LG G4 Deleted My Photos and Videos

[rickbagby]

I just upgraded to the LG G4 last week. I transferred my SD card from my Samsung S4 with all my old pictures and videos. I have been saving all my new pictures and videos to my SD card as well (The card is less than half full). Tonight I was taking pictures and videos with no problem. I was watching them and even texted a few to my wife. I went to take another picture and it could not show me the image. I tried this several times with the same result. I rebooted the phone and when I did all pictures and videos I have taken on the phone are now gone. I cannot find them on the internal memory or the SD card. I have taken the SD card out of the phone and looked for the pictures on my computer. No luck. All of the pictures from my S4 are there but nothing since upgrading to the G4. Has anyone experienced this? Does anyone have an idea of how to retrieve the pictures and video?

 

[Almeuit]

It sounds like it may have been corrupted. This can happen with SD cards. I highly suggest to not just store priceless photos / videos on the SD card. I would back them up to the cloud or to a PC so there isn't only one copy.

 

[sswitzer]

I just upgraded to the LG G4 last week. I transferred my SD card from my Samsung S4 with all my old pictures and videos. I have been saving all my new pictures and videos to my SD card as well (The card is less than half full). Tonight I was taking pictures and videos with no problem. I was watching them and even texted a few to my wife. I went to take another picture and it could not show me the image. I tried this several times with the same result. I rebooted the phone and when I did all pictures and videos I have taken on the phone are now gone. I cannot find them on the internal memory or the SD card. I have taken the SD card out of the phone and looked for the pictures on my computer. No luck. All of the pictures from my S4 are there but nothing since upgrading to the G4. Has anyone experienced this? Does anyone have an idea of how to retrieve the pictures and video?

There have been a couple of threads about that; as was said, it's likely a card corruption. For sure you either format the card or start with a new high quality card.

Not that it helps you, and I'm sorry you lost your photos, but I think a good strategy is to use the external card for things that you can live without: music (that you likely have somewhere else) and maybe apps that can install to external SD. Given that, you should have more than enough space on the internal (more reliable) storage. Alternatively, if your data plan can handle it, you can set up cloud backups to happen both during WIFI and LTE connections -- after reading your post, that's what I've just set up for myself. (I get 6GB/month.)

There was a news article at around the time that the G4 came out where another company's CEO explained why their phones will no longer have external SD: they're unreliable, and consumers usually end up blaming the phone. It's the sorry truth, but the truth nonetheless.

 

[RedOctobyr]

I am becoming more inclined to suspect a G4 problem, not an SD card problem. This is the third similar thread I can think of.

And at least in this case, it was an existing, presumably "proven" SD card. And from the description, it only lost files that the G4 had created on the card, not what was already there. This, to me, does not imply a corrupted card.

Each time it has been just photos and videos. Perhaps the phone is deleting and re-creating the DCIM\Camera folder?

rickbagby, I'm sorry to hear this happened to you. If you run a lost files scanning tool on the SD card using your computer, does it find any deleted files?

Edit- another thought. If your cloud backup service just syncs what is on the phone, do they get deleted from the cloud when they suddenly disappear from the phone?

 

[Almeuit]

I am becoming more inclined to suspect a G4 problem, not an SD card problem. This is the third similar thread I can think of.

I have seen it on all phones -- Notes, The "S" series phones, etc. It really isn't a new issue. SD cards aren't reliable and that is one of the reasons phone manufactures are going away from them. Definitely not the only reason but it is one. When going to mount they can become corrupt. I have had it happen when I used to use SD cards.

Edit- another thought. If your cloud backup service just syncs what is on the phone, do they get deleted from the cloud when they suddenly disappear from the phone?

They do not. Only Apple "iCloud" does this and that is why I hate iCloud. To me it is useless to backup online if it also HAS to be on my phone. With Google + my photos automatically backup when the phone is on wifi + charging (pretty much when I am at home). After being uploaded to Google + I could delete the photos from my phone and it won't touch the ones in the cloud.

 

[Pikanhus]

I am becoming more inclined to suspect a G4 problem, not an SD card problem. This is the third similar thread I can think of.

And at least in this case, it was an existing, presumably "proven" SD card. And from the description, it only lost files that the G4 had created on the card, not what was already there. This, to me, does not imply a corrupted card.

Each time it has been just photos and videos. Perhaps the phone is deleting and re-creating the DCIM\Camera folder?

rickbagby, I'm sorry to hear this happened to you. If you run a lost files scanning tool on the SD card using your computer, does it find any deleted files?

Edit- another thought. If your cloud backup service just syncs what is on the phone, do they get deleted from the cloud when they suddenly disappear from the phone?

The same issue happened to me but I do not have a SD card installed. I had a few videos taken all in the same day saved in the internal memory and wich I watched a few times during the same day. On the next day, I tried to play them again but each time I pressed play the clip was played with a very dimmed light. After a few hours those videos were not in the internal memory anymore.... The phone deleted them... So the problem is not the SD cards..