[AC Question]

Hi, so I plug my Moto G 3rd gen into PC via USB. The PC recognizes the phone. However when I try to open it to look at the folders, nothing shows up. It looks as if the phone were completely blank. This used to work fine; it was how I moved pics and videos to my PC and deleted old files. However, now it's not working. Last night, I did upgrade to the newest system 6.0.

[dpham00]

Mod Note, I will move this to the g3 forum for more visibility

[acejavelin]

This is a known issue with the Marshmallow update on G3 with SD card set as portable storage (users who switched to internal storage seem to have no issues)... Disconnect USB, then Go to Settings, Apps, and Show System Apps, then find External Storage and Media Storage, and clear data and cache on each one and reboot. Give it 5 min after full boot up to rebuild media databases and connect to USB and select MTP, should be good to go.

[bafare]

All you have to do is.....drop down menu------- and tell the phone what action you want to do. Charge only, transfer photos, or transfer files

Posted via the Android Central App on Moto G3 16/2 on $35 Cricket wireless plan.

[d7v7d]

Have same issue on my moto g and seems to have noticed this after allowing a system update. Searched online and for "android enable usb mtp" or "moto g enable usb mtp" any useful hits are overwhelmed by the large number of hits for previous moto g versions that had the issue. Went through your process up to the point of re-installing the USB cable then selecting MTP (versus PTP). After about an hour could still not figure out how to enable MTP to complete your process?

[acejavelin]

BTW... If you enable Developer Options, you change the default USB behavior from Charge Only to MTP File Transfer, then you don't have to grab the pull down every time

[goofiness]

Many thanks for your solution to the problem of PC not seeing the SD card on 3rd gen Moto G with Marshmallow. Why isn't Motorola providing any help with this at their site? Why did it take me days to find this solution?
Regarding the USB default, I do not see an obvious Developer Option on my Moto G to allow MTB file transfer as the default. Can you help? Thanks again.

[delrey1900]

Many thanks for your solution to the problem of PC not seeing the SD card on 3rd gen Moto G with Marshmallow. Why isn't Motorola providing any help with this at their site? Why did it take me days to find this solution?
Regarding the USB default, I do not see an obvious Developer Option on my Moto G to allow MTB file transfer as the default. Can you help? Thanks again.

Settings/About Phone/ Tap Build Number (all the way on the bottom) 5 times. Developer options will be second from the bottom in settings. Turn on Developer options, under 'Select USB Configuration', select the one you want.

[goofiness]

Thanks, I followed advice, and found that USB was already set for MTB file transfer as default.

Oops, now the MTB default is no longer working.

But, now the PC is not seeing the SD card again. Do I need to keep clearing the data from the internal and SD memories each time I want to get access to the files, or move music over?

I have rebooted, went to developer options, MTB still appears as default. But, when I connect to PC with USB, I again see the notification that USB is for charging, and given option of MTB. I had to clear the data, reboot, wait 5 min. PC sees SD, but I still have to select USB file transfer.

[acejavelin]

Thanks, I followed advice, and found that USB was already set for MTB file transfer as default.

Oops, now the MTB default is no longer working.

But, now the PC is not seeing the SD card again. Do I need to keep clearing the data from the internal and SD memories each time I want to get access to the files, or move music over?

I have rebooted, went to developer options, MTB still appears as default. But, when I connect to PC with USB, I again see the notification that USB is for charging, and given option of MTB. I had to clear the data, reboot, wait 5 min. PC sees SD, but I still have to select USB file transfer.

You probably tried to change it with the USB connected... Disconnect USB and change USB default to Charge Only, reboot, then change it to MPT and connect USB, should work.

[goofiness]

Thanks, I followed advice, and found that USB was already set for MTB file transfer as default.

But, now the PC is not seeing the SD card again. Do I need to keep clearing the data from the internal and SD memories each time I want to get access to the files, or move music over?

[goofiness]

Well, I followed the instructions. Even after I selected "USB for charging", and rebooted, the "developer options" still showed MTP as the default. But, when I connected to USB, the dropdown notice shows "USB for charging". Is there something I'm missing regarding saving selections for USB settings in the "developer options" or ??? At this point, my PC is seeing the internal and SD card with all files/contents.

Thanks for sticking with this.

[acejavelin]

Well, I followed the instructions. Even after I selected "USB for charging", and rebooted, the "developer options" still showed MTP as the default. But, when I connected to USB, the dropdown notice shows "USB for charging". Is there something I'm missing regarding saving selections for USB settings in the "developer options" or ??? At this point, my PC is seeing the internal and SD card with all files/contents.

Thanks for sticking with this.

To be honest, I haven't tested it... Just saw the option there and tried to use logic, guess that didn't work this time. ☺

[goofiness]

I appreciate your help, and will keep trying.
Is there an established path to Google/Motorola to fix these things? It is very annoying to install an upgrade to a system that is doing what I want it to do, only to find that it can take hours and weeks of fiddling to fix the upgrade. Having spent good money on SD cards, it is irritating to find that they don't do what I bought them to do. I suspect Google simply wants users to buy all their music from them, and store it all in Google's cloud, rather than on one's own memory device.

[d7v7d]

Would you please explain how to enable MTP with the gen 3 moto g as I'm apparently stuck in PPT and have not stumbled on where that is set up?

[acejavelin]

Would you please explain how to enable MTP with the gen 3 moto g as I'm apparently stuck in PPT and have not stumbled on where that is set up?

Change it each connect in the pull-down apparently... You can't set it to a default anymore.

