Hello there everyone,
My girlfriend's run into a very interesting problem. She has an Experia Arc S and uses the stock gallery widget to scroll through her images on her phone. Now, she's not one to delete pictures, but she's recently deleted one of a person she had a bad falling out with. However, here's where it gets interesting.
The image is gone from the gallery. However, there's still a tumbnail on the widget.
From this, I conclude that the widget generates its own thumbnails somewhere and stores them and they don't get deleted (or, if they do, they sometimes don't). My question, thus, is pretty obvious:
How do I get rid of that thumbnail in her widget scroll-through-gallery?
Thank you guys for your help. She'll certainly be eternally grateful.
try deleting .thumbnails folder inside dcim in sdcard
you have a q & a forum, by the way...
rocco6victor said:
try deleting .thumbnails folder inside dcim in sdcard
you have a q & a forum, by the way...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm sorry, I didn't find that forum. The general layout of XDA confuses me somewhat, to be honest. I apologize. But thank you very much for your reply. I greatly appreciate all the help I can get.
Either way, I've looked into the .thumbnails folder and it's not there either. So I gather that this widget somewhere has its own folder and does its own thumbnails... which, if its on the phone memory, might explain why her phone's always low on memory.
have you tried re-adding the widget?
delete the current one on home screen, and then add it back.
Failing above reply, delete thumbs.db in dcim/andro100 folder or go to settings and wipe data of gallery app.
Sent from my metalliArc S
Related
Does anyone know how to stop this file, located in dcim/thumbnails, from existing? Just keeps getting bigger and eating up my SD card!!!
LT15i ICS with root
Those are the thumbnails from the gallery, and for every picture or video you take or add to your phone, a thumbnail will be generated.
I don't think there's a way to disable them, if you could you wouldn't see any thumbnails in your gallery. Doesn't seem handy to me
Edit:
Sorry, misunderstood you..
I guess the thumbdata is still a part of the gallery, seems like a database to me, so the gallery knows where it can find its thumbnails
Thing is, I transfer my photos off regularly and then delete them off phone yet when I delete thumb data, it comes back at me! Currently stands at around 500mb....
LT15i ICS with root
500 mb is alot
I have two thumbdata files, both 55 mb and i have alot of photos on the device.
Do you have pictures elsewhere on your sd card, like album pictures, or pictures from a game, that might be the culprit?
Will check it out....
LT15i ICS with root
Have the same problem. It just doesn't make sense, the .thumbdata file sizes are lot bigger than the media themselves.
I've tried to disable write permissions with root browser (I've read that trick herehttp://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1318827), it does stop the two thumbdata files for getting bigger. Their sizes actually never changed. But unfortunately, it messed up my gallery preview.
Sent from my WT19i using xda app-developers app
it's a common issue with ICS, i have S2 and my thumbdata is over 1GB
yes, we know
boyob32 said:
Does anyone know how to stop this file, located in DCIM/thumbnails/, from existing? Just keeps getting bigger and eating up my SD card!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just copy that file's name, delete that file (thumbdata--), then create folder named the same as deleted file. Reboot device. No annoying thumbdata3 anymore! And look in folders named LOST.DIR (you can find it in the root directory of your internal memory and your SDcard) - huge temporary files may be left in these folders, so delete these files.
Tested on Toshiba Thrive Tablet (ICS).
Really strange bug....follow me on this:
take pictures, pictures are automatically stored on phone in directory /mnt/sdcard/dcim/100andro....
move pictures to hidden directory called /mnt/ext-card/.specialuse
pictures move just fine, and are readily availible in hidden directory....until I restart the phone, at which point, only the pictures from this phone (not other files or videos) are deleted from the .specialuse folder, no warnings, no pop up...just GONE.
The strangest thing is, it only deletes the files I have added to that directory recently....not the older video files already present.
I have created a .specialuse folder on the phones memory at /mnt/sdcard/.specialuse and it does the same thing....
When I remove the . in the folder name (making it visible) and copy the picture and reset the phone...nothing happens (meaning it keeps the pictures like it should).
WHY does having a .directoryname cause the phone to automatically clear pictures from said directories? My X10 did not do this, only my ION does this.
