iPad The Files app is still a disaster

[macduke]

I wrote this on the main news thread, but I’m so late it’s buried and I did enough extensive testing that I figured it was worth a post here.

The Files app is still a disaster for external drives. It has a LONG way to go to be ready in time for launch. I would not be surprised at all if external drive support isn’t punted to iOS 13.1 or iOS 13.2.

I tried moving 125 RAWs from my a7R III off a 64GB UHS-II Sony SD card onto my 2TB Samsung T5 SSD and it would copy a few and have a “input/output error.” I’m using the new iPad Pro USB-C hub from Hyper. What’s weird is Beta 2 seemed to work better than both Beta 3, 4 and 5. I need to be able to copy thousands of files at once for this to be useful for my workflow of being able to dump SD cards in the field.

I tried copying a folder of maybe 25 RAWs from the T5 to the SD card and also had problems and maybe 10-15 copied.

So I tried my portable 2TB G-Drive and it also had similar issues. When trying to copy a different folder of about 25 RAWs to the SD card, the iPad just went black in the middle of it and resprung. When it did that the HDD made a bad noise abruptly. When it came back up, the drive was fine and I can browse it no problem, but the iPad completely refuses to acknowledge my SD card now. Weird.

When I put the SD card back into my a7R III, it had to completely rebuild the image database like it usually does when I put a wiped card into it. Wow. I haven’t plugged it into my Mac yet to see what the hell happened, but absolutely don’t plug anything into the iPad that you don’t expect to lose. Fortunately for me these were just test shots that I snapped by holding my finger down on the shutter before trying this. I also have copies of both my drives in my studio, and they are also copies of each other.

After trying the card in the camera and taking a photo, I tried plugging it back into the iPad. It never recognized it again, even after I left it for a long time. I even plugged it into the Apple SD card adapter, which is different from the one in my hub and fully supports UHS-II at the fast transfer rate, and it didn’t show up with that either.

I then plugged in my 128GB UHS-I SD card from Sandisk that I usually use for video. It was immediately recognized, both in the Apple SD to USB-C adapter, and in the Hyper hub. So I tried to copy over 20 a7R III RAW files from my G-Drive to the SD card while in the Apple SD adapter. It had an “input/output error” on the 18th photo of the 20. I then tried to copy that folder back to the G-Drive and immediately got an “input/output error.” I then selected all 18 individually and dragged them over to the G-Drive, and got an “input/output error” on the 16th photo of the 18. I then tried to copy that folder of back to the SD card and immediately got the “input/output error” but it did copy over 3 of the RAWs. I deleted those and manually drug over the 16 photos again, and this time it had an “input/output” error on the 15th photo. So it seems like it just doesn’t want to do the whole batch, even when you copy a batch that worked last time and was even smaller than before.

Weirdly, I could quickly copy 35 RAWs in a test from my G-Drive to my iPad, but then copy those 35 RAWs from my iPad to my SD card and it had an “input/output error” on the 29th file. Hopefully they are able to fix this because it takes a lot of extra time to copy things to the iPad in the middle and then over, and then wipe the files off the iPad so you can do another batch, and even then morning everything goes to the SD card on the first try. Fortunately I have nearly a 64GB SD card worth of free space on my 256GB iPad Pro, but it seems like having a bigger iPad Pro will be useful if they can’t figure this out, and it’s still going to be really tedious, which I thought was what they were trying to get away from with iPadOS?

What a cluster, and we’re only around 45-50 days from iPadOS launching, and you still can’t even do basic things like copying files between drives. Wow. I’m getting nervous about this feature.

Also, after my initial posting this in the news thread, I did some further testing without the hub just transferring files between the iPad and my drives using USB-C and it still had problems, so I don’t think it’s the hub.

 

[Yun0]

So one person disliking an app means its a disaster? Ooo k then..

 

[AndreeOnline]

The Files app is still a disaster for external drives.

I’m using the new iPad Pro USB-C hub from Hyper.

I glad you mentioned Hyper, as that might be the explanation right there?

I wanted to buy their CFast/SD reader, but found out just before pressing 'buy' that it had lots of 1* reviews because it drops connection and many other issues. That together with your report here, rises a huge flag for me with this brand. Their products look attractive and they get a lot of marketing on popular Mac blogs.... but I feel they don't have everything figured out just yet.

 

[firewire9000]

I also had this damn input output error message. So exasperating.

 

[Pepe4life]

Send this in an email to Craig, he has been responding to many questions/complaints regarding iOS 13

 

[macduke]

So one person disliking an app means its a disaster? Ooo k then..

