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Samsung Galaxy S4, Note 3 Android 4.4 Problem hits Micro SD Card

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The Samsung Galaxy S4 Android 4.4 Update is rolling out to many devices and the Galaxy Note 3 Android 4.4 update is in the works with new features for many users, but it could include a major problem for Samsung Galaxy Devices.

The Android 4.4 KitKat update could limit the use of the Micro SD card even more.

Samsung devices are known for offering additional support for storage with a Micro SD card. It is one of the reasons many users pick the Galaxy S4 over the HTC One or the iPhone 5s and it is also a big selling point on the Galaxy Note 3. Similarly the Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note 2 offered this support and we heard from readers that it is and was a very important feature.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 Android 4.4 Update changes what apps can do with the Micro SD card.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 Android 4.4 Update changes what apps can do with the Micro SD card.

Google on the other hand is clearly focused on internal storage, with the Nexus devices and in moves made to the OS about what apps can store information on an SD card. This is likely due to the inability to control the speed and reliability of a Micro SD Card.

Read: Why the Galaxy S4 Micro SD Card is Useless

With the Android 4.4 Google is changing how the device can access external storage, like a Micro SD card in a manner that Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3 owners will not like.

Tod Liebeck, the developer of the FX File Explorer shares the details about this major problem for Android 4.4 updates on devices with a Micro SD card. In a post on Google+ in late January Liebeck outlines the problem that Samsung Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3 users will likely face with the Android 4.4 update that is rolling out now. Google shares the following statement to developers.

“The WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission must only grant write access to the primary external storage on a device. Apps must not be allowed to write to secondary external storage devices, except in their package-specific directories as allowed by synthesized permissions”

Leibeck explains what this means to users, writing,

“If your device has user-accessible internal flash storage, your SD Card is a “secondary external storage device”.

What this means is that with KitKat, applications will no longer be able create, modify, or remove files and folders on your external SD card.  As a for-instance, you can no longer use a file manager to copy files from your computer to the SD card over a network.  This ability, which has existed since the beginning of Android, has been taken away.”

Liebeck explains the issue and fixes that he is working on after hearing from Galaxy Note 3 users who cannot use the app to write to an SD card and since the original post shared what he hopes is a work around without the need for users to root their Galaxy S4 or Galaxy Note 3.

Frank Zammetti shares his frustration with the Galaxy S4 on Sprint running Android 4.4, “I just installed the 4.4.2 update on my Sprint Galaxy S4 and was immediately horrified to learn of this issue… I just tried ES and I am able to create and delete a file, but not edit it or rename it, and I am able to delete a folder, but not create one (unable to try renaming a folder). ”

Jim Barton shares his experience with this Galaxy Note 3 Android 4.4 Update problem,

I just update my Galaxy Note 3 to KitKat, then was irritated when I couldn’t use QuickPic to move some pictures to a folder on my external SD. I also tried using a file manager, but of course that also failed. I had to connect the device to a PC, then copy the files from the device to a folder on the PC, then copy them back to the folder I wanted them on in the SD card. Ridiculous.

I see that the Camera app CAN write to the external SD just fine. photos are still going to the DCIM folder on my external SD card.

Barton is not the only Galaxy Note 3 owner with problems, Doods De los Reyes shares how this change impacts the ability to use a network shared folder when running Android 4.4, “The biggest impact on me is being able to copy from my network shared folder.” This user discovered a work around by copying to internal storage and then to the Micro SD card with Samsung’s My Files app.

In the most recent update Liebeck explains Google’s reason for this change, but does not agree with it, calling it a, “misstep”. Google reportedly made the change to make it easier to cleanly uninstall an app and all the app data.

Samsung recently confirmed Android 4.4 updates for the Galaxy Note 3, Galaxy Note 2, Galaxy S4 and Galaxy S3, all of which offer a Micro SD card. Users that depend on a Micro SD card may want to see how each update impacts usability on their specific device and with apps they use to access the SD card.

93 Comments

93 Comments

  1. Michael Hall

    02/22/2014 at 8:28 am

    This is clearly a major issue for anyone with a phone that utilises an sd card, not just Samsung owners. It is caused by Google (they must have known the impact, surely?) but it does beg the question “why has Samsung pushed out KitKat with this known massive impact on their customers”? Are Samsung claiming ignorance? Surely they were aware of KitKat changes?

