[German]Owners of an Android device should be careful when copying or moving files via USB connection from Windows 10. There is a risk losing files on the Android device, because the files do not arrive in the target folder.
I recognized that behavior a while ago, wondering, why I’ve had trouble, from time to time moving or copying files from Windows 10 file manager on my Android devices. But I haven’t had the time to investigate. A user send German news magazine heise.de a tip about that behavior – and heise.de published the German article Android und Windows: MTP-Bug lässt Dateien verschwinden. Suddenly some things became clear to me.
What’s the matter?
If you connect an Android device to a Windows computer via USB cable, it can access the files of the device memory. This allows you to exchange photos, video or music etc. between Android device and PC. Of course, you can also access the memory of the Android device from Windows via Explorer and ‘clean up’ some files, i. e. copy or move them into folders.
This is made possible by various protocols such as MTP or PTP and by the setting the device to behaves like an removable medium. The Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) was introduced by Microsoft years ago to standardize the transfer of media files (images, music, movies, etc.) between Windows and mobile devices via USB connection.
Now it was detected, that files are lost on the Android device during file operations via USB cable and Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) using Windows 10.
- You cannot move files between folders in the Android memory, as this will cause data loss.
- If you want to copy files, they don’t arrive in the destination folder, it just doesn’t work.
This is independent of the Android memory (internal/external), but occurs only via Media Transfer Protocol under Windows 10. At reddit.com there is this thread where someone describes the problem with a Sony Xperia Z3 Compact under Windows 10.
Which devices and operating systems are affected?
At heise.de they tested several Android devices. Here are a list (not complete) of Android devices failing during MTP copy/move operations.
- Android 8: Nexus 6P
- Android 7: HTC U11, Nokia 6, OnePlus 3, 5, Xiaomi Mi 6, Mi Mix
- Lineage OS 7.1.1: Samsung Galaxy S5
- Sony Xperia Z3 Compact, Samsung Galaxy S2, S4 mini
- Sony Xperia Z, Xperia Z5, HTC 10, Huawei Mate 9, Lenovo Motorola Moto G3, OnePlus 3T, Moto G5
I run a short test unter Windows 7 SP1 with a Motorola Moto G5. The files could be copied or moved there without any problems. The test under Windows 10 version 1703 produced exactly the expected result – it doesn’t work. I couldn’t test whether earlier versions of Windows 10 or individual builds were affected.
At heise. de there is a reference to reader comments that Linux systems (opensuse, ubuntu) are also affected. heise. de suspects that the MTP protocol interacts with Android ASOP, since newer Samsung devices are probably not affected. There are some reader’s tips that you can copy/move files using alternative file managers. Overall, this is an unsatisfactory situation.
Similar articles:
Fix for Microsoft’s faulty ‘WPD – 2/22/2016’ MTP driver update
Media Feature Pack for Windows 10 N Version 1703