Phantom files showing up after deleted on Galaxy S9

[architekt909]

I'm new to Android so bear with me if this stuff isn't obvious. Anyway earlier today I copied over my music library. I realized later that I copied over a bunch of non-music files as well as some playlists I didn't care for. So I just nuked everything from my Music and Playlists folder on my S9 and copied the new content over. The problem is, I'm still seeing these phantom playlists even though they don't exist! For example, one of the playlists, let's call it Playlist1.m3u, used to be in the SD Card\Playlists directory. I deleted that one because I didn't like it. Using the built in "My Files" app, I browsed to the SD Card\Playlists directory and verified that in fact this playlist does not exist, as expected. But when I launch either the samsung music player (or any of the other 2 players that I downloaded) the same play list shows up. This is after I had cleared both the cache AND data for these apps AND rebooted my phone.

Just to verify, I opened up the My Files app again and did a search this time (instead of just manually browsing) for Playlist1.m3u and it showed that it exists but is 0 bytes! I selected that file and told it to take me to the folder where the playlist exists: lo and behold, THE FILE DOES NOT EXIST THERE.

I'm really confused and annoyed. Why do both My Files and the music apps keep showing these play lists that I have deleted? Again, I've verified both by just browsing with My Files as well as from my PC after connecting the device to it that the deleted files are not in fact on the device.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! First, go to Settings>Storage, tap Cached Data, and agree to clear all app caches. If that doesn't help, then try wiping the system cache partition: https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-37180

 

[architekt909]

I don't see a "Storage" option under Settings. I did however wipe the system cache and that fixed the problem! I wonder if things got screwy since I was copying/deleting thousands of music files and hundreds of gigs. I noticed a lag too between when I deleted stuff and when the effect seemed to take place. Like if I nuked the files on my device, and connected it to my PC, the PC still saw the nuked files. And same for if I nuked them on my PC: the device still saw some of them. Anyway, wiping the system cache appears to have solved the issue so thanks.