Develop Bugs

We Need Custom ROMs with Mass Storage Mode Resurrected

I am so sick of MTP instead of Mass Storage Mode. I run Linux Mint and it's simply painful to try to get MTP working properly like Mass Storage Mode did in GB. Please, ROM devs, answer my prayers.

when you can add a sd card to the phone, you will have your mass storage.

I realize people don't like change, and want to stick with UMS, but you would have to pretty much crush the awesome single partition storage of the GN to get UMS...

Just dont understand why most people are aways want SOME MORE STOREGE, how many stuff you gonna put in your device? A thousand songs or pics?

GoZhU said:
Just dont understand why most people are aways want SOME MORE STOREGE, how many stuff you gonna put in your device? A thousand songs or pics?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With UMS enabled, they'd theoretically have lower storage than sticking with MTP. There would have to be at least 2 partitions that would mean files couldn't span across them.

I use wifi file explorer pro. Real easy and just as effective as having mass storage. Was bummed as far as me not being able to connect and drag/drop but when i found this app its just as good.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA Premium App

I can't for the life of me understand this complaint. I have no issues using MTP either in Linux or Win7. Do partition the space up would only bring about all the issues with inadequate space the Nexus One encountered.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

I don't know if it's a MTP thing, but I'm having a hell of a time copying .mkv files to the phone. I can FTP to my Thinkpad Slate at 3MB/s via wifi, the GNex capps out at 400KB/s. I've tried to connect the phone via USB to my desktop and just drag and drop and the progress bar doesn't even move. This is driving me insane.
I'm using the latest GummyNex 0.6.6.
If I recall correctly, when I was using Android Revolution 2.1.2, it was copying at 2MB/s via wifi FTP. I guess I need to look into this.

mallinj said:
I am so sick of MTP instead of Mass Storage Mode. I run Linux Mint and it's simply painful to try to get MTP working properly like Mass Storage Mode did in GB. Please, ROM devs, answer my prayers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tried adbfs?
Looks like it solves your needs without introducing the troubles of mass storage mode.

I am using SAMBA...

airdroid also works well (ubuntu 10.04 and 11.10 on different machines, also better than mtp on vista for me)

it's been 8 hours and my music is still copying to my phone. MTP is completely unacceptable. it's already told me i had to skip like 30 songs before i hit "skip this message" 2 hours ago. i'm copying ~25 GB of music over and half of that is .ogg which is not natively recognized by MTP. I could have copied the 25GB onto my thunderbolt 10 times over already. I dont care what the reasoning, requirement, or intent was to remove mass storage, but it was not work it. watching my files copy at like 400 k/s to a phone plugged in with a USB 2.0 cable makes me want to return the phone.

somnambulator said:
it's been 8 hours and my music is still copying to my phone. MTP is completely unacceptable. it's already told me i had to skip like 30 songs before i hit "skip this message" 2 hours ago. i'm copying ~25 GB of music over and half of that is .ogg which is not natively recognized by MTP. I could have copied the 25GB onto my thunderbolt 10 times over already. I dont care what the reasoning, requirement, or intent was to remove mass storage, but it was not work it. watching my files copy at like 400 k/s to a phone plugged in with a USB 2.0 cable makes me want to return the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really? I use windows media player to sync my music and it flies. Way faster than my nexus one did. It takes about 1-3 seconds per track.
Sent from my Xoom using xda premium

Drag and drop the files onto the folder icon. Don't open the folder itself and then copy into it.

My problem with MTP is compatibility. Hardly anything recognizes MTP and knows what to do with it besides my PC. Things I used to connect to via USB to transfer files or backup while on the go just don't work with the nexus. So instead of having an all around portable storage device in my phone I now have to carry other devices to perform those tasks, might not sound like a big deal but its just nicer being able to have that ability in one device. MTP may be great for some but not for everyone.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA Premium App

dev/null/ said:
MTP may be great for some but not for everyone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed - my primary OS is linux, I can make mtp work kinda but it's poor and slow.
However enabling UMS would require repartitioning the GN and afaik no one's done it or said they plan on doing it.
Most people find wireless transfer much more satisfactory for this phone - I've only used airdroid but others have set up their own wireless ftp server. There are probably other apps that do it...

josteink said:
Tried adbfs?
Looks like it solves your needs without introducing the troubles of mass storage mode.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
is it an app on the phone or computer (windows/linux)?
thanks

How do I enable mass storage?