Anyone have any ideas? Has anyone else had this happen? Thanks.
lmbea4 said:
Really strange bug....follow me on this:
take pictures, pictures are automatically stored on phone in directory /mnt/sdcard/dcim/100andro....
move pictures to hidden directory called /mnt/ext-card/.specialuse
pictures move just fine, and are readily availible in hidden directory....until I restart the phone, at which point, only the pictures from this phone (not other files or videos) are deleted from the .specialuse folder, no warnings, no pop up...just GONE.
The strangest thing is, it only deletes the files I have added to that directory recently....not the older video files already present.
I have created a .specialuse folder on the phones memory at /mnt/sdcard/.specialuse and it does the same thing....
When I remove the . in the folder name (making it visible) and copy the picture and reset the phone...nothing happens (meaning it keeps the pictures like it should).
WHY does having a .directoryname cause the phone to automatically clear pictures from said directories? My X10 did not do this, only my ION does this.
Anyone have any ideas? Has anyone else had this happen? Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's because of the "dot" at the beginning of the folder name. Android uses this method by default for it's own purposes. It's a possibility that this phone is seeing that and it "confuses" it so to speak. Try this...
Make your folder and name it whatever you like, with NO punctuation in the name..
Now... Inside that folder, add a ".nomedia" file, but without the quotes
The photos should remain hidden in the gallery, but only visible in a file manager of sorts.
Quickpic in the market is an alternative gallery, that has the ability to hide folders, using the nomedia method. Works great.
...And now I'm gonna go check if all of mine are still there....
yeah but BUG
I agree, and that's what I had been doing after I noticed the deletions....but my x10 didn't behave that way, and my tablet (running 4.0.3) doesn't behave that way.....so, yes, this is a bug.
lmbea4 said:
I agree, and that's what I had been doing after I noticed the deletions....but my x10 didn't behave that way, and my tablet (running 4.0.3) doesn't behave that way.....so, yes, this is a bug.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, not necessarily... Depending on how the overlay of Android is set up...The overlay from Sony I mean... It "could" be written to behave this way. Bear with me for a few days... I'm going to run some tests on my own phone with some pictures to see if I can reproduce the issue, and if so, try and find a solution.
If you like, I can use the same pictures you were, with the same folder names. That is completely up to you, as only you know what these are... But if you like, PM me, and I'll give you my email address, so we can resolve this.
CONFIRMED!!! At least on my phone... There is no pattern to it, that I can determine... I used several folders in my experiment. Some with, and some without a .nomedia file. And some with and without a dot before the folder name. At random, 5 different folders, still have their folder names, but have no pictures. All 4 possible scenarios were effected, and the fifth actually goes to a standard folder name with a .nomedia file in it.
So basically, my experiment proves nothing more than this is still unsolved, and not specific to one person.
(Just for sh**s and giggles, I am attempting to recover the lost files using some software I have... Just to see if its do-able, should this effect someone else... I'll report back later tomorrow)
Quick question, which file manager are you guys using to move these files? There was some update to Astro a while back that made my files get deleted when I moved them, anywhere regardless of the folder name on my Aria. Same thing still occurred on my Ion when I got it. Ever since I switched to ES File Explorer, I have not encountered this issue of deletion. Astro deleted not only pictures when I moved them, but ring tones, pdf, etc.
Sent from my LT28at
BUG!
Astro moves the files over just fine...and they are there..and accessible... until you reset the phone. Then...BAM, gone. It is disturbing to think that it may delete pictures in regular directories....BUG BUG BUG. hopefully the ICS update will address this.
That's exactly what I am talking about. They didn't disappear on the spot when I moved them. Everything seemed fine. Just give es a try and thrnreboot to see if it's the app or if it's the phone deleting your media.
Sent from my LT28at
iJudgeMAN said:
Quick question, which file manager are you guys using to move these files? There was some update to Astro a while back that made my files get deleted when I moved them, anywhere regardless of the folder name on my Aria. Same thing still occurred on my Ion when I got it. Ever since I switched to ES File Explorer, I have not encountered this issue of deletion. Astro deleted not only pictures when I moved them, but ring tones, pdf, etc.
Sent from my LT28at
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My experiment with this was done via a PC. these files were moved from my PC, via the USB cable, on a freshly formatted medium. I'm not sure when the deletion of these files occured, but it was within the first hour or so. the phone was NOT restarted, nor did anything FC.