    Fortunately, I have an international S4 which hasn’t had KitKat offered yet. I had terrible problems with 4.3 (especially the sd card) so I won’t be taking the upgrade until there is a fix. Great shame because I was waiting on the Gmail print facility in KitKat.

    Please keep your readers updated on progress with this issue.

  2. Tom Frank

    02/22/2014 at 10:44 am

    I just recently became aware of this issue. It’s good to see more talk of it. I’m going to be upgrading my phone soon and was anxiously awaiting final details on the S5. With this SD card snafu, I’m thinking of dumping Android altogether. Ditto the tablet I was thinking about.

  3. Theodore Kredo

    02/22/2014 at 1:40 pm

    ditching android and going were? windows? apple? good luck. apple doesn’t support external storage, and windows….well they have a few years to catch up to the pack.

  4. John Kerr

    02/22/2014 at 1:45 pm

    OK, that pretty much does it for me. I’ll stay on 4.3 on my rooted S4 running a custom ROM. Maybe the developers will be able to side step the issue. If not…fork you Google.

    I won’t have anything to do with Apple because of the crap they pulled with respect embedded batteries and storage expansion.

    I’ve already had it with Google deciding to push embedded batteries essentially making very expensive pieces of mobile hardware into suicide-ware…. presumably in an effort to increase sales and reduce not only product longevity but our ability to pass perfectly viable phones on to family or friends. If Google persists on the course I’ll be only too happy to move to another platform like Tizen (at this point I feel way more loyalty to Samsung than Google) or Ubuntu phone or gak….even Windows. Of course this will mean severing all ties with Google including desktop browser and search services. So I will be watching closely how this plays out.

  5. Flip Jumpman

    02/22/2014 at 2:45 pm

    This is a bad deal! SD card and removable battery are important to me.
    Boo Google! This blows!

  6. Carl

    02/22/2014 at 4:37 pm

    I wish I didnt upgrade to KitKat, the issue that I am having is I can take pictures or videos and when I go to look at them it will say picture not found or sorry can not play this video. This has become a real pain

    • Maurice dixon

      04/27/2014 at 3:51 am

      Yeah me too man I have the same issues. And my also erased some very important pictures and video because I transferred it to the SD card im am highly disappointed with this update.

  7. hossam

    02/22/2014 at 4:53 pm

    Good to know this now .. am gerring my new note 3 on 8/3 and am not going to make this update then
    Reports also said it removes the ability to attach non official s view covers so it won’t work any more

    • Henry Siegertsz

      11/10/2014 at 4:48 pm

      How will it do that? S-view has a simple embedded magnet on the flip front cover. A hall detector device senses the magnetic flux as says “OPEN” if the magnet is not sensed or “CLOSED” If it is near. Binary 1 true 0 false. Or has Samsung found a way of using the camera as a mass spectrometer to detect a difference in the materials used in third party product.
      Only believe 10 percent of what you read.

  8. cody

    02/22/2014 at 5:26 pm

    I’m running kitkat on my galaxy s2 with omnirom & I can use my ext sd card just fine.

  9. Enrique

    02/22/2014 at 5:29 pm

    I learned my lesson with my s2 that Android destroyed with its “updates”. I turned off automatic updates as soon as I got my Note3.

  10. ray

    02/22/2014 at 6:11 pm

    Omg might as well go to apple now

    • andy

      04/24/2014 at 8:32 am

      Let’s all go back to the brick at least it was simple and easy to work make call and send texts what more do we need

  11. KK

    02/22/2014 at 6:45 pm

    Is this due to SELinux permissions?

  12. Rajkumar N

    02/22/2014 at 8:33 pm

    Its one of the major decision to get s4.
    Unless its resolved I will not update to kitkat or upgrade to s5 . seriously considering alternative os.maybe nokia android I should look in to.

  13. Aj

    02/22/2014 at 8:37 pm

    I have a galaxy s3 running android 4.4.2. When using an app like samba to access the devices files I can no longer get to the phones sd but can do whatever I want to the external sd card. I can plug it into usb and and access both the phones sd and external sd but I have to use android file transfer since i’m using a mac. Es file manager on the device can copy, paste to either sd. Note that he didn’t say the external sd card “As a for-instance, you can no longer use a file manager to copy files from your computer to the SD card over a network.”

