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Help Almost A Deal Breaker!

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Aardvark1971

Member
[Solved] See Posts #5 and #7 In This Tread! :D

So far I've been loving my G-Tablet, but there's one undocumented feature (to use Microsoft terminology) that for me is almost a deal breaker!

Files being deleted automatically! Major Grrr! Not fun when you've put a 1.5gig video file over via FTP wireless and you play the file to confirm it's there and then reboot and it's gone!!! Arrrggghhh!

Ok, I've used the ".nomedia" file fix (placing this empty file into the folder where the files are you want to keep) but it still deletes the files! This doesn't just happen on SDCARD2, but on SDCARD as well, thankfully just these file types .Mp3, .Jpg, .M4v, (Mp4, named for PS3 playback, they play fine.) .Avi, .Mkv. Haven't tried .Flv, or other media file types.

Am I missing something? Is there a patch? This is totally unacceptable, does this happen on other roms apart from Vegan? (Vegan 5.1.1).

Is there anyway to turn off the service that checks for the existance of media files and deletes them if they are not in it's database, or to force these file names into the database?

Any help would be wonderful! This is driving me spare!
 
I never encountered an issue where my files from both the internal and external SD were deleted but then again I don't do too much wireless transferring. I use dropbox to share files from my tab to PC.
Are you using the ESFilemanager on the Vegan ROM to do FTP? Maybe it's a file transfer issue? I heard someone suggest iFilemanager app from the market for FTP.
 
xmr405o said:
I never encountered an issue where my files from both the internal and external SD were deleted but then again I don't do too much wireless transferring. I use dropbox to share files from my tab to PC.
Are you using the ESFilemanager on the Vegan ROM to do FTP? Maybe it's a file transfer issue? I heard someone suggest iFilemanager app from the market for FTP.
Click to expand...

Thanks for trying to assist, been searching everywhere (XDA forums, etc) for an answer, you could imagine how frustrating this is!

I use FileExpert, which I reckon is great, I dropped Astro for it, Astro is a bit better layed out, but has a few weird issues. Not thinking it's a wireless issue as I also transfer roms with it without losing them, even after a dozen reboots / power offs.

BTW, I did all the repartitioning, cache wiping and factory default reseting when I installed Vegan 5.1.1, so that shouldn't be an issue.

XDA had another suggestion and this hasn't worked for me... to make a folder called, ".nomedia" and place my media files into that, might be worth someone else trying this, but no luck for me.

One thing I haven't tried, is to rename Video files, to a fake extension, and then forcing them to play with a movie player... I let people know how that works out!

I suppose I could roll back wipe every thing and go back to the original TNT and then, do Vegan again, see if that makes a difference, but annoying that everything, Market, etc, worked out of the box (after Vegan install).

Thanks again! :) If I find a solve I'll let you and others know! :)
 
I have never had media files zap on me either and had the G since November. I only transfer files via usb cable or thumbdrive. No wireless transfers.

Always have used the TnT Lites (except 5.0- dicey rom).
 
Is there anyway to add the word [Solved] on the original topic in these forums?

I solved it, and almost stupidly was my fault, well it's still a really dumb way of handling it in Android and I hope they drop it in future releases... What I believe to be happening is that when you start up your G-Tablet, it searches for media content on both the internal and external SDCARD and checks that by a self created database, if the entry doesn't exist in the database it deletes the actual file or files... pretty stupid hey? (Unless Android creates rubbish files and they wanted a way to clean them up and not enter their garbage names into the database and therefore corrupt the internal multimedia database.) I'm a programmer and I've done a fair bit of reading of late!

So what was actually going on? Android *must* I have to assume here, use specific folder names and has different rules for them. I read before I had the device someone saying that it's best to put all user files into the actual Android folder, so guess what I did? Hmmm... so thinking this may be the case, I made a UserName folder, strangely enough my name, and transfered all the media and installers into that on both SDCARD and SDCARD2 (external). This appears to have solved the problem, however you still need to have a .nomedia file inside each media files folder, ie: SDCARD2/Fred/Movies/Movie1.avi; SDCARD2/Fred/Movies/Movie2.mp4; SDCARD2/Fred/Movies/Movie3.mkv; SDCARD2/Fred/Movies/.nomedia LOL, my names not Fred, just a test name, use any you like!

