Database Users

[PROTIP] Media Scanner

I've had my Nexus One since May, and I've just today learned something that has alleviated so much frustration. This might be something that most users already know, but I consider myself pretty knowledgeable and I didn't ever think about this until today.
PROBLEM: Downloaded images, or other media put on the phone then moved to another folder don't open.
For example, if I download an image from the browser onto the phone, it saves it and Gallery tags it into the "downloads" folder. If you go into Gallery and check the file, it's fine, but it's in the "downloads" folder. If you're like me, you want to organize, so you use a file manager to move it into a "Wallpapers" folder.
Problem: when you go into Gallery after moving it and try to open it, it won't open. Same issue when trying to set it as Wallpaper.
Solution: Use a "media scanner" to correct this. I use the one that comes with "Extended Controls Widget" and you can just add it to a row of switches or put it by itself somewhere. This scans and re-indexes all of your images/music/movies and corrects the gallery.
Rebooting the phone usually works, too, however this is much more painless.
If anyone else has an easier way to do this, please feel free to add it to this thread.

This thread could use a QR code link to the app you use

Here is the one I am using, its simple and quick
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}

Spare parts does this too

Yeah, theres a bunch of them, it all depends on which you personally prefer, its a shame that we need these to begin with...

Blueman101 said:
Yeah, theres a bunch of them, it all depends on which you personally prefer, its a shame that we need these to begin with...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you manipulate files on-phone, it doesn't see it because it doesn't re-scan the SD card constantly.. It'd be a resource waste. Or every app using such things would have to scan the SD card every time they launched.
I think Google made the right choice, given the filesystem in use. If it were EXT3 or EXT4 there are things that could be done better. However, it should be somewhere to re-scan, of course you can always unmount/mount the card and that works too.

Dev Tools does this as well.

"sdrescan"

khaytsus said:
If you manipulate files on-phone, it doesn't see it because it doesn't re-scan the SD card constantly.. It'd be a resource waste. Or every app using such things would have to scan the SD card every time they launched.
I think Google made the right choice, given the filesystem in use. If it were EXT3 or EXT4 there are things that could be done better. However, it should be somewhere to re-scan, of course you can always unmount/mount the card and that works too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah but why not have the phone auto rescan every time you open a media player or photo reader?

Blueman101 said:
Yeah but why not have the phone auto rescan every time you open a media player or photo reader?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because it's slow?

khaytsus said:
Because it's slow?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Slow? How? How are these rescan apps different then if the photo viewer or media player automatically scanned for them when they opened?

I wonder why they don't use ionotify. Only moved file or file changes can be sent as events to a media scanner app so it doesn't have to scan the whole card.

jmacdonald801 said:
I wonder why they don't use ionotify. Only moved file or file changes can be sent as events to a media scanner app so it doesn't have to scan the whole card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because it's FAT32?

khaytsus said:
Because it's FAT32?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Shouldn't make a difference.

Am I missing something? I used Dolphin to open picasa and downloaded a pic. Viewed it from gallery, no issues. Then used Astro to move it to another folder. Tried to open again, still no issues.
What's the problem again?
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App

Android Shortcuts

A big drawback for me with Android is the amount of shortcuts you can have on your main screen compared to WINMO,is there a way of being able to have more shortcuts or is that it?
Also -how do i install apps onto SD card,and what does "unmount SD card" mean?
Cheers

Long pressing on the screen gives a selection. You select shortcuts!
Now if you already knew that then the amount of shortcuts is based on how big and how many icons/Widgets/shortcuts you already have!

hazard99 said:
Long pressing on the screen gives a selection. You select shortcuts!
Now if you already knew that then the amount of shortcuts is based on how big and how many icons/Widgets/shortcuts you already have!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for that i didn't know that i will give this a go, ive only just installed Android onto my phone and am still getting used to it, web browsing and email is a lot better but the actual interface compared to a my customised WINMO leaves a lot to be desired.
Actually ive asked this question elsewhere and no one appeared to have answered yet,i didnt want every single email address some going back years to be synced to my SIM contacts and now my phonebook is absolutely huge, is there an easy way i can delete the contacts i dont want.
Thanks for your assistance

