Unable to save to internal or external storage

Cant download files, save screen shots, take pictures.

Have tried several 128 Gb sd cards. Have a 32 Gb in there now.

Cant find any thing in settings indicating issues.

Pretty much a brick until I can figure this out.

$1,000,000 reward for anyone that helps me get it fixed… ha ha, got ya. Seriously though, thank you for any help.

This is a new phone but I have had it for a year or so. Cant get T-Mobile at my house in the woods. I am setting it up to use it for every thing except actual phone calls until I can figure out how to get a T-Mobile signal at my house.

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My standard thought is that you’re having a bad reboot series, which can happen repeatedly if you’re unlucky. The following is not the normal process, but we’re looking for maximum chance of format and mounting success, so… since you don’t currently have a functional SD card loaded, as you’ve tried a few, try going through the following process:

  1. Turn on Airplane mode and make sure DND mode is off (and not scheduled).
  2. Reboot the phone.
  3. When the screen lock shows, immediately unlock the phone before the screen times out. This means you have 5-10 seconds max after the idle animation finishes.
  4. Swipe down into the main notification display - one swipe down to notifications, not two to expanded quick settings.
  5. Wait 15-60 seconds for the general startup things to complete and the phone to start moving on.
  6. Try to format the sdcard as internal storage.
  7. When it’s done, reboot the phone, and repeat 3-4.
  8. When you initially look at the notifications, it should say that the sdcard isn’t loaded yet. Wait until the message goes away. This should take something between 5-20 seconds.
  9. Check in Storage settings whether or not the sdcard is loaded and showing as functional storage.
  10. Try to save a screenshot.
  11. Turn off Airplane mode and see if you can use the phone normally.

Airplane mode is on throughout simply to reduce how many background processes will run while you’re troubleshooting something unrelated to the network. If you have 600+ apps installed like me, then it moves from nice to need, but if your sdcard isn’t working then it’s for convenience rather than basic functionality. :smiley: Anyways, on a failed storage reboot, even internal storage won’t work properly and generally goes into a mostly read-only state. Currently on 13.0.5, my phone will only end up in that state when there’s an automatic reboot due to kernel panic, but on 11/12/early-13 it would often end up failed if I left it at the lockscreen for too long after a reboot or with other seemingly random occurrences.
Anyways, hope this helps and you’re able to get back to a fully functional phone quickly.

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