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Syncing music to phone SD card kills it

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  Syncing music to phone SD card kills it Nil <rednoise9@REMOVETHIScomcast.net> - 2016-12-30 20:58 -0500
    Re: Syncing music to phone SD card kills it tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> - 2016-12-30 22:06 -0500
      Re: Syncing music to phone SD card kills it Nil <rednoise9@REMOVETHIScomcast.net> - 2016-12-30 23:10 -0500
      Re: Syncing music to phone SD card kills it micky <NONONOmisc07@bigfoot.com> - 2017-01-02 03:59 -0500
    Re: Syncing music to phone SD card kills it Piet <www.godfatherof.nl/@opt-in.invalid> - 2016-12-31 11:05 +0100
      Re: Syncing music to phone SD card kills it Piet <www.godfatherof.nl/@opt-in.invalid> - 2016-12-31 13:39 +0100
        Re: Syncing music to phone SD card kills it Nil <rednoise9@REMOVETHIScomcast.net> - 2016-12-31 16:04 -0500
      Re: Syncing music to phone SD card kills it Nil <rednoise9@REMOVETHIScomcast.net> - 2016-12-31 15:59 -0500

#37062 — Syncing music to phone SD card kills it

Phone: LG Sunset LGL33L (Tracfone)
Android 5.0.1
32 GB Micro SD card (Samsung EVO at the moment) formatted as FAT32
Mediamonkey for Windows 4.1.14.1813 
Mediamonkey for Android 1.2.0.0624 (probably not a factor)

I use Mediamonkey for Windows to sync my music collection to my phone. 
My problem is that periodically, when syncing many (2000 - 4000 mp3s, 
maybe 20 GB), the SD card will go semi-dead - that is, the phone will 
suddenly cease to recognize the card. By that I mean that when I go to 
the Storage area of the Android settings, it shows no card present - 
the SC Card area is grayed out and won't let me mount or erase it. 
However, if I remove it and insert it into my Windows (both XP and 7) 
computer, the computer *will* read the card. CHKDSK indicates no 
problem. CHKDSK /F does not fix any problems. There is still about 12 
GB free. If I reformat the card (full or quick), it will once again be 
seen by the phone and can be written to. If I restore the SD card 
contents from a backup after formatting it, it works. Until the next 
time it happens. 

To make it even stranger, I have an app installed called SD Insight 
(https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.humanlogic.sdi). The 
app *does* see the card. If it is to be believed, the card is genuine 
and should hold its rated capacity. 

This has been going on for almost a year. Shortly after I first got the 
phone it happened. I thought the phone itself was bad, so I exchanged 
it for a new one of the same model. But it has happened several times 
since then. It has happed with at least 3 different SD cards, on at 
least 3 different computers.

I just don't get this. I can't figure out what, when, or where things 
are going wrong. The formula for disaster, if it exists, is illusive. 
I've tried different SD cards. I've tried syncing less data at once. 
I've tried different computers. Nothing seems to make a consistent 
difference.

Can anyone explain what's going on or have any thoughts on the matter?

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#37063

On Fri, 30 Dec 2016 20:58:42 -0500, Nil wrote:

> Can anyone explain what's going on or have any thoughts on the matter?

Can't explain, but here are some thoughts.

I have a handset that, on occasion, goes berserk in a variety of ways, one
of which may be to fail to see the external SD and/or its contents.

In all cases, I can restore the device's sanity as follows (4 quick steps):

1) power the device off.
2) remove its battery.
3) a full 30 seconds later replace its battery.
4) power the device on again.

Everything is then back to normal :-) .

While I HTH, YMMV. Cheers, -- tlvp
-- 
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP.

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#37064

On 30 Dec 2016, tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> wrote in
comp.mobile.android: 

> In all cases, I can restore the device's sanity as follows (4
> quick steps): 
> 
> 1) power the device off.
> 2) remove its battery.
> 3) a full 30 seconds later replace its battery.
> 4) power the device on again.
> 
> Everything is then back to normal :-) .

Well, I've kind-of achieved the same thing by powering the phone down, 
moving the SD card to the computer (which required removing the 
battery,) then putting the SD card back into the phone and powering it 
up again. It still won't mount the card. But I'll try your method more 
exactly next time.

Thanks for the suggestion.

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#37162

In comp.mobile.android, on Fri, 30 Dec 2016 22:06:31 -0500, tlvp
<mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> wrote:

>On Fri, 30 Dec 2016 20:58:42 -0500, Nil wrote:
>
>> Can anyone explain what's going on or have any thoughts on the matter?
>
>Can't explain, but here are some thoughts.
>
>I have a handset that, on occasion, goes berserk in a variety of ways, one
>of which may be to fail to see the external SD and/or its contents.
>
>In all cases, I can restore the device's sanity as follows (4 quick steps):
>
>1) power the device off.
>2) remove its battery.
>3) a full 30 seconds later replace its battery.
>4) power the device on again.

I had a phone that would not turn on.  And of course it happened at the
worst time:  I was at the dept of motor vehicles and had to call someone
to get a hold taken off my car registration.  Or I'd have to leave and
come back another day.  Did I mention that my plates had expired? (my
negligence). 

There used to be payphones, and when I asked someone if he knew where a
payphone was, he lent me his phone. 

But later when waiting inside, I did steps 1 to 4 and now the phone
works again. 

I got the stickers and the fine wasn't that bad. 