  14. Rahil

    02/22/2014 at 8:42 pm

    A happy note 3 user commenting from 4.4.2.
    I can confirm that I can easily move pictures from the gallery app or even the My Files provided by default to the external sd card…..I can also transfer any other file or folder between the flash storage and external sd….There’s even an option for almost every app in the app manager in settings wherein I can move some part of the app to sd..

  15. Anthony Benitez

    02/22/2014 at 8:58 pm

    I really don’t get what’s Google problem with external storage and that stupid all cloud policy like you will always be on wifi or that you have unlimited data the last carrier to have it just drop it that was sprint it’s not fair that to listen to the music I want and can download to my SD card may not work and be force to use my carrier data this is non sense o and Btw if Google keeps doing this kind of things people are going to go for other OS including apple and Zinamogen

  16. hamza

    02/22/2014 at 9:50 pm

    Well Google. Looks like I won’t be upgrading to kit kat then. I never understood the real benefit of 4.4 anyway so no real loss, just bad publicity.

  17. David

    02/22/2014 at 11:54 pm

    Reverse this damn update, we can’t take photos or videos. It’s make some app hard to run….

  18. Adi

    02/23/2014 at 12:18 am

    First Knox and now SD cards R/W?
    If we wanted to buy Apple we would, there is a reason we chose to buy Samsung…
    Maybe I’ll go back to WinMo…

  19. dale

    02/23/2014 at 1:41 am

    I flashed Google edition 4.4.2 to my s4 and my SD card works fine

  20. Cull

    02/23/2014 at 1:49 am

    Didn’t want Apple for just this reason. I chose Samsung for the versatility, wont be upgrading to kitkat.

  21. Ben

    02/23/2014 at 1:50 am

    This story is simply not true. I’ve been running KitKat 4.4.2 on my Note II for months now and have absolutely no problems using my 64GB external SD card whatsoever.

    As far as transferring files from ANY PC to my phone, I connect them to the same wireless network and set up an FTP server on my phone (FTP Server Ultimate Pro) and transfer files back and forth using Filezilla client on the PC.

    The benefit of 4.4.2? Most optimized version of Android yet, designed to run smoothly on devices with as little as 512 MB of RAM, which really shows once you start moving up to the 2-3GB RAM phones.

    Last but not least, ART. ART, short for Android Run Time, is experimental but it optimizes app performance across the board. The apps that don’t play well with it are typically poorly written OR were optimized by exploiting flaws in Android’s Dalvik JIT compiler.

  22. Mick Steadman

    02/23/2014 at 2:20 am

    I’ve just bought a 32Gb high speed card off Samsung and now they say going to be of little or no use. I’ve always thought that the way apps were stored was stupid, with parts here and some there. Nokia had this problem sorted a long time ago, including inboard batteries with the N8 which was years ahead of what others were doing but the Symbian platform was sniffed at. The only problem I found was it was underclocked but otherwise was as good and in places better than the S4. The camera was fantastic and you could get full control of your device without “big brother” interfering. Untill I know that my 1000+ album music library is going to work I think I’ll not bother updating.

  23. Stephen

    02/23/2014 at 3:07 am

    I won’t be getting another android until there is a guarantee to work, as I copy to and from my SD card all the time, plus I went to samsung because of the ext sd card and battery. I lost all my holiday photos on my last htc because I couldn’t remove the sd card as it didn’t have one, the phone was damaged when it got wet.( so goodbye to everything on it)

  24. Matt Toly

    02/23/2014 at 3:13 am

    It’s a good thing windows phone is getting pretty good now. Looks like I’ll have to be trying that platform

  25. R

    02/23/2014 at 5:12 am

    I guess this explains why my DiskUsage app lost its ability to graph the SD card folder structure after the kitkat update. I am so irritated by this. My file manager can still browse the SD folders but can no longer create them. BOO GOOGLE!!!!! CHANGE IT BACK!!!!

  26. pk

    02/23/2014 at 6:57 am

    Dumped android and went to Windows, actually enjoying it. My Samsung tab always had SD issues and that is next to go

  27. Mick Steadman

    02/23/2014 at 7:02 am

    I think I may well follow suit and go back to Nokia. The quality is far better.

