The vexatious writing problem to external storage again - variant: "Android_11_TV_OS"

[georgeb]

I've installed a new Android Media-Player (Zidoo Z9X_Pro) into my home-theater-system three months ago - but I'm still fighting to directly access external storage (Corsair USB-SS-device, 2TB) from TC-A.

I've trawled through the internet and studied forum-entries - albeit with no success.

TC, when trying to access external storage, will show the usual warning to select the external storage via a special dialog and grant access from there via 'select'.

Problem is, no such dialog will appear. The Media-Player runs Android_11, yet - as I know now - this is some crippled/leaned-down offspring version called "Android TV OS" which doesn't have that notorious "FILES"-system-apk installed at all.

TC_A tells me to request a proper "com.android.documentsUI" from the vendor - which I did but unfortunately haven't heard back from support.

So I tried generic versions of FILES found on the net - still no success. Those apk's either didn't install at all or - if they did - couldn't be opened from the system-settings-apps-and-permissions-menu. Last week however I've found a new variant of this google-FILES-apk which finally WOULD install AND COULD ALSO BE OPENED!

And yet I'm back to the start again because from within this FILES-app I can access the internal storage - but it doesn't show the external storage attached. Instead it shows some pseudo-external-storage with some strange name, which, when selected, replies that this device cannot be accessed/found.

A few posts on the net do mention that FILES is incompatible with this special Android_11-variant "TV OS" - but won't give any specifics as to why or if any other workarounds for "TV OS" might exist.

So please excuse this kind-of-off-topic thread here but I do wonder if anyone in this "trove-of-abundant-wisdom"-forum might have had similar experiences with "Android-TV-OS" or would know of any other workaround, like a "TV-OS"-specific FILES.apk. Any help would be greatly appreciated about how to invoke that special selection-process-dialog (without a working FILES-apk present) as needed by TC and other applications in order to facilitate external-storage-access also on "Android-TV-OS".

[ghisler(Author)]

it doesn't show the external storage attached

What external drive do you try to access? If it's a harddisk, it's probably formatted with the NTFS file system, which most Android devices can't access. Try with a FAT32-Formatted USB flash drive. If that works, you could use a tool like fat32format (and guiformat.exe) to format the harddisk with FAT32 too. WARNING: Formatting a disk will remove all the data! Only do this when you have the data somewhere else too and can copy it back!

[georgeb]

What external drive do you try to access? If it's a harddisk, it's probably formatted with the NTFS file system, which most Android devices can't access.

it is a "Corsair EX100U 2TB "-Solid-State-USB-drive. And it currently is formatted as exFAT as FAT32 wouldn't be an option for 2TB. But strange to hear that you would prefer FAT32 as "Zidoo"-support (vendor) wrote me that NTFS would be best, although exFAT and FAT32 are also supported.

And perhaps my initial post hasn't been clear and unambiguous enough. I CAN use and read the external drive and via the internal "Media Center" I can also write/copy/delete data there. Only thing is this "Media Center" is kind of a joke performance-wise. It cannot even time-sort the data, only by alphabet, and it lacks 2 file-panels so copying data from A to B is not possible since "copy/paste" doesn't work for large files on Android either, only via mouse for text-snippets. So currently my only way of transferring large media-files is from outside, e.g. from a PC via LAN-plugin as one CAN access the whole external storage via WiFi-network by simply entering the device's IP-Address/share, even via a browser, amazingly enough.

So from an outside TC access is possible, only the internal TC_A - and also other programs like browsers - have no write-access to the external storage, so for example one can stream content from mediathek-sites or streaming-platforms like "joyn" - but download will then fail b/c of missing write-access. Likewise one can play resident video-files via TC_A and an associated Media-Player (e.g. VLC for Android) - but cannot delete them after viewing. For the purpose of deletion one would currently have to switch to internal "Media Center" again and trawl through the whole file-list there (if the file-name will hopefully begin with an "a" and not with a "z" ).

So - again - physically that exFAT-drive can be accessed without problems - it is only a matter of denied access via internal apps on Android11_TV_OS.

[ghisler(Author)]

Does this media center display a path for the USB drive, e.g. something like /storage/1234-5678?

[georgeb]

Does this media center display a path for the USB drive, e.g. something like /storage/1234-5678?

No, it does not, at least not directly. It will only show the volume-label-name being "CORSAIR". However it will offer a second access-point to that very same device via "Samba-Server/Share" and in there it will offer its designator as "4565-19D1".