Did you even read the post? It has nothing to do with whether I “like” the app and everything to do with it being fundamentally broken on multiple levels, including wiping my SD card involuntarily, losing all 125 photos on the card. Seems like a disaster that it’s still this bad on beta 5.

I glad you mentioned Hyper, as that might be the explanation right there?

I wanted to buy their CFast/SD reader, but found out just before pressing 'buy' that it had lots of 1* reviews because it drops connection and many other issues. That together with your report here, rises a huge flag for me with this brand. Their products look attractive and they get a lot of marketing on popular Mac blogs.... but I feel they don't have everything figured out just yet.

Did you read all the way to the end? It does this without the hub too. Just moving files back and forth to the iPad over a single wired connection causes issues.

 

[d5aqoëp]

Did you even read the post? It has nothing to do with whether I “like” the app and everything to do with it being fundamentally broken on multiple levels, including wiping my SD card involuntarily, losing all 125 photos on the card. Seems like a disaster that it’s still this bad on beta 5.



Did you read all the way to the end? It does this without the hub too. Just moving files back and forth to the iPad over a single wired connection causes issues.

Please ignore Apple Apologists. Even I have the same issue. I have filed a bug report. But the good thing is that from next week, we will be on weekly beta update schedule. So fingers crossed. I would reserve my judgement till final build is released at iPhone XI launch.

 

[Shirasaki]

While I don’t use iPad to copy files like you do, I completely agree that advanced files app in its current form is a total disaster, if not completely unusable. Fortunately safari download manager seems working, so there is that.

Up until at least beta 8 (if we ever have one) or iOS 13.1, I really doubt people can use iPad to do any sort of serious files transfer from SD card to SSD or USB drive or simply just dump photos to their 1TB iPad Pro for adobe photoshop to process. Apple is clearly going to the right direction here. It just need, yeah, a bit more work. And credit to OP who tests this out extensively. Much appreciated.

 

[BoomerM3]

It's NOT ONE PERSON.

I am not able to write anything to my attached SSD (Samsung T5). I can see the drive and files and can read the files, but not write (input/output error). If I try to copy to a flash drive, I get the message "No space left on device." But there is space.

All these failures occur with direct connect to the USB-C port or thru a hub.

Peter

 

[jdechko]

What a cluster, and we’re only around 45-50 days from iPadOS launching, and you still can’t even do basic things like copying files between drives. Wow. I’m getting nervous about this feature.

Another way to look at it, is that it's not working right now, but fortunately Apple has 45-50 days to get this ready. It's a tent pole feature, so I'm going to give Apple the benefit of the beta and say that it'll be sorted out in time.

Glad you figured this out using test data instead of something important.

 

[macduke]

Another way to look at it, is that it's not working right now, but fortunately Apple has 45-50 days to get this ready. It's a tent pole feature, so I'm going to give Apple the benefit of the beta and say that it'll be sorted out in time.

Glad you figured this out using test data instead of something important.

Yeah, I've had some close brushes with the death of all of my data over the years so I'm very backup oriented now. For my Lightroom catalog I have the master on my T5 SSD and I have one backup on a G-Drive portable that I bring with me while traveling and also have those backed up on two large HDDs in my studio. For my most important photos, I keep a copy in Dropbox, and I also basically work out of my Dropbox folder for work and personal stuff, with a time machine backup of my system and an archive of older projects on two drives. I also buy professional Sandisk and Sony SD cards and have never had issues with them in the field. It costs more to do it this way but I never lose anything and backup drives are pretty freaking cheap nowadays. The last one I bought was 6TB and cost $120 a year ago. They are loud and annoying though and run forever for Time Machine backups.

I probably need to get a NAS and put it in the closet. I'm kicking myself for not wiring my studio for ethernet when I built it last summer. I figured I was past needing that but the main reason I want it is for having my router be in the center of my house but still having ethernet run to my iMac and Xbox. The tech servicing my internet today (replacing an old, slower filter on the line that was going out) mentioned the newer Powerline adapters are a lot faster now. I had mentioned mesh network and he said they have lots of problem with Ring devices so I should just get a commercial Ubiquity router so I might do that. I could probably still cut a hole and fish a wire through, though. But at least after he fixed my internet it was 150Mbps faster. Aaaaand now I've wandered way off topic.

 

[Natesac]

Getting a lot of the same errors here. I am using a Sandisk Extreme 900 portable SSD formatted in exFat and it's not really usable at this point. In Beta 2 the drive wouldn't even connect, so I guess there has been progress. Now in beta 5 the drive will connect every time, I can see my files and copy files from the drive pretty consistently, but trying to write files to the drive is still badly broken. Really hope apple can nail this for 13.0. External drive support is my #1 iPadOS feature I am looking forward to.