jonny68 said:
A big drawback for me with Android is the amount of shortcuts you can have on your main screen compared to WINMO,is there a way of being able to have more shortcuts or is that it?
Also -how do i install apps onto SD card,and what does "unmount SD card" mean?
Cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What you are looking for is a widget called MULTICON - it's free and you can find it on Android Market... What it does is widget fits 4 separate shortcuts into the space of one normal sized icon we all currently have. You can set in options to have customizable individual shortcut or leave it in sets of 4. Technically you can run 16 little (4 times smaller) shortcut icons in one line - times 4 = 64 shortcuts on one page of Android OS phone desktop - you get the picture now.
To read more see this link
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}

jonny68 said:
A big drawback for me with Android is the amount of shortcuts you can have on your main screen compared to WINMO,is there a way of being able to have more shortcuts or is that it?
Also -how do i install apps onto SD card,and what does "unmount SD card" mean?
Cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can try to long press home,then choose folder( name it by yourself),then move any app into the folder. Give it a try mate...hope you like this and things will be organised...

thanks for your assistance guys ill try this later,those images of that phone look good.
One final thing
how can i delete the email addresses and phone numbers that were synced across from my Gmail email to my phonebook?
Cheers

sylau90 said:
You can try to long press home,then choose folder( name it by yourself),then move any app into the folder. Give it a try mate...hope you like this and things will be organised...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is a fantastic tip! I am still a serious noob on Android, but that solved my last major gripe!

I have a huge problem.. Multicon is awesome, but I created a small widget (included) that controlled brightness, and for some silly reason I could choose 0% brightness! Now I dont know where I am on the phone to get it back to normal brightness.. Reboot doesnt help.. Anyone? Is there a file I can delete?

General questions are general

This isn't exactly a one off question so I'm not sure whether it should be with the questions threads or the general threads.
but im getting the feeling that its only a matter of time before someone will be like omg this should be in the questions thread and have a go at me or whatever...
So my galaxy note arrived yesterday, wooh!
i came from wm6.5 so yeppp.. big step up.
currently im running speedmod with checkrom v6.
anyways a few questions.
1. if i have one contact but say a mobile and a home phone number, do i need to make seperate contacts for each number, or is there a way to add both numbers to the same contact?
i could add both to a single contact on windows mobile (which is like a bajillion years old) so i was hoping that i could do it with android but i cant find it... :S
2. is it possible to change the location where a program stores its information?
currently i use spotify to sync my music from my laptop to the phone.
it does a pretty good job.
however, it stores the local songs on the phones internal storage, meaning if i do a wipe cuz im installing a new rom or something, i have to resync all those songs.
if there is like a registry key or something that just points to directory, i might be able to change that.
ive googled it, returned with this:
http://www.spotify.com/au/help/faq/...-store-offline-music-on-the-external-sd-card/
but i get stuck at step 4 cuz there is no "SD Location" option.
again i have no idea, ive only been on android for a bit longer than a day so yea...
still a noob.
cheers.

1. Open your contacts, select the name and hit edit. Press + to add the details you want. Save.
2. Your internal sd does not lose the data, so your mp3 files are safe. Unless and until you format that usb storage.
As for transferring your apps to sd, go to applications n settings tab, select the app and choose move to sd. Not all apps can be moved this way, especially system apps. Try 3rd party softwares like app2sd, etc.
And dont worry about your thread being moved or what. XDA is one of the poorly moderated forums in such that you see the same questions like "how do i go to xxx from yyy" on top of each other in any given day.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda app-developers app

praetorius said:
1. Open your contacts, select the name and hit edit. Press + to add the details you want. Save.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
there is no +...
im on gb and i believe its a lot easier to do on ics.
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
praetorius said:
2. Your internal sd does not lose the data, so your mp3 files are safe. Unless and until you format that usb storage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Spotify puts them in your Android/data/com.spotifyblahlblahblah folder.
i believe the entire Android folder is wiped on full factory reset.
praetorius said:
As for transferring your apps to sd, go to applications n settings tab, select the app and choose move to sd. Not all apps can be moved this way, especially system apps. Try 3rd party softwares like app2sd, etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
im not trying to move the app itself, rather the directory to which it points towards.
praetorius said:
And dont worry about your thread being moved or what. XDA is one of the poorly moderated forums in such that you see the same questions like "how do i go to xxx from yyy" on top of each other in any given day.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i wouldnt say that its poorly moderated, just impatient.
thanks for your reply.

Less space available than there should be.

I'm having a problem where my device thinks there is only 3.7GB available when actually there should be somewhere around 8 or 9GB free,
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
Any Ideas on how to fix this?