>Everything is then back to normal :-) .
>
>While I HTH, YMMV. Cheers, -- tlvp

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#37068

Nil wrote:
> I use Mediamonkey for Windows to sync my music collection to my phone. 
> My problem is that periodically, when syncing many (2000 - 4000 mp3s, 
> maybe 20 GB), the SD card will go semi-dead - that is, the phone will 
> suddenly cease to recognize the card.

I've had something similar with usb3 sticks. It could use it for
multi-GB backups on all of my pc's, except for one. On that one
pc they would fail after a random period of time and weren't seen
as usb devices. I had to power-cycle the pc to fix it.

This may not sound helpful for your situation, but I worked around
the problem by splitting the backups in chunks, small enough for
the pc/stick to "survive" the complete backup. Maybe you can do
the same when syncing your collection (but see below).

> By that I mean that when I go to  the Storage area of the Android
> settings, it shows no card present - the SC Card area is grayed out
> and won't let me mount or erase it.
> However, if I remove it and insert it into my Windows (both XP and 7) 
> computer, the computer *will* read the card. CHKDSK indicates no 
> problem. CHKDSK /F does not fix any problems. There is still about 12 
> GB free. If I reformat the card (full or quick), it will once again be 
> seen by the phone and can be written to.

What happens if you power off your phone, remove the card, plug it
into your pc, chckdsk it and just put in back into your phone?

> To make it even stranger, I have an app installed called SD Insight 
> (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.humanlogic.sdi).
> The app *does* see the card.

That's not surprising: from the app's information I infer that it
looks at the information hard-wired into the *on-card controller*,
not at the file system or contents of the card's *storage area*.

> I just don't get this. I can't figure out what, when, or where things 
> are going wrong. The formula for disaster, if it exists, is illusive. 
> I've tried different SD cards. I've tried syncing less data at once. 

By "less data" do you mean "considerably less data" (chunks of
e.g. no more than 1 GB)?

Note that the cause may not be the sd-card at all, but your phone
being unable to handle *both* the usb and sd-card data stream. You
may want to try to force-stop all apps except the system apps, then
try it again.

-p

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#37069

Piet wrote:
> Nil wrote:
>> I use Mediamonkey for Windows to sync my music collection to my phone. 
>> My problem is that periodically, when syncing many (2000 - 4000 mp3s, 
>> maybe 20 GB), the SD card will go semi-dead - that is, the phone will 
>> suddenly cease to recognize the card.
> 
> ...
> Note that the cause may not be the sd-card at all, but your phone
> being unable to handle *both* the usb and sd-card data stream. You
> may want to try to force-stop all apps except the system apps, then
> try it again.

Just wondering if Mediamonkey is at the root of the problem.
Since apparently you keep your entire collection on your pc,
it would be interesting to see what happens if on your phone
you delete the whole collection, then via Windows Explorer
transfer the whole collection from your pc to your phone.

-p

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#37094

On 31 Dec 2016, Piet <www.godfatherof.nl/@opt-in.invalid> wrote in
comp.mobile.android: 

> Just wondering if Mediamonkey is at the root of the problem.
> Since apparently you keep your entire collection on your pc,
> it would be interesting to see what happens if on your phone
> you delete the whole collection, then via Windows Explorer
> transfer the whole collection from your pc to your phone.

That's a good idea, thanks. I'll try it soon. An additional test I just 
thought of is to try syncing the SD card directly in the desktop, both 
with and without Mediamonkey. That's too inconvenient for a permanent 
solution, but it might help me narrow the problem down to the SD card 
and/or Mediamonkey.

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#37093

On 31 Dec 2016, Piet <www.godfatherof.nl/@opt-in.invalid> wrote in
comp.mobile.android: 

> I've had something similar with usb3 sticks. It could use it for
> multi-GB backups on all of my pc's, except for one. On that one
> pc they would fail after a random period of time and weren't seen
> as usb devices. I had to power-cycle the pc to fix it.

I would have attributed it to the SD card itself, except that the 
failure has happened with three different SD cards. 

> This may not sound helpful for your situation, but I worked around
> the problem by splitting the backups in chunks, small enough for
> the pc/stick to "survive" the complete backup. Maybe you can do
> the same when syncing your collection (but see below).

I've played around with that aspect a bit. I've been trying to sync 
about 25 GB of mp3s to the phone - that is, that's the size of the 
initial transfer from the desktop to the phone. Subsequent syncs should 
be much smaller, just transferring any new or changed files. However, 
because I keep having to re-format the SD card, I keep having to start 
over and suffer through the complete transfer.

It did occur to me that the failure might be related to transferring 
TOO much data at once (heat?) so I split the whole library into 4 
parts, each one being 5 or 6 GB and letting it "rest" between chunks. 
It seems to work OK some of the time, but other times it fails during 
the 3rd or 4th sync operation.

> What happens if you power off your phone, remove the card, plug it
> into your pc, chckdsk it and just put in back into your phone?

That doesn't seem to make any difference. The only way to bring the 
sick SD card back to life for the phone is to re-format it. :(

> Note that the cause may not be the sd-card at all, but your phone
> being unable to handle *both* the usb and sd-card data stream. You
> may want to try to force-stop all apps except the system apps,
> then try it again.

I hope it's not the phone, but I'm beginning to suspect you're right. 
I'm not in the financial mood to replace it right now, but I plan to 
try the test with another phone and see if I can make it happen there, 
too. If I can't, that should fix blame on my phone.

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