  28. Taylor A. (@vdefender)

    02/23/2014 at 7:49 am

    This is not Google’s fault people!!! This is a Samsung bug that they are trying to pawn off as a Google issue!!! I have a Galaxy S4 running 4.4.2 Kitkat because I am running Pure Stock Aosp (Not Samsung’s shit version of Android) and I can do anything I want with my internal and external SD cards! KitKat is the best version of android yet!

  29. blackrosemd1

    02/23/2014 at 8:39 am

    Any dev should be able to fix this in a custom ROM. I’m running a custom ROM based on the AT&T 4.4.2 leak on my Note 3, and the dev manually fixed the issue.

    This definitely sucks for people that don’t root and ROM though.

  30. Brian

    02/23/2014 at 11:54 am

    My question is, does that included using Samsung’s Kies Air? We use Samsung’s Kies Air over wifi, to browse and transfer files back & forth between the two devices. Nether one of use are using 4.4 kitkat yet. I have a Note 3 & my girlfriend has a Note 8 tablet. If, and when we do decide to upgrade, can we still use Samsung’s Kies Air?

  31. Andrew

    02/23/2014 at 8:15 pm

    Are all the issues true about galaxy note three

  32. Arturo Melero

    02/23/2014 at 8:22 pm

    I had the same problem when installed cyanogenmod 11 kit kat. There is a easy fix.
    Back up your sd card then format in fat32 and thats it. Ps my sd card is sandisk 64gb

  33. Lari

    02/23/2014 at 10:31 pm

    I’m a novice… but if anyone has any ideas I’d be grateful. My Galaxy S4 got it’s update this morning. Now I have 5 pages of APP’s I don’t use and can’t delete or hide anymore. So I have to scroll through all 5 pages to find the 7 APP’s I use. I was hoping I was going to be able to reverse the update as David said… but no luck. Any ideas?

  34. Stephen

    02/24/2014 at 12:08 am

    To hide apps just put them in a folder if you can’t hide them.

    • Lari

      02/24/2014 at 9:35 am

      @ Stephen – A-R-G-H…. Great idea! Just not to Samsung… all my “extra apps” are Samsung apps and cannot be put into a folder. So I tried putting all 7 of my apps into to a folder but now I have 5 pages if apps with 1 or 2 apps per page. It appears to me that my issue may not be an upgrade issue as much as a Samsung issue. I hate being hijacked and never thought I’d say this but after 20 years I’m divorcing Samsung today. I emailed Samsung and told them the same thing.

      • Mick Steadman

        02/24/2014 at 10:02 am

        Lari, is it homescreens you’ve got loads of? If so press menu and select edit page and delete what you don’t want. Or if it is in app menu there should be a hide app option in that menu. Or have you got your view in customisable grid in the view option on menu? If so you want alphabetical. OR got to settings, click on more, click on app manager, scroll right to all and go down the list and disable what you don’t want that way. Your apps page should in theory sort as few pages out as possible.

        • Lari

          02/24/2014 at 10:53 am

          @ Mick – No, it’s not the home screen, it’s multiple app screens. It won’t let me hide/disable the Samsung screens. I was able to “hide” (never delete) the Samsung apps before the update but now the option isn’t even available. I even confirmed it with Samsung Tech Support. I am going to give it one more shot by taking it into the Sprint techs at the store. If they can bypass the hijack I’ll post it.

          • Mick Steadman

            02/24/2014 at 11:57 am

            Lari, as a last resort try a full reset. If that doesn’t work then I’m out of ideas as I’ve not heard of this before and it sounds like a software issue and a full reset should clear it. Did you install the update on top of the existing programme? This can cause massive unstabillity, as I’ve found to my cost once before. You should always reset your phone BEFORE updating. But they don’t tell you that until it’s broke and too late.

