Android Hates the Letter N (Or Possibly the Number 52)

[daverapplqc]

Longtime reader, first time poster, apologies if this is the wrong forum/subform etc etc.

I have a lot of music stored on my SD card. When I plug my phone into my computer via MTP and go to my SD card in windows explorer, the folder named "Music" should contain 70+ folders, each with a bunch of .mp3 files in it. This seems like a fairly normal way of storing music to me.* Sometimes everything is kosher and I see all my folders, and can move/copy/rename or whatever I'm there to do.

But sometimes not all the folders are there. Specifically, it shows the first 52 folders alphabetically. While this problem comes and goes, whenever it rears its ugly head the number 52 is a constant. Coincidentally that also means that I can't see any folders that come alphabetically after the letter M. It's as if the phone has some kind of problem with Nirvana. For an intermittent problem, this seems... oddly consistent.

Playing around/testing this, I took every folder starting with the letter H (there were a bunch) and moved them to their own folder. Then I unplugged and rebooted the computer for good measure, plugged the phone back in, and the missing folders are still missing. Now I have 28 folders, still stopping alphabetically at the letter M. Still no Nirvana for me.

I googled around, educated myself as to what the heck MTP even is and lamented the demise of USB Mass Storage mode, and finally started searching for this specific issue, expecting to find some known issue with "Android 6.0 showing 52 folders maximum" or something. Doesn't look like this is a common problem. Or if it is, my google-fu must be very weak.

Incidentally I can pull out my SD card, plug it into my computer, and all my files and folders are where they're supposed to be. Obviously pulling out my SD card every time I want to mess with the files on it is a little impractical, since doing so also removes the SIM card on this device. If it matters, I am running Windows 7.

Help?

*Is this the normal way of storing music on an SD card? Is there a certain file structure that Android prefers?

 

[doogald]

Any chance that the first folder that doesn't show (is it Nirvana or is it something else?) has some sort of non-alphanumeric character in it? Maybe there is some sort of bug in MTP* that prevents that folder (and all that follow) from showing up if it had a weird character in it.

Btw, that does, indeed, seem like a normal way to store music files to me.

Perhaps you can try an app like AirDroid or Wifi File Explorer to manage files on the phone via wifi?



* wouldn't surprise me.

 

[Pollster]

What happens if you plug in MTP and create a folder called NTest?
Times I've had issues like this, it was about whether Android knew the folder was there (media services). Anything I created from a computer screen was always there.

 

[daverapplqc]

Any chance that the first folder that doesn't show (is it Nirvana or is it something else?) has some sort of non-alphanumeric character in it? Maybe there is some sort of bug in MTP* that prevents that folder (and all that follow) from showing up if it had a weird character in it.

Btw, that does, indeed, seem like a normal way to store music files to me.

Perhaps you can try an app like AirDroid or Wifi File Explorer to manage files on the phone via wifi?

* wouldn't surprise me.

Good idea on the non-alphanumeric character thing. The first folder that fails to show up is named "Nirvana - Bleach" and most exotic character in a file name in that folder is a comma. Other folders have files with commas in them and don't have this problem, so I doubt that's the culprit.

What happens if you plug in MTP and create a folder called NTest?
Times I've had issues like this, it was about whether Android knew the folder was there (media services). Anything I created from a computer screen was always there.

Tried this shortly after making my original post. In windows explorer, I made a new folder named "Nirvana Test" and stuck the random music files in it. I unplugged and replugged the phone, and saw 53 folders, including "Nirvana Test" but all the folders that were missing were still missing.

By the way at time I'm typing this, the problem continues to be intermittent. Currently I can see all the folders that are supposed to be there.

 

[Pollster]

Good idea on the non-alphanumeric character thing. The first folder that fails to show up is named "Nirvana - Bleach" and most exotic character in a file name in that folder is a comma. Other folders have files with commas in them and don't have this problem, so I doubt that's the culprit.



Tried this shortly after making my original post. In windows explorer, I made a new folder named "Nirvana Test" and stuck the random music files in it. I unplugged and replugged the phone, and saw 53 folders, including "Nirvana Test" but all the folders that were missing were still missing.

By the way at time I'm typing this, the problem continues to be intermittent. Currently I can see all the folders that are supposed to be there.

Ok, then I'm going to guess this is the same as the other SD card missing folders on PC problem posted to this forum.
Since your experience with making a new folder on PC is the same as mine, I will hope my fix applies to you.
You need to have Android rediscover your files.
Unmount your SD, shut down, remove the card.
Power on with no SD and let your device run a few minutes (or more. I used that time to make sure my SD files were backed up)
Power off
Power back on and wait for Android to discover your files. This may take a while if you have a lot. I certainly do, so I waited a day to check.
You may have to do this more than once. That's what was reported where I found the fix. I had no files in my music folder before trying. After, I had most. After a 2nd try with the phone on longer before reinserting the SD, I had all folders and files.

Good luck!

 

[doogald]

Oh, I didn't even think of an issue with the media storage database.

If this persists and the idea in the post above this doesn't help, it could be Android side with the Media Server service/app, which looks for and indexes all media files that it can find in storage for the benefit of other apps. You can *try* going into settings / apps, switch to view all apps, look for "media storage" and tap it. Press "force stop" and then "clear data". Restart the phone (important), and wait for about 15-30 minutes for the media server to scan and index all of the media files. This may drain a little more battery than usual. See if that solves the issue.

This was an issue with older versions of Android, but I suppose it's possible that M with an SD card could have the same issue.

 

[daverapplqc]

Well, since I started this thread, the problem hasn't come back. So it looks like the solution to the problem is to be to register an account and make a thread about it.

If anyone from the future has this problem and finds this thread, I have no idea if any of the above worked. Good luck. :-\