[musichawk]

Today I found that MSP, while seeming to work properly, could not load any file to display. Checking the external SD card used to store all my PDFs, the folder where MSP stores the files is EMPTY. MSP's library and lists are still working, but none of the PDF files can be found. 

Not a disaster because I keep my master PDFs collection on a PC. I just need an efficient way to reload into MSP on my tablet.

If I tell MSP Companion to load all the files, this will be "again", so might result in duplicate database entries even though the files will not be duplicates (since the storage location is empty). Is there a way in Companion to "reload" the files while not disturbing the database? 

Or do I connect PC to tablet outside of MSP and simply copy all the PDF files into the folder where MSP expects them to be? 


Of course, I still have the mystery of why the files disappeared. It happened after I saw Samsung install an Update that was not explained. Still Android 5.1.1 but Kernel version is now dated Dec 9, 2016. I did not think to run MSP right after it happened, but other apps worked OK, the difference being MSP is the app that uses the external SD Card for storage. No idea what this update does, but nuking the external slot SD Card might be an outcome. Anyone else seen this update recently? 


Yes, I have various MSP library backups, on the tablet and on the PC, but none are as current as I'd like. But I tried restoring on PC and tablet, and in both cases MSP and/or Companion seemed to hang "forever" (10 minutes with no hint of progress, I gave up); maybe I didn't wait long enough? But really, I just want to copy the PDFs from PC back to Tablet, if MSP will allow or tolerate this.

[Zubersoft]

If you know the exact layout of files and folders required by the database (or if you had "Let MobileSheets Manage My Files" disabled), then you can just copy the files and folders back on the removable SD card and you should have no problems loading the songs. You can do this on your PC either by connecting the tablet with a USB cable and using Windows Explorer or by removing the SD card and inserting it into your PC.

Mike

[musichawk]

Thanks Mike, that should work. MSP is telling me where it is looking for each PDF (as an error message), which confirms they were all in one folder (I don't put each song in a separate folder) so re-copying the files should work. 

Elaborating on what happened (in case it indicates anything), I was in the midst of working through an MSP list of songs, had viewed several, then in a 2-page song, swiping to page 2, MSP froze and crashed closed. Restarting MSP, all songs were just partial on-page (1/4 of a page, for instance), or black. I restarted the tablet, and then MSP reported that every file is missing. I don't see how MSP could have wiped out all the song files, but it happened while using MSP, so I'm clueless about what problem might exist.

[musichawk]

UPDATE: Got it working, but not sure if it is stable. Looks like a hardware problem, though exactly what I don't know. Looking at MSP's Storage settings to be sure I know the exact path to files, MSP reported that the folder was read-only. So, I used other tools to explore the SD Card. I could see MSP's folder but it seemed to be empty. Unmounted, removed, reinserted, remounted the card a few times. Eventually, I could see content in the folder -- all the "lost" PDFs. Sure enough, MSP sees them too. Am I good to go...or not?

Assuming I'm on quicksand, I'd appreciate suggestions. I could buy another 64GB SD card, and recreate the folders then copy the files. But that's just a guess as to what's wrong, and of course a pain to do all that copying manually.

Is there an MSP or Companion action I should to to help recover the next time this happens? I already had backups on the tablet and PC. The tablet backup, being large (I have more than 4,000 PDFs and growing), was on the SD card (oops), though maybe it will fit in the internal storage. I also had a backup on the PC created via Companion, but that failed to reload, possibly because the tablet was reporting that the SD Card path was read-only. (Though I should mention that Companion did not time-out or give an error so I had no clue why it was not progressing.)

I assume backup on the PC is best, being a different device with different storage, and then it can be further copied to other storage for safety. Would this be the best option if/when the SD Card gets replaced? If it is imperative that a backup be on the tablet, that loops back to the space problem, the reason I have a large SD Card devoted to MSP storage. Advice?

[Zubersoft]

It definitely sounds like that card may be going bad. I've heard similar reports from users in the past and it turned out to be the card in each case. I'd watch it closely, and if you have any issues again, I'd copy your data over to a new card.

The only thing the companion app can do to help is to create library backups on your PC. It's odd that the backup on the PC didn't work for you though. I can't imagine why the tablet would have reported an issue writing to the removable SD card if that was the current storage location... As a side note, you can check out backup files after creating them using the File->View/Extract backup feature to verify they look good. I probably should add a feature at some point to "validate" a backup file where it can tell you if any songs in the backup file are missing the files they depend upon (meaning something may have gone wrong while backing up the library, or those files were missing to begin with).

The backup file shouldn't have to be on the tablet, but as long as the file is less than 4 GB in size and your tablet has enough storage space, it's not a bad idea to keep a backup file on it so you always have one handy if needed.

Mike