Android keeps creating unwanted folders

I hope someone may be able to help me with this.

I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 GT-N8020 running Android 4.1.2 with an external 64GB SD card. I store all my books on the ext SD card under a root folder called "Art and Literature" and access them with an app called Moon Reader Pro. Within the root folder, all the books are stored in subject folders and within those, folders with author names.

Every time I start Android and before running Moon Reader, I find that four duplicate but empty folders have been created at the root level. I keep deleting them but they always get re-created at boot up. The four folders are named for authors but are empty whereas the the four original folders (with the actual books in them, lower down the folder tree) are unaffected.

The app developer can think of no reason why this is happening as it occurs on boot when his app isn't even running so I'm looking elsewhere for the problem I thought it might have something to do with the many other book reader apps I installed to try out but subsequently deleted. I've made sure to erase any left over folders I can find that were created by these apps. One thing I thought of was trying to lock the SD card to see if this would provoke an error message of some sort but I don't know how to do that. Removing the card and re-inserting it after boot up sees the same four folders re-appear once it has been remounted by the filing system.

Sorry for a bit of a long winded story but I hope someone can help me track this down.

Trevor

CAcreeks wrote:

sacentre wrote:

I hope someone may be able to help me with this.

I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 GT-N8020 running Android 4.1.2 with an external 64GB SD card. I store all my books on the ext SD card under a root folder called "Art and Literature" and access them with an app called Moon Reader Pro. Within the root folder, all the books are stored in subject folders and within those, folders with author names.

Every time I start Android and before running Moon Reader, I find that four duplicate but empty folders have been created at the root level. I keep deleting them but they always get re-created at boot up. The four folders are named for authors but are empty whereas the the four original folders (with the actual books in them, lower down the folder tree) are unaffected.

The app developer can think of no reason why this is happening as it occurs on boot when his app isn't even running so I'm looking elsewhere for the problem I thought it might have something to do with the many other book reader apps I installed to try out but subsequently deleted. I've made sure to erase any left over folders I can find that were created by these apps. One thing I thought of was trying to lock the SD card to see if this would provoke an error message of some sort but I don't know how to do that. Removing the card and re-inserting it after boot up sees the same four folders re-appear once it has been remounted by the filing system.

My wife complained of unnecessary folders being created after upgrading to Marshmallow, but you are two back with Jelly Bean.

Maybe Android OS is creating those folders so it can remember what Moon Reader has if your SD card were to be removed.

There is no way to lock a micro SD card.

Thanks for the reply. This still happens even if I uninstall Moon Reader so I have no idea which part of the OS can be doing this. All my folders containing actual books are unaffected. For example, my folder tree on the extSdcard looks like this:-

My Documents > Art and Literature >

General Fiction

Finance

Non-Fiction

Poetry

Science Fiction - Fantasy

Under General Fiction, I have folders with author names including Anthony Trollope, Edith Wharton, Jack London, Sinclair Lewis and dozens more.

Just four empty folders with these four author's names are created under the top level folder Art and Literature every time the tablet is booted or the SD card unmounted/mounted.

When I tried a spare empty, formatted SD card and booted the tablet, it created folders My Documents > Art and Literature>

Anthony Trollope

Edith Wharton

Jack London

Sinclair Lewis

it's really weird. I've been using the GT-N8020 since its release and never seen a problem like this. I've posted this on several dedicated Android forums but so far with no usable suggestions as to how to stop it. It may be something I have to live with until I either do a factory reset or replace the tablet.

Thanks for reading.

Trevor

I'm under the assumption and based on your description, that this error/doubling of your folders could the fault of the newly installed app. Assuming you never had this issues before the app was installed..

T0ASTERvan wrote:

I'm under the assumption and based on your description, that this error/doubling of your folders could the fault of the newly installed app. Assuming you never had this issues before the app was installed..

Thanks TOASTERvan

Yes, normally, if a problem appears shortly after some change or newly installed app, it's natural to suspect the problem was initiated because of it.

I've been using the paid Moon Reader Pro app for years but only recently allowed it to update to the latest version. I can't recall if the behaviour was there before I did this.  When I first noticed the behaviour, I deleted Moon Reader including any config or cache folders I could find but the behaviour remained.  I talked to the app developer but he said he could think of nothing in his app that could be causing it.

I then deleted Mood Reader again and ran SD Maid in the hope of finding some "Corpses" (legacy folders left behind from deleted apps) but this made no difference.

Next, I tried several alternative book readers from Google Play in the hope of overwriting whatever might be causing it but this didn't fix the problem. These apps were then deleted before re-installing Moon Reader Pro again.

Bottom line is if I uninstall Moon Reader, delete my entire book folder tree, reformat the SD, those same four folders get created.

It's possible in all that one of those apps left behind a settings file but I can't find it. I've explored both the internal and external cards using Root Explorer in the hope of spotting some likely looking file or folder containing cache or config data but it's got me beat.

Thanks again.

Trevor

I know this is of little interest to anyone now but I thought I'd mention that I managed to get rid of the problem. I can't really say I "fixed" it because all I did was a factory reset and a re-install of all the apps. I tried deleting Moon Reader Pro and any associated app folders that I could see but the unwanted book folders just kept coming back.

It's annoying not being able to say I learned what the exact cause was or exactly how to fix it properly (as opposed to merely getting rid of the problem) but that's usually the way with computer faults: you rarely get to dig deep enough to isolate the exact cause. There's just too many variables.

My thanks to those who offered help and advice.

Trevor

Glad you stumbled onto the fix. Another thing and just to verify if this is a common issue (which I've not encountered) is to log AndroidCentral and submit your question there.. You would attract a wider range of Android users/members. I'm there also, so don't limit yourself to just one forum.

T0ASTERvan wrote:

Glad you stumbled onto the fix. Another thing and just to verify if this is a common issue (which I've not encountered) is to log AndroidCentral and submit your question there.. You would attract a wider range of Android users/members. I'm there also, so don't limit yourself to just one forum.

Thanks, TOASTERvan

I posted on several dedicated Android forums including - XDA Developers - before trying DPR but without any actionable intel.

At least I can now move on to the next totally unexpected, unprovoked and totally PIA problem I have with one of my PCs - subject of an unduly long thread in PCTalk!

Trevor