T-Mobile Note 3: DON'T update if you value your SD card

[Jax Omen]

Updated this morning, spent some time playing Seiken Dentetsu 3 with my phone... exited out, did some stuff, decided to keep playing... and I'm back where I was when the day started.

Did some googling, and on Kit Kat your apps can't write to SD card anymore. AT ALL. Except for their android/data folder. And this is somehow a "feature"?

[inappropriate language removed by moderator]

 

[zedorda]

Re: DON'T update if you value your SD card

Next time do research, read patch notes, knowledge is power. This goes for apps also always read what changed.

 

[Kevin OQuinn]

Re: DON'T update if you value your SD card

Yes it's a feature. It's a security feature.

You can probably point the finger at Samsung for not maintaining feature parity from one version to the next. They could have dedicated engineering resources to make sure you could write to it. Not sure how much effort it would take, but that's the beauty of Android. They can change the code.

 

[Jax Omen]

Re: DON'T update if you value your SD card

"security" or otherwise, it drove me to spend an hour figuring out how to root the phone just to reverse this "feature", because it left my primary phone uses unusable.

If you rely on your SD card for anything beyond mere media storage, don't update to 4.4 unless you intend to root.

 

[Kevin OQuinn]

Re: DON'T update if you value your SD card

"security" or otherwise, it drove me to spend an hour figuring out how to root the phone just to reverse this "feature", because it left my primary phone uses unusable.

If you rely on your SD card for anything beyond mere media storage, don't update to 4.4 unless you intend to root.

It's also for system stability, which you yourself witnessed. Moving the wrong type of data to the SD card can cause issues should the card be removed or just go bad. There's a right way to do SD cards, and it looks like Samsung is starting to do that with KK updates. They probably should put a note somewhere before the update is flashed that users should move apps back over to local storage first.

 

[Jax Omen]

Re: DON'T update if you value your SD card

I don't think you really understand.

REMOVING the ability of third-party apps to freely access the SD card completely broke my primary uses of my phone. Not APP data - my main use of my phone is a portable game system, and the emulators stopped being able to save my games because the files are stored on the SD card.

If I went along with Samsung/Google's implementation, I'd have to limit myself to strictly 8-16bit emulators just to have enough room for the phone to be usable.

Furthermore, it has REDUCED the security of my phone, because I had to root my phone to reverse this hairbrained design.

Keep app data on internal storage, sure, that's fine, app 2 SD was a solution looking for a problem in the first place, but don't restrict third party apps from writing to SD card at all.

 

[CehowardNote7]

Re: DON'T update if you value your SD card

I updated, and my 64gb Sandisk Ultra is working faster than before..I go to my pictures and they like FLASH up in blazing speed..

In anything, the sd card is FASTER with this update.. That is what I am experiencing.

 

[Kevin OQuinn]

Re: DON'T update if you value your SD card

I don't think you really understand.

REMOVING the ability of third-party apps to freely access the SD card completely broke my primary uses of my phone. Not APP data - my main use of my phone is a portable game system, and the emulators stopped being able to save my games because the files are stored on the SD card.

If I went along with Samsung/Google's implementation, I'd have to limit myself to strictly 8-16bit emulators just to have enough room for the phone to be usable.

Furthermore, it has REDUCED the security of my phone, because I had to root my phone to reverse this hairbrained design.

Keep app data on internal storage, sure, that's fine, app 2 SD was a solution looking for a problem in the first place, but don't restrict third party apps from writing to SD card at all.

I do understand. Your use case is very niche. Also, your emulator is an app, so your save games would be considered app data.

The update didn't reduce the security of your phone, you did. You chose to root, the update didn't do it for you.

I would venture to say that the developer of the emulator needs to update the app to be compatible with the Kit Kat way of doing SD cards. Apps CAN write to the SD card, but they need to use the appropriate API that's been made available. I would send an email to them and ask them if they plan on doing that.

 

[Jax Omen]

Re: DON'T update if you value your SD card

They can only write to their android/appdata folder. Which is *not* what I want. As far as I am aware, there is no possible way for a third party app to request the "media r/w" permission, which is what I had to root to manually grant to the "write external storage" permission to fix the issue.

The update reduced the security of my phone by FORCING me to root in order to retain functionality I already had. Which is the problem: changes like this SHOULD NOT ever be implemented in regular software updates, especially with no notice to the end user unless they happen to research it on news sites before clicking "okay".

I don't think emulator use is "very niche"... they're some of the more popular apps on the Play Store.

 

[Kevin OQuinn]

Re: DON'T update if you value your SD card

They can only write to their android/appdata folder. Which is *not* what I want. As far as I am aware, there is no possible way for a third party app to request the "media r/w" permission, which is what I had to root to manually grant to the "write external storage" permission to fix the issue.

The update reduced the security of my phone by FORCING me to root in order to retain functionality I already had. Which is the problem: changes like this SHOULD NOT ever be implemented in regular software updates, especially with no notice to the end user unless they happen to research it on news sites before clicking "okay".

I don't think emulator use is "very niche"... they're some of the more popular apps on the Play Store.

You're right, the "universal write" permission is the exact reason Google did what they did. It addresses one of the major flaws of SD cards, security. I do think it's worth sending an email to the dev to ask them if they plan on updating for KK compatibility, since that would solve the problem.

