures, all stored on my SD card.
I clear data on Media Storage and reboot. I then have to wait an extremely long time before my SD card finally reads, then back to normal...
But then this re-occurs!
I can't figure out why or how to permanently fix it..
Help?
Sent from my Fish Tank ₪
I have seen users with this issue, when I had double [or ghost/double files] for my pic's [no music I use pandy] it was from restore quickpic from tibu, so I just reinstalled from the Market fresh quickpic app, it fixed that, but I have to from time to time backup my storage and just do a complete format, then put my files back on, I did upgrade to a better quality ext SD and did a fresh format of that and copied my files back on, no issues since then...
A side note, I had these issues going from ICS to Jbean, but since I did the above no issues on this, just my experience.
While I can't confirm this, I do suspect that the issue is caused by duplicate media storage events occurring within the rom.
This can be accomplished a number of ways, but I also suspect that it's an APK compatibility issue.
And depending on the roms used, will manifest itself when more than 1 app stores data, while the second APK will duplicate the data save function.
Check the rom carefully for more than 1 app performing the same function, such as a camera app or music app.
These APK's often have an auto save/restore feature, but save the files under a different file name and basically duplicate the save in 2 places.
Also, apps that auto backup will often save duplicate copies in different locations, by mistake, as they are not always compatible with every build.
Again, it's really a trial and error situation, as so many variables exist, and many apps share duplicated function without registration of a force close event.
I hope in some small way this may help you find the rogue apps.....g
Hi everyone! So, I've been having a bit of an issue with my Galaxy S3 lately (and by lately, I mean it's been bothering me for the past few months, but until today I've been able to use my phone )
My phone is giving me an out of space message, and no matter what I do, I can't seem to fix it. When it first started coming up, it was a bit annoying, but today, my phone seems to have run out of so much space, it can't receive messages, take screenshots (even though it should be stored onto my SD card), or even use the Facebook app without it erroring.
I can't upload a screenshot to here (since my phone won't even let me take the screenshot ), but when I go to the storage settings, my phone says I don't have enough internal memory. It says I have 11.25GB total, and I'm using 1.85GB for applications, 5.27MB for pictures and videos, 34.30MB for audio, 14.14MB for downloads and 236MB for misc files. Somehow that means my 11.25GB space is all used up, so I might have to go back to school for maths, because something doesn't add up . It also says I have 4.30GB free space on my SD card, but that's not causing the problem (I hope)
I've searched for other problems like this, and all of them are for rooted phones, which doesn't help me because my S3 isn't rooted. Also, all of the problems I saw were when people tried installing an app and got the "out of space" error on Google Play store, and they had to delete the app's .odex file, which unfortunately doesn't help me
I appreciate any help anyone has ! Really hoping to be able to use my phone again
Hello Everyone.
I own a Samsung Galaxy Ace (S5830) and until 2 days ago i was running a CM7 on it until it suddenly just stopped working and the phone hung in some kind of boot loop. That's when i decided to "upgrade" to a newer version of CM and searched for everything necessary.
I tried some CM11 alpha but since it's pretty unstable (at least the version i had was) i tried others until i settled for a stable 10.2 version (cm-10.2-20140309-UNOFFICIAL-cooper++). So far i am pretty happy since it actually is running very smoothly on my phone and i did not expect that at all. But then i ran into the same issue that basically everyone owning this phone runs into - it's very limited internal space.
Fact is i do need some google apps since i'm using gmail and synchronizing my contacts through it. Also i want to use Whatsapp, basically the only reason for me having a smartphone right now. I Installed the Dolphin Browser aswell since a decent browser is also something i'd like to use from time to time, but it seems to be full on external anyways so it should not count towards the internal storage.
Problem is now, all that is already too much for the phone's internal storage to handle since whatsapp has to stay on internal - at least that's my experience - and the google-play services that are needed aswell are placed on internal too without option of moving them.
I tried some things but basically all of them failed on one or another weird way..
- titanium backup - uninstalled system apps that i am not using (radio, browser, google play voice things, etc.) but after a reboot they were all back again. Even before rebooting, uninstalling them seemed not to open up space at all.
- Link2SD - tried linking whatsapp to my SD card, failed since whatsapp wasn't running very stable anymore. If anyone has a solution for this i'd love to hear it!
- App2SD - didn't even show any internal apps, and wasn't helping at all.
Also something i've tried, i have a message backup for whatsapp that's ~14mb but lies on my SD card. Problem seems to be that Whatsapp on recovering these messages put's them somewhere on the internal storage, at least it takes those ~14mb away from it after it recovered them. I tried to change the path whatsapp uses for internal storing of data with the app 'FolderMount' (like i found tutorials on the internet for exactly this issue) but wasn't even able to locate the internal stored data :/ Not because i just didn't find it, but because it seems not to exist...
I know i can't really increase the size of the internal storage but i think there has to be something i can do. I can't even update whatsapp since i am just living on the edge of the "low storage space" message with 20-15mb left.
What i am hoping now through this thread is to get some ideas or options how i could free up some space, move some apps around to SD maybe (utilize Link2SD correctly) or in the end basically have the things i need but some free storage on internal so that i can use my phone, maybe even install apps on SD (without them touching internal space) and have some room to update the important apps like whatsapp.
Regards,
ThePatchelist
Device:
ZTE Grand X (Bell Version) - Model Z933
Android 4.3
Kernel 3.4.0+
No root, stock everything.
I recently bought this ZTE Z933, and I've had some photos, videos, and music stored on the phone's storage for a while, and it worked fine.
Just in the past couple weeks, I put more videos, photos, and music onto an SD Card (4GB, FAT32) and put it into the phone, and now very often (almost daily) all of my picture browsing apps and music playing apps suddenly (and temporarily) are not able to detect ANY media on both the SD card and my phone's storage. But, if I browse my media through ASTRO or any other file manager, all the files are there and they work perfectly fine.
Rebooting the phone does nothing to fix this issue, and neither does accessing the storage through USB or unmounting and mounting the SD Card. For a while, the only fix I found was sometimes if I opened up one of my photos through ASTRO, and then closed it, about half the time it would temporarily fix the issue.
After a bit of searching, I found some threads on different sites about restarting the Media Scanner service (or something along that line) in Settings > Apps. I do not have this, but instead what I do have under Apps > Running > Cached, I have something called "Media", which, when I stop it and restart the phone, fixes the issue temporarily, but it works every time. The annoying thing about this is having to reboot, and losing all my ringtone and notification tone settings, and my playlists every time this happens.
Can anyone give me info on things to try? Or does anyone know of an app that will get me around this issue? (the phone has been reset pretty recently so I don't think that would solve it)
Any help would be very appreciated!
Hey how's it going? I to picked up one of these nice little phones and have yet to find anything as far as development on it, i.e root or any roms and ZTEusa has nothing on this phone. Every time I google it it shows another phone.
Its a great phone large screen and has quad core, if enough people post a wanted new thread on the request a thread forum we can get some help. There is a boot loader its just can anyone get root threw it. Also someone needs to try all of the towel root modstrings which are a lot and you might get it rooted. I really enjoy mine have had no problems with media, might be your sdcard is it an old one or a new one what class is it class10?
http://www.xda-developers.com/users-beware-zte-root-backdoor-found/
I just picked up this phone too.
Seems like root acess is simply password controled..
Maybe ztex1609523?
Anyone wanna jam that into an installer?