Galaxy S4: Micro SD Card Corruption Issues

[rapier5]

I have an S3 and my card gets corrupted in an odd manner. The directories get renamed or recognized with an odd U sort of character preceding the name. No files are viewable and my Lost Directory gets filled with thousands of small entries. This has happened to me 3 times now. I turn on my music aps and it shows a few entries that are sitting in my internal storage.

Today it happened again so I am going to put and keep all my music files on a USB thumb drive for reasonably quick reload after format of the SD card. All are familiar with these things right? The fastest way to import/export by far I have found.
Amazon.com: C&E CNE13028 USB 2.0 Female to Micro USB Male OTG On-The-Go Cable Adapter: Cell Phones & Accessories


I'm thinking maybe an app, Media Monkey maybe, is doing it so I nixed that. We will see.

 

[Blackie_X]

Re: Micro SD Card Corruption Issues

Tablets from samsung doesn't have that issue

Sorry, but yes they do: that's where I had my problem. I do not own a Samsung phone - and because of the problem have just chosen a different phone to upgrade to. Although on reading the rest of the posts since I was last able to read this forum, I see that people are now reporting that other phones have the problem, and that it's pointing to Android OS and also larger SD cards. I'll stick with the 1GB card in the phone and see whether it lasts. It lasted 2 years in my previous phone

 

[gerbela]

Re: Micro SD Card Corruption Issues

hey there.

Just got here from a google result. I've bought the s4 around 2 weeks ago and this microsd thing is driving me crazy!

Right after I bought the phone I put my old 32gb samsung that I was using in my s2 and it was running without any issues. As a friend of mine was in the US, I bought a samsung 64gbs uhs micro sd in ebay and he gave it to me as soon as he landed in argentina. My first issue was that the phone didn't recognize it at all, so I formatted it to exfat in my pc and after copying all my stuff (around 20gbs, took near 6 hours to complete) I put it in the phone just to realize it did not recognize it. So I went back again to the pc and tried to format it to fat32 from d.o.s. but after 7hs of scanning the micro sd, it told me that it was too big so I couldn't format it to fat32. If that wasn't enough for a reason to decide to commit suicide, today I just came up with the idea of putting the micro sd with the phone on (I always turn it off to do that), rebooted it and voila, it was there.
As soon as I got home I started to copy my backup from the pc to the phone (I did this with the micro sd connected to the pc and not in the phone) and 10 minutes ago when I put it back in the phone I noticed those lightning bolt icons in all the pictures...

So by now I really regret buying the S4 and not the moto X as I wanted in the first place, and all this because I wanted a microsd as the moto X only comes in the 12/16gbs version.

I don't understand how can samsung sell a phone that has all this troubles to just save a damn picture in a microsd.
If anyone has any clue about this, I would really appreciate it, because I'm starting to get really mad for all the time I'm wasting to get this done without any results.

Thanks and sorry for the bad english!

 

[mrsmumbles]

Re: Micro SD Card Corruption Issues

hey there.

Just got here from a google result. I've bought the s4 around 2 weeks ago and this microsd thing is driving me crazy!

Right after I bought the phone I put my old 32gb samsung that I was using in my s2 and it was running without any issues. As a friend of mine was in the US, I bought a samsung 64gbs uhs micro sd in ebay and he gave it to me as soon as he landed in argentina. My first issue was that the phone didn't recognize it at all, so I formatted it to exfat in my pc and after copying all my stuff (around 20gbs, took near 6 hours to complete) I put it in the phone just to realize it did not recognize it. So I went back again to the pc and tried to format it to fat32 from d.o.s. but after 7hs of scanning the micro sd, it told me that it was too big so I couldn't format it to fat32. If that wasn't enough for a reason to decide to commit suicide, today I just came up with the idea of putting the micro sd with the phone on (I always turn it off to do that), rebooted it and voila, it was there.
As soon as I got home I started to copy my backup from the pc to the phone (I did this with the micro sd connected to the pc and not in the phone) and 10 minutes ago when I put it back in the phone I noticed those lightning bolt icons in all the pictures...

So by now I really regret buying the S4 and not the moto X as I wanted in the first place, and all this because I wanted a microsd as the moto X only comes in the 12/16gbs version.

I don't understand how can samsung sell a phone that has all this troubles to just save a damn picture in a microsd.
If anyone has any clue about this, I would really appreciate it, because I'm starting to get really mad for all the time I'm wasting to get this done without any results.

Thanks and sorry for the bad english!

Try an app called SD Insight to verify that your card from eBay is probably counterfeit.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Sammy TheBull]

Re: Micro SD Card Corruption Issues

Ok, buy SAMSUNG only for Samsung device. Anything else and you're asking for problems. I've had a few problems with Sandisk in different devices and not all were Samsung. Never had a problem with a Samsung card in Samsung device. So stop posting about a problem with your card if it's not Samsung. It is inferior product at this point. It tired of receiving posts about a POS card not working. If you buy a cheap card on Amazon because it is the best deal, stop complaining about it not working. You get what you pay for. Most of them are knockoffs or old anyway.