  35. SFGhostking

    02/24/2014 at 12:31 am

    I have 4.4.2 on sprint for a week now and have no issues writing to my sd or taking pictures (I use a samsung 16gb class 10 micro sd card maybe the high class of the card and the fact that it is samsung works around this problem I am not sure) and honestly it runs really well and fixed the battery issues I was having because of the 4.3 update when I was on 4.2 and my phone was not in use I got .6% battery used a hr then 4.3 jumped that to 6.4% a hr so I am back down to .5%-1% a hr and loving that my phone is reliable without having to carry a charger around or fully charging, going to bed and only half the battery is available for me when I go to work

  36. Abdullah

    02/24/2014 at 1:50 pm

    well at least apple offers 64GB internal storage, not like the android crap where they have all these high end specs but without ability to transfer files and apps to the sd card, how good is a phone when all they can afford is 16GB of internal storage…People call apple products too expensive but at least they offer a 32GB and 64Gb, version of their iPhones… we all know why android devices only offer 16gb of internal storage, thats to keep the cost down and maximizing the profit, where to have enough space one has to buy a 60$ of 64GB expandable storage to be able to transfer apps and documents to sd card, no thank you android im sticking with my iPhone, anyone who has a problem with my review and kiss my a**.

  37. Nanfoodle Smith

    02/25/2014 at 9:01 am

    I have stuck with Android over Apple because I had control of my files and not told how and what kind I could use on my device. Messing with my ability to use and store my files the way I want will have me looking for another option in the future. Bad move!!!!!!!

  38. Gavin

    02/25/2014 at 6:34 pm

    If you use the system app file manager My Files, you will not have problem doing file operations to the external sd card. But if you are using other file managers (eg. esfile explore), that’s where the problem starts. Other system apps also has no issue with writing to the external sd card but other apps may encounter the problem.

  39. Michael

    02/28/2014 at 9:43 pm

    Based on what I am reading here it sounds like this is a Samsung bug and not an inherent flaw in Kit Kat. If anyone has no problem with Kit Kat and SD card it cannot be a general issue

  40. Yoshi

    03/01/2014 at 6:22 am

    Its just plain weird if you ask me. Personally I use a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 that I just bought 3 weeks ago and now find out that there’s issues with 64GB micro sd cards. I know my issue is that with a 32 GB I have no problems at all with using application managers and renaming of files not to mention seeing the files, but when I put my 64 gb micro sd card in its riddled with problems. Like files seem to be missing but i dont believe its an bad card or anything because the files and videos and such that it wont let me view is very specific, also the drive space is being taken up by SOMETHING obviously the files and videos I had put on there it just wont let me access or see them in some cases. I’m just very disappointed with this development and Samsung needs fix all these issues ASAP

  41. Brittany

    03/03/2014 at 12:38 am

    I just updated my S4 yestersday and when I did the update it deleted some of my apps one of them was my color notes app which had some very important notes in it, which now I can’t recover. Anybody know who I can complain too because now I can’t recover those notes.

    • Mick Steadman

      03/03/2014 at 1:14 am

      Check your Sd card as sometimes note apps back up automatically and you might be able to recover from there. If not they’ll just say it’s your fault for not backing all your files before updating. It’s never their problem or fault is it?

  42. Angel

    03/05/2014 at 5:06 pm

    You won’t be able to restore or backup Color Notes to the SD card anymore on KitKat… It really sucks I know.

    • Michael Hall

      03/05/2014 at 6:17 pm

      I knew it screwed up the use of the sd card (which I use alot) but Color Notes is really bad as I rely on it. Thanks for the tip off – I’ll stick with 4.3 until I know KitKat works!

  43. loopp

    03/05/2014 at 8:43 pm

    now I know why they called it kit kat… it’s because it’s shit-colored.

    restore the sd-card support you maggots.

    this made me think. I’m with android for their sd-card support, if they’re removing it for the dumb cloud thingy, going with nokia or iphone would be better as their OS got less issues.

  44. suresh verma

    03/06/2014 at 2:59 am

    i updated my note 3 to kitkat and everything including external memory card is working fine.

    • Mick Steadman

      03/06/2014 at 3:47 am

      Still waiting in Britain for the lte update. Starting to take the proverbial now.

    • Gavin

      05/06/2014 at 3:22 am

      I updated to Kitkat on my Note 3, and everything was fine, and then my girlfriend too updated her Note 3.
      Another minor update came out, and since then she has realised that she has lost access to her entire photo gallery on her sd card, thats over 1000 pics of our son.
      Today I realised that I too have lost access to the same amount on my sd card. I really hope this is an error on the phone and that we can access them from my PC. If you haven’t already I would certainly avoid the update.