I'm trying to connect my phone to my Father's Mini via usb, but the car does "see" the phone.
I've noticed that the check box for mass storage is greyed out and I cannot select it.
Does anyone have any good ideas for me to try out and get my gnex to connect?
For what it's worth, I'm using Liquid rom, and but my dad's HTC Desire HD running AOKP has the same problem, yet I have no problem connecting a BlackBerry.
Cheers.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

your nexus will never have mass storage as the partition is 1 giant partition used by the system and used for storage.

You will never be able to use USB Mass Storage on the Galaxy Nexus. It uses MTP (Media Transfer Protocol) and PTP (Picture Transfer Protocol) to xfer files between the phone and a PC.
The reason why they use this is to provide the phone with 1 partition for the entire storage, rather than separate system, apps, data and media partitions. It also allows for the OS to be running while accessing the files.

MTP is much better than Mass Storage.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

Thanks for the quick explanations. What I don't understand, is why the option is there under usb connections (in storage options). If the option is not available on our phone, why show it?
As far as MTP being better, it's not when you want to play music on a Mini!
I'm not convinced that MTP is my problem though, as my dad's phone (see above) will not connect either. Interestingly the option to select mass storage is not available on his HTC.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

itsfozzy said:
Thanks for the quick explanations. What I don't understand, is why the option is there under usb connections (in storage options). If the option is not available on our phone, why show it?
As far as MTP being better, it's not when you want to play music on a Mini!
I'm not convinced that MTP is my problem though, as my dad's phone (see above) will not connect either. Interestingly the option to select mass storage is not available on his HTC.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ice cream sandwich supports mass storage, the nexus does not. the option is going to be there since it is stock android.
The HTC phone, did you actually select it to be in mass storage mode?

itsfozzy said:
As far as MTP being better, it's not when you want to play music on a Mini!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
can you elaborate? do you mean a Mini, as in the automobile?

JoeM01 said:
can you elaborate? do you mean a Mini, as in the automobile?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
im pretty sure he means the car.

Zepius said:
im pretty sure he means the car.
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Click to collapse
If so, what's the problem? there's no shortage of people who connect their nexus to their car stereo's (myself included)

Quick bit of clarification.
Yes it's a BMW Mini (2009)
Yes I did connect via Mass Storage on the HTC, yet it still did not work. It would not connect to an iPod Classic either. I wonder if it needs a special cable to connect? My wife's Seat Leon needed a dedicated cable to make it compatible with the car stereo.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

JoeM01 said:
If so, what's the problem? there's no shortage of people who connect their nexus to their car stereo's (myself included)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They are trying to connect it through usb, and the vehicle will not communicate with a mtp device
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

As of now, Android does NOT support USB audio, which explains why the Nexus nor the HTC worked. Blackberries DO support USB audio, as far as I'm aware.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

itsfozzy said:
Thanks for the quick explanations. What I don't understand, is why the option is there under usb connections (in storage options). If the option is not available on our phone, why show it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I take it you're using a custom ROM? The option is not there in standard ICS.

Frosty666 said:
As of now, Android does NOT support USB audio, which explains why the Nexus nor the HTC worked. Blackberries DO support USB audio, as far as I'm aware.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think what he's getting at like myself I used my Evo to USB to car CD player and could access my music files and play them and I guess that's cause the Evo has a sd card. now with the nexus i cant that IM aware of.

It's very annoying that we can't use UMS anymore. I know it's great, to have only one partition but MTP just sucks. I wasn't even able to copy files from Windows 7. The only system that has worked for me so far was Windows XP Pro.
I'd rather have a well sized Internal storage plus some Mass Storage 8/8GB or so.
And well, I'm mainly a PowerPC Mac user. Android File Transfer crashes all the time when I connect the phone (seems to use Intel-Only libraries which is very typical for Google) and on Intel Macs it's slow as hell.
So I always had to use ADB which was......very comfortable.
To the devs: Wouldn't it be possible to emulate a Mass Storage device thru software?
land.apfel
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA

land.apfel said:
To the devs: Wouldn't it be possible to emulate a Mass Storage device thru software?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Keep in mind that wanting to maintain two separate partitions isn't the only reason for wanting to switch to MTP. Another reason was so we no longer had to store our data on the fragile and limited fat32 file system. In order to emulate a fat32 block device over USB you would need to be able to translate between fat32 and ext4 at a low level. I don't think there is generally a 1-1 mapping between structures in the two file systems which would make this difficult and slow if not impossible.

