So I created a backup with TWRP about two weeks ago (selected all the checkboxes of things to backup) and since then have been noticing that the pictures in my gallery are duplicated everytime I restart the phone (clearing the cache gets rid of them). Sometimes I get more than one duplicate, like this morning there was 6 of each picture.
So I downloaded FX file manager and had a snoop as the details option in gallery showed the duplicate images being located on USB18. Sure enough, there was a library called USB18 which I took a wild guess being something to do with the backup as it never appeared before. It had duplicates of every single file on the phone inside it.
Cut and pasted USB18 to an OTG memory stick as a precaution and deleted it. Rebooted the phone and the duplicates, along with USB18, are gone.
So created another backup in TWRP...boom USB18 and the duplicate pictures came back.
Anyone noticed the same thing happening? Am I doing something wrong?
Answers on a postcard please...
Related
I recently updated to Omega 33.1 and on restart, th marching droid just kept marching. After about 15 mins I held Power to restart and system fired up normally and did the 'updating' thing for all the apps etc. All fine and I re-installed the 5x5 icon mod and a couple of others - Loud Mod and Increasing phone mod and all seemed fine... until I went to my Contacts and found the first one in my list started with E. No A's, B's or C's.
Plus it was back on my SIM contacts and the Phone contacts (which I had been using) were nowhere to be found.
Fine I thought, I have backups. But my Titanium Pro backups don't restore any Contacts. I have Nandroid backups - but I don't get Contacts from them either. I thought Nandroids backed up everything.
Anyone got any ideas where my Contacts should be? In the process of trying to restore them I've noticed my most recent alterations are also gone, including some folk I need t contact.
have you made sure that you didn't set the contacts filter to show only specific things?
Other than that, you should have access to all your contacts from your nandroid backups. It's supposed to be an image of your phone at the point of backup and nothing should change it.
The only filter I can see is to only show contacts with phones and it is off.
Worse now, I have been out and about and I have just checked and I no longer seem to have my SIM contacts. WTF??? I didn't do ANYTHING while out except a little bit of Sudoku while waiting.
Aren't your contacts backed up on your google account?
No, they weren't. After seeing several different debacles with online info and who owns it, I decided not to trust online places with my info.
However, the good news is I seem to have got them back. In ROM Toolbox there is an option for Advanced Restore and I chose a Nandroid from 14/11 and this time clicked off system, cache and boot and left ticked data AND SD Ext - I didn't know what SD Ext was before (and still don't) so I'd unticked it. I got my Contacts back! And no, SD Ext doesn't seem to mean the ext SD card - that has been fine all through this.
If anyone knows what that setting is in ROM Toolbox I'd love to know...
Oh - the Nandroid was originally Backed up in ROM Manager.
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.
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~
hello dear members,
i tryed to get rid of the .thumbnails folder (found on internal Storage - DCIM) because its that huge (3 GB) and every time i deleate it it slows down my Phone, the ZU gets really hot and that for about 10 minutes and after that the folder is back again containing all my Photos in a smaller version + an huge file that is as big as all the original Photos on my SD-Card. I would be very happy, if the folder would be history.
Does anyone has this Problem too and would help me, please? Thanks :laugh:.
Lightbird said:
hello dear members,
i tryed to get rid of the .thumbnails folder (found on internal Storage - DCIM) because its that huge (3 GB) and every time i deleate it it slows down my Phone, the ZU gets really hot and that for about 10 minutes and after that the folder is back again containing all my Photos in a smaller version + an huge file that is as big as all the original Photos on my SD-Card. I would be very happy, if the folder would be history.
Does anyone has this Problem too and would help me, please? Thanks :laugh:.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you use the Album app this will happen. The .thumbnails folder has reduced size images of every .gif, .jpg, .mp4, etc type media file on your phone. Not 100% sure if this works but if you create a file " .nomedia " in directories you don't want to show up it will not cache them. Delete the .thumbnails and reboot, bring up Album (I use QikPic instead) and it will re-cache them.
If you have a rooted phone I believe you can use Titanium Backup to disable the Album process. That will keep it from creating the cache but it will also mean Album won't work.
By the way, I have had an instance where the process was running continually and would never complete. The reason turned out to be a corrupted file. I had to go through thousands of pictures to find the one causing the issues. If you see a file that doesn't have a thumbnail that's a likely candidate.
Marc
By removing this folder, your gallery would have black squares and with no chance at getting any ideas about what was what. You can delete the folder, but it'll come right back again once you open your gallery. It's not possible to permanently remove it. The problem here is that you have way too many photos on your Ultra.
I have 279 thumbnails which uses 86MB. You must have thousands of photos, so there's nothing wrong with that folder, it's the amount of stuff you have in your gallery that is the problem. Time to clean it!
---------- Post added at 06:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:11 PM ----------
mknewman said:
By the way, I have had an instance where the process was running continually and would never complete. The reason turned out to be a corrupted file. I had to go through thousands of pictures to find the one causing the issues. If you see a file that doesn't have a thumbnail that's a likely candidate.
Marc
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, that's the media_scanner running wild. But no wonder it takes several minutes to scan when he has thousands of photos on his phone. Move them to your Dropbox instead and use that as a gallery when you want to look at them. No caching or thumbs.
ok, i`ve got a solution i think (works for 30 mins right now):
deactivate the Album App under apps
deleate the .thumbnails folder
create a new file whith ES Explorer named .thumbnails
reboot (dunno if necessary)
activate Album again
reboot
open Album, wait 10 minutes
check if the folder is still there, if not its a sucess - (till now...)
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