I will be running more tests on this issue over the weekend to see if I can find some sort of pattern to this madness. I will be using various Galleries and File Managers, as well as my PC to perform these tests. I'll also be checking this time around to see if videos are effected at all. I will report back my findings on Monday...
Sidenote: The files that the phone deleted are very easily recoverable. the program I used (which I legally own) is called Easy Recovery Professional. Took about an hour to recover the 300+ deleted pictures.
Only happens on my wife's phone and not mine. She can download the pics from an email or text and after about 24 hours "poof" She just sees a black template for each one. Can't bring them up on PC and or QuikPic- You can see the templates in the Download Folder but no where else nor can you do anything with them other than delete. She is stock and its done this out of the box-
Thanks in advance for any help!
Anyone... thanks = )
Do the file sizes change?
Murasaki no Kaze said:
Do the file sizes change?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Jut looked at her phone to verify and now the thumbnails are gone... I saved some more photos and will verify for you-
Also path is the typical... /storage/sdcard0/Download/NAME OF FILE.JPG
Thanks!
If she's plugging it into a mac (or any computer) it's probably set to auto copy then remove from phone.
Also check any apps that "sync" or auto-upload pics.
Just verified, she does not hook it up to any PC even the one at work... only charges off the wall.
Thanks
See if she's using any apps with her pics. Other than that just check to see if the file size is changing. It mostly sounds like something is moving/deleting the pics.
She was completely stock before last night putting the Quikpic on there to see if that program could still see them. Other than stock gallery and stock settings- I haven't found any setting within Gmail or Messaging or within Gallery or Settings that does anything weird to pictures unless I have missed something.
Thanks again for all of your help so far...
It won't be the gallery, you'd look to that for thumbnail problems.
Check if she uploads to facebook/instagram/etc.
If she does, HOW is she uploading? Web? App?
No uploading... she just keeps them in her Download Folder and eventually they turn into a black thumbnail template.
Whats funny is the ones that she moves to a folder (With a Category Name) no issue and they never dissapear... Only that folder...
I have removed everything and cleared up the directory and let the stock android file structure- re-create everything. its very weird...
Saving to a sdcard or internal?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
Is the by chance a file in the directory called .nomedia I believe is what it's called? I get weird issues with pictures downloaded from time to time .I had the nomedia file deleted that and haven't had any issues with images since
Making the iPhone jealous one user at a time.
blaker13 said:
Saving to a sdcard or internal?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
internal. Default download directory.
mkfryan said:
Is the by chance a file in the directory called .nomedia I believe is what it's called? I get weird issues with pictures downloaded from time to time .I had the nomedia file deleted that and haven't had any issues with images since
Making the iPhone jealous one user at a time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
.nomedia doesn't directly affect files. It's used to tell galleries/music players/etc not to bother reading the current folder. It will make stuff not appear in apps, but it doesn't touch files. There's no reason for that to be in a stock download folder, but never hurts to check.
Love the signature btw
Is she going into her "downloads" app in her app drawer and clearing that list out? I know I accidentally do that from time to time.
Try using File Manager to move them to external storage. Does she maybe have a cleaning app that clears out her downloads?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
Alright so a little more info-
When she downloaded Quikpic to try and view the thumbnails the program actually removed them. So thats why the templates were deleted this time.
However, one thing is certain- The download is set to internal storage and the category folders are on the Micro SD.
So if she moves them to a category on the Micro SD they are fine and never turn into a black template/thumbnail. If she keeps them in the Download Folder however, they eventually turn to a black thumbnail ans stay there until maually deleted... its like the picture disapears and the thumbnail looses contact with the original file.
-Thanks again for everyones help so far... :good:
Will check this tonight... .nomedia thing-
Be sure to ask what thenewguy1 asked.
If all else fails, she can just install a download manager and have it intercept and save the pictures to a different folder.
Also, does this ONLY happen to pics? No other file types are affected?
Alright so some wild updates... may be onto something (She doesn't clear downloads and she doesn't have the no image file)
However... it happened again yesterday- Here is the scenario on how it occurs.
She has an email with a image in Gmail-
Saves the picture-
File is saved in Download Folder and visible within Gallery Download Folder-
She then takes the email within Gmail and moves it to a folder-
Several minutes later this happens to the image-
Blacked out thumbnail and the size and data or there but no image-
Unable to see it at all or explore for it-
It gets better, if she moves it back to the Inbox or where it was saved orig the image will reappear-
So in theory its like it saves the shortcut to the image and when the image is moved the shortcut defaults to blank template.