Me too!
JediMasterASD said:
I'm having a problem where my device thinks there is only 3.7GB available when actually there should be somewhere around 8 or 9GB free,
Any Ideas on how to fix this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry can't help you but I just noticed this today too.
I did had a large video on here but deleted it , seems it hasn't freed up the space...

Have you looked for a folder called "LOST.DIR" ? if you have one, delete it and then see remaining space.

also try sd maid

catolh said:
Have you looked for a folder called "LOST.DIR" ? if you have one, delete it and then see remaining space.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nothing in the lost.dir folder
redundant409 said:
also try sd maid
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
SD Maid is a really cool app, thanks for recommending that. It got me back about 1GB but still seems I have a lot of space lost in the ether :crying:
I wonder if the storage graph counts app data that is downloaded seperately like games that download an additional 500MB or some such to the SD? I have at least 4 games on my device that did that which could account for some of the missing data if that is the case.

I'm missing space as well, but using DiskUsage showed a lot more detail of my memory usage.
I think the storage display is being a little too simplistic.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

PJE66 said:
I'm missing space as well, but using DiskUsage showed a lot more detail of my memory usage.
I think the storage display is being a little too simplistic.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Disk Usage is a great app too! it did show me where most of my data has gone. I have 2GB in comics on my device I totally forgot and the rest of the data is "Android data" such as all the additional game data like I suspected.
I appreciate all the app suggestions and help guys. I feel much better now knowing what all is using up my space. (wish there was a 32GB version of the N7 but oh well)

Hold the power button till it shuts down, once it restarts the memory should be back as available. At least it was on mine.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

Factory reset with Nexus 7 toolkit. I did the factory image thing and it fixed it up.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

One of the thumbnail files in /DCIM/.thumbnails/ was 1.27GB in size. This is a file that doesn't show up for some reason on that DiskUsage app by the way (even with root), so that's worth checking out with a file explorer.
I deleted mine and put a .nomedia file in my movies, wallpaper and DCIM folders, hoping it'll stop making thumbnails.

Thanks!
fridgeman said:
Hold the power button till it shuts down, once it restarts the memory should be back as available. At least it was on mine.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This freed up most of the space that was reported in DiskUsage as "System Data" but I still have almost 1Gb used and can't see what's using it. Anyone know of an app that breaks down System data usage?
Bit of a pain having to reboot the device each time I want to free up system data...

Gallery app

Hi,
I set all images to be stored in external card and I can see there are about 17gb images data in external drive. However when I check the usage of gallery app why it is taking 4gb space from the internal storage? I only have very few images in internal which are mainly from apps such WhatsApp or other default video, and those are not more than 100mb in total.
Anyone else having the same issue?
Does the gallery app size grow as well (eg. For thumbnail purpose perhaps?) if the more I put images in external card?
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk 2

sync google photos and picasa? dropbox?

eduart said:
sync google photos and picasa? dropbox?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No. I don't sync those. I unchecked them and don't use Dropbox.
Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk 2

nuscape said:
Hi,
I set all images to be stored in external card and I can see there are about 17gb images data in external drive. However when I check the usage of gallery app why it is taking 4gb space from the internal storage? I only have very few images in internal which are mainly from apps such WhatsApp or other default video, and those are not more than 100mb in total.
Anyone else having the same issue?
Does the gallery app size grow as well (eg. For thumbnail purpose perhaps?) if the more I put images in external card?
Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just check incase any video etc taking place that could be the reason

123hiten said:
Just check incase any video etc taking place that could be the reason
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I checked no video. Any other possibilities?
Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk 2

nuscape said:
I checked no video. Any other possibilities?
Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
then there has to be some thing related to gallery like image etc which is still at the phone memory and u are not aware
Connect the phone to the pc and check all folders which are there in phone memory u ll see some thing if its there
The last option will be reset which u can decide to do or not :good:

123hiten said:
then there has to be some thing related to gallery like image etc which is still at the phone memory and u are not aware
Connect the phone to the pc and check all folders which are there in phone memory u ll see some thing if its there
The last option will be reset which u can decide to do or not :good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No nothing that I can find so far. I decided to try clicking 'clear data' and now reduced to 320mb. I assume that is for the thumbnail. Although that was showing 4gb before I didn't get about 4gb back on the available space now. This is weird, It is more or less I'm getting the similar available space as before.
Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk 2