  45. PSINPS

    03/06/2014 at 4:13 pm

    The update has caused irreparable harm to my phone — Sprint is giving me a new S4, without the update. And the update corrupted my SD card so that there is no way I can ever use the card again nor can I retrieve the information off the card. DO NOT INSTALL THE UPDATE.

  46. Michael

    03/06/2014 at 7:06 pm

    I installed the update yesterday on my Note 3 and my 32 GB SD card works perfectly. I am on T-Mobile, it could be that the problem is with provider specific bloatware. It does not appear this is a general issue with Kit Kat as there are multiple posts here of users having no issue after the update

  47. MK

    03/07/2014 at 4:23 am

    The phone automatically downloaded the upgrade but I keep postponing the installation – can i delete the upgrade files from my phone?

  48. Marvin Van Loon

    03/09/2014 at 9:03 am

    And update destroyed my ability to use SD Card. Thanks Google, in your infinite wisdom – why the hell would you damage something nearly your entire customer base uses for years on end? I love the speed and upgrades, but I’m about to flash back to 4.3.

  49. Pete

    03/09/2014 at 6:45 pm

    The KitKat 4.4.3, It lets me use some of my sd card but it doesnt let me create files like it use to. This sucks, kiss my ass Google.

  50. Felipe

    03/11/2014 at 5:10 am

    Well, that upgrade just destroyed one of the most important features a love about my Galaxy S4… With that in mind, first thing to do was to root the phone, and change permissions on the root files of the Android. Got the problem solved and my phone saved! To all you guys, Root is the key!

  51. kynnath

    03/11/2014 at 8:32 am

    Man, I decided not to install a ROM on my S4 so I wouldn’t have to deal with shit like this. I trusted there would be people whose job it is to ensure that my device works as well as it can. Then they go and screw up something as basic as the sd card!

    I don’t want to use the cloud for my files! I don’t carry a tiny supercomputer in my pocket to then be dependent on my connection for freaking storage. I can’t even write a note to the sd card now!

    I’ve also noticed that programs that read files on the sd card will randomly fail to read them, requiring a reboot to get them to work. Including the music player. Am I supposed to stream my music as well? I certainly can’t keep a decently sized collection in the internal storage, and hope to have room for apps.

  52. Osalt2

    03/11/2014 at 10:29 am

    Why bother to get the 4.4 update with Note 3, S4 or S5. Many of us need to store our stuff on removable storage. THE WHOLE IDEA IS TO TAKE OUR STUFF WITH US WHEN MAKING A CHANGE. Is Google trying to monopolize us by selling cloud space? This is a Serious flaw & should be broadcast to the mass of Android users by the media. Boycott of the upgrade until Google changes things.

    • Mick Steadman

      03/11/2014 at 10:39 am

      It won’t even let it read the backup it tells you to make for your S Memos if they’re on Sd card. How stupid is that? They break their own app! Pillocks.

  53. Flip Jumpman

    03/11/2014 at 11:27 pm

    So what’s the vote, upgrade to KitKat or stay w/ 4.3?

    I have a Note 3 (at&t) and seems like they’re many different things kitkat did to the external sd cards on people’s phones. Some no changes/works perfectly to destroyed & gone…

    Thoughts?

    • Mick Steadman

      03/12/2014 at 2:21 am

      It seems working ok on my S4 now. The phone boots up twice as fast but other than than that no big deal and rather disappointed. I know they say it’s incremental but you used to get one big update at least during the life of your expensive phone and it felt like getting a new one. I’ve had 2 now, 4.3 and 4.4,and both have been crap. I’m off back to Nokia, they know how to treat their customers with complete contempt and do in style.

  54. t

    03/13/2014 at 12:11 am

    so, what is this? Apple fanboys making up news? I tested card functionality under 4.4.2 and everything works.

    • Mick Steadman

      03/13/2014 at 2:02 am

      It works, to a point. Apps like Coverart don’t work properly now, though it is get round able. Still got the same wife problems, and it isn’t my router as everything else is fine, and you can no longer hide apps you don’t want without rooting your phone. And no, I’m not an Apple ‘fanboy’. I just want to be treated with the same kind of loyalty that Samsung want from me and not with their ‘mushroom management’ policy where customers are kept in the dark and they occasionally throw shot at you, like buggy updates.

