mtp: Why does copy&paste fail from and to a smarthphone's external sd-card (sdcard1)

duplex · 09-05-2015, 12:45 PM

Or: What is the best way to copy my 16,5 GB mp3 collection to and from my PC/Laptop to my Xperia Z1 compact Android 5.0 smartphone, resp.?

I am using Xubuntu 14.04 with Thunar 1.6.3. I cannot copy and paste folders and files from or to the SD-card of my Sony Xperia Z1 compact smartphone without some files or folders being "forgotten".

(Everything in the following is translated back from DE->EN.)

Say, I want to copy my Music folder from my laptop's desktop by copying and pasting it to my smartphone's sdcard1. I mean the target being mtp://[usb:002,004]/SD-Karte/. I mean the external card, not the built-in.

I get the following:

Code:

Files are being copied to SD-Karte
libmpt-error - could not send object
Can't be seen.mp3
3.5 MB of 16.3 GB copied - 1 hour remaining.
Do you want to skip? [Yes](Copying continues)
After having copied 12 GB the same error with a whole Folder "DiWoDaSo"
After having copied 12.9 GB the same error with a whole Folder "Ludwig Van Beethoven"
After having copied 12.9 GB the same error with the song "Where do you go to my lovely"
After having copied 14.1 GB the same error with a whole Folder ""Never mind the bolloks"

Now the other way round. Trying to do a complete backup of my sdcard1: I mean copying everything in mtp://[usb:002,004]/SD-Karte and pasting it into /home/ziegler/Schreibtisch/BackupSD

Code:

Collecting files
No valid file
Skip this one [Yes]

The copying process just stops instantaneously. Nothing is copied at all.

Let us try it the good old shell way:

Code:

ziegler[1]:~$ LANG="C" cp -a /run/user/1000/gvfs/mtp\:host\=%5Busb%3A002%2C004%5D/SD-Karte/* ~/Schreibtisch/BackupSD/
cp: error reading '/run/user/1000/gvfs/mtp:host=%5Busb%3A002%2C004%5D/SD-Karte/Android/data/cc.dict.dictcc/files/cc.dict.dictcc/dictcc-lp1.db': Input/output error
cp: failed to extend '/home/ziegler/Schreibtisch/BackupSD/Android/data/cc.dict.dictcc/files/cc.dict.dictcc/dictcc-lp1.db': Input/output error
cp: error reading '/run/user/1000/gvfs/mtp:host=%5Busb%3A002%2C004%5D/SD-Karte/Android/data/cc.dict.dictcc/files/cc.dict.dictcc/dictcc-lp4.db': Input/output error
cp: failed to extend '/home/ziegler/Schreibtisch/BackupSD/Android/data/cc.dict.dictcc/files/cc.dict.dictcc/dictcc-lp4.db': Input/output error
cp: error reading '/run/user/1000/gvfs/mtp:host=%5Busb%3A002%2C004%5D/SD-Karte/Android/data/cc.dict.dictcc/files/cc.dict.dictcc/dictcc-lp2.db': Input/output error
cp: failed to extend '/home/ziegler/Schreibtisch/BackupSD/Android/data/cc.dict.dictcc/files/cc.dict.dictcc/dictcc-lp2.db': Input/output error
cp: error reading '/run/user/1000/gvfs/mtp:host=%5Busb%3A002%2C004%5D/SD-Karte/Android/data/cc.dict.dictcc/files/cc.dict.dictcc/dictcc-lp6.db': Input/output error
cp: failed to extend '/home/ziegler/Schreibtisch/BackupSD/Android/data/cc.dict.dictcc/files/cc.dict.dictcc/dictcc-lp6.db': Input/output error
cp: error reading '/run/user/1000/gvfs/mtp:host=%5Busb%3A002%2C004%5D/SD-Karte/Android/data/cc.dict.dictcc/files/cc.dict.dictcc/dictcc-lp58.db': Input/output error
cp: failed to extend '/home/ziegler/Schreibtisch/BackupSD/Android/data/cc.dict.dictcc/files/cc.dict.dictcc/dictcc-lp58.db': Input/output error
cp: error reading '/run/user/1000/gvfs/mtp:host=%5Busb%3A002%2C004%5D/SD-Karte/Android/data/cc.dict.dictcc/files/cc.dict.dictcc/dictcc-lp8.db': Input/output error
cp: failed to extend '/home/ziegler/Schreibtisch/BackupSD/Android/data/cc.dict.dictcc/files/cc.dict.dictcc/dictcc-lp8.db': Input/output error
cp: error reading '/run/user/1000/gvfs/mtp:host=%5Busb%3A002%2C004%5D/SD-Karte/Android/data/cc.dict.dictcc/files/cc.dict.dictcc/dictcc-lp56.db': Input/output error
cp: failed to extend '/home/ziegler/Schreibtisch/BackupSD/Android/data/cc.dict.dictcc/files/cc.dict.dictcc/dictcc-lp56.db': Input/output error
[and so on...]
^C

What is wrong here? How CAN I copy my files? Are there other, easy ways to transfer a music collection from a laptop or PC to an Android smartphone?

Thank you in advance. Greetings from Germany!

rokytnji · 09-05-2015, 01:26 PM

Just making sure you followed these steps 1st

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2226702

before reading this

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...p/+bug/1370572

duplex · 09-11-2015, 06:36 AM

Thank you. I followed the steps you mentioned. The problem was 99 percent my fault (maybe).

I followed the steps that are mentioned in the link you sent me, and apt-get installed 3 packages that were not yet on the system. Unfortunately, I did not record these packages. (Maybe these packages are the reason for copy&paste now working, but read on.)

Then I started to copy my mp3 collection by copy&paste from my main PC to my smartphone.

I finally found out that all of the original errors were my fault: On my main PC with the mp3 collection, I have under ext4 two folders "DiWoDaSo" and "Diwodaso" (must be some kind of mp3-tagging inconsistency and using eaysyTag to rearrange songs into folders). The SD-card is formatted as FAT32, so it could not distinguish between these two folders. Likewise, I had "Van Beethoven" and "van Beethoven". Then there where some mp3 songs whose title contained special characters that ext4 can use in a file name, but FAT32 cannot.

And finally, I also had a folder "ABC" *twice* in a parent folder. I did not knew that this is possible at all in ext4!? The solution of course was to move everything from the second "ABC" to the first one and then to remove the second one.

Nevertheless, while copying more than 2500 files, I got two errors of the above kind ("could not send object" and I clicked "Yes" when asked whether I want to skip) for copying mp3 files which in the end where copied in spite of the warning and in spite of my "skipping".

Copying everything back to the PC also works.

BUT: The shell cp command for copying the files back as given above for still shows the above error messages. It copies the whole folder tree, with all files in it with correct name, but they all are empty!?

So the problem is not yet 100 percent solved.