Help Moto G3 Unable to see all photos via USB from Windows 7

[DejaDingo]

Most of the relevant discussions for this problem are really old (2016), but this just started happening to me, apparently in January this year. Prior to that, connecting to the G3 via USB showed all the photos and videos that were also visible in the Gallery. Something seems to have changed in early January such that photos accessible in the Gallery and visible with X-plore on the device are no longer visible through a USB (MTP) connection. But it's just the photos that are no longer visible. The videos are unaffected, as are the audio recordings made with Easy Voice Recorder.

This is a Moto G3, running Android 6.0. I have a 32Gb Transcend SD card, configured to be used as internal storage. When I eject the SD card, it does not seem to change what is visible either on the device or through USB on the computer. I did manage to get a backup of my photos by using X-plore to copy the now invisible files to a newly created folder on the G3, which was then immediately accessible via my USB connection.

I have tried the various solutions suggested in the 2016 posts, including removing/replacing the SD card, clearing various caches, and updating the driver Windows is using to access the device, but nothing has succeeded in making the invisible files show up again.

I am at a loss to understand what is going on here. Any suggestions are more than welcome.

 

[Deleted User]

This happens to me sometimes what ill do is these steps

Step 1: go to Developer Options while you phone is plugged into your pc, and slect the mtp option again

If that doesnt work

Step 2: enable usb debugging i useally use this and sometimes it works

Step 3: use a custom recovery to access your sdcards

Ensure your drivers from LG are installed and up-to-date

 

[svim]

... I have a 32Gb Transcend SD card, configured to be used as internal storage. When I eject the SD card, it does not seem to change what is visible either on the device or through USB on the computer.

Can you confirm that your microSD card is indeed set up as 'internal'? By default any typical microSD card will be using a variant of FAT (either FAT32 or exFAT) as its file system. Once any card is re-formatted as 'internal' (a.k.a. adoptable) than the file system is changed to ext4, the same file system as your Android device's internal storage (both need to be in parity when in a card is 'internal') and the file system itself is encrypted, with the encryption key being tied solely to your phone.
It's more likely your card is set as 'portable', leaving it in its original FAT-based file system. Once set up as internal, your Win7 wouldn't be able to mount that card at all -- it's not just that Win7 cannot natively detect any ext4-based storage media (it's possible to install third-party support for ext file systems on a WinPC), it's the encryption matter. If that card was actually set up as 'internal' and you removed it from your phone (typically that's NOT a recommended thing to do with a card set up as 'internal' in any case), you wouldn't be able to mount it at all on your Windows PC, it will prompt you to re-format it because it can only see it as storage media with a non-native file system.

That said, getting back to problem of not being able to remotely content, there are conflicting issues going on in your query. Removing a microSD card and mounting the card in your PC is matter where you're trying to access the contents of the card directly (it's mounted in your PC). Viewing the contents of the card remotely (via a USB cable) is a matter where you're connecting two devices running different operating systems with different file systems so trying things like clearing app caches relate solely to your phone and re-installing the Windows driver for your phone is relative only to your PC. Those are two completely 'fixes' for two very different ways to view the contents of that card.