  55. Doug Sabra

    03/18/2014 at 3:34 am

    Gee…why might Google want to do this? Could it be they want to force you to store all your data on their cloud?

  56. HJBan

    03/28/2014 at 3:34 pm

    Samsung or Google ruined another SD Card. Is time for a class action?

  57. Sunit Patel

    04/02/2014 at 2:30 am

    I just recently gave up my iphone 4s when it was due for a upgrade dues to issues with the battery life & decided to get the Galaxy Note 3. I haven’t had the phone more than 3 months & I am already having issues. I purchased & installed a samsung 64gb sd card & a week later all my apps, pics & videos went missing. The app shows up missing on the screen with a sdcard symbol next to it & when I click on any app, it redirects me to the app store to redownload the app. Not Cool…. I heard big things about android phones & decided to finally give it a try. If the problem is not fixed soon, I might have to go back to the iphone.

  58. [email protected]

    04/04/2014 at 7:20 pm

    I’m not screwing around with Apple, Windows or Android. If you don’t stop fu*king around with important features such as external memory, I’ll dump all your asses and go back to a flip phone. I’m not that dependant on the smartphone tit. You need us, not vice versa.

  59. aj hampton

    04/06/2014 at 11:44 pm

    Flixster app stopped working. Couldn’t access the movies on my sd card. Big inconvenience for someone who likes to watch movies on the go.

    • Mick Steadman

      04/07/2014 at 2:24 am

      Let’s see if the so far mythical 4.4.3 update fixes things. I’ve noticed a big improvement on battery usage and power management but little else and it was 4.3 that broke it in the first place so no further forward there and I’m still plagued with dropped wifi connections, intermittent Sd card availability of (one minute it’s fine, the next it won’t work though it’s fine in other phones as is my wifi connection) and the much heralded camera shortcut will not work. I’ve done all updating by the book and factory reset with no result, except having to re-re-redownload all my apps using over 3Gb on my data plan and getting my connection “managed” If even though Virgin swear on boxes of Bibles that they don’t, yes they do. Anyhoo, let’s see if they finally sort it. I’m not holding my breath, the same as I won’t be holding a Samsung when it comes to my next contract. If I wanted to waste my money, get lied to and treated like an inconvenience, I would never have got divorced.

  60. T

    04/08/2014 at 10:30 am

    really peeved that some of my songs are now unrecognizeable and i can’t transfer files from my pc to phone.

    • Michael

      04/17/2014 at 12:15 pm

      I have a Note 3 that I updated and have no problem playing music from my SD and have no problems copying files from PC to SD card

  61. Luke

    04/11/2014 at 5:01 pm

    Maybe the new update was designed by Apple snake??? Maybe he was sent from Cupertino, and if Apple is planning to install Android in future, this is what it have. No external memories for Android KitKat 4.4.2 as on iOs. I left iPhone 4s, now dont know what to do. Just got info about new update to KitKat and refuse it. Dosn’t look good after reading this list of comments.
    All my friends are shattered after install KitKat 4.4.2

    • Michael

      04/17/2014 at 12:18 pm

      If you read this list carefully you will see a number of posts from users like me that have upgraded to KitKat and have no problems. Not sure why some are having issue but My Note 3 is working fine after the update no SD card issues at all

  62. Joseph

    04/12/2014 at 11:47 am

    Strange that people are complaining like it’s googles fault, claiming that they’re going to give up android forever. It’s a small Samsung bug, my Galaxy Tab Pro (Running 4.4.2) has full permissions over the SD card.

    • Dennis

      05/01/2014 at 11:14 pm

      trying using dropbox to sychronize documents to the SD card and then edit them with the Hancom Office that came with your tab pro. Try saving your photos to the ASD card, and then edit them with a third party photo editer. Try loading all your music files onto the SD card from your computer, and then use something other than the built-in music player to reorganize them into different directorys. Try uninstalling one of your applications that is storing data on the external SD card and then try to recover your data.

      As long as you use the Samsung apps deliverer with the Tab Pro, and don’t try to share data between apps, you should be fine.