What causes this??? LOL Thanks = )
So she's saving from the gmail app? Or from gmail web?
She clicks on pic -> menu -> save ?
Is that how she's saving them?
In trying to simulate your problem, somehow my thumbnail cache got screwed lol, cleared through quickpic and it seems to be working fine, haven't seen it black out yet... for me it doesn't give me the save option, it shows me the picture, and if I check the folder or gallery, it's already been saved to disk.
Now gmails tripping lol
Try clearing data and see if this problem persists.
senfinger said:
Alright so some wild updates... may be onto something (She doesn't clear downloads and she doesn't have the no image file)
However... it happened again yesterday- Here is the scenario on how it occurs.
She has an email with a image in Gmail-
Saves the picture-
File is saved in Download Folder and visible within Gallery Download Folder-
She then takes the email within Gmail and moves it to a folder-
Several minutes later this happens to the image-
Blacked out thumbnail and the size and data or there but no image-
Unable to see it at all or explore for it-
It gets better, if she moves it back to the Inbox or where it was saved orig the image will reappear-
So in theory its like it saves the shortcut to the image and when the image is moved the shortcut defaults to blank template.
What causes this??? LOL Thanks = )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How is she saving it? I am also trying to replicate the issue. I am opening the attachment, hitting menu and save. I have moved the email but the image is still working fine. If she uses file manager to move them to another folder does it also corrupt the file? Is she somehow saving a link or shortcut? I am about lost
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
Today I noticed this, my DCIM folder is full of folders with the name of the pics I took; Can I delete them?, is this normal?
I wouldn't do that. I just checked with my file explorer and see folders too. Guessing something is making them show up as folders instead of pics.
Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk
Update:
I just scrolled down and saw the actual pics. The folders are really just empty folders. Don't see the harm in deleting them. Still not going to though. LOL
Me too, been facing this since July (DP5). Issue 220928: Camera Creating Folder With Same Name As Image
You can star it to let them Google know someone is concern with this bug and help via provide more details (bug report) to Google for investigate.
Hello!
I'm using the OnePlus 3, with latest OTA update.
I want to know if there is a way to either disable or secure the pictures that appear when you swipe left on the camera, like what happens during lockscreen.
Related to this, I was trying to hide stuff in DCIM\>Camera from gallery, and I pasted a .nomedia file into it. The result is that now I can't see anything from Camera folder in the gallery, but it's a major inconvenience.
I tried using Media Scanner to bring everything back, but the app gets stuck on whatsaap sent images and recordings, even when I specify the Camera directory. Please help.
Thanks in advance!
Sskhussaini said:
Hello!
I'm using the OnePlus 3, with latest OTA update.
I want to know if there is a way to either disable or secure the pictures that appear when you swipe left on the camera, like what happens during lockscreen.
Related to this, I was trying to hide stuff in DCIM\>Camera from gallery, and I pasted a .nomedia file into it. The result is that now I can't see anything from Camera folder in the gallery, but it's a major inconvenience.
I tried using Media Scanner to bring everything back, but the app gets stuck on whatsaap sent images and recordings, even when I specify the Camera directory. Please help.
Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You will have to remove that file. It will prevent any media scanner from seeing anything in that folder.
You will have to manually move the pics to a separate folder or find a gallery that has a lock option.
zelendel said:
You will have to remove that file. It will prevent any media scanner from seeing anything in that folder.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey, thanks for the reply!
Sorry, I forgot to add that I already deleted the .nomedia file. That would be the first thing you do, actually.
Sskhussaini said:
Hey, thanks for the reply!
Sorry, I forgot to add that I already deleted the .nomedia file. That would be the first thing you do, actually.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then there is something in the watsapp folder that is causing the iisue. I cant be sure myself as no one I know uses it.
[Fixed]
Thanks for your suggestion, the pictures started becoming visible because of one or more of these steps:
• I used a media scanning app.
• I restarted the phone, after clearing cache and force freezing the app.
• I just shifted all of the contents into another directory and back.
• Or because I viewed one or two images in the directory, which forced the system into scanning the entire folder, after which the pictures started showing up again.