Google Photos App - What Apps Does It Rely On To Work

Robert Lindsay

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I have a uk S7E running Nougat.

I like to disable as many apps as i can. I recently read up on what i could disable on the S7E and i bought Package Installer Pro to help me achieve this. I disabled 144 items. My phone seem to be much snappier now and a lot cleaner after removing all the unwanted apps etc.

I have one issue and that is with Google Photos, it works as far as letting me view pics goes but it wont let me delete photos, it asks for permission to me sd card every time, i enable Gallery hoping that would help but it has not helped. So does anyone know what other apps Google Photos and Gallery depend on to work properly and sync properly? I have spend a while disabling all these apps and i dont want to start again if i can help it.
 

B. Diddy

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It's been a while since I've seen this on a phone (since I generally use phones without an SD slot), but I think Google Photos typically relies on the stock Gallery app to delete photos on the SD card (i.e., it will tell you to open the Gallery app to delete the photo). But you're saying that the stock Gallery app gives you the same error as well?
 

Robert Lindsay

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It's been a while since I've seen this on a phone (since I generally use phones without an SD slot), but I think Google Photos typically relies on the stock Gallery app to delete photos on the SD card (i.e., it will tell you to open the Gallery app to delete the photo). But you're saying that the stock Gallery app gives you the same error as well?

Thanks for your reply.

I had Gallery disabled because i did not know at the time that Photos relied on it, now that i have enabled Gallery, nothings shows up in Gallery. If i have Gallery sync enabled in my Samsung cloud settings then the phone starts to freeze and is unresponsive, if i disable the Gallery sync then it operates fine. I dont see any pics or videos when i open the Gallery app. The Gallery app itself opens and works fine.

I never noticed this before but its only video files that i cant delete, if i try to delete a video it ask for permission to access the sd card, if i allow it then it says the 'Documents Has Stopped' ad crashes.
 
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Robert Lindsay

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What happens if you go to the App Manager, select Gallery, then Storage, then Clear Cache/Clear Data?

Also, try wiping the system cache partition: https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-24999

Clearing the data from the app manager did not help. Same with wiping the cache partition, no improvement.

Could it be a syncing problem, when i enable gallery sync in samsung cloud, the phone start to freeze on and off, syncing does not finish, it keeps on trying to sync, its fine once i disable the gallery sync setting.
 

B. Diddy

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Do you actually use Samsung Cloud? Your pic in Samsung Cloud would be different from those in your Google Photos in the cloud. In your situation, you might also consider removing your Samsung account from the phone, then adding it back again.
 

underway99

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I'd consider enabling the packages that you disabled to make sure that your problem isn't caused by something different than the app dependency. In PDP, hit the menu command (three dots) and then EXPORT TO XML. That will back up what you have disabled. Then ENABLE ALL DISABLED.

I'd clear the system cache next. It won't take much longer than the reboot that you're going to want to do now anyway. This procedure is from T-Mobile and for a Note 5, but it works with just about all of the newer Samsung devices. Be careful here -- it's possible and very easy to wipe your device from the same menu.

Wipe cache partition: Samsung Galaxy Note5

If after all of that your phone works as it should, then you can start disabling packages again. Freeze one or two and test the Gallery and Google Photos. Then two more, and so on.

OBTW, I've found that my phones work better if I leave the system apps alone. If I have to tap on SHOW SYSTEM in PDP to see an app or service, I don't disable it.
 

Robert Lindsay

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Do you actually use Samsung Cloud? Your pic in Samsung Cloud would be different from those in your Google Photos in the cloud. In your situation, you might also consider removing your Samsung account from the phone, then adding it back again.

Sorry for the late reply.

I recently made a samsung account and im using the account for backing up because i read its a lot better than what your google account can do. I removed my samsung account but it did not fix anything, the problem seems to have been a few packages that were disabled. I need these 3 for everything to work i.e. google photos and gallery, gallery to sync to my samsung account, being able to delete the pics on my sd card. The packages i re-enabled are

external storage
samsung push services
cmh provider
 

Robert Lindsay

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I'd consider enabling the packages that you disabled to make sure that your problem isn't caused by something different than the app dependency. In PDP, hit the menu command (three dots) and then EXPORT TO XML. That will back up what you have disabled. Then ENABLE ALL DISABLED.

I'd clear the system cache next. It won't take much longer than the reboot that you're going to want to do now anyway. This procedure is from T-Mobile and for a Note 5, but it works with just about all of the newer Samsung devices. Be careful here -- it's possible and very easy to wipe your device from the same menu.

If after all of that your phone works as it should, then you can start disabling packages again. Freeze one or two and test the Gallery and Google Photos. Then two more, and so on.

OBTW, I've found that my phones work better if I leave the system apps alone. If I have to tap on SHOW SYSTEM in PDP to see an app or service, I don't disable it.

I spent a lot of time enabling a few apps at a time until the gallery started working again, the 3 important ones i need are 'external storage' 'samsung push services' 'cmh provider'. These packages are needed for my gallery to work with google photos and for my gallery to sync to the samsung cloud, also to delete pics from my sd card.

Wiping the cache partition did not seem to help but at least i know how to do this on my phone.
 

underway99

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Good to hear that you got it fixed. You did a backup of your disabled packages when you got done, right?

The cache wipe wasn't intended to fix your problem directly. You do that to ensure a clean load of the stuff that is supposed to be running along with clearing all the temporary files. A straight reboot will just restart the phone.
 

Robert Lindsay

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Good to hear that you got it fixed. You did a backup of your disabled packages when you got done, right?

The cache wipe wasn't intended to fix your problem directly. You do that to ensure a clean load of the stuff that is supposed to be running along with clearing all the temporary files. A straight reboot will just restart the phone.

Yes i had been making a new back up at each stage of the process until i was content with everything working properly and so the last backup is the right one for me to use.

It is recommended that you clear the data for every app you disable, when you load your backup using PDP it just disables everything, so you dont get a chance to clear the app data, is this ok?
 

underway99

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Yes, that's fine. I'd read that too. Before I disable something, I also uninstall any updates that may have been pushed as well as clearing data.
 

Robert Lindsay

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Yes, that's fine. I'd read that too. Before I disable something, I also uninstall any updates that may have been pushed as well as clearing data.

Its not possible when you load a xlm file, you would need to just disable each one manually, i dont know if clearing the data makes any difference other that clear a bit of storage space.
 

underway99

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I clear the data and updates before I disable an app, so it's not there when I export my backup. I do it because I don't want to load old data if I enable one of my disabled apps.
 

Robert Lindsay

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I clear the data and updates before I disable an app, so it's not there when I export my backup. I do it because I don't want to load old data if I enable one of my disabled apps.

I did not know that PDP backed up the data too, i thought it only eneable or disabled the apps. Nice to know thanks again. Everything is still working great.
 

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