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MiX Explorer Unable to Access USB Drive

persistentone

Well-Known Member
I have MiX Explorer installed under Android 13 on a Pixel 6. How do I give it permission to read and write to a USB file system?

What are the best file managers currently available for Android?
 
Assuming that you're referring to the MiXplorer app (cannot find any reference online to a 'MiX Explorer' file manager Android app), it already has full read/write capability as is. With Android, you phone's internal storage is set up using the ext4 file system, and any microSD card will need to be either FAT32 or exFAT (or ext4 of course but that's a conditional matter as microSD cards are by default using one of those two FAT variants).
Anyway, please specify by what you mean by a USB file system. Is it an external hard drive? A webcam? Another smartphone?

Or is it matter not being able to find this mystery USB device in MiXplorer's menubar?
A strong point for MiXplorer is it includes a lot of options to configure and optimize not just features but the entire user interface to suit your own particular preferences. But a common user interface includes a hamburger icon (three horizontal lines) in the upper menubar. If you tap on that you should see options to change the view window to a different volume (i.e. internal storage to toggle between a mounted USB drive or to a microSD card).
 
Assuming that you're referring to the MiXplorer app (cannot find any reference online to a 'MiX Explorer' file manager Android app), it already has full read/write capability as is. With Android, you phone's internal storage is set up using the ext4 file system, and any microSD card will need to be either FAT32 or exFAT (or ext4 of course but that's a conditional matter as microSD cards are by default using one of those two FAT variants).
Anyway, please specify by what you mean by a USB file system. Is it an external hard drive? A webcam? Another smartphone?

Or is it matter not being able to find this mystery USB device in MiXplorer's menubar?
A strong point for MiXplorer is it includes a lot of options to configure and optimize not just features but the entire user interface to suit your own particular preferences. But a common user interface includes a hamburger icon (three horizontal lines) in the upper menubar. If you tap on that you should see options to change the view window to a different volume (i.e. internal storage to toggle between a mounted USB drive or to a microSD card).

Yes it is MiXplorer.

I am writing to a FAT32 file system on a microSD card mounted through USB-C. That is what I mean by an external USB file system.

MiXplorer sees "USB" in the master menu, and when I select that I get a mount point on the internal storage, and the contents of the file are empty. When I try to create a folder in that location, I get some error about being unable to do that.

I get the feeling that the "USB" in the MiXplorer hamburger menu is not the USB file system I am mounting. I don't understand how to get MiXplorer to see that newly mounted file system. The default "Files" application has no problems seeing that USB file system and using it.
 
It appears to me that the problem I am having with MiXplorer is a security issue where MiX cannot access the USB device.

In the default "Files" application I can see the mounted USB file system and the folders on that file system. In MiX, I see that there is an attached USB device, and when I select it I get "Doesn't exist!"

Is there a better File Explorer than MiXplorer that might have a more straightforward security option or trigger standard dialogs in Android to give access to external storage and file systems?
 
In your MiXplorer app's Settings menu, go to More Settings, and confirm that Enable OTG is checked. OTG is the default Android service for external USB devices. It probably is already enabled so if that is the case. try Solid Explorer. It's a very popular and feature-rich file manager app.
 
In your MiXplorer app's Settings menu, go to More Settings, and confirm that Enable OTG is checked. OTG is the default Android service for external USB devices. It probably is already enabled so if that is the case. try Solid Explorer. It's a very popular and feature-rich file manager app.
Enable OTG was NOT selected, so probably that is it. I will test later, and thanks for the other File Manager recommendation.
 
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