theking_13 said:
MTP is much better than Mass Storage.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
At which point?
Some examples?
There are so many things, which dont work with MTP
I didnt found any advantages, yet

land.apfel said:
I know it's great, to have only one partition but MTP just sucks. I wasn't even able to copy files from Windows 7. The only system that has worked for me so far was Windows XP Pro.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't like MTP either, and was missing being able to use it as a Mass Storage. My biggest annoyance with MTP is that I can't get last modified date Windows Explorer
I've not had any problems copying files to/from my Galaxy Nexus from one Windows 7 system, but another didn't work until I installed the Samsung drivers (the MTP device came up with a "?"). What was the problem you had?
---------- Post added at 06:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:05 PM ----------
itsfozzy said:
Yes it's a BMW Mini (2009)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL, because I first thought you meant a Mac Mini, but then realized you meant a car and thus a Mini Cooper... because no one I know calls it a BMW, even though it is.

pfmiller said:
In order to emulate a fat32 block device over USB you would need to be able to translate between fat32 and ext4 at a low level. I don't think there is generally a 1-1 mapping between structures in the two file systems which would make this difficult and slow if not impossible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why can't we just take the ext file system? Who cares what the Mass Storage is formatted for?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA

land.apfel said:
Why can't we just take the ext file system? Who cares what the Mass Storage is formatted for?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure if that would work, but assuming it does, we then have to face the issue of the single partition storage that the Nexus has. If we were to mount it via UMS, the whole phone would become completely inoperable.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

[Q] HELP: any way to enable the mass storage mode on the galaxy note 2 ?

can any one help me and suggest a method to enable the mass storage mode in my note 2 , when connected to my laptop ?

Firstly why? MTP is better when you get it working as you don' t need to unmount anything from the phone first!
Secondly, it is likely to be possible yes probably very similar to how it was hacked to work on the s3, however it only worked for external sd and caused lots of corruptions to sd cards... so it is far from perfect.
My advice would be to get used to MTP.

i was need it to let my stereo car read mp3 files i solved by installing an s3 hack that can make the extsd a mass storage unit take a look here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1711009 it worked for me i'm with omega v4 rom

Lennyuk said:
Firstly why? MTP is better when you get it working as you don' t need to unmount anything from the phone first!
Secondly, it is likely to be possible yes probably very similar to how it was hacked to work on the s3, however it only worked for external sd and caused lots of corruptions to sd cards... so it is far from perfect.
My advice would be to get used to MTP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I understand what you mean but. ..it becomes virtually impossible and frustrating to transfer stuff to internal memory or even external memory because it is slow. ..Very slow
External memory I can manage by taking out my card and using an adapter to plug it into my laptop card slot..
Is there a way to mount internal memory as usb mass storage? I don't mind if I have to turn my phone off or something
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda premium

Did you try Airdroid?
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda app-developers app

try Kies over wifi...
it transfer data using local connection and transfers GBs of files in some minutes definitely MUCH faster than MTP and prefer it to AirDroid, but it hasnt been working lately (last time i checked was a week or two back)

This is a problem for those like me using Ubuntu. I never managed to make MTP work on it.
Wi-Fi transfer of files can be done with X-Link, but the lack of mass storage is a nuisance.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda premium

Yes, MTP is a big problem on Ubuntu. I have tried 3 implementations of MTP protocol on 12.04 and 12.10, no dice.

i'm searching for an answer. worst thing with mtp is the fact that it hides directories from you! so you can't backup everything properly. annoying

bump! MTP is too/painfully slow. Reminds me of 1995. We need an alternative. Whoever put up this technology without due consideration and testing, before deploying it on these popular devices needs to be consider a different job.

looks like I wont be getting this phone until mass storage mode is added

harishdhandev said:
can any one help me and suggest a method to enable the mass storage mode in my note 2 , when connected to my laptop ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately, there is no way to enable UMS mode without rooting the phone.
I had to find a solution for my car stereo be able to read mp3 files.
I just rooted the phone and install SGS3 easy UMS ( PlayStore ). Yes its working just perfect on NoteII.
I'm using Ubuntu at work and it works like a charm as well.
Don't forget to unmount the drive in Ubuntu before unplug, and stop the service on Windows.
Also, on the UMS app, switch back to MTP before unplug, to avoid files errors ( no problem if u are just reading, ie: car stereo)

fmpmuld said:
Unfortunately, there is no way to enable UMS mode without rooting the phone.
I had to find a solution for my car stereo be able to read mp3 files.
I just rooted the phone and install SGS3 easy UMS ( PlayStore ). Yes its working just perfect on NoteII.
I'm using Ubuntu at work and it works like a charm as well.
Don't forget to unmount the drive in Ubuntu before unplug, and stop the service on Windows.
Also, on the UMS app, switch back to MTP before unplug, to avoid files errors ( no problem if u are just reading, ie: car stereo)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello,
one question - how to make two-way sync folders between my laptop and SGN2?
I always did it with GoodSync, but now it is impossible...
thx