I can't really say about the wifi though, FTP is at least twice as fast as ADB pushing, but am using "ADBWireless Widget" and all seems great. I can write scripts (read DOS batch files) to run ADB on my PC and transfer whatever I want when I want!

Thanks for input peoples, nice to have support even if you like I have to guess, but am happy you give your time!
 
Aardvark1971 said:
Is there anyway to add the word [Solved] on the original topic in these forums?

I solved it, and almost stupidly was my fault, well it's still a really dumb way of handling it in Android and I hope they drop it in future releases... What I believe to be happening is that when you start up your G-Tablet, it searches for media content on both the internal and external SDCARD and checks that by a self created database, if the entry doesn't exist in the database it deletes the actual file or files... pretty stupid hey? (Unless Android creates rubbish files and they wanted a way to clean them up and not enter their garbage names into the database and therefore corrupt the internal multimedia database.) I'm a programmer and I've done a fair bit of reading of late!

So what was actually going on? Android *must* I have to assume here, use specific folder names and has different rules for them. I read before I had the device someone saying that it's best to put all user files into the actual Android folder, so guess what I did? Hmmm... so thinking this may be the case, I made a UserName folder, strangely enough my name, and transfered all the media and installers into that on both SDCARD and SDCARD2 (external). This appears to have solved the problem, however you still need to have a .nomedia file inside each media files folder, ie: SDCARD2/Fred/Movies/Movie1.avi; SDCARD2/Fred/Movies/Movie2.mp4; SDCARD2/Fred/Movies/Movie3.mkv; SDCARD2/Fred/Movies/.nomedia LOL, my names not Fred, just a test name, use any you like!

I can't really say about the wifi though, FTP is at least twice as fast as ADB pushing, but am using "ADBWireless Widget" and all seems great. I can write scripts (read DOS batch files) to run ADB on my PC and transfer whatever I want when I want!

Thanks for input peoples, nice to have support even if you like I have to guess, but am happy you give your time!
Click to expand...

I'm glad you got everything working, Fred! :p
 
Just as a further to this, the media database deleting files automatically. I found a piece of software that will disable the automatic database creator and therefore file deleter... Yay!

It's called, "Rescan Media Root", and you can toggle whether you want it on or off, with it off, see how fast your G-Tablet boots! Be aware though that you'll have to launch movies and music through your file manager! Now all we need is a proper file list creator for both music and movie files, and apps that will understand them, in my opinion what happened to Winamp, not the software it used to be! :(

"Rescan Media Root", is on the Market and it's free! :)

Hope this helps with this stupid problem! :)
 
Thanks for trying to fix this problems. It is really driving me to other ROMs but I keep on coming back to VAGAn 5.1 because aside from this problem still the best at least for me. Unfortunately your solution didn't work for me. Although, thinking about it I didn't create a file called .nomedia I have a directory called .nomedia. Right now I am trying the other suggestion "Rescan Media Root" app. I told it to disable media scanner and its stuck on "Working" for the last seven minutes. I'll see what happens.
 
mskr4him said:
Thanks for trying to fix this problems. It is really driving me to other ROMs but I keep on coming back to VAGAn 5.1 because aside from this problem still the best at least for me. Unfortunately your solution didn't work for me. Although, thinking about it I didn't create a file called .nomedia I have a directory called .nomedia. Right now I am trying the other suggestion "Rescan Media Root" app. I told it to disable media scanner and its stuck on "Working" for the last seven minutes. I'll see what happens.
Click to expand...

You're Welcome, we all in some form or another seem to be suffering the same fate!

It shouldn't take 7 minutes, 15 seconds maybe, but not that long try a shutdown reboot and try it again. If that still doesn't work maybe something else is loading in memory that's mucking with it, try running I think it's called, "Advanced Task Killer", first, again free from the market and kill anything from memeory anything that's not it's self, and then try the, "Rescan Media Root"!

Due to their small size, I used jpg's (wallpapers) to test if the files are being deleted, easier and quicker to transfer!

Hope this helps, let us know how you get on! :)
 
Previously I talked about software that allowed creating playlists via the actual software from folders and files, instead of relying on Android inbuilt database. Well at least for audio I've found a great app for this!

Called, "Astro Player", available free from the Market. Not fond of it's companion product, "Astro Player Nova", though, "Astro Player", seems the ticket!

Once the software is installed and opened, click the menu button on your device and select, "Playlists", then press the menu button again and select, "New auto-playlist", select the folder of songs you want and you now have a playlist, I arrange my folders by artist, so I have all for example, Stryper's albums now in it's own playlist.