ATT N3

I can certainly refute your theory, I have FOUR (that's right, 4) SAMSUNG 64Gb class 10 cards (two SDHC and two SDXC) and all four give me problems, I have verified with Samsung that they are genuine cards and I paid pretty close to full price for them from a samsung authorized retailer. on the other hand, I have a 32gb Sandisk that should be about 3 years old that I have been using since before I owned a Galaxy S3 that has never had a corruption issue.
I have the same problem with my son's S4 with a 32gb Sandisk class 4 card and a no name card, ALL the cards work just fine for weeks in PCs or Macs after being reformatted after failure. I have formatted all the cards on the phone, I have also tried using SD formatter for either mac or pc, as fat32 or exfat, it does not make a difference, they ALL get corrupted.
so I think it doesn't have to do with the brand of the card but either the phone itself or the OS
The problems I have are either that subdirectories become empty or the names of the directories magically change to begin with ? and end with ~1, and they are no longer a directory.
I have contacted Samsung multiple times and every time they play the ignorance card, they say we have never heard of this issue and that I need to send my device to be tested. my response has always been, look at ALL these websites and copy a bunch of forums with similar threads and their response is that they don't have access to the internet, at that point I tell them to get me a supervisor and they put me on hold and they never pick back up.

I am getting really tired of this crap, I think we should ALL bombard Samsung's Facebook support page with our card model and size and type of failure to 1) see that we are not alone 2) maybe if they see it in bunches they will react and 3) we can force them to do a recall by sending all the complains to the FCC.

 

[gerbela]

Thanks mrsmumble, i've downloaded it and when I open the sdcard it says "invalid" and when I tried to get into the ebay listing, it was shutdown by ebay so I guess I should be looking for another sdcard...btw, I checked my old 32gb samsung msd and it shows me the manufacturer and all...

Ive opened a case to see if at least I can get a refund, because due to the import restrictions in my country I dont think that if I order a new one it will pass the customs

 

[mrsmumbles]

Thanks mrsmumble, i've downloaded it and when I open the sdcard it says "invalid" and when I tried to get into the ebay listing, it was shutdown by ebay so I guess I should be looking for another sdcard...btw, I checked my old 32gb samsung msd and it shows me the manufacturer and all...

Ive opened a case to see if at least I can get a refund, because due to the import restrictions in my country I dont think that if I order a new one it will pass the customs

I wish you good luck. :thumbup:

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk 2

 

[gerbela]

it seems that I'll be receiving that refund as yesterday the seller sent me an email letting me know that. thanks mumble.

Did the creator of the th use that app to check the status of the microsd? If I can help somehow trying apps or things let me know, I'm running cm11 with the 3/30 nightly (at least by now)

 

[monsieurms]

it seems that I'll be receiving that refund as yesterday the seller sent me an email letting me know that. thanks mumble.

Glad it worked out. BTW, I always recommend formatting the card in the PHONE, not on the computer. That seems to really help.

 

[David Fisher2]

You guys aren't the only ones. I am having a similar problem. I have my camera set to save to external, but then the files look corrupt. Sometimes the Google+ backup saves them to the cloud, but sometimes they are just lost. I have been losing almost all photos shot in the last month - about since the 4.4 kitkat update occurred. This is a Major pain. I understand 4.4 restricts write to the external disk & has restrictions on the directories that apps can use. Anyone have any suggestions on how to fix this?

I had my S4 for ~4-5 months before the kitkat release and everything was working great, and the timing of my problems coincided with when the phone was upgraded to 4.4, so I am suspicious that it is the cause. Also - KitKat changed how gallery and storage functions, so I think they got something cross wired. Samsung is one of the few vendors to still allow you to move apps to the SD once 4.4 is in, so again, I think they may have something wrong with the write process for bandwidth/speed sensitive apps (like a camera) that are writing to the external drive.

Mobile Syrup (What you need to know about Samsung's Android 4.4 update for the Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3 | MobileSyrup.com) has a post about this and it looks bad. I went to devices (android phone & tablet) with external storage so I could use the expansion capability. Now it looks like Google seems to be bent to remove this. Guess I'll have to go back to the iPhone & Kindle. They at least work consistently. The external storage is the main reason I made this move to android devices.

Note - I am not having troubles with music or apps that are moved to the external, so not sure it is actually the SD that is bad for me - it's only problems with the photos (or video) I shoot.

 

[jeremyreger]

I bought my 64gb x10 class card from amazon brand new for my new S4.. the very first time I booted the S4 it had this card in it, it has worked for 10 months, and has finally corrupted and will save some photos and not others.. it just comes up corrupted..

