Samsung Galaxy S4 SD Card Issue

[velijana]

Hi. I have sim free S4 in Georgia and I'm using
"Samsung Electronics 64GB Pro microSDXC Extreme Speed (UHS-1) Class 10 Memory Card (MB-MGCGB/AM)". - bought from amazon. No problems at all, listening to my ipod collection, m4a files, with rocket player or jetAudio plus. Apps even showing song lyrics from m4a files tags very pleased

Sent from my GT-I9500 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[timmypstyle]

I am new here as in withing the last minute. Been keeping track of this thread for a while tho... my s4 will unmount and mount a lot. I downloaded the app that shows the log of sd card activities and it showed 40 times in 45 mins. My sd card will work fine until my phone hits 30% battery. Then sd card goes nuts. It is a sandisk 32gb that I used in my htc incredible 2 for over a year.

 

[nimbus510]

Just thought I'd add to this thread as I am yet another person experiencing this.

My card constantly unmounts/re-mounts if I try to take or browse through photos. Due to the fact that the internal memory is in such shortage, I really depend on being able to utilize my 64gb sd card. This got especially frustrating due to the fact that I've been traveling a lot and have wanted to take lots of pictures, but am constantly having to deal with the phone saying the sd card has been removed.

I tried formatting the card, then tried several other cards (kingston 16gb, sandisk 32gb) and all had the same issue. Finally tried a factory reset on the phone and not even that did the trick. I got fed up and took it to T-Mobile to do a warranty exchange, but they would not honor the warranty! They hooked the phone up to some Samsung diagnostic software that reported that my phone was in good health, and of course the issue would not repro in front of the T-Mobile rep.

So in my desperation I rooted the phone and put the Google Play Edition ROM on there. This completely cleared up the SD card issues. Not once since switching to the GPE ROM have I experienced the card unmount unexpectedly (almost 2 months now).

This issue seems to be purely with Samsung's buggy software. Today, after using GPE rom on my phone for almost 2 months, I decided I missed the Samsung camera app enough to give the stock software another try. Right after switching back to Samsung's stock software the issue IMMEDIATELY returned.

Samsung...update your crappy software!

 

[ChronoTjai]

So indeed it is

1) due to this current version of android; 4.2.2.

or

2) due to manufacturing fault of samsung S4 that leads to having problems with SD cards; especially 32/64 GB


I find it strange because a friend of mine has no issues with his Samsung S4; android version 4.2.2. he's using a Samsung 64 GB SD card. But meanwhile some people like we do are suffering.

 

[Stlouis92]

Just thought I'd add to this thread as I am yet another person experiencing this.

My card constantly unmounts/re-mounts if I try to take or browse through photos. Due to the fact that the internal memory is in such shortage, I really depend on being able to utilize my 64gb sd card. This got especially frustrating due to the fact that I've been traveling a lot and have wanted to take lots of pictures, but am constantly having to deal with the phone saying the sd card has been removed.

I tried formatting the card, then tried several other cards (kingston 16gb, sandisk 32gb) and all had the same issue. Finally tried a factory reset on the phone and not even that did the trick. I got fed up and took it to T-Mobile to do a warranty exchange, but they would not honor the warranty! They hooked the phone up to some Samsung diagnostic software that reported that my phone was in good health, and of course the issue would not repro in front of the T-Mobile rep.

So in my desperation I rooted the phone and put the Google Play Edition ROM on there. This completely cleared up the SD card issues. Not once since switching to the GPE ROM have I experienced the card unmount unexpectedly (almost 2 months now).

This issue seems to be purely with Samsung's buggy software. Today, after using GPE rom on my phone for almost 2 months, I decided I missed the Samsung camera app enough to give the stock software another try. Right after switching back to Samsung's stock software the issue IMMEDIATELY returned.

Samsung...update your crappy software!

seems promising, will try and give feed back

 

[Methosan]

Before I traded my S3 to the S4 the S3 burnt through 2 64gb Sandisks. They got hot and then would not work in either the computer of the phone. I've had my S4 now since May with the same 64gb Kingston card in it and it has worked properly until yesterday. It started stating that it is safe to remove the SD and it did not show it as available space. I took it out, tried it on the computer, and the files are still there. Reinserted into phone and worked until just now when it started stating to reinsert SD. I believe Samsung has faulty readers on their S-phones, at this point.

Thank you

 

[Victor151]

I am another Galaxy S4 owner with this same SD card problem for several months. The phone randomly seems to not find its SD card and displays " SD card unexpectedly removed." I have reviewed this forum and tried everything suggested without success. I can get the phone to fix itself and start recognizing the SD card again, but after you have re-organized all your files to be in the card, then the glitch occurs and the phone goes back to using it's own memory. This problem negates any value from having this extended memory option. It seems like a great feature, and is one of the main selling points over iPhones, but it DOES NOT WORK! I tend to agree with some on this forum who think it's the SD device driver software. The phone just doesn't consistently find the memory card. But the same 64GB class 10 card works flawlessly on my computer.