The other cool little thing this software does is make playlists shortcuts on your desktop! If you go back to the playlists section of the software and long press a playlist, it will give you the option to add a shortcut to the desktop, too handy! Now from the desktop I can play any song or set of songs to my hearts content! :)

The software also has a widget, but this lacks a bit of polish, but it's easier to get to in a hurry than the main program if you need to pause the music!

"Astro Player", is also supposed to play movie files and yes I have played movies files, only avi at this point, but so far there are way better players out there!

Hope this helps! :) Now to find a Movie Player that does similar things... :)
 
Aardvark1971 said:
You're Welcome, we all in some form or another seem to be suffering the same fate!

It shouldn't take 7 minutes, 15 seconds maybe, but not that long try a shutdown reboot and try it again. If that still doesn't work maybe something else is loading in memory that's mucking with it, try running I think it's called, "Advanced Task Killer", first, again free from the market and kill anything from memeory anything that's not it's self, and then try the, "Rescan Media Root"!

Due to their small size, I used jpg's (wallpapers) to test if the files are being deleted, easier and quicker to transfer!

Hope this helps, let us know how you get on! :)
Click to expand...

the rescan media root totally app corrupted my device and I had to restore from backup.

after rebooting to test it, i would get constant force closes for pretty much every app and I could not do anything. Only option was a restore with ClockWork.
 
brad08stanggt said:
the rescan media root totally app corrupted my device and I had to restore from backup.

after rebooting to test it, i would get constant force closes for pretty much every app and I could not do anything. Only option was a restore with ClockWork.
Click to expand...


i actually wanted to give this a second attempt....i reinstalled the app "rescan media root"....no dice SDCard data gets wiped.
 
The rescan didn't work for me either. And neither did the .nomedia file or even the .nomedia folder...Files get deleted, but mostly from the SDcard2 and not so much from the internal card. Also they get deleted from USBdisk as well. Not always, but sometimes...it seems to be a random happening.

I'm also experiencing the "Unmounting in progress" message in the settings/sdcard and storage/ area. Someone on XDA mentioned that this was a result of a misbehaving app.

Anyone here have any other ideas?

I'm running Vegan 5.1.1 on my gtab...The funny thing is that NONE of my music files have been erased.

By the way...I tried naming a folder Fred1 and Fred2 on the sd and sd2 cards...no luck. Files still disappear unexpectedly.
 
The file deletion problem happened to me as well, and I did my own investigation on the problem...and came to some different conclusions then ones in this tread...Seems that there is not a definitive answer to this problem. For me the bottom line "fix" was to not have media files open when powering down the G-Tab.

See my blog entry for more info on this problem and use of Micro and SD cards.

Tech problems and solutions: Viewsonic G-Tab USB port and SD cards.
 
gradu said:
The file deletion problem happened to me as well, and I did my own investigation on the problem...and came to some different conclusions then ones in this tread...Seems that there is not a definitive answer to this problem. For me the bottom line "fix" was to not have media files open when powering down the G-Tab.

See my blog entry for more info on this problem and use of Micro and SD cards.

Tech problems and solutions: Viewsonic G-Tab USB port and SD cards.
Click to expand...

I was pulling my hair out over this issue as it was pretty much making the G-Tab useless for my purposes, hence a lot of reading, which at least made me believe it was Android's media file database to blame.

Admittedly yes people still have trouble even after what should disable the media file database, either with software or the .nomedia file trick.

I sincerely want to love the G-tab, and do, but if I had a company that released a tablet with some of the issues the G-tab has I'd be ashamed!

Glad you found another fix, I sincerely hope it helps others. As for me, I'm one of those anal PC guys that closes everything anyway before shutting down or rebooting, comes from being a windows user for many moons! LOL!

Thanks for your input! :)
 
Actually the scary thing of late at least for me, has been I pretty much can't try any other roms... I tried the honeycomb based one and the other one with an awesome skateboard animation and neither would work correctly, just boot looping at the animation, sometimes the honeycomb based one would boot, beta version 3.3, literally randomly!!! So stuck with Vegan 5.1.1 for the time being but am pretty happy with it! Honeycomb looks the ticket but more needs to be done, especially stability, again at least for me! I am drunk so don't take too much notice, but what I said was true! :)
 
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