2 years now from the beginning of this issue, and I have read all of the thread… I am SO ANGRY with this NOT SOLVED ISSUE that cannnot even be warned about on the device I tell everyone to buy…
(note : sorry for my basic English I’m French)
As I said I have read everything and I want to share my experience :
I bought a FP3 on january '21 and several months later I put a SD-Card on it. Just 8Gb and it worked well from that time on (only to listen mp3 as I am from the old generation and do not like to have it all on the cloud). I’m used to the risks of losing data so everything is saved everywhere, so DATA is NOT the point of my post.
This summer of '22 I decided to put a new 64 Gb SD Card in it to expand my storage capacity… and then came the long-described problem !!! I was not aware when the system asked me how I wanted to use my SD-Card and I surely quickly chose the damn internal option, and then transfer some system things to it… As many said I am always aware on warnings when it comes to losing the ability to use your device correctly so I didn’t felt at risk at the time !
As many here, now all my data is gone. But as I said it is not so bad because hopefully I saved all of my pictures elsewhere.
BUT ! The WORST PART OF IT is even if I can take pictures IT IS NOT SAVED, AND ALL IMAGES in my apps (Whatsapp, Strava for instance) CANNOT LOAD etc., as many experienced… I tried many things to recover, but I could never format my SD Card again nor change the access of the storage for the apps, particularly due to my connection to Google Photos I presume (I HATE them for that, I will degoogle as soon as I can!!). The card is not read anymore by my PC now so I have no clue to format it and I think I will have to throw it away…
That’s where I am, in September '22 !!! I mailed the Fairphone support with the subject that is mentioned, but still I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO before doing a factory reset for recovering just the normal use of my phone!!! And please tell me if it’s Android developer’s mode or other complicated debug things, because even if I am not far from it I won’t have the patience to do it SINCE THERE WERE NO WARNINGS TO TELL ME NOT TO FORMAT THIS CARD AS AN INTERNAL STORAGE AND MOVE ALL OF MY SYSTEM DATA TO IT !!!
Please forgive my angriness but I really need advices on what to do from now on… Thank you very much !
I’m sorry to send my first post just for complaining, and if my experience can help others I would be happy too !
If you have your data saved you will no doubt have to do a factory reset. Start with no SIM or Wi-Fi and skip any Google account setup. Then insert the SIM to ensure the phone is working. You can probably take pictures then as a test.
If the SD isn’t corrupt or damaged you should be able to format it in a PC, try using FAT32 then put it in the phone and select portable or skip that screen.
If you select portable it will install defualt Android folders if you skip you will have to make you own for vidoes, music etc.
Ok thank you for the quick advice.
I’m afraid I will have to do the factory reset, thing I never did on any phone, but I know have hope.
Does anyone know the best tutorial to do it ?
Thank you again !
Thank you again, hopefully it worked.
I lost some datas but of not so big interest.
I will try to stop my pictures to be automatically being stocked on Google Photos, that’s a major problem that you cannot even chose at the beginning (and I know it’s the market law but you can’t label Google of being ‘fair’ so Fairphone may try to find alternates…)
I just experienced exactly de same as Tschulius described at the beginning of this thread.
I don’t remember having to choose between internal or external.
Now: EVERYTHING is lost. I’m so angry at FP!
I read in the comments that they can’t reproduce this problem. Really???
Hi and welcome to the forum…
This does happen. When you insert an SD card people often choose the first option, which is set by Google not Fairphone.
If you select the first it will format as Internal and the contents will be encrypted. Google automatically push the encryption for personal security so you have to opt out when formatting the SD card.
You haven’t given any detail about your situation.
Often the memory gets ‘too’ full so if the phone still works
Go to each app and delete the cache and storage
Remove and save some media by sending to a PC for example.
You can get a Google account and back everything up.
Maybe then reformat the SD card or do a Factory reset and reinstall apps and transfer you media back.
While this is true, OS vendors can change this. Fairphone so far didn’t change this in Fairphone OS despite very obvious trouble for users, and that’s where some blame is justified.
In /e/OS, for instance, this was changed because of the trouble. External/portable storage is now the first option, and while the Internal Storage option is still there, it got a red warning attached to it.
My situation is pretty much the same then Tschulius in the forum:
I used my FP3 since last July 2020 without an extra SD-Card, everything worked more or less fine. With storage slowly filling up I decided to get a SD card.
I though the SD card would be complementary to the internal memory and not replacing it!
I got a 32 GB SD Card (Phillips) and inserted it.
After formatting, I got asked if I want to transfer files which I accepted. I didn’t restarted the phone afterwards.
Now the problem begins,
A system pop up tells me that the sd card is missing. But in the storage setting it shows me, that the card is inserted and that I got some free space (10GB). I tried putting it out and in physically. Nothing changes.
This brings the following problems:- All my pictures and video’s have disapeared!!! Only some documents and several useless gifs are still there.
The camera App opens, lets me take pictures, but doesn’t save them.
I cannot make a backup of the app Signal because de sd-card is not working. (I cannot use the SD-card folder nor create a new one to put the backup in). I do not have the option to save the backup elsewere also while connected to the pc in mode ‘file transfer’.
Whatsapp works but all my previously downloaded photo’s and movies are gone and I am not able to download new ones. Also I can’t take photos in the app.
Also, the application ‘Revolut’ that I use to make payment does not work anymore. Also not after reinstalling the application.
Is there a way to get my pictures and movies back?
Hi and welcome to the forum…
This does happen. When you insert an SD card people often choose the first option, which is set by Google not Fairphone.
If you select the first it will format as Internal and the contents will be encrypted. Google automatically push the encryption for personal security so you have to opt out when formatting the SD card.
You haven’t given any detail about your situation.
Often the memory gets ‘too’ full so if the phone still works
Go to each app and delete the cache and storage
Remove and save some media by sending to a PC for example.
You can get a Google account and back everything up.
Maybe then reformat the SD card or do a Factory reset and reinstall apps and transfer you media back.
Hi I’m having the same problem, inserted SD card and selected option to use as internal storage and also chose the other option it gave to transfer some system files or something. Now camera is not saving photos and can’t view photos sent to me in WhatsApp. Fortunately my camera photos are all backed up to Google photos. I understand my mistake and the need to reformat SD card as external storage just not sure how to go about it. I tried to move the files from the SD card but it only gives the option to move to Downloads in internal storage? Is this correct? But then when I tried that it said the file ‘was not copied’ (I selected ‘copy’ instead of ‘move’ to be on the safe side). Can anyone explain step by step what I should do as I’m not very techy? Thanks
Thanks what I mean is I’ve tried moving files as you have suggested but when I go to Settings>Storage>SD card then select a file, go to the three dots, Move to - it then gives me the option to move to Downloads (which I assume is in internal storage), but when I select that it says it Couldn’t move this item??
Hey, annoyingly I have the same problem as others in this thread. I have a FP3 and also chose the option to move data to an internal common memory (“interner gemeinsamer Speicher”) and now I can not access pictures, download files or use my camera.
While it would be quite annoying to loose the pictures, at the same time it would not be the end of the world. But I would very much like to avoid losing other data such as banking apps, saved contacts etc so I hope to not have to reboot the phone.
By formatting the SD card (256GB from Sandisk) as external, will the phone work again normally? I am somewhat concerned about that as when in the list of contents for the SD card it says “system 59 GB”, which is too large to fit on the actual memory of my phone. Can I damage the phone by formatting as external?
I have also not quite understood how to move apps/whats listed as “system” from the SD card to the other memory?
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