Samsung Devices: External Storage locked after 4.4 updates.

Android 4.4 CAN be used successfully with an External card if certain procedures are followed.

This topic is old. Please do not read it.

Instead, go to:

http://support.crittermap.com/entries/67437220-Using-External-Storage-

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Quick Summary:

With Android 4.4, all sorts of bad things start happening if you were using an external storage card in settings. It was a decision Android made to lock apps out of the external storage.

This was not our decision, this was Android.There are some actions needed on your part.

These are the options you have:

• Just use internal storage(the default)
• Use a root fix to let us write to the storage card. Some are discussed below.
• Use a new folder setting, which is an option given as of 5.3.2. Something long like "/storage/extSDcard/Android/Data/com.crittermap.backcountrynavigator.license/files" Please note it means that all of these files will be deleted if you uninstall BCN. Even if you install again right away. If you have valuable data in "/storage/extSdCard/bcnav" you can move it to "storage/extSDcard/Android/Data/com.crittermap.backcountrynavigator.license/files/bcnav". If you want just the waypoints/tracks, you can just transfer the data folder. To do this you will have to use a file explorer either on the device or on the desktop.

We would like you to have access to a folder on external storage that does *not* disappear on uninstall. Unfortunately, Android thinks otherwise.

To sum up, let me be clear. You CAN use the external card on 4.4 but you MUST use the folder name we suggest and you WILL lose the data on uninstall unless you back it up.

History:

I have been made aware of a number of people having problems after a 4.4 update to their Samsung S4 or Galaxy Tab 3. These are people who used an advanced option to change Root storage.

The symptoms vary, but on investigation, it appears that Android and/or Samsung has locked third party apps from writing to the external storage.
While Android probably initiated this change, I do believe Samsung could get around it. Please contact Samsung and indicate your displeasure.

At this time, we have no good workaround to suggest other than using internal storage, which is the default. It is, of course, very tempting to use a removable storage if it has a bunch more space, but in our experience it has had more headaches. Headaches which we cannot prevent.

Long term, when buying an Android device, get one with large internal storage, rather than counting on buying a card for a different storage area. Unfortunately, it is all too common that Android believes that you do not have the interest in using storage that you bought with your own money for whatever you want. 

The only rumored fix, which requires you to have root access is to 'add the "media_rw" item to the write external storage permission on "/system/etc/permissions/platform. xml"'. Not accessible to most users.  Please note that this is not a fix that we have tested ourselves. Do not root your device just to do this, because you might find that it doesn't work after all.

We have looked into another kind of loophole, but found that our files could be easily deleted in their entirety when reinstalling the application - not a desirable outcome.

I have gotten this link from several of you that explains the root fix. We don't know of any non root fix.

http://www.androidheadlines.com/2014/02/galaxy-s4-note-3-kitkat-sd-card-update-issue-youre-not-alone-root-fix-inside.html

Please Note:

You may find articles or claims to the effect that BackCountry Navigator is just not compatible with Android Kitkat. In fact, you may hear that from Google Play Support. That is absolutely not true. If we could fix it as easily as checking a few boxes and rebuilding that would be great, but it is not so.

Possible workaround that is not reccommended:

It is possible that we could write to "/storage/extSDcard/Android/Data/com.crittermap.backcountrynavigator.license". However, it has some dangerous implications. The files cannot be seen outside the app. All of them are deleted when the application is uninstalled. Since many of you uninstall and reinstall often, this has permanent effects. Even you are just moving from DEMO to paid, everything would be gone.

It is not know whether you can browse to this location in storage root settings. We do not have hardware to test this yet.

Still recommended actions are:

• Use the root fix above.
• Use Internal storage.
• Complain to Samsung.

To use Internal Storage:

• If you haven't set it to it external storage before (via Settings->Storage Root), then do nothing. The default will work.
• If the storage root setting points to "/storage/extSdCard", it probably needs to point to "/storage/sdcard" (please confirm these locations as I've only heard them second hand). You can reinstall to restore that setting.
• If you have valuable data in "/storage/extSdCard/bcnav" you can move it to "/storage/sdcard/bcnav". If you want just the waypoints/tracks, you can just transfer the data folder. To do this you will have to use a file explorer either on the device or on the desktop.

Data Volatility

I am adding to this article to get some feedback.

I have noticed that many apps are using app specific space on external storage. Big drawback is, if you happen to uninstall and reinstall the app, everything is gone. Maps. Waypoints. Tracks. Everything.

You can get around that by backing up the directory and/or never uninstalling the app. However, our statistics show that people uninstall and reinstall often, and we don't know how often.

In version 5.3.0, we give you this option, with a warning that we strongly recommend against it. Even with that, we expect that we will hear from angry people later.