This is the exact same designator that is also displayed in TC_A-main-menu given as
CORSAIR "/storage/4565-19D1"
below "Internal Shared Storage". Also that same designator can be seen in other apps throughout when browsing for a user-specified, preferred storage-location (which those same apps then cannot access for writing later on)

The only exception to that would be that last (suspicious, possibly TV-OS incompatible) armv7-Google-FILES-app which would finally INSTALL AND OPEN (out oft a dozen or so generic Google-FILES-apps downloaded from the Internet and tried out before) will merely show:
Storage Devices
1. Internal Storage
2. EX100U. "Tap to give Files access" and then on tapping as requested only show "Access denied"
(which doesn't come as much of a surprise as "EX100U" is totally unknown to me).

[ghisler(Author)]

via "Samba-Server/Share"

You could try accessing it with the LAN plugin, which is used to access Samba shares. The server would be localhost or 127.0.0.1.

[georgeb]

Yes, that is my current modus-operandi - at least for playback via VLC-player and sometimes (not always, amazingly enough) this would even allow me to directly delete already watched episodes from there afterwards.

But still this is no final solution for 3rd-party-apps not having access to e.g. an arbitrary chosen download-location on the external storage. On the other hand 3rd-party-software will have storage-access (if any) only to their own (compartmentalized) storage-subfolder below their own installation-folders on internal storage which however is quite limited in size and the files concerned are then scattered all over the place.

So it would be great if I could at least MOVE them from there to a centralized, common download- and/or media-folder on the ample external storage medium. Which again brings me back to my continued efforts to gain general writing-access to the external drive.

So the question arises: Has anyone in this forum ever heard of a dedicated, working FILES.APK for Android-TV-OS in particular or does anyone OPERATE Android-TV-OS on any other device of his own at all and has perhaps found a comparable solution for writing-access over there?

[georgeb]

Bummer! I've had kind of an "Eureka!"-moment yesterday which I'd like to share with the forum members here. It is not without an ounce of pride that I can now declare a major victory in the quest of gaining write-access to my external storage-drive attached to this Zidoo-Z9X-Pro-Media-player as discussed above running on Android-11-TV-OS.

Long story short - still no success in finding a compatible FILES-system-app in order to grant write-access to the resident TC_A-instance on my external USB-storage - BUT

I've now been able to establish a remote USB-debugging-connection to my external-storage via ADB TCP/IP:5555 from my Win10-workstation and my laptop using main-TC and ADB-plugin-8.8.

Amazingly enough it hasn't even been necessary to establish an initial physical USB-connection to the Z9X-Pro to issue an "adb tcpip 5555 "-command to it setting it to TCP/IP-listening-mode (as described someplace on the Inet). All I had to do was gaining the usual developer-access-mode on the Z9X-Pro (happened 1 week after purchase) and sifting through the weeds of well-hidden developer-options over there to enable USB-debugging as usual. But somehow that apparently hasn't been enough as initially no such ADP-connection could be established that way.

And yet when I disconnected my Bluetooth-connection to the Z9X-Pro (as one more trial-balloon) as of yesterday and then explicitly re-paired it with my laptop - all of a sudden the ominous pop-up message appeared if I wanted to grant write-access to it from a certain PC-MAC-address. Since I know that message from various other Android-devices (smart-phones) as the last hurdle to establish a wired USB-debugging-connection this got me immediately alert. So I instantly agreed to grant permanent writing access from there - but since no USB-connection had been established at that time this obviously had to be some "remote (Bluetooth??)-issue".

So just out of curiosity I subsequently called the "Network"-panel on my laptop-PC and entered "ADB" from there (as I'm used to connect to USB-wired smartphones) and when entering "Connect to Device" - it all of a sudden was there! The pop-up-connect-window would offer "IP-address:5555" unsolicitedly - and on "OK" I was "in there" without further ado! So this means nothing less than practically now having root-access (kind of) to all my storage over there - be it internal or external.

[Hacker]

georgeb,
Glad it worked

Roman

[georgeb]

Glad it worked

Yes, me too! And since such dedicated Android-Media-Players are not that uncommon these days - this report might help someone in a similar situation in the future to "think big" and try an access-method that I initially didn't even think of being within reach without root-access which on the other hand on a TV-device would seem almost impossible to gain (currently I've absolutely no idea of how to even unlock the boot-loader over there without the usual volume- and soft-power-keys present, let alone having access to a boot-image to then patch via "Magisk").

Apart from ever growing obstacles introduced with each new Android-version this (remote ADB-access via Bluetooth) seems to be the first user-friendly enhancement - even if undocumented and well-hidden - introduced with a more recent version of Android, presumably added (if the few Inet-rumors are correct) since v11.