Why are a few of my pictures on Samsung Galaxy Note 2 now missing?

[AC Question]

The pictures have been visible for months, then random ones from various dates are no longer accessible or missing; they are denoted by a gray rectangle with a cloud having a line through it. Googlephotos.com does not recognize their existence at all. If I check My Files, where the photos are saved to the SD memory, the list of picture jpg's come up with thumbnails, but the inaccessible (or missing) ones have a Gallery icon. When opened with Google photos app, the screen comes up blank (black); when opened with Gallery, the date comes in with a gray person/bust and lightning bolt image. The pictures are not saved otherwise to the "Device."

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Chances are that the files have become corrupt, most likely due to the SD card. Go to Settings>Storage, Unmount the card, remove it, and insert it into your computer. Can the computer read these files? Backup as much as you can right now, then run chkdsk to look for bad sectors: http://forums.androidcentral.com/am...guide-using-chkdsk-fix-corrupted-sd-card.html. If it finds bad sectors, and the photos aren't crucial to save, then go ahead and allow chkdsk to try repairing those sectors. If the photos are really precious, then you'll have to try recovering them using 3rd party software: http://forums.androidcentral.com/am...-s/500142-guide-recovering-deleted-files.html

Remember that SD cards are not 100% reliable, and most will start failing after enough read-write operations. Always backup photos and other important data on a regular basis, or sync them to the cloud. I strongly recommend Google Photos Auto Backup. https://support.google.com/photos/answer/6193313?co=GENIE.Platform=Android&hl=en