Note 3: KitKat update disabling use of external micro SD Card

[armywife78]

I found a few articles that say that devices using secondary external SD Cards such as the Note 3 and the S4 will no longer be able to write to the external micro SD card after the kitkat update. Has anyone experienced this first hand??

Sent from my Galaxy Note 3 using Tapatalk

Yes I'm trying to move dukes with my file app and it keeps saying to choose a different path because kit kat won't allow it...sooooooooo frustrated

 

[JudH]

The only lyrics 3rd party apps that will be seriously negatively affected are file managers. Any other app can (and should by now) be rewritten to write it's file to the appropriate app-specific folder.

Problem is how many 3rd party apps are really being rewritten to write to the app-id based folder--judging from the number of apps suddenly requiring MEDIA permission most appear to be using the loop hole someone found that allows them to write anywhere using a Media Services api. The file managers started using that method since the app-based folder wouldn't solve their problem of writing to other folders. Question I have is whether the apps are using the media api just long enough to delete their old folder after moving their data to the new app-id based folder *OR* are they cheating and still using the old folder. I haven't seen a single app change to the new folder; has anyone? It's just a matter of time before Google updates KK to prevent that media api method and we'll be right back where we were.

 

[Bill393]

Anyone interested in a class action against the tablet suppliers? They are the ones who agreed to damage their own products and customers. Google can pound sand but the hardware vendors consented and autoloaded the malware.

 

[Feldon]

Anyone interested in a class action against the tablet suppliers? They are the ones who agreed to damage their own products and customers. Google can pound sand but the hardware vendors consented and autoloaded the malware.

The deep end. You've gone off it.

It is frustrating that Google has taken this draconian approach to security on SD cards, but it just means you have to hook your phone to your PC and manage the card there. Then all your apps will be able to read the files off the card like normal. Class action lawsuits reward one group of people -- lawyers.

 

[JudH]

Hooking to a PC wouldn't help with file management apps that need to run on the phone like syncing apps. One solution would be for Google to provide some mechanism were 3rd party apps could be certified to run as system routines with full access to the ext card.

 

[kestrel401]

[...] For anything else, you can navigate to the app specific folder on your SD card and read it just fine.

TenshiNo, I have some further questions regarding your several postings:

- How is an "app-specific folder" identified by the OS? By its name/path or by its access rights?
- You talked about access rights of folders for specific apps together with the inability of FAT32 to handle such access rights - is that the problem? Would an ext3/4-formatted SDcard solve these problems?
- If I want to complain about an app that cannot write to an SDcard any more, what shall I tell the programmers? Use API "foobar" to access the SDcard? Or "create a folder at path /this/is/my/specific/path and use this folder for your program data"?

Is there anywhere a README for programmers/developers how to handle that new situation for SD cards?

 

[kestrel401]

Sorry for the double posting. - kestrel401

[...] For anything else, you can navigate to the app specific folder on your SD card and read it just fine.

TenshiNo, I have some further questions regarding your several postings:

- How is an "app-specific folder" identified by the OS? By its name/path or by its access rights?
- You talked about access rights of folders for specific apps together with the inability of FAT32 to handle such access rights - is that the problem? Would an ext3/4-formatted SDcard solve these problems?
- If I want to complain about an app that cannot write to an SDcard any more, what shall I tell the programmers? Use API "foobar" to access the SDcard? Or "create a folder at path /this/is/my/specific/path and use this folder for your program data"?

Is there anywhere a README for programmers/developers how to handle that new situation for SD cards?

 

[Feldon]

Hooking to a PC wouldn't help with file management apps that need to run on the phone like syncing apps. One solution would be for Google to provide some mechanism were 3rd party apps could be certified to run as system routines with full access to the ext card.

If they added some permission "Full Access to SD Card" that apps could ask for, pretty soon all apps would require this permission and we'd be right back where we started.

I believe the answer is designated sandbox folders. If there were folders "SD_Videos", "SD_Music", "SD_Documents", etc. and all apps with "external storage" permission had free-for-all permission to write to those folders, it would solve the problem.

 

[JudH]

If they added some permission "Full Access to SD Card" that apps could ask for, pretty soon all apps would require this permission and we'd be right back where we started.

I meant where they had to submit the app to Google to approve. Only legit apps would do that.

 

[Formerly Known As]

Your phone will only allow write access to the application that created the folder. That's how it knows. When you install the application it creates it's own folder
Hope I understood that part of your question correctly.

