File transfer / sync issues PC to Droid

[evan1005]

OK...

I've been having an extremely frustrating time when trying to sync music files from my computer to my droid. I know how to mount the droid to my PC and all that jazz, and I perfrom the sync in windows media player. Afterwards, when I look under "music" on my droid, it don't see all of the music files that supposedly synced (but they are on the SD card when viewed in windows explorer).

I've tried removing the music from the SD card any trying again and I've even formatted the SD card and tried again. Each time, it seems that there are files missing (but not always the same ones! wtf!). As far as i can tell, all of the music files are unprotected mp3 files.

I had a similar issue last week (before the music issues) when trying to drag and drop pictures onto the SD card via PC. My droid refused to "see" the pics, even though I could see that they were on the SD card in windows explorer. I eventually solved that problem by formatting the SD card, and re -drag and dropping.

Can someone give me any idea as to what the f is going on?

 

[640k]

well lets get something out of the way first, since it's obvious, and in case you're not realizing it...

when the SD card is mounted, the DROID will not be able to read the card. it's the equivelant of taking the card out of the device.

next, where are you sticking images and music on your card when you stick them up there? what kind of images/music are you placing on the card? do you have explorer setup to view extensions of files? just because Windows can see the file, doesn't mean the DROID can.

 

[huzier]

I use Motorola Media Link (free download on moto's site). It made things a lot easier moving media to my phone...

 

[evan1005]

well lets get something out of the way first, since it's obvious, and in case you're not realizing it...

when the SD card is mounted, the DROID will not be able to read the card. it's the equivelant of taking the card out of the device.

next, where are you sticking images and music on your card when you stick them up there? what kind of images/music are you placing on the card? do you have explorer setup to view extensions of files? just because Windows can see the file, doesn't mean the DROID can.

Yes, I knew that the droid won't read the card when it's mounted.

I don't have my windows explorer setup to view extensions, although I will do so to doublecheck the file extensions. Im' almost postivei that all of the files I was transferring were MP3s and JPEGs

 

[640k]

try to also keep your music and images in specific folders. you'll pull less hair if you do so.

keep music in a MUSIC folder and images in the DCIM folder. you can create further folders from there, but that will help you keep things organized.

if you make a RINGTONES, NOTIFICATIONS and MP3 folder under a MEDIA folder on the root of the SD card, those ringtones and notifications won't show up in your MP3 player.

 

[evan1005]

Thanks. I'll try all of these things when I get home from work. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[C3-PO]

Try rebooting the phone. Don't know if this helps, but the same thing happened to me when I downloaded MP3s from the Amazon MP3 store. After I finished downloading the songs, they were nowhere to be found. I did a search in Astro where my dowloaded music goes to - nothing. Even when I opened the music player, they weren't in the list. I checked back at Amazon and it said I had downloaded them and I even got e-mail confirmation of my purchase. But I could not find them. So I decided to reboot the phone and then they showed up. Strange.

 

[BigRussDaGOD]

are you using windows 7 by any chance?? win 7 and droid do not work well with each other because the sd card in the droid is formated fat32 and windows 7 has a problem with this. you could format the droid sd card to NTFS but then the droid will not read the card. so until verizon does an OS update so that the droid can format the card and read NTFS format, us windows 7 owners are gonna have problems. think this happens with vista too. not sure. windows xp users are good to go.

the way i found around this is copy your music files to an external hard drive and copy your files directly from the external. have no problems now. im sure a memory stick should work too.

 

[640k]

are you using windows 7 by any chance?? win 7 and droid do not work well with each other because the sd card in the droid is formated fat32 and windows 7 has a problem with this. you could format the droid sd card to NTFS but then the droid will not read the card. so until verizon does an OS update so that the droid can format the card and read NTFS format, us windows 7 owners are gonna have problems. think this happens with vista too. not sure. windows xp users are good to go.

the way i found around this is copy your music files to an external hard drive and copy your files directly from the external. have no problems now. im sure a memory stick should work too.

wut? since when does Win7 have a problem with reading FAT32? every single SD card is a FAT filesystem. can you direct me to an MSDN article stating that there is an imcompatibility?

Android will never support NTFS.

 

[rooster.droid]

are you using windows 7 by any chance?? win 7 and droid do not work well with each other because the sd card in the droid is formated fat32 and windows 7 has a problem with this. you could format the droid sd card to NTFS but then the droid will not read the card. so until verizon does an OS update so that the droid can format the card and read NTFS format, us windows 7 owners are gonna have problems. think this happens with vista too. not sure. windows xp users are good to go.

the way i found around this is copy your music files to an external hard drive and copy your files directly from the external. have no problems now. im sure a memory stick should work too.

wut? since when does Win7 have a problem with reading FAT32? every single SD card is a FAT filesystem. can you direct me to an MSDN article stating that there is an imcompatibility?

Android will never support NTFS.

I am using Droid and Windows 7 and have no issues with this. In fact all my jump drives are FAT and have no issues either.

And hello.

 

[jasonb]

I setup an FTP server on my Droid and run FileZilla on my Windows 7 laptop. Dragging and dropping things over wifi is a breeze once you get it all setup. Much nicer than connecting with a usb cable. I also like it better than connecting an Ipod and being stuck using Itunes.

 

[640k]

I setup an FTP server on my Droid and run FileZilla on my Windows 7 laptop. Dragging and dropping things over wifi is a breeze once you get it all setup. Much nicer than connecting with a usb cable. I also like it better than connecting an Ipod and being stuck using Itunes.

EStrong's File Manager works with SMB shares, ftw.

 

[evan1005]

I tried all of the things above to no avail.

I use windows XP, by the way.

Once again, I formatted the SD card.

So I tried something as simple as dragging pictures to the SD card and into the DCIM folder (which i manually created after formatting). Still didn't show up in Gallery.

I took a picture with the camera, and it is visible under gallery. The camera pic was saved in the "camera" folder under DCIM folder. So I thought, hmmm, maybe if I move the pics I want to transfer into the "Camera" folder, the droid might detect them. Wrong. Still nothing. I've double checked and the picture files I wish to transfer are .jpg and are not protected. I can't see a difference between their properties and the ones that the camera takes.

I'm staring to wonder if an app I downloaded is interfering somehow, or if PandaHome is to blame (v.180) or something. I also notice my phone seems more buggy now than before. For instance, if I initiate the camera, it will close after a couple seconds. Same thing with Gallery or Music, and other apps that I can't remember right now. I'm hoping I don't need to uninstall all apps and do a factory reset, but I'm prepared to do so if need be.

Last question: There does not need to exist a certain group of folders on the SD card for the droid to recognize, correct. In other words, if I just drop picture onto J/:, they should be detected at that level?

 

[evan1005]

OK, when I said I tried all of the things above, I lied. I didn't use any of that wireless transfer stuff.

 

[640k]

the DROID basically searches out all images on your SD card, which has been a complaint amongst users. you should be able to see your images.

i'm guessing it's probably an app. search on how to run the phone in safe mode, and/or try doing a factory reset.