Help Problems with SD memory, cant write

[andy517]

Hello good people of Android, please help
.
Xiaomi Redmi Note 5, Android 8.1, not rooted.

Issue is present maybe half the time I use the device, the other half everything works fine.

Symptoms:

After taking photo with oem camera app, there is a circle spinning around thumbnail and then the thumbnail is empty and sometimes camera crashes without error message. Most of the time the first picture I take is saved and appears in gallery minutes later, the other I take after few seconds are lost. Changing storage to external SD doesnt help.

When trying to download app from store, there is no response from Install button or Google Play crashes like camera. In better case "Download pending"

When trying to copy files from internal memory to SD file manager crashes after few hundred MBs.

Google Photos can't edit, no response from Edit button.

BUT - When I tried to test by SD Card tester it writes data fine, cca 200 MB/s.


Tried:
Delete all camera data.
Factory reset.

Do you have any idea how to troubleshoot this?

Thanks!

 

[svim]

Most directories on your phone's internal storage will be restricted, that is, they will have permissions set only for root access. You (the user) only get full, unfettered access to the user data partition and its contents. Did you by chance alter the default save location for your Camera app at some point? By default there's a 'DCIM' folder (Digital Camera IMages), but if the default has been changed to use a folder that's not user-accessible than that will create problems like you describe when trying to do things to it or its content.

 

[andy517]

Most directories on your phone's internal storage will be restricted, that is, they will have permissions set only for root access. You (the user) only get full, unfettered access to the user data partition and its contents. Did you by chance alter the default save location for your Camera app at some point? By default there's a 'DCIM' folder (Digital Camera IMages), but if the default has been changed to use a folder that's not user-accessible than that will create problems like you describe when trying to do things to it or its content.

Svim, thanks for suggestion but it shouldn't be the case. I checked that new pictures are saved to /DCIM/Camera

 

[svim]

Well nuts, since the problem is only happening part of the time that makes even harder to guess at what's going on. You mentioned that SD Card Tester app didn't find anything wrong but still, the issue does seem to be tied to some intermittent read/write issue with the internal storage media. And a Factory Reset didn't help either.
When did this problem start happening, recently or ever since you got this phone?

 

[andy517]

Well nuts, since the problem is only happening part of the time that makes even harder to guess at what's going on. You mentioned that SD Card Tester app didn't find anything wrong but still, the issue does seem to be tied to some intermittent read/write issue with the internal storage media. And a Factory Reset didn't help either.
When did this problem start happening, recently or ever since you got this phone?

Yeah, it is strange... it started after a few months of using the phone.

But there is one thing that might have helped... In Storage settings there is "Storage settings" where you choose if you want to save Camera, Themes, Backup, Gallery etc. on Internal vs External.

The gallery was set to External, so I chose Internal and from that moment there was no problem... so far.

I have 128GB Samsung SD card which is sometimes pretty slow so that could explain why the problem appears only sometimes... I will test more and we will see if I can mark this as solved.

 

[JAy3001]

Sounds like a new SD card is required then. Some phones will default storage to SD card for the camera the moment you insert the SD card, although you should have been notified the next time you started the camera app up.

 

[bcrichster]

Sounds like a new SD card is required then. Some phones will default storage to SD card for the camera the moment you insert the SD card, although you should have been notified the next time you started the camera app up.

Agreed

 

[svim]

More details on this 128GB microSD card please. What speed class is it?
https://www.sdcard.org/developers/overview/speed_class/
Did you also try running that SD Card Tester app on the card too?

 

[andy517]

More details on this 128GB microSD card please. What speed class is it?
https://www.sdcard.org/developers/overview/speed_class/
Did you also try running that SD Card Tester app on the card too?

It is a class 10. I tried running test and write is 16MB/s, read 63MB/s. I noticed that in struggles especially when working with lots of small files.

Anyway - now after a few hours the problem is back . I will try removing the external SD altogether to see if it doesn't mess up everything.

 

[andy517]

Well, the problem stays even after physically removing the Samsung SD.

 

[svim]

So that does indicate the microSD card isn't part of the problem. Not sure if there's some hardware issue (i.e. a component, like the NAND flash chip, hasn't failed completely, causing these intermittent issues) or a software issue, maybe try and re-flash the stock ROM:
http://en.miui.com/download-342.html
or
https://www.hardreset.info/devices/xiaomi/xiaomi-redmi-note-5-pro/faq/update/
Since a Factory Reset didn't fix the problem, replacing the operating system might be the next thing to try.

Your phone being such a new model, I'm assuming you got it recently. Is there still warranty coverage? It might be more prudent to just get a replacement, a fully functional Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 that doesn't have these odd file transfer/download issues.