      Googles original excuse was that applications were leaving bits and pieces on the SD card when they were uninstalled and some people were annoyed with that (probably just the Google programmer gods, the rest of us would just reformat the card and go with it), so their solution was: 1. Continue to allow applications to scatter bits and pieces all over the internal storage, where is not expandable and would be a real pain to clean up, 2. Continue to allow applications to load parts of themselves onto the removable card, where uninstallation would be difficult if someone removes the card (or reformats it in their computer), and 3. *NOT* allow data on the SD card to be shared. duh! What is more appropriate to have on the SD card if not data you want to share between tablet apps and/or you computer!

  63. Dino

    04/18/2014 at 8:22 am

    This is clearly a KitKat issue not a samsung,because i have the same problem in my LG tablet 8.3

    • trina

      04/22/2014 at 7:05 pm

      why why why!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  64. Dan

    05/02/2014 at 12:29 am

    Maybe they did this change because Android was using too much the SD card before? Maybe this is the reason S3 and S4 was killing SD cards to thousands of people?
    Why you guys don’t raise this problem? You don’t know how many forums about ” S3 kill sd card” ???? now I hear S4 does the same.

  65. julialloyds1995

    05/07/2014 at 10:09 pm

    The USP of this Samsung has a hexacore processor that includes a quad core Cortex A7 which is clocked at 1.3 GHz and a dual core 1.7 GHz Cortex A15, supported by a Mali T-624 graphics subsystem.In this features it allows the users to search contents on the device. You can think as a Search feature on the Windows PC. If in any case the video fails certain video format, then you can take help of the third party video player from the play store. It can encode 5.1 channels of video with default apps throw up the “audio codec not supported” messages.

    https://www.mytechgalaxy.com/samsung-galaxy-note-3-neo-review

  66. Joe S

    05/28/2014 at 2:50 pm

    Haven’t read all of the many comments above so someone may have figured this out. Apparently none of the Google/Android developers or staff, as well as anyone from Samsung uses an Android phone. If they did why would they purposely eliminate their ability to have their apps, which they installed long ago and I assume would have used frequently, access their existing data???? In addition they’ve prevented further use of additional storage needed since not enough is provided on board. Are they idiots or do they have their own secret workaround? If they have problems to solve, they should be able to do it without making a great deal of data unusable for a monumental number of users. Maybe it’s their way of saying “get out, we no longer need you.”

  67. S Hahn

    07/07/2014 at 12:22 pm

    Has anyone published an article teaching “How To” on the Galaxy Note 3? So users can get the most from it. What are free games to increase memory? Would appreciate the help. Thank u.

  68. Cedric

    07/30/2014 at 4:41 am

    I’m am pisses to hear this news. My phone is garbage as hell now. This was one of the reasons i got with Android. How could this to us. They need to apologize and fox this issue immediately.

    • Joe S

      07/30/2014 at 8:39 am

      Unfortunately, Giigle apparently dosn’t care about us existing users.

  69. Kalle Schurtz

    11/09/2014 at 9:18 pm

    These guys are fruitcakes. All you really want is to read your SD card, access your SD card again. I just went all over the NET and could not find a solution for this problem. Then, I just did this simple fix, and it worked for me on my Galaxy S4 Active: I inserted a new SD card, and it would not read it, mount it, etc. You know it. Then I read everywhere, that the standard Filesystem is NTFS, which did not work for me. I took another NTFS SD Card, and my G4 would not read it. So I copied the files off and reformatted the SD cards to (default) FAT32 (with the single file 4GB size restriction) So what? I’ll just put several 4 gig files on the card, no problem.
    After reformatting these SD Cards, the Galaxy4s would immediately read them, and gave me an option to reformat the 8Gig SD Card even, which I did. It came back with 7.4 Gigs, even more than the reformatting on the computer. This proves to me, that the Filesystem is FAT32 and not NTFS like some fruitcakes declared earlier. peace out.

  70. Sheogorath

    05/21/2015 at 12:32 pm

    New advert: Have a break, have a skeet shoot. It’s all Android KitKat is good for. ;)

  71. leo

    12/24/2015 at 7:16 pm

    Huge frustration that os upgrade to 4.4.3 on S4 mini rendered the sd card slot useless. Why Samsung the largest mobile phone maker in the world allowed use of this upgrade on their older phones is WITHOUT HUGE WARNING of loss of functionality is really beyond me.

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