Re: Kitkat update disabling use of external micro SD Card
Yes, I've experienced problems writing to the SD card (reading off it seems to be fine) with apps on my Sprint Note 3 running the new Android 4.4.2 KitKat update. If I use a USB cable to connect my phone and computer, I can modify the SD card at will. However, apps on my phone no longer seem to be able to do everything they used to with my SD card. For example, I have some audio files I want to listen to once, then delete. The music app I usually use to do the deleting after listening doesn't seem to be able to delete files from my SD card anymore. More importantly, file manager apps I've tried are having problems writing to the SD card. I can't copy files from my computer to the SD card using these apps to make, say, a LAN or FTP connection over WiFi. I think I can copy them to internal phone memory over WiFi, but then moving them to the SD card doesn't always work. Sometimes copying files does work, but copying folders always seems to fail. Results could vary by app -- I've been trying two file explorers, and one seems to have a bit more trouble than the other, but some of the features are different between them (since I'm using only free versions at the moment), so I can't always take identical actions with both apps for direct comparison. I think this is a user-unfriendly change. Having to use a USB cable every time I want to modify my SD card is inconvenient, to say the least. I hope that developers will be able to figure out ways to modify their apps so that they can still use the SD card, at least to some extent. It's the file explorer apps I'm most concerned about -- if I can't use them to manage my SD card, they're semi-useless now. I hope they manage to figure out some kind of work-around, so they can maintain their usefulness.
beh, I'm not sure of the details myself either, but I think you're on the right track. What I seem to remember is that third-party apps are able to access internal phone memory the same as always, but for the SD card they're limited to writing to one app-specific directory. Reading from the card seems to be fine -- I haven't had any problems there yet. It's when I want to use an app to write files or folders that problems begin.
lerien68, I just tried taking a photo with the stock camera app and it looked like it wrote to the SD card fine. I'm not sure why yours doesn't, because as I understand things, stock apps pre-installed on the phone should not be subject to the same stricter rules on SD card access as other third-party apps we download and install ourselves.