I have submitted feedback, hopefully we squeaky wheels get the grease

 

[hojoon0724]

OK. Glad to see I'm not the only one here having the same problem

 

[markosb]

I wrote this on the main news thread, but I’m so late it’s buried and I did enough extensive testing that I figured it was worth a post here.

The Files app is still a disaster for external drives. It has a LONG way to go to be ready in time for launch. I would not be surprised at all if external drive support isn’t punted to iOS 13.1 or iOS 13.2.

I tried moving 125 RAWs from my a7R III off a 64GB UHS-II Sony SD card onto my 2TB Samsung T5 SSD and it would copy a few and have a “input/output error.” I’m using the new iPad Pro USB-C hub from Hyper. What’s weird is Beta 2 seemed to work better than both Beta 3, 4 and 5. I need to be able to copy thousands of files at once for this to be useful for my workflow of being able to dump SD cards in the field.

I tried copying a folder of maybe 25 RAWs from the T5 to the SD card and also had problems and maybe 10-15 copied.

So I tried my portable 2TB G-Drive and it also had similar issues. When trying to copy a different folder of about 25 RAWs to the SD card, the iPad just went black in the middle of it and resprung. When it did that the HDD made a bad noise abruptly. When it came back up, the drive was fine and I can browse it no problem, but the iPad completely refuses to acknowledge my SD card now. Weird.

When I put the SD card back into my a7R III, it had to completely rebuild the image database like it usually does when I put a wiped card into it. Wow. I haven’t plugged it into my Mac yet to see what the hell happened, but absolutely don’t plug anything into the iPad that you don’t expect to lose. Fortunately for me these were just test shots that I snapped by holding my finger down on the shutter before trying this. I also have copies of both my drives in my studio, and they are also copies of each other.

After trying the card in the camera and taking a photo, I tried plugging it back into the iPad. It never recognized it again, even after I left it for a long time. I even plugged it into the Apple SD card adapter, which is different from the one in my hub and fully supports UHS-II at the fast transfer rate, and it didn’t show up with that either.

I then plugged in my 128GB UHS-I SD card from Sandisk that I usually use for video. It was immediately recognized, both in the Apple SD to USB-C adapter, and in the Hyper hub. So I tried to copy over 20 a7R III RAW files from my G-Drive to the SD card while in the Apple SD adapter. It had an “input/output error” on the 18th photo of the 20. I then tried to copy that folder back to the G-Drive and immediately got an “input/output error.” I then selected all 18 individually and dragged them over to the G-Drive, and got an “input/output error” on the 16th photo of the 18. I then tried to copy that folder of back to the SD card and immediately got the “input/output error” but it did copy over 3 of the RAWs. I deleted those and manually drug over the 16 photos again, and this time it had an “input/output” error on the 15th photo. So it seems like it just doesn’t want to do the whole batch, even when you copy a batch that worked last time and was even smaller than before.

Weirdly, I could quickly copy 35 RAWs in a test from my G-Drive to my iPad, but then copy those 35 RAWs from my iPad to my SD card and it had an “input/output error” on the 29th file. Hopefully they are able to fix this because it takes a lot of extra time to copy things to the iPad in the middle and then over, and then wipe the files off the iPad so you can do another batch, and even then morning everything goes to the SD card on the first try. Fortunately I have nearly a 64GB SD card worth of free space on my 256GB iPad Pro, but it seems like having a bigger iPad Pro will be useful if they can’t figure this out, and it’s still going to be really tedious, which I thought was what they were trying to get away from with iPadOS?

What a cluster, and we’re only around 45-50 days from iPadOS launching, and you still can’t even do basic things like copying files between drives. Wow. I’m getting nervous about this feature.

Also, after my initial posting this in the news thread, I did some further testing without the hub just transferring files between the iPad and my drives using USB-C and it still had problems, so I don’t think it’s the hub.

it’s still far more usable than the previous File app. Although I don’t plan on transferring files as much, I still like it for viewing files and even some basic editing while in the field. I did suggest making viewing smoother, and it’s gotten better.

Also, it works better with Mac Formatted drives and not just ExFat drives. I suggested to allow for encrypted and password protected drives, hopefully they can do that. It’s a huge step in the right direction and has made my iPad more usable. Send feedback often so they can fix things, it can only make it better.

 

[mdelrossi]

I probably need to get a NAS and put it in the closet. I'm kicking myself for not wiring my studio for ethernet when I built it last summer. I figured I was past needing that but the main reason I want it is for having my router be in the center of my house but still having ethernet run to my iMac and Xbox. The tech servicing my internet today (replacing an old, slower filter on the line that was going out) mentioned the newer Powerline adapters are a lot faster now. I had mentioned mesh network and he said they have lots of problem with Ring devices so I should just get a commercial Ubiquity router so I might do that. I could probably still cut a hole and fish a wire through, though. But at least after he fixed my internet it was 150Mbps faster. Aaaaand now I've wandered way off topic.