Haha isn't this a cool icon? ---->
Gah.... I was hoping there was a way to USB mass storage on this phone. I guess I should have done more research on the phone before I bought it. I'm still in my 2 week return it period, but that's not THAT much of a deal breaker. Just really stupid... Why can't I have it all?? I mean we finally got USB host (OTG or whatever; same same) from a stock phone, only to lose USB Mass Storage! Oh the frustrations!
Dramatics aside, will a custom ROM allow something different? I'm not clear on what layer this MTP mode is operating at. I did think it was funny that it popped up as a camera type device in Windows. Right now I'm only using internal flash. Usually I want to browse pics on the phone from the PC, and in this case, if I use IrfanView to open one on the device, it copies it local and then opens it, so I can't scroll through them. Silly, and mildly frustrating. :-/
I'm going to look into some networking options to see if those work (Kies, AirDroid, maybe FTP). Actually, Dropbox might solve this particular problem for me now that I think of it.
I saw the thread for mounting external SD as USB mass storage. I take it there's no way to co-mount the internal storage as a USB mass storage device?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1711009

AllanonMage said:
Gah.... I was hoping there was a way to USB mass storage on this phone. I guess I should have done more research on the phone before I bought it. I'm still in my 2 week return it period, but that's not THAT much of a deal breaker. Just really stupid... Why can't I have it all?? I mean we finally got USB host (OTG or whatever; same same) from a stock phone, only to lose USB Mass Storage! Oh the frustrations!
Dramatics aside, will a custom ROM allow something different? I'm not clear on what layer this MTP mode is operating at. I did think it was funny that it popped up as a camera type device in Windows. Right now I'm only using internal flash. Usually I want to browse pics on the phone from the PC, and in this case, if I use IrfanView to open one on the device, it copies it local and then opens it, so I can't scroll through them. Silly, and mildly frustrating. :-/
I'm going to look into some networking options to see if those work (Kies, AirDroid, maybe FTP). Actually, Dropbox might solve this particular problem for me now that I think of it.
I saw the thread for mounting external SD as USB mass storage. I take it there's no way to co-mount the internal storage as a USB mass storage device?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1711009
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, Samsung turned off the USB Mass Storage for obvious reasons. But anyway, I can access both memories from my computers, using MS Windows.
On windows, there's no problem at all as you can manage all the files directly from explorer.
On Other systems, the problem is different. For some reasons, like with all other systems (ie car stereo or media player...), the galaxy will not be recognized because MTP needs drivers. Then, you have to use UMS and the only way to install and use it is to root the phone. But keep in mind UMS will only permit access to external memory card.
Well, if I have to transfer files from internal memory through UMS, I copy the files I need to external memory before using it..... That's not a big problem , is it ? And because your phone is rooted, you can even find a script to copy some folders automatically.
Hope I'm clear enough and it helps.

What I really really hate about this phone? No native USB support

The usb storage. MTS or whatever you call it . Very slow, terrible for navigating/editing multiple directories/windows at once. Frustrating. Can only find size of files by going in the directory and selecting all files. Anyone know of a good quick solution to this? I've played with the common game editor but don't really see it as encompassing the solution to all the problems of not having the classical USB mount

You think thats bad? Try having Mac. I can't even get it to recognize me phone lol. I'm forced to used my windows machine.
And I believe its a JB thing, not necessarily Samsung.
Sent from my SGH-I747M using xda app-developers app

g2tegg said:
You think thats bad? Try having Mac. I can't even get it to recognize me phone lol. I'm forced to used my windows machine.
And I believe its a JB thing, not necessarily Samsung.
Sent from my SGH-I747M using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had this problem too with my macbook pro then I found a solution tonight. Try this:
1. Install Kies if you haven't already, if you have make sure it's updated.
2. Connect your phone.
3. In Kies, click Tools, then Install Drivers (this will reinstall drivers
4. Download Android File Transfer.
Should work after this. Also make sure you have USB Debugging on and use PTP not MTP.

johnnyutah22 said:
I had this problem too with my macbook pro then I found a solution tonight. Try this:
1. Install Kies if you haven't already, if you have make sure it's updated.
2. Connect your phone.
3. In Kies, click Tools, then Install Drivers (this will reinstall drivers
4. Download Android File Transfer.
Should work after this. Also make sure you have USB Debugging on and use PTP not MTP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will be sure to give this a shot tomorrow and send along an update. I rarely use Kies, updated it yesterday but never tried the drivers thing. Android file transfer never used to work but maybe the "install drivers" step is all that's needed.
And thats why I love it here on XDA. Thanks for the help brother!
Sent from my SGH-I747M using xda app-developers app