Im bummed.. only posting here to whine about it too.. Really bummed because this is the first problem I have had.. except for the phone being locked down and I am unable to unlock it and put a custom rom on it.. which I would believe would fix the problem...

 

[KevroniCoal]

I bought my 64gb x10 class card from amazon brand new for my new S4.. the very first time I booted the S4 it had this card in it, it has worked for 10 months, and has finally corrupted and will save some photos and not others.. it just comes up corrupted..

Im bummed.. only posting here to whine about it too.. Really bummed because this is the first problem I have had.. except for the phone being locked down and I am unable to unlock it and put a custom rom on it.. which I would believe would fix the problem...

it seems that I'll be receiving that refund as yesterday the seller sent me an email letting me know that. thanks mumble.

Did the creator of the th use that app to check the status of the microsd? If I can help somehow trying apps or things let me know, I'm running cm11 with the 3/30 nightly (at least by now)

Has anyone had this corruption problem while on Android, but then switched to another rom? I never thought about this til I saw these comments. But I wonder if switching roms could fix any of the problems..?

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk

 

[martina95]

Hi guys, I have a 16gb sd memory card and it was working perfect in my Samsung Galaxy s4 for a few months, but, about a month ago "sd card unexpectedly removed" came up on my notifications, ever since then my memory card will not work on the phone its not the phones fault as other memory cards work in it! Has this ever happened to anyone before? And can you get your photos and stuff back? Ive a one year old and ALL my photos of him are on it

 

[monsieurms]

Hi guys, I have a 16gb sd memory card and it was working perfect in my Samsung Galaxy s4 for a few months, but, about a month ago "sd card unexpectedly removed" came up on my notifications, ever since then my memory card will not work on the phone its not the phones fault as other memory cards work in it! Has this ever happened to anyone before? And can you get your photos and stuff back? Ive a one year old and ALL my photos of him are on it

Here's what I'd do:
First, take the card out and turn the phone off, and reboot it. It might be enough to just take the card out and put it back in, but reboot the phone for best results. Reinsert the card.

2. If your phone still doesn't recognize the card on reboot, take it out immediately. . Make sure you DO NOT write to the card in order to maximize your chances of saving it in the event of any corruption issues. Every bit of data you write to the card may mean that you can't recover a file. (I assume you won't be able to write anything to it anyway given the problem you described, but just in case...)

3 Test it in your computer with a card reader. It may be just fine. You could try this first, too. The problem may not be the card per se.

If none of those things work, there are many software programs that can recover files from damaged cards. Cardrecovery.com is one.

For future reference, there are lots of programs that automatically back up photos and videos to the cloud so that you don't lose them in event of loss or failure of the phone or the card. You can set Facebook or Google+ to auto upload, for instead. Lookout security program will do it on a schedule and handle more items. Etc.

 

[Jaclyn Hall]

Return what - the phone or the SD card? After losing pictures of my baby, I now want to return this the phone.

 

[justo hernandez]

Re: Micro SD Card Corruption Issues

Hello there. I have the same problem. My phone everytime I record a video it corrupts and it will not let me view nothing. it does the same for some images. Can somebody please help me. Thanks

 

[rsleyl]

I bought the Samsung MicroSD and they still get corrupted. One actually totally stopped working and could not be formatted afterwards (it worked for about a month). I bought another Samsung and I have the exact same issues the other folks on this thread have experienced. Music gets corrupted and photos as well. Some dont open immediately after the transfer but some work initially and later become unstable and stop working. This is a serious issue and I think its a known issue with Samsung S4. I am not sure if there is a solution.

 

[David Vasicek]

Hi There,

i have very similar problem , pictures and videos getting corrupted on SD card. (i have S4 with 64GB Kingston card)
never had such problem on my old phone (S2 with 8GB card)

I dont have problem with dismounting the card , or music files being corrupted (cca 2 GB of them there) , just pictures and videos.
Those corrupted files can not be read on PC too.

I tried to format it on PC or in the phone itself , but the problem is still here.

What i had to do is save all pics/videos on internal data storage.

David

 

[Simon Williams3]

I'll throw my name into the hat ...

Samsung Note 2 user - SanDisk card.

Only happens when I get above about 300 images - so every couple of months.

To try and get round the problem I installed an app (can't remember the name - search for "sync images to google grive" in PlayStore) that syncs every image I take immediately to my Drive account. Unfortunately, it just syncs a corrupt image.

I plan to see if there is a file structure issue with the images, but initial tests in Photoshop say "Could not complete your request because an unknown or invalid JPEG marker type is found."

Anyway, Samsung must be informed about this so they can do something. I plan on emailing them today.

Simon

 

[jasonfeltz]

So my gallery went missing on my external SD card after having camera loading errors.

I put the card in my computer sd slot, and the computer asked if I wanted to repair the card. It also asked if I wanted to recover lost data.

I did both options and my computer created a file called LOST.DIR

All the pictures were in there, but I had to put a file extension on each file.