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iPad File corruption on copy to external storage

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sparksd

macrumors G3
Original poster
Jun 7, 2015
9,996
34,303
Seattle WA
sparksd said:
Did more tests today. I used a USB-C hub with my T-5 SSD and Western Digital HDD attached to it. I copied the same 105 files in my earlier test (a new, clean copy of them) from the HDD directly to the T5 using the Files app. Attaching the T5 to a Win10 laptop, none of the files appear corrupted but for every file an additional file with the same name but with "._" appended to the beginning of the file name was created. Each of these files showed up in Explorer as being 4KB in size. Again, both drives are exFAT.

Second test, again with two drives in a hub, using FileBrowser for Business, I copied all 105 files to the iPad from the HDD, into a folder in FileBrowser. From that folder, I used FileBrowser to copy those files to the T5 SSD. Copy was all good, with no "extra" files. Unfortunately, with FileBrowser you can access only one of the external storage devices attached to the hub at a time, necessitating the intermediate copy to the iPad.

Files sucks.
Click to expand...

Had some communication with the FileBrowser vendor. Support for multiple external storage devices is on their futtures list. As to the "extra" files with "._"appended to the filename, the vendor said this:

"The additional files that the Files App creates (prepended with “._”) hold “Extended Attributes” which are useless on anything other than a Mac. In fact, we don’t know that a Mac will use them either, as it would need to merge these info the Mac’s file system for each file. Another user reported that when using AirDrop from a Mac to his iPad/iPhone running FileBrowser that these files are sent along with the intended files. From our initial investigations these additional files can be deleted."

My thanks to the FileBrowser vendor (Stratospherix) - they were very responsive to my inquiries.
 
T

Taodon

macrumors newbie
Jun 25, 2020
23
28
Interesting! Could you maybe point the guy to this Thread, especially my problem? Maybe we can work something out :/
 
T

Taodon

macrumors newbie
Jun 25, 2020
23
28
I read in another thread that powering down the iPad, then connecting the drive and powering up again might fix the issue.
Will try that later today :-/
 
T

TheLastJon

macrumors newbie
Jul 29, 2020
1
0
I’m glad to hear that I didn’t do anything wrong. But sad that this is an actual issue.

I bought a GoPro8 and used my iPad Pro to edit videos using Lumafusion back in December. I had a 512GB iPad back then so my workflow was:
GoPro> Usb-c hub> iPad.
It worked flawlessly.
I haven’t edited anything until now.

I had to change my workflow since I have got a new 128Gb (returned today for a 256gb).

I was editing a travel video.
1st day - My workflow was Go Pro>SSD>iPad

while editing I found glitches and lumafusion was just laggy. I thought it was a software issue or a memory card issue. I formatted the memory card for the next day.

2nd day - my workflow was GoPro> USB C Hub> iPad Pro. I noticed no glitch on the videos which was odd.

Get this: I wasn’t suspecting the T5 to be the culprit until, I exported the 2nd day video. No glitch. When I transfered it to my SSD to view it on my Macbook... BOOM glitch everywhere!

so I tested to send the same file via airdrop and ZERO glitch. I was gonna email samsung but ran into this post.

TL;DR
Transferring files from SSD to iPad Pro causes glitch. When I transferred directly from GoPro memory card to iPad Pro, everything was perfect.
 
macdogpro

macdogpro

macrumors 6502a
Jul 22, 2020
656
494
Currently my video editing workflow is External HDD (Journaled)>USB-C Hub>Lumafusion.
Transferring video files from HDD to the iPad is a pain.

While Copying files from SD Card>USB-C Hub with card reader>iPad / External HDD can not be done due to Sony Camera SD Card file structure, I believe I read this somewhere.

Will give FileBrowser for Business a try.
 
Khoji

Khoji

macrumors newbie
Oct 7, 2005
5
2
It's not just the Files app. I've experienced much worse than anything described here on a 2020 iPad Pro 12.9 using Affinity Photo and a spinning ExFat drive. When transferring Affinity's own file format (a kind of package format) to the external drive from within Affinity well over 90% of all files are corrupted and either unreadable or full of clear digital damage. Sometimes 100%. No error messages, no indication that anything is wrong. If I hadn't checked them I would never have known about it until it was way too late. In addition to this I've just discovered that a number of TIFF files that were OK on the iPad are now corrupted on the external drive after being transferred with the Files app. There I would guess that it's something more than 5%. Files look OK initially and the thumbnail looks clean, but when you try to open them you can't and the thumbnail disappears.