I agree... coming from a s2 skyrocket, I really miss UMS. Why bother having expandable storage when it takes hours to transfer to a class 10 32gb sd card? That is if I can get it to transfer at all.
I'm now resorting to unmounting sd card and putting it in the computer to transfer files...big PITA
SGS3 Easy UMS doesnt work either.
Edit: Actually, I'm using kies now... still miss drag and drop

Agreed. Always had driver problems with this phone. Sometimes it wouldn't connect because drivers failed to install or "bad hardware ID" pops up in the corner. Only way to get it to work was to restart comp. And it would only work until I disconnected it, then gotta restart again. -.-
I'm gonna switch back to linux once I get some free time. I recommend you do the same.

g2tegg said:
And I believe its a JB thing, not necessarily Samsung.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It was a problem in ICS as well. I think the reason for that they went with MTP is that users would create a "messy" file structure when they randomly dragged and dropped files anywhere on both the internal and external card. Samsung can keep things organized when they encourage you to use Samsung Kies to add files to the device.
The mandate for MTP is also to reduce piracy of protected media files by ensuring the DRM is properly done. In the past, I could connect my phone directly to my Samsung SMART TV and play 720/1080p movies via UMS. This is now blocked with MTP.

Anonymously_Unknown said:
It was a problem in ICS as well. I think the reason for that they went with MTP is that users would create a "messy" file structure when they randomly dragged and dropped files anywhere on both the internal and external card. Samsung can keep things organized when they encourage you to use Samsung Kies to add files to the device.
The mandate for MTP is also to reduce piracy of protected media files by ensuring the DRM is properly done. In the past, I could connect my phone directly to my Samsung SMART TV and play 720/1080p movies via UMS. This is now blocked with MTP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks I also noticed the slow data transfer speed when I upgraded my SII to S3. Thought it was something I was doing wrong. I've changed the default transfer to PTP and will check it out tonight.

seamus24 said:
I've changed the default transfer to PTP and will check it out tonight.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't bother with PTP. PTP is just a camera. It's not like UMS so you might as well leave it on MTP

g2tegg said:
You think thats bad? Try having Mac. I can't even get it to recognize me phone lol. I'm forced to used my windows machine.
And I believe its a JB thing, not necessarily Samsung.
Sent from my SGH-I747M using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was annoyed by this as well. Now when I want to add something to my sd card I just take it out of the phone and put the sd card in my Mac and add files that way. It's a little annoying but its not that big of a deal.

I think the closest you'll get to a true UMS experience is using Samba Filesharing Server (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.funkyfresh.samba). You can then treat it like a network shared drive.
Of course you'll be limited by your WiFi speed. I think a possibility would be a USB host adapter and a USB ethernet adapter. I'm not sure if Android has support for a USB ethernet adapter but if that works then you should be able to connect to a gigabit switch/adapter and just be limited by USB2 speed.

It's not just this phone in general. They're all going that way as of ICS (Honeycomb as well) and up. If you use Windows it's not terrible but it is still slower. And yeah trying to use it with my Mac or even my Linux box is just frustrating. The primary reasoning was to merge the data and application volumes to give more space for applications. This is a better explanation of it. I do miss USB storage mode though.

Yep, totally frustrating for me also.
I remove my microSD card when I need to do lots of file management. But it's a clumsy workaround.

Any apps to force USB MASS Storage (Root) instead of MTP that work with HTC ONE M8?

Anyone know if there are any apps to force USB MASS Storage (Root) that work with HTC ONE M8? I know several exist for Samsung devices which don't work on the M8 (i've tried) -- reason being is my car stereo goes nuts when I plug the phone in via. USB and from what i've found out it appears that it is not MTP compatible.
I use Bluetooth in the meantime but would really like to be able to plug it in via. USB so its charging.
Anyone have any experience with this? Thanks!

I was hoping for the same thing. I had the gs3 and remember you could force the SD card to USB mass storage. If we could do the same on m8 that'd be awesome.
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using XDA Free mobile app

I support this question, i got problems to copy MKV and FLAC-Files to the MTP-Device using Windows 8.1..

In http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=54035979 I may provide a partial solution; depending on your exact need. Look for the post I sent a few minutes ago. More to come in the next days; I will test other apps, and report.