Question? Could an application create multiple folders and have write access to all of them?
I know Gallery would not 'see' photos in folders created by another app after the OS update.

At any rate after a simple root (towelroot) and running the 'fix' program (PLAY STORE) I don't have any further problems.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[Feldon]

Your phone will only allow write access to the application that created the folder. That's how it knows. When you install the application it creates it's own folder

Yes, but this is not how SD card enthusiasts WANT it to work.

Question? Could an application create multiple folders and have write access to all of them?

It still wouldn't give other apps write privileges to those folders.

I know Gallery would not 'see' photos in folders created by another app after the OS update.

Exactly.

At any rate after a simple root (towelroot) and running the 'fix' program (PLAY STORE) I don't have any further problems.

I got away from iOS so I wouldn't have to root my phone for basic functionality.

 

[JudH]

Your phone will only allow write access to the application that created the folder. That's how it knows. When you install the application it creates it's own folder

Are you (anyone) sure? From the spec alone it looks like the root folder HAS to be com.appid (com.company.app).

 

[Feldon]

Your phone will only allow write access to the application that created the folder. That's how it knows. When you install the application it creates it's own folder

Are you (anyone) sure? From the spec alone it looks like the root folder HAS to be com.appid (com.company.app).

I think Android creates the folder for the app.

 

[Formerly Known As]

@Feldon
I couldn't agree more with all your points.
I am curious about why the same restrictions don't apply to the phones main memory....
It's a personal problem of mine. I suspect ulterior motives behind every bush. Apologies...



Posted via Android Central App

 

[Feldon]

@Feldon
I couldn't agree more with all your points.
I am curious about why the same restrictions don't apply to the phones main memory....

The phone's internal storage is formatted extfs, a Linux file system with detailed permissions. SD cards are formatted FAT32 which has no permissions system.

 

[Formerly Known As]

The phone's internal storage is formatted extfs, a Linux file system with detailed permissions. SD cards are formatted FAT32 which has no permissions system.

Good to have someone who really knows what they are talking about.

I guess there was nothing behind this 'Bush' but remember : 'even paranoids have enemies'!

Posted via Android Central App

 

[Molosar]

The main issue I am having is if I put music on my SD card. The internal app will not play it and after a day or so the files just start disappearing. I have tried Samsung, Adata, Sandisk, and a generic SD card and it does the same to all of them. It takes my over 3 hours to move all my music and in a couple of days over half of the music is missing or unusable.

 

[TenshiNo]

The app-specific folder is created by Android when the app first tries to write something to the SD card. The folder name will match the package's namespace: com.google.android.clock

All the info about this sort of thing can be found at Google's official Android developers reference: Android Developers

And the comment about the gallery app not being able to see media in other folders is completely wrong. This change has *never* affected read permissions in any way. If the gallery app isn't loading media out of a particular folder on your SD card, it's because there's a file called ".nomedia" in that folder. The existence of this file tells the MediaServer (which is the process responsible for cataloging all the music/photos/videos/etc on the device) nit to scan for files in that folder. You won't see the file using an Android-based file browser unless you're rooted (the "." at the beginning of a file is how Linux designates hidden files) but you can see it if you pull your SD card and use a card reader to read it on a pc.

It's true that using extfs on the SD card would potentially fix all these problems, but it would probably create more in the process. Luckily, it looks like this is all a mute point anyway, since Google got it sorted in lollipop.

 

[lterry913]

The main issue I am having is if I put music on my SD card. The internal app will not play it and after a day or so the files just start disappearing. I have tried Samsung, Adata, Sandisk, and a generic SD card and it does the same to all of them. It takes my over 3 hours to move all my music and in a couple of days over half of the music is missing or unusable.

I use a scandisc sd card and it finds all my music and it doesn't disappear. However I use power amp app because built in music player will not find anything on my sd card. If I download music directly to phone, I copy it to sd card with es file explorer, make sure it shows up in power amp and then I can delete it in internal storage so my phone storage doesn't get full. I do this in batches and it takes literally a few minutes...well worth the time to me. The key here is a music player from the playstore as built in will not access my files on sd and a good file explorer app. Give power amp a try and see if it works. I if music files are just disappearing you may have acorrupt sd card and it may need to be replaced.

 

[Molosar]

I have tried Samsung, Sandisk, Adata, and Generic 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB Class 10 SD cards and all do the same. I have tried 11 different SD cards. 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB included. Had my phone replaced twice. I still have the same thing happen on my Note 3 on NF6 and NF9.