I see I'm not alone. I took over 500 pics/vids of our house for future sale. I was able to bring them up for a couple days, but then they ALL disappeared after I took another 250 or so of my niece's wedding, which also disappeared after taking one photo of a lottery ticket, which still exists but is not a winner. What is going on here??? I've been working without a cloud for 15 years, and now it looks like this is my fault because I don't trust cloud security. I'm just giving up I guess.
FTR, I have my computer updated with the latest Samsung USB drivers. I have an encrypted 64GB SD card which I can browse just fine via phone and computer (via USB 3). I will be carrying around my Lumix from now on because I know exactly where everything is at all times, and I have NEVER lost a single photo in my 15 years of digital photography,
EDIT: Okay, so I touched on a couple of other topics that belong in a different thread - sorry 'bout that. But to me, these were VERY important photos. I got lazy and lost my stuff because I did not take the time for a proper backup. I will consider a solution for that.
But, does not the OP's original question still stand? As for me, it's hard to swallow that I just need to accept this errant behavior. This kind of stuff isn't supposed to "just happen." I will try to reproduce the issue because there seems to be a pattern, and I will report back here with or without a solution. And I also need to reconsider my cloud attitude. I've developed for the cloud, but I'm probably too reluctant to use it.
Again, my apologies for flaming the universe.