I have searched for help for my problem but not all queries are exactly like mine, though similar. I have had my fairphone 3 since August 2018 and have updated it at various times but the internal storage was always very low. So, I opened up cloud storage. However, after these years, I can’t even update the system due to low internal storage.
So, here comes the sdcard which I followed instructions. there seems to be conflicting advice on formatting internal or external. It seemed to work smoothly for a couple of days, so I updated the system which was required. Then, the phone msg me to say that sdcard was missing, I checked & was in correctly. I removed it correctly, reinserted it, restarted the phone, etc. Now sdcard is reading nothing on it!!!
I can’t see any media on Whatsapp nor can I see any media on messenger/instagram/whatsapp via my photos album. I can only see what the camera took.
The camera has stopped working, I can’t take screenshots and I can’t access my onedrive cloud storage.
I tried accessing onedrive using my laptop but can’t view any media because of the sync with the phone.
I tried uninstalling the apps from my phone but now cant reinstall them due to having no space!
What is going on with the phone. It’s ruined everything. I wanted this to be my forever phone as was advertised to save the environment, etc. I listen to all my music using spotify on my phone so it takes up a lot of space. I uninstalled the app as I have it synced on my laptop, but now I can’t reinstall it on my phone!!
I have been advised to do a factory reset but am worried about losing all the media I can see, so am sending them over to my laptop via messenger as what’s on my phone doesn’t seem to back up on the laptop!
I can’t seem to back up contacts either!
If I do a factory reset, will I lose all the contacts? Will a factory rest allow me to download apps again so that I can log in and all my files upload?
I am so cross with this, I’m seriously considering leaving fairphone behind!
Welcome to the community forum.
You chose the internal route? Sadly, your issues would imply so.
Please see our own sdcardguide (<- link) about it. It never was a good choice technically, and halfway recent Android seems to have made it much worse across different devices. It’s not strictly a Fairphone thing (Refrain from formatting as Internal Storage on other devices, too, for your data safety’s sake!), but Fairphone as a vendor are not exempt and can be blamed for not blocking this option (which they could do) in light of all the trouble this causes.
You would lose all contacts stored in phone storage.
You would not lose contacts stored on the SIM card(s) or in the cloud (but make sure to reimport from the cloud instead of perhaps replicating the emptiness on the phone to the cloud).
A factory reset on an Android device will delete your user data on the phone as well as all Apps you installed and their data on the phone. After the factory reset the phone will start like new with the initial user setup.
The OS itself will be left as is, it will not get reverted to an older (more unsafe) version.
Before a factory reset of the phone I would guess it would be best to check what data exactly the cloud still holds (accessing it from a computer or other device). Making a backup from there can’t hurt, too.
(If this sounds too generic, it is because I dont use any cloud in this way, so I’m not much of a help with this more specifically.)