Serious SD card issues with music, gallery and video app on ZTE Open
So I've taken my ZTE on vacation. I loaded about seven albums and started taking a lot of pictures and a few videos. The card is 32gb, so there are no storage issues.
At first things were fine. I played several albums, I took pictures, edited them, etc. after about two days, the gallery app no longer worked. It just showed two pictures and an endless progress bar at the top. But the camera still took pictures and saved them.
After about a week, the camera app told me it couldn't save pictures. At the same time, the gallery app started showing me at least some of the pictures it had taken. Today, two days later, nothing works anymore. The music app tells me to put some songs on the card, the gallery app tells me to shoot some pictures with the camera app and the video app tells me to add some videos.
Did the phone just erase all the files in the SD card? Did Firefox OS get scrambled and can't read the card anymore? Or is the hardware shot? I put in a brand new card before the trip. In either case, this is not cool. I'm willing to put up with some growing pains, but these are stock apps on the phone and I would expect them to work.
And yes, I have restarted, taken the battery and the SD card out multiple times. I've wiggled the card in its holder.
All Replies (6)
Sorry to hear about that. I hate when my phones can't read their SD cards.
I'm just guessing, but I suspect that the card is the weak link. Occasionally SD and micro-SD cards are flaky and become corrupted and unusable in one device yet still can be read by another device, backed up, and sometimes put back into use after reformatting.
Can you view the card in another device to see whether the files are present? And if so, make a backup! If you aren't traveling with anyone who has a suitable device, sometimes photo development stores have card readers so you can print photos or back up onto CDs.
Thanks for the reply. Of course, it could be the card. I'll have a chance to check it this weekend.
But I suspect that there is something going on with the phone. It's the third card I tried, as I said, brand new. Each of the previous card read just fine on my Mac, but not in the phone. I wonder if its a hardware problem. The SD card slot on the ZTE seems rather flimsy.
If the phonenor the OS is finicky about cards, is there a preferred brand of card? Should it be formatted a certain way?
I plugged in the ZTE into a Mac and the SD card showed up just fine with all the photos, videos and music on the card. The Mac had no problem reading the card. I backed everything up and formatted the card. Then I copied the music back and the music app worked again.
I don't think it was a bad SD card.
Hi!
The last resort I can think of to resolve this is to reset the phone which is to wipe out the memory. I know this isn't something you want to do but this is the only resolution that I can think of. Instructions are attached below.
Warning: Resetting your phone will delete all data stored on the device, including apps, calendar data, email accounts, and settings.
To reset the device, follow these instructions:
- Open the Settings application.
- Tap on the Device Information button.
- Tap on the More Information button.
- Tap on the Reset phone button.
- Tap OK to continue or Cancel to cancel.
We hope that this fixed the issue you were having. Please report back to us if this helped!
Thank you!
Yes, that worked. Thanks.
I'd rather we not tell people to wipe out or reset their phone because of some SD card issues. ZTE Open seems to be manufactured poorly and several users using a variety of different SD cards have reported issues with this phone.
I'm gonna call manufacturer defect. If enough people poke them about it, they might issue a statement or possibly give credit to people. Doubtful but worth a shot. In the meantime I'd contact your wireless carrier and get a different phone (if they let you do so without cost). Otherwise you can break the contract if they refuse to help you with it. Light a fire under em and see what happens. But do be sure to talk to as high-level a person (at corporate) as possible. The low-level minimum wage workers have no power to change anything and don't need to hear the yelling.