I picked up a QNAP 672xt With 4 iron wolfs raid 5. I connect via thunderbolt nice and quiet on my desk.

yea I know off topic.

Back on topic:

but, I’m not having any problems with the files app. Shot some photos at a wedding this weekend. Processed in Lightroom cc on the iPad and posted them to Dropbox via drag and drop with 2 instances of the files app open. Dev 4, Nice!

 

[Natesac]

I wiped and reformatted my portable SSD with MacOS Extended (Journaled) and ran my test files again. They seem to be able to copy back and forth, even the larger files. So in my case the problems seem to be when formatted in ExFat. Really hope Apple can get ExFat squared away. I prefer the interoperability with other operating systems.


Edit: After further testing. Even formatted in MacOS Extended I have had some file corruption. Looks like it just works a little better than drives formatted in ExFat. Fingers crossed we see some improvements soon.

 

[nihil0]

While I haven't tried using external storage, I have problems to get SMB connection to my iMac working via Files app. It always hangs up, freezes, or spits out some error. It doesn't matter whether I use guest or password access, it never works and doesn't copy even 1 file.

 

[rsxmachine]

I agree the files app has major problems and I am surprised they are not fixed by now. The fact it is so difficult to copy files in 2019 is ridiculous.

 

[markosb]

I picked up a QNAP 672xt With 4 iron wolfs raid 5. I connect via thunderbolt nice and quiet on my desk.

yea I know off topic.

Back on topic:

but, I’m not having any problems with the files app. Shot some photos at a wedding this weekend. Processed in Lightroom cc on the iPad and posted them to Dropbox via drag and drop with 2 instances of the files app open. Dev 4, Nice!

I can’t wait for apps to support the changes to Files. Copying needs to be a bit faster though, other than that it works well for my needs.

 

[BoomerM3]

I can’t wait for apps to support the changes to Files. Copying needs to be a bit faster though, other than that it works well for my needs.

I don't think speed is an issue. I just moved 150 JPGs (about 1.8Mb per) from an SD card to my iPad Pro (2018). I can work with that.

What I can't work with is the inability to write to external devices. I need to backup to an SSD and that doesn't work. I can't understand why Apple offered that and now it seems to be a very low priority in the Beta.

 

[markosb]

I don't think speed is an issue. I just moved 150 JPGs (about 1.8Mb per) from an SD card to my iPad Pro (2018). I can work with that.

What I can't work with is the inability to write to external devices. I need to backup to an SSD and that doesn't work. I can't understand why Apple offered that and now it seems to be a very low priority in the Beta.

JPEG’s do copy faster, but RAW files do not, it has improved a little since the first beta.

 

[alien3dx]

ipad mini 2019
pendrive - can see
external non ssd - cannot need more power
external ssd - cannot see .

 

[macduke]

Looking forward to testing Beta 6 this evening.

I wiped and reformatted my portable SSD with MacOS Extended (Journaled) and ran my test files again. They seem to be able to copy back and forth, even the larger files. So in my case the problems seem to be when formatted in ExFat. Really hope Apple can get ExFat squared away. I prefer the interoperability with other operating systems.


Edit: After further testing. Even formatted in MacOS Extended I have had some file corruption. Looks like it just works a little better than drives formatted in ExFat. Fingers crossed we see some improvements soon.

Interesting. All my stuff is exfat, even though I have a Mac at home and work, it's just an old habit from when I switched back in 2008 and still had to interface with PCs quite a bit and more things were shared with friends and family on drives. Honestly I should probably move everything over, but I kinda just wanted to go full APFS.

I picked up a QNAP 672xt With 4 iron wolfs raid 5. I connect via thunderbolt nice and quiet on my desk.

yea I know off topic.

Back on topic:

but, I’m not having any problems with the files app. Shot some photos at a wedding this weekend. Processed in Lightroom cc on the iPad and posted them to Dropbox via drag and drop with 2 instances of the files app open. Dev 4, Nice!

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll keep it in mind when I do my research, but I've been too busy lately and lots of high bills from things breaking with the house and cars and vacation so it's difficult to be motivated to spend a lot on a new storage system, lol.

So what format are your drives that seem to be working fine? It appears there is a correlation here.

 

[firewire9000]

Ok same problem with beta 6. Also have the same problem that can’t swap keyboards using SwiftKey.

 

[mdelrossi]

So what format are your drives that seem to be working fine? It appears there is a correlation here.

hfs+, fat32, as of beta5 fuji in camera formatted.