Unable to grant permissions to access external OTG card reader

Support for Android version of Total Commander

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NevP
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Unable to grant permissions to access external OTG card reader

Post by *NevP »

I am using Total Commandert (TC) v3.30 on a Xiaomi Mi9 phone to access an OTG USB card reader which is capable of reading either SD or CF cards.

This appears to be an issue that has appeared sometime in the past 12 months. I have been a user of TC for several years but only very periodically).

When I connect the card reader to my phone with either a SD or CF card already inserted it is recognised by my phone and dispalys in Total Commander below "Internal shared storage" as "Kingston USB drive...".

When I then tap on the Kingston USB drive I get the dialog that states "On Android >=5, the external SD card is write protected..." and asks me to select the directory to give rights. I then select "Yes", navigate to the Kingston USB drive and click "Use this folder" and then "Allow". So far this is all as expected.

However I then get the following Error dialog. "It seems you have chosen the wrong folder! content://com.android.externalstorage.documents/tree/3A53-14F4%3QA" and I am not able to access any contents of the external card. The final part of the folder name changes slightly depending on the identifier of the actual card inserted.

In the past I have gone through this process with other cards and it has worked as expected. If I insert one of these cards that were previously granted permissions they continue to be accessible. However, it appears that it is no longer possible to grant access to any new cards.

I am able to access the cards that cause this error on TC by using the native Mi9 file manager. I have also tried alternative file manager called X-plore which goes through the same folder authorisation process but in this case I am granted access and can read and write to the external card without any issues.
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ghisler(Author)
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Re: Unable to grant permissions to access external OTG card reader

Post by *ghisler(Author) »

Can you try adding the card reader manually via "Add custom location"? It should add it as a virtual folder the way the Android files app accesses it.
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NevP
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Re: Unable to grant permissions to access external OTG card reader

Post by *NevP »

I assume you mean "+ User-defined location" which appears below "Internal shared storage" and "Kingston USB Drive".

If I select this and go through the process of selecting and allowing permissions to the USB drive this does complete without any errors. However, no additional drive appears on the home screen. The Kingston USB Drive entry that was already there automatically when I connected the card reader does not change appearance. If I tap on it it still come up with the same authorisation messages that fail.

There is one difference. If I long tap the Kingston drive there is a new option showing "Remove". Selecting Remove does not show any visibale changes but now the long tap has the option "Hide" instead of "Remove".

It appears that the "User-defined location" option may be successfully adding the USB drive but because it has the same name/identifier as the automatically appearing entry they are clashing and when I tap on the entry it is trying to still select the autoimatically added item and not the User-defined entry I added.
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Re: Unable to grant permissions to access external OTG card reader

Post by *ghisler(Author) »

"Remove" is shown for paths added via "User-defined location".
"Hide" is shown for paths to drives reported by the system.

If a manually added location doesn't work either, then there is no chance to access this drive with Total Commander.
Your only chance would be to use a file manager included with your device.
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