I emphasized the part that I completely agree with.

Compared to other uses emulator use is niche. Sorry, I like emulators too, but they are niche.

 

[Jonathan Dominicali]

Idk every app I use is working like be4 with sd card I seen Google code but I do think there has to be a work around for oems to use like a api of some sort..... it just don't seem to bother me on the user end

Posted via Android Central App

 

[dctokyo]

Re: DON'T update if you value your SD card

The update didn't reduce the security of your phone, you did. You chose to root, the update didn't do it for you

I agree

Next time do research, read patch notes, knowledge is power. This goes for apps also always read what changed.

also agree with this

 

[TeddyR42]

Re: DON'T update if you value your SD card

I say to call tmobile and lodge a complaint that the value of the device is less now that a major device feature has been taken away. One possible solution other than reverting back to the 4.3 behavior is to add a user option to "enable" the access for those that specifically select the option... kind of like the "Unknown Sources" checkmark to allow installation of APKs from outside the play store. Make the option by default behave like Google wants it to, but allow for how it used to work if specifically selected.

 

[zedorda]

Re: DON'T update if you value your SD card

No one lost the use of the SD card just the system is handling its data different. I like to compare this it the removal of the "rumble seat" back in the day. When it was in use no one thought it was a bad idea to put their kids in the trunk as long as it was open with padding. Later they learned how stupid it was after a few accidents launched a few kids to their death.

Most people that don't understand why the SD card usage is changing also don't understand just how much safer it is the new way. Alot of end-user problems with devices is the SD card and they don't even know it.

 

[Deke218]

Re: DON'T update if you value your SD card

Such as? I've never experienced any user problems with an SD card. I fail to see how this makes the device safer. Just seems like a made up problem to get people away from SD cards and into the cloud.

 

[zedorda]

Re: DON'T update if you value your SD card

Such as? I've never experienced any user problems with an SD card. I fail to see how this makes the device safer. Just seems like a made up problem to get people away from SD cards and into the cloud.

Here take it from the man.

Messed up = fixed a glaring security hole that allowed any app to write to any folder on an entire partition.

The same people were saying the same sky-is-falling nonsense when 4.1 changed how SD cards were treated, yet developers updated their apps and all was well.

No, messed up is the correct term.

I'm not sure what security hole you think they fixed. Sure, a rogue app can now no longer delete all of the data on your sd card, but I just did a quick web search, and I couldn't find anyone who ever complained about that having happened to them. You would think if this problem was so glaring, someone would have run into it.

This was more about making uninstalls easier, and with Google biases against removable SD cards and much less to do with security.

Perhaps this was related to the glaring security hole they fixed when they blocked apps from battery use data or from turning on/off airplane mode. IMO, Google is making a fair number of changes related to "looking like its more secure, even if it doesn't change anything that needed changing."

No, I meant exactly what I typed.

If you can't grasp why this was a problem, continue to cluck about the sky falling with the rest. People who can understand will continue to ignore you.

On the other hand, you can easily educate yourself about Linux user and group security via Google.



Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk

 

[Deke218]

Re: DON'T update if you value your SD card

Um, That doesn't really tell me anything,. Jerry writes a good story but "Messed up = fixed a glaring security hole that allowed any app to write to any folder on an entire partition." As the 2nd poster stated, there is no proof this has ever caused a problem. That's like Michele Bachmann saying letting gays marry will lead to dogs and cats wanting equal rights.

I'd gladly follow Google's reasoning on this... Just require all Android device to come with a minimum of 128 GB of storage.

 

[zedorda]

Re: DON'T update if you value your SD card

Since you don't have the understanding of Linux explaining why would be pointless because it wouldn't make any sense to you. So go learn the basics of Linux then it will be clear without needing to explain it. And no I am not Linux expert I have learned enough to get me into trouble and enough to understand why the change is happening. But not enough to teach someone else but in about 45mins with alittle googleing you will be able to learn what you need.

 

[Deke218]

A lot of words to say I don't know.
I did a little reading.
http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/0...at-and-even-samsung-may-be-implementing-them/

Still, I fail to see why the 10 or so pictures I took of my pregnant wife an hour ago with a 3rd party camera app didn't save. This crap that Google is pulling without what seems like notice to app developers is gonna bit them in the ***. There is no security issue here. Just some egg head in Google who thinks he can design a better mouse trap.

Every few years I switch operating systems. Once I tire of my Note 3, I will be giving Windows Phone another go round. Once again, Android is still not ready for prime time. This is not a minor thing. This cause major problems for the way I've used Android since I had the G1. To up and change this without warning is not something I expected from Android.

Sent from my Galaxy Note 3.

 

[SebasCvdB]

Re: DON'T update if you value your SD card

I say to call tmobile and lodge a complaint that the value of the device is less now that a major device feature has been taken away. One possible solution other than reverting back to the 4.3 behavior is to add a user option to "enable" the access for those that specifically select the option... kind of like the "Unknown Sources" checkmark to allow installation of APKs from outside the play store. Make the option by default behave like Google wants it to, but allow for how it used to work if specifically selected.

It's a Google thing... not T-mobile...

Also for the people with root there is a patch out there..