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Help writing/access to external sd card

A

alex01

Well-Known Member
have just acquired S5 with lollipop and am having big problems with apps interacting with ext sd card, in that it won't allow them to write to the card (only to internal storage).

I've always used the ext sd card to take pressure of internal storage, now Samsung (on S5) have upgraded the sd card storage capacity and heavily restricted access to it - I find hard to believe and understand reason for this.

I hope that Samsung reverse this, it also doesn't help matters that just under half the internal storage is used by the operating system, leaving approx. 9GB.

has anyone else having this problem? if so is there any way round this?

thanks.
 
Depends what you are using to write to the SD card, the Samsung My files app will copy any files to the SD card. Lollipop is less restrictive than Kitkat was, so if its an app you are having an issue with, it probably needs updating.
 
bIOforger said:
Depends what you are using to write to the SD card, the Samsung My files app will copy any files to the SD card. Lollipop is less restrictive than Kitkat was, so if its an app you are having an issue with, it probably needs updating.
Click to expand...

The main thing is dropsync which I use to sync several things but mainly my large music/video collection, I normally put any new songs in my music folder within dropbox and it used to sync it to my phone on external sd card. It now gives a warning about restrictions on external sd cards but only allows upload instead of two way.

I checked for dropsync update but nothing.
 
a word of warning about app named "MyFiles" there are at least two of them in the Play Store, I already had one loaded and it works, just looked and tried the newer one of the same exact name and got a warning on my phone of "File already Exists"....

well sure enough, I had forgotten I had a file manager by that exact name... two different applications, and the new one is pure junk and I wrote a review stating "Pure Junk".

I was the 6th person to post a review...

This brings up a valid question, why is Play Store not enforcing a "duplicate app name" rule?
 
Well yes the one already loaded comes by default with all S5's as its the standard Samsung file manager. But yea good point on the naming convention of apps on the play store, they should have accounted for it imo.
 
You see before you my app drawer with two Camera apps -

1423590984845.jpg

The external name is not important. And with hundreds of thousands of app names that's not terribly surprising.

There's an internal name identifier and it has to be unique.

That someone has violated that simply suggests that the app has improperly copied the other app and the dev hasn't been caught yet.

Complain to Google via the Play Store - tell them what's wrong.
 
EarlyMon said:
You see before you my app drawer with two Camera apps -

View attachment 82372

The external name is not important. And with hundreds of thousands of app names that's not terribly surprising.

There's an internal name identifier and it has to be unique.

That someone has violated that simply suggests that the app has improperly copied the other app and the dev hasn't been caught yet.

Complain to Google via the Play Store - tell them what's wrong.
Click to expand...

I tried to complain, I followed link after link trying to get to a place where I could actually file the complaint. I gave up in disgust.
 
alex01 said:
have just acquired S5 with lollipop and am having big problems with apps interacting with ext sd card, in that it won't allow them to write to the card (only to internal storage).

I've always used the ext sd card to take pressure of internal storage, now Samsung (on S5) have upgraded the sd card storage capacity and heavily restricted access to it - I find hard to believe and understand reason for this.

I hope that Samsung reverse this, it also doesn't help matters that just under half the internal storage is used by the operating system, leaving approx. 9GB.

has anyone else having this problem? if so is there any way round this?

thanks.
Click to expand...

Having similar problem with Google Play Music. Just changed phones and had copied the prior internal downloaded music in android folder to sd. Moved sd to s5 and I can see files but play music will not recognize. Does GPM even interact with sd? Thanks
 
jumblebean said:
Having similar problem with Google Play Music. Just changed phones and had copied the prior internal downloaded music in android folder to sd. Moved sd to s5 and I can see files but play music will not recognize. Does GPM even interact with sd? Thanks
Click to expand...

Hi jumblebean,

This must be affecting any app that needs write access external SD card - I'm still waiting for a good reason for this problem; there's not really much point in lollipop phones having SD card slots.
 
Only problem is I am not on lollipop yet. Anyone ever have luck copying the Google Play downloaded music files to sd then getting Play Music to read the sd?
 
jumblebean said:
Only problem is I am not on lollipop yet. Anyone ever have luck copying the Google Play downloaded music files to sd then getting Play Music to read the sd?
Click to expand...
Google Play Music isn't a general purpose media player - it plays what it's been set up to manage.

Want it to put your downloads on your SD and play them from there?

That's in the settings.

1423787736680.jpg
 
EarlyMon said:
Google Play Music isn't a general purpose media player - it plays what it's been set up to manage.

Want it to put your downloads on your SD and play them from there?

That's in the settings.

View attachment 82466
Click to expand...

Yes thanks I see that. It must be a fairly new option. Back when I downloaded my music it was forced internal in android folder. I have a new phone S5 and am trying to avoid redownloading all that was already on prior phone. So I copied to sd and am trying hoping to get GPM to read. All other aspects of sd are functioning perfectly. Is there some weird reason why this is not working. I literally completely copied the prior folder and installed it onto the sd. Thanks again for unput.
 
The answer to both questions lies in the fact that Play Music is a managed library with a database that you can't access without root and a bit of know how.

Pulling music out for access by another player can be done but the file naming and organizations make it hardly worthwhile.
 
I never listen to music on my phone, too much tinnitus which destroys speech and music.

The written word is now my best communications medium.
 
This is an access to ext card problem, not only a programme specific one without dismissing outright. in my case it has not been possible to primarily sync my data with cloud storage I haven't got to the stage of playing yet.
 
alex01 said:
This is an access to ext card problem, not only a programme specific one without dismissing outright. in my case it has not been possible to primarily sync my data with cloud storage I haven't got to the stage of playing yet.
Click to expand...
Sorry, but that is a Dropbox app problem - if Dropbox created the folder on your SD card, it would work.

Have you tried using an alternative app?

X-plore, a file manager, will connect to Dropbox and you can manage your X-plore created folders against that.
 
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