The drive is a 2TB Seagate Momentus in an IcyBox enclosure. It works 100% error free on all other devices. However, other devices don't like something the iPad does to it: Connecting it to a Windows machine after it was connected to the iPad always gets a "Please scan and fix" message. The same happens to SD cards after just reading them on the iPad.

Something is very screwy here. I need to use ExFat because I have to use Windows machines for work, and this whole issue has made me stop trusting the iPad's file integrity, which is a major PITA.
 
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secretk

secretk

macrumors 65816
Oct 19, 2018
1,494
1,229
Khoji said:
The drive is a 2TB Seagate Momentus in an IcyBox enclosure. It works 100% error free on all other devices. However, other devices don't like something the iPad does to it: Connecting it to a Windows machine after it was connected to the iPad always gets a "Please scan and fix" message. The same happens to SD cards after just reading them on the iPad.
Click to expand...

I have not done exactly what you did as I do not use Affinity Photo that much. That being said I just wanted to confirm this part. Quite often after I have had transferred some files (photos, videos) from the iPad to SD card and then plug it in in my Windows laptop I would see the message to scan and fix the card. What is even worse is that sometimes I am unable to transfer additional files from the iPad to the card before first scanning and fixing it on the Windows laptop.
 
A

afrocentric_geek

macrumors newbie
Aug 17, 2020
8
4
sparksd said:
Can you provide specifics?
Click to expand...

I was too hasty in posting this - that was after attempting to play the video files on the iPad that had been copied to the external SSD, they were completely unwatchable, massive artifacts taking up the whole picture

I've tried again with the same set of files I was originally using to test after finally working out how to import them into FileBrowserGo and the results are much better:
  1. Playback on multiple Windows devices from the SSD appears to be corruption free.
  2. Playback using the Files app from the SSD is jerky in places but mostly watchable.
  3. Playback using the Files app after copying back to the iPad is fine.
  4. Playback using the FileBrowserGo from the SSD is jerky in places but mostly watchable.
  5. Playback using the FilesBrowserGo app after copying back to the iPad is fine.
However, I still got the "please Scan and Fix" warning message upon connecting it to the Windows devices.

It seems like even read access from exFAT devices is slightly broken....
 
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S

sparksd

macrumors G3
Original poster
Jun 7, 2015
9,996
34,303
Seattle WA
Khoji said:
...

Something is very screwy here. I need to use ExFat because I have to use Windows machines for work, and this whole issue has made me stop trusting the iPad's file integrity, which is a major PITA.
Click to expand...

This succinctly captures the issue.
 
Slartibart

Slartibart

macrumors 68040
Aug 19, 2020
3,145
2,819
Gentle person,

sadly this is a known bug for iPadOS 13 and, as it looks at the moment, iPadOS 14 (if you search for slow USB-C speed, file/media corruption you will get quite a lot hits on e.g. on reddit or Apple’s mailing lists)

For the moment none of the suggested solutions (different file system or cluster size on the external media) seems to work consistently. There is anecdotal evidence that in some circumstances it works - but in no reproducible way.

The only reliable way to copy a lot of files without corruption is via WLAN (or LAN, which is so much faster, but both require additional hardware like a RAVPower WLAN-hub or LAN-adapter).

Everyone can and should report it here -> https://www.apple.com/feedback/ipad.html

Or, if you participate on the beta or developer program, here -> https://feedbackassistant.apple.com/

There is a quite old Apple Mailinglist discussion on this (slow USB-C transfer times), seems like not enough people reported this to Apple. Maybe we all should write to Hair Force One a.k.a. Craig...
 
F

flex0

macrumors newbie
Aug 19, 2020
4
0
I created an account just to for this issue I have too.
Let me explain what happened to me.
I have the new iPad Pro 2020 (iPadOS 13.5.1) and I wanted to backup all my photos and videos from my iPad to an external hard drive. I had this Seagate 2TB HDD and after I was finished transferring all the photos and videos from my iPad to the HDD I realized, that a lot of files were missing on the HDD. Even worse, some of the transferred photos had grey bars or were 80% grey and you could only see a portion of the photo.
I thought it was my HDD maybe it is too slow for the iPad I thought. So I went and bought a brand new SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD (it was in exFAT). Took it out of the box, plugged it into the iPad and just transferred one single photo to the SSD and see there... the transferred photo on the SSD was 90% grey! You can only see the top of the actual photo. Look here:
671B2FDC-A010-4CBA-9FAD-0DD771E99092.jpeg

I tried again and then it worked. But this is not acceptable. I can't just check every single photo and video on the SSD to see if something went wrong while transferring it from the iPad.

Oh, and I also received the message "please scan and fix" after I plugged the brand new SSD out from the iPad to my Windows Laptop.

