S7 Active & PC disagree on where photos are

[LKrueger41]

Each month I copy last month's photos to my Win 10 PC. This time my PC found S7 Active>Card> DCIM>Camera as usual but reports 'This folder is empty'. My phone finds all of the photos using either the Gallery app or the Photos app. By searching, I found all, or at least most of the photos in S7 Active>Card> LOST.DIR. I was able to copy what I wanted so nothing is lost yet.

I have restarted my phone, restarted the PC, tried three different USB cables and always have the same result, except sometimes the PC reports that LOST>DIR is empty too.

If I use the Total Commander app on my phone, it finds all of my photos on the card in DCIM/Camera where I have always expected to find them.

All software on both the phone and the PC are up-to-date. I don't know if its my phone, the card, my PC, or a cable problem. Please help me find the problem.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! First -- is the Camera app saving photos to Internal Storage or the SD card by default? Second, when you connect the phone to the PC, are you making sure the USB connection is MTP, not Charge Only?

 

[LKrueger41]

I have always stored my photos on the SD card. The phone still thinks they are still there where I have always found them and shows LOST.DIR empty. I am not sure what MTP means, but I did successfully copy the photos once I found them listed in LOST.DIR. I want to get this mis-communication straightened out before I lose things completely.

 

[B. Diddy]

When you connect the phone to the PC via USB, swipe down the notification panel and tap the USB icon. It should give you a few different options like Charge Only, MTP (which means Media Transfer Protocol, sometimes called File Transfer), PTP (which is Picture Transfer Protocol), and probably a couple of others. Make sure it's set to MTP, which is the best way to transfer any kind of file, and will ensure the computer can "see" inside all of the user-accessible directories on your phone and SD card.

SD cards are inherently more unreliable than internal storage, and so this issue might be due to SD card corruption. I would suggest trying a different card and seeing if the same thing happens.

 

[LKrueger41]

The behavior seem to be the same whether I choose file or photo transfer. The choices do not look like you stated, but either way the photos show up in LOST.DIR but not in Camera. As I said before, the Total Commander app on my phone still shows the photos in Camera and LOST.DIR as empty.
(P.S. Personal to B. Diddy. I can reply from my phone (Chrome) but no dialog box appears on my PC using either Chrome or IE. I started this thread using my PC, sent the message to you on the PC, and can see the entire thread on the PC, but there 8s no dialog box to reply ??? I hate typing on my phone when there is a PC right in front of me.)

 

[LKrueger41]

I don't have another SD card to substitute, but if no other suggestions work, I will buy one.

 

[B. Diddy]

SD cards are really inexpensive these days, so I'd try another card. You can probably get a 16 or 32 GB card for <$10, maybe even <$5.

When you look at the thread on your PC, does it have a big "Your Answer" at the bottom? If so, you're looking at a special format for the thread which converted it to the "Q&A" format. In the URL bar, delete any characters at the end of the URL after "html", then press return. That should bring up the thread in the normal way.

 

[LKrueger41]

Thank you. the suggestion for the URL in Chrome on the PC works. I hate it when some esoteric bit of knowledge is needed to make something work like I think is should automatically work. Anyway, I am answering on the PC now.

I have been occupied at home with grandkids, so I ordered an new SD card online rather than picking one up locally. I'll let you know what happens. I'm assuming it would be asking for trouble to take the old card out and use the PC to copy all the photos & music on it to the new one.

 

[B. Diddy]

Glad you're able to see this thread easily now. The Q&A format is a bit of an oddity on this forum, and it baffles some of our experienced members as well, so don't feel bad.

I think it's certainly worth taking the old card out and backing up the photos and music files on your computer hard drive -- it's never a good idea to save important data only on SD cards, since as we've already discussed, they're not very reliable.

 

[Rukbat]

The definitive test, of course, is to remove the SD card from the phone, put it into a USB adapter and plug that into the PC. Then see what's on the card, without the phone being in the way. If it looks the same as in the phone, it's a communications error. If it looks the same as when the phone is connected to the PC, something strange is going on in the phone. (Gallery and Photos, of course, are no help - they just report what's in the Media Scan database.)