Samsung needs to get to work and fix this fast. If they were a decent company, it would have been fixed months ago. So basically what I own is a phone with 16 GB of built in memory and nothing else.I will not recommend this phone to others.

 

[Hearts86]

I had a 8GB Sandisk microSD HC bought on Ebay (don't know the class sorry) for a few weeks in my S4 and never had the unmounting problem; it was working fine.
I have removed it now (don't really need it at the moment and it makes my phone think it's been modified when attempting to run the update checker).

 

[MemoryTuk]

It appears I solved the problem on mine.

I have a 64GB Sandisk, the card also continuously gave problems, it seem to disconnect about once every 1-3 hours but not consistently. I tried the paper trick, e.g. insert a thin slice of paper above the SD Card so it presses firmer against the contact pins. This seem to relieve the issue a bit, got the error about once a day after that, maybe every second day.

I got so fed up that I eventually bought the Samsung 64GB memory card. I formatted, copied all my files over and magically all the issue was solved, no more automatic memory card dismount from there on. On closer inspection it appears that the Sandisk memory card is a little thinner than the Samsung, I suspect that causes it to move a little, my other suspicion is that there is some memory read or write error, even though I did seem to get the problem less when I tried the paper trick. The fact that you could shake about the phone and even bump it against your hand without any issue leads me to that conclusion.

Here the picture of the two memory cards side by side

It does make me angry that Samsung does not come out and admit the problem so people can fix it, instead it takes us poor sots months to figure out, and a lot of cash later...

 

[watalee]

Change the TF card to confirm if the card's compability is good enough

Sent from my BlackBerry 9930 using Tapatalk

 

[degobah77]

My GS4 doesn't even see my PNY 32GB SD being inserted or removed anymore, but my PC can still read it so at least I didn't lose my files. So I JUST bought a 32GB Sandisk at Best Buy because I NEED the extra storage space. The phone sees it but won't format it, just keeps coming back with "blank card or unsupported files". I formatted it to FAT32, exFAT and NFTS....no change. This state of the art ******* phone is a POS. I cannot believe this is even acceptable in 2013.

Oh, this PNY 32GB was used in a GS2, it had a few mount/unmount/corrupted card issues, but I was carrying a music playlist so it was easy enough to reformat and reload. But the GS4 doesn't even know it's being put in the phone! I got this phone in July, the card worked fine up until 3 days ago when it just stopped seeing there was a SD card even installed. Yet, my PC sees it just fine and I still have all my ****.

It says, Preparing SD card, checking for errors, then goes right to the blank card or unsupported files message.

Uh?? Hello? My cameras have been using these cards for years with ZERO issues, so WTF is the problem with this phone?

 

[mattp1243]

Take out your sd card locate system ui clear the cache and then force stop it. Put in my sd card and it works for now

 

[sevenangels99]

I used a Kingston 16GB HC Class 10 microSD Card with Samsung Galaxy S4 Active. After 3 days, I selected a WMA file from SD card for ringtone. I was close wifi and activate power saving mode. When I press the button, I see that "Sd card removed" error. Phone was still on the table. I really don't understand. Now SD card completely gone! I can't even see it on a PC. I read that issues everywhere.. Samsung phones are SD card killer!! Both sides don't take responsibility. I want my money back! At least Samsung must publish compatible SD cards list..

 

[Cool Jeff]

So as conclusion any non-samsung microsd card will have a problem on S4 sooner or later?
This is crazy because the only brands we have in my country are Sandisk and Kingston.
Any ''success'' story with one of these 2 brands or they all epic fail?

 

[Stlouis92]

I you read the thread from the start I think you'll find issues occurred with both brands. Sandisk for sure.

 

[Cool Jeff]

Do you think Class 4 have the same problems with S4 or it's just with Class 10?
Sandisk Ultra class 4 is very fast given the reviews in the internet

 

[Sam Advanes]

My S4 is using Samsung 16G SD Card Class 10 from day 1 and the problem is still there since day 1. But today, the problem seems to be solved when I tested with an old 2G class 4 SD Card which I happened to have for my micro controller project. I will buy and try it with a new 16G class 4 card and see it helps...

 

[NHABD]

Purchased my Samsung s4 Oct24 and used my Sandisk 16g class 2 from my old bionic that died. Samsung had no problems recognizing card and my 12 gigs worth of data still intacted. Since than no problems with card read/write. Below is a snap shot of my card.

I want to get another sd card either a 32g or 64g. Reading all the threads does anyone know if these Samsung card readers can handle a "class 10" ?

Thank you,

 

[HarryMaroni]

Hi i've had exactly the same problem only my phone has now destroyed 3 cards ! two scandisk card 16 and 32 gig and a kingston 16 gig ! tried plugging them into other phones and my mac but no they're well and truly D E A D !

 

[Maggie413]

I've had 2 different S4's now and both are card eaters. I've tried a few classes and sizes of cards, and it always happens eventually. This is so disappointing - the phone is stellar, but can't handle something as basic as consistently supporting an SD card?