I literally bought the SSD for this photos and videos backup purpose only and Apple can't get something important like this right on the iPad PRO! And they promote it as a notebook replacement.

I would buy the FileBrowser for Business App when it works to transfer all my photos and videos from my iPad to the SSD. But what concerns me is, that someone here wrote, that he bought the free version of the App (FileBrowser GO) from the same developer and it was even worse with the corruption he said.

What would you guys suggest? I don't want to waste the 14€ if that App would also not work. I just need it for this one purpose only. If it works I'll buy it
 
S

sparksd

macrumors G3
Original poster
Jun 7, 2015
9,996
34,303
Seattle WA
flex0 said:
I created an account just to for this issue I have too.
Let me explain what happened to me.
I have the new iPad Pro 2020 (iPadOS 13.5.1) and I wanted to backup all my photos and videos from my iPad to an external hard drive. I had this Seagate 2TB HDD and after I was finished transferring all the photos and videos from my iPad to the HDD I realized, that a lot of files were missing on the HDD. Even worse, some of the transferred photos had grey bars or were 80% grey and you could only see a portion of the photo.
I thought it was my HDD maybe it is too slow for the iPad I thought. So I went and bought a brand new SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD (it was in exFAT). Took it out of the box, plugged it into the iPad and just transferred one single photo to the SSD and see there... the transferred photo on the SSD was 90% grey! You can only see the top of the actual photo. Look here:
View attachment 945509
I tried again and then it worked. But this is not acceptable. I can't just check every single photo and video on the SSD to see if something went wrong while transferring it from the iPad.

Oh, and I also received the message "please scan and fix" after I plugged the brand new SSD out from the iPad to my Windows Laptop.

I literally bought the SSD for this photos and videos backup purpose only and Apple can't get something important like this right on the iPad PRO! And they promote it as a notebook replacement.

I would buy the FileBrowser for Business App when it works to transfer all my photos and videos from my iPad to the SSD. But what concerns me is, that someone here wrote, that he bought the free version of the App (FileBrowser GO) from the same developer and it was even worse with the corruption he said.

What would you guys suggest? I don't want to waste the 14€ if that App would also not work. I just need it for this one purpose only. If it works I'll buy it
Click to expand...

I use FileBrowser for Business and it works for me - I usually use a Samsung T5 SSD. If it doesn't work for you, you could request a redund -

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204084
 
F

flex0

macrumors newbie
Aug 19, 2020
4
0
Ok thanks, I'll buy it and try it with that App. Will inform if there are any issues
 
F

flex0

macrumors newbie
Aug 19, 2020
4
0
It seems like it works so far. But my issue with FileBrowser is, that it doesn't safe live photos. You can transfer photos but without live it just transfers the actual photo.

For example I took a live photo, transferred it with FileBrowser GO to the SSD and from the SSD to my iPhone just to see if the live effect was there but unfortunately it was just the photo. Do I need to change something in the settings while transferier them or do they not work?
 
S

sparksd

macrumors G3
Original poster
Jun 7, 2015
9,996
34,303
Seattle WA
flex0 said:
It seems like it works so far. But my issue with FileBrowser is, that it doesn't safe live photos. You can transfer photos but without live it just transfers the actual photo.

For example I took a live photo, transferred it with FileBrowser GO to the SSD and from the SSD to my iPhone just to see if the live effect was there but unfortunately it was just the photo. Do I need to change something in the settings while transferier them or do they not work?
Click to expand...

I don't use live photos so can't say. Contact the developers - they are real responsive - support@stratospherix.com.

Edit: I read this on their support page (https://www.stratospherix.com/products/filebrowser/support/filebrowser-user-guide.php) under backing up the camera roll section -

Live Photos will be exported as a sequence of photos and a short movie file.
 
S

sparksd

macrumors G3
Original poster
Jun 7, 2015
9,996
34,303
Seattle WA
flex0 said:
It seems like it works so far. But my issue with FileBrowser is, that it doesn't safe live photos. You can transfer photos but without live it just transfers the actual photo.

For example I took a live photo, transferred it with FileBrowser GO to the SSD and from the SSD to my iPhone just to see if the live effect was there but unfortunately it was just the photo. Do I need to change something in the settings while transferier them or do they not work?
Click to expand...

What happens when you do this using Files? Does it maintain the "liveness"?
 
F

flex0

macrumors newbie
Aug 19, 2020
4
0
Nope. I transfered 5.741 photos and videos but the ssd only has 5.715 so it just skipped a couple. Now how do I find the missing 26 to manually retransfer them?

Live Photos will be exported as a sequence of photos and a short movie file.
Click to expand...

Does that mean that I am missing even more files? When the short movie file of the photo is exported separately?
 
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