[d7v7d]

What I was doing.

USB cable not inserted
Phone boots up.
No apps running.
Select Settings...Apps
Select 3 dot menu top right
Show System
External Storage
Storage
Clear Data
OK
Media Storage
Storage
Clear Data
OK
Power off phone for reboot
Boots back up
Power up, boots back up
no apps running
Wait 8 minutes

At this point is where I had gotten stuck.
Plugged in USB cable and nothing seems to change on default moto g display but this time I swiped down from the top of the display to expand the status bar displays and then saw
USB for file transfer

at bottom of list that when selected a pop up with options show including
Transfer Files (MTP)

Thus what I had not considered doing was to look at that status display because I was instead looking in settings areas which is where I expect to set up modes.

[NucleBAH]

This is going to sound ridiculous but are you using a power only cable?

Posted from my Moto G (2015) on the Android Central app.

[acejavelin]

What I was doing.

USB cable not inserted
Phone boots up.
No apps running.
Select Settings...Apps
Select 3 dot menu top right
Show System
External Storage
Storage
Clear Data
OK
Power off phone for reboot
Boots back up
Power up, boots back up
no apps running
Wait 8 minutes

At this point is where I had gotten stuck.
Plugged in USB cable and nothing seems to change on default moto g display but this time I swiped down from the top of the display to expand the status bar displays and then saw
USB for file transfer

at bottom of list that when selected a pop up with options show including
Transfer Files (MTP)

Thus what I had not considered doing was to look at that status display because I was instead looking in settings areas which is where I expect to set up modes.

If it's working I wouldn't bother, but you missed a step... you should be clearing data/cache on External Storage -AND- Media Storage apps.

[d7v7d]

Oops indeed, thanks. Edited list to include that in case someone else uses it to set this up.

[truelitistnot]

Regarding the SD card after Android 6 update;

I have found that the phone now treats the SD card in one of two ways after the Android 6 update;

1) If you setup the SD card to be 'Internal' the phone will treat the internal memory and SD card as one large block and not two separate blocks of memory.
2) If you setup the SD card for 'Storage' the phone will treat the SD card as external storage for photos, music and movies.


If you want to install apps to the SD card you have to setup as 'Internal'. Once you do this the SD card will not show up under Windows as a separate storage location. Instead You will only see the phone in windows and the everything on the phone and SD card will appear under the phone as one large storage device.

You also have to make sure that the phone is setup as MTP for USB.

I personally do not like the way Android 6 handles SD cards. It is weird and confusing.

If you want a particular app on your phone to sit on the SD card you have to go to settings/apps/'app name' and change the storage location (either 'phone' or SD card').

Anyway, Android 6 has some weird way of viewing the SD card as an extension of the internal memory and it is very annoying and confusing.

I have also noticed that Android 6 also periodically can't access the SD card for whatever reason which requires rebooting the phone. This is also annoying. This is especially true if your phone suffers from the Android 6 excessive battery drain and running hot issues.

To be honest, I haven't seen any benefit to Android 6 over 5.x.x. I actually prefer Lollipop to Marshmallow as Lollipop was super stable on my Moto G (2015) and the Android 6 update is not.

[hisense]

When you plugin the usb cable to connect to the computer open your notification menu. You will see a usb option menu. Select option to transfer files.

This will make internal and external sd card appear so you can move files, add or delete filex.

Posted via the Android Central App

[David Alfredo]

To be honest, I haven't seen any benefit to Android 6 over 5.x.x. I actually prefer Lollipop to Marshmallow as Lollipop was super stable on my Moto G (2015) and the Android 6 update is not.

same here, no benefits than can outweigh all the troubles, bugs and shortcomings, 5.1.1 is still new and apps are being optimized for it, 6.0 ? maybe in 12 months, Motorola designed Moto G 2015 with 5.1.1 in mind and it clearly shows, their 6.0 update is rushed and buggy. I would suggest "regular" users to NOT upgrade to M, there's a high chance of facing bugs and losing features (SD card not easily accessible from computer, SD card can't be used to install the less used apps, most apps won't recognize SD card to download data such as Google Play Music, this is a travesty....), honestly I've been down that road and it's not worth it in the slightest.

[rlridgeway]

I had an issue with my Chromebook not recognizing my Moto G 2015.The issue was resolved when the Chromebook's OS updated to version 48.

[acejavelin]

same here, no benefits than can outweigh all the troubles, bugs and shortcomings, 5.1.1 is still new and apps are being optimized for it, 6.0 ? maybe in 12 months, Motorola designed Moto G 2015 with 5.1.1 in mind and it clearly shows, their 6.0 update is rushed and buggy. I would suggest "regular" users to NOT upgrade to M, there's a high chance of facing bugs and losing features (SD card not easily accessible from computer, SD card can't be used to install the less used apps, most apps won't recognize SD card to download data such as Google Play Music, this is a travesty....), honestly I've been down that road and it's not worth it in the slightest.

This post doesn't make sense... there is no difference in optimizing apps for lollipop or marshmallow, both use the ART runtime, that is all you really need to optimize for. There are no significant bugs in Marshmallow for the Moto G, and the SD card issues you referencing are mostly due to lack of knowledge, not real problems.

It is true there is a Google Play Music bug, but I fully expect that to be resolved soon, it just reared it's head as Marshmallow got released on devices with SD cards, because Nexus devices didn't have this problem (they don't have SD cards).

For most users, the bugs in Marshmallow are less significant than the constant update nagging from Motorola.