Problem finding photos on memory card when viewing from PC

[#1]

I have been uploading images from Xperira arc S to my PC without problems until this week.

Now I can't find the photos I have taken recently!  I can see all the photos I have taken in the gallery on the phone, but the recent photos don't appear in the file manager on my pc, only the old ones.  I can't locate any files on the phone so as to see where they might be actually stored on the phone.

I had got over 1200 photos on my phone, but could only see the first 800 in the file manager on the pc.  I wondered if perhaps there was a memory problem, so deleted over 700 of those 800 photos, took a new photo and it appeared in the file manager and I was able to upload it to the pc so I thought the problem was resolved.  I went out for the day yesterday and took a couple of hundred photos (sightseeing!), and now the same problem - they are not showing up in the file manager on the pc so I can't upload them.

Anyone got any ideas as to what is happening and how I can find the photo files to download them?  Are all photos stored on the memory card?  Is there anywhere else the phone could be storing them?

Many thanks for your help.

[Francis]

Hello StarbrightRuby

Lets do a check:

Connect the phone to the pc.

Now, from the PC go to Start menu (windows) then "computer" or My computer

then the phone memory card should be listed there as a Phone Memory or Memory card.

(In some cases the phone will be listed as Xperia Arc ot LT18 under "My computer" and when you click on it the memory card will be listed)

In the memory card look for a folder named "DCIM" this one contains a folder named 100Andro.

This file contains all the pictures you have taken with the camera.

See if the recent files are there and let me know.

If they are, simply copy the DCIM folder to your Pc and rename it...possibly with the date the images were taken.

Note: The rename part is for when you take new pictures and you copy DCIM again to your pc the old pictures don't get deleted by mistake.

Hope this helps.

Francis.

[#3]

Hi Francis

Thanks for your reply - where you have suggested is exactly where I am looking and the recent photos are not there - only the older ones.  Interestingly the new videos appear there, just not the still images.  All the images (old and recent) still appear on the phone in gallery.

Thanks

Ruby

[Francis]

Ok, lets try to find out were they are...

Download Astro File manager from the Play store.

Open the gallery/album and search for one of the pictures that have the issue.

tap on it to see it, then tap on the menu key and hit Details (image details)

This will give you the location or at least the name of the picture.

The location will provide you with instructions on were the pictures are being stored.

This is were Astro comes in...if it only gives you the name you can use Astro search feature to locate the folder where the pictures are located.

In any case let me know what it says and I will tell you what's going on.

Francis.

[#5]

Hi Francis

That was really helpful.  I can see that according to Astro the 'missing' photos are stored in DCIM/100ANDRO, so it looks like there is a problem somehow between the camera and the pc being able to see the images.

Any suggestions as to why this is happening and how to recitfy the problem?

Thanks

Ruby

[Francis]

...What's the full address of the file? And do you notice a difference in the address in the other files that do show? Im thinking they might be on the DCIM folder in the internal memory.

In astro's main screen click on the up arrow and go as high as it will let you..

see if you can see a folder named: mmt, in it you will see sdcard and probably ext_card

under both you will find a DCIM folder...but first do the check in the address for a problem file and one that works.

Francis.

[#7]

Ok, so mnt/sdcard/DCIM/100ANDRO is the place which comes up when I search for either one of the recent photos or one of the old photos.

I can see that both sets of images are stored here and also in sdcard/DCIM/100ANDRO.

I can only find sdcard - the search can find no ext_card.

Ruby

[Francis]

Hello StarbrightRuby

Don't do a search, use the arrow up symbol on the upper tab menu.

Go as high as you can and tell me the folders you see there.

You might find the SDcard and another "*_Card" folder (* for the possible name, in mine is ext_card)

Another thing is to select one of the problem files and try to move it to the sd card  (tap and hold the file name in astro)

Francis.

[#9]

Hi

When I look at the files, the roots I detailed above are visible and these both have all the photos in.

From the top I can see the following folders:

data

dev

etc

mnt

proc

root

sbin

sdcard

sys

system

vendor

Ruby

[Francis · Accepted solution]

Ok...lets keep ruling out possible situations

In mmt you will find another DCIM just like the one on SDcard.

In the camera app check the settings for storage.

You can choose 2 locations. Internal and Sd card.

This switch should make the new shots land in the Sd card.

This is a very strange issue...

On some cases we have see that the issue could also be the connection type that the phone is set up to.

Look under settings> Xperia> connectivity then USB connection mode.

If possible switch it to MTP and check again in the pc.

MSC will make the phone connect to the PC like a USB drive.

Francis.