Why are all types of media disappearing from my phone

[Goodman613]

I have had 1000s of media files on my s8 phone for a while; songs, movies, videos, pictures and even gifs. But as of recent, I haven't downloaded anything or changed anything that I'm aware of but my all these files have started disappearing.

I first noticed this a few days ago now when I loaded up my gallery and every file had a grey thumbnail with "!" In the centre as a warning.

Songs downloaded from spotify would download but somehow disappear and they would re download and so on.

Video files saves from other apps would still have their links as if they were downloaded but when I tried to open the files I would get an error message saying not found.

So I have looked into the DCIM file and the first time I spotted the problem, there was nothing inside the DCIM folder, although, just an hour ago, I found that the photos I took yesterday have disappeared now too. I then tried to look deeper into the problem but it turns out now there is no DCIM folder displayed in the my files app. When I search for it in settings and click on it, the phone tells me there is no apps that can open this type of file.

I have tried rebooting, clearing cache, scanning for malicious software, reading up on loads of other people's questions but have no solutions that work for me

What is going on with my phone?!?!?!?!!

On the newer Galaxy phones that have Knox Security when the phone receives security updates the new software is designed to delete downloaded videos (i.e. AVI, MKV, Mp4) assuming that the videos have been illegally downloaded and the update searches for these videos and deletes them. The only way to avoid this is to manually turn off security updates in your Settings under Biometrics and Security under other security settings. You can still receive regular software updates for your phone without encountering this problem. It is a joint effort by the Cellular companies to control what content you put on your phone (i.e. Big Brother). Just turn off security updates and they will not be able to dictate what you have on your phone!