yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] rayblo:
Mine got over 4.0V recently :(
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] pauljaymes:
So I suffered this one today, and lost loads of photos and videos from a wedding over the weekend. Is it just me or does this issue seem to affect cards just as they fill up with precious data? I'm led to believe elsewhere that the controllers in the cards are getting fried, so data recovery is only possible at the hardware level.

I strongly suspect Sony will try never to accept any culpability for this, as at around £500 a time for hardware data recovery from dead micro SD cards, they could lose a *lot* of money in the courts.
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] rayblo:
True I spend loads of time contacting Sony no response, they keep very silent
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] tudork:
After two weeks of using an old 8G class 6 card (I cannot remember the brand), I bought a 16G class 10 Kingstone. It was dead two days later, and it's not readable by anything. I exchanged it at the store, they checked the new one to see that it was working, put in in my phone and exactly two days later it dies. I cannot change it again. I will go back to the old 8G one. Phone is an Xperia ZR.
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] rayblo:
Unlucky m8 like loads of us! Hopefully Sony will do something soon
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] rayblo:
Got a phone call today Sony refunds my phone and sd and they want it to be inspected at there office.

As soon as I know more I will let you know
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] pacm23:
my issue is i cant seem to eject the 64 gb sandisk from my XZ. pressed it several times it wont budge! WTF!
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] cedropol:
Maybe something is wrong with lock. Did you try press quite strong and gently pull out with tweezers?
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] don_gabrielli:
Well another sd card gone and I am on the latest firmware. It's my second one. I just woke up and got the dreaded message. I only had the music for bluetooth in my car on it so am going back to using my good old mp3 player for that. No more risks of getting a new card. But this really sucks from Sony. It's completely dead by the way. Even pc can't see it. Like my first card.
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] cedropol:
Tell us type and model of this dead card.
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] don_gabrielli:
TDK Class 4 16gigs. The first one was a Kingston Class 4 32gigs.
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] koolkiwikat:
Well Ive just had my 2nd 32GB card fail in 3months, running latest vanilla firmware

1st Sandisk 32GB Ultra Class 10 brought online no hope of warranty replacement

just today Sony 32GB Class 4 which I brought locally so I will get it replaced under warranty

Issue is still...an issue with no resolution as yet!
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Knight77:
And here I am, another one of yours. Same problem, looks like my 32GB Class 10 card is gone. PC can see it but no way to format it. No windows, no, Easeus...nothing.

This xperia Z is showing more bugs/problems than I thought...
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NicklasE:
Hi,

We are analyzing the problem. The dead SD-cards we have received so far all have the same problem where the controller in the SD-card fails to respond properly during initialization phase. All cards so far appear to have the same controller.

There was a previous post about voltage being out of spec. We have not found any such issue, however, we recognize that it's hard to measure this accurately if the probes/cables are too long. As a rough figure of our measured deviation: +-100mV.

Since our current assumption is that the problem is a faulty controller in the SD-cards, we would appreciate additional input. If you are able, please provide the following from your "dead" SD-card:

* A picture of the actual SD-card such that we can read out all the text and figures.

* Obtain the CID string from the SD-card. This may not possible in all cases but about half of the cards we have are able to respond to CMD2. The other half responds with an error code to CMD2, thus they are not completely unresponsive.

You may also want to read the following:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/18/galaxy_s3_sandisk_msd/

But we have not yet confirmed with SanDisk if this is the same problem as we are seeing.

BR,

Nicklas
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Entropy512:
Interesting that they all have the same controller - You may want to check to see if it's even a legitimate controller for the brand of card claimed:

http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?page_id=1022 - The fact that a lot of "Kingstons" and "Sandisks" seem affected, and if "Sandisks" and "Kingstons" are appearing with the same controller - it appears that while Sandisk and Toshiba use the same flash memory, Sandisk uses their own controllers.
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NicklasE:
First of all, it has not been confirmed that they all have the same. Secondly, the sample we have may not be representative and therefor I'm hoping for some community help here. If we get a few pictures and CID strings, we will know more.

As an example, we have 3 cards where the CID strings are all broken/invalid, but actually exactly the same (0600003136ffffffffff195c49393400):

* Vendor X, 32GB class4

* Vendor X, 32GB class10

* Vendor X, 4GB class4

We can only assume that the reason for these having the same CID is that the error handling in the controller of these cards is the same.

These 3 cards could of course be different compared to the cards where we are unable to read out the CID, e.g.:

<4>[31605.072620] mmc1: starting CMD2 arg 00000000 flags 00000067
<4>[31605.084277] mmc1: req done (CMD2): -110: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000

But I have a hard time believing that several different controllers would have an issue with reading out the CID. The controller is in a pretty bad shape if it can't produce the CID string, at least, I think so.
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] XperiaZ77:
Same problem here.

ADATA 32GB Premier Micro SDHC UHS-I class 10

What good is my xperia z if i cant use an micro sdcard with it?? Sony needs to fix this fast. This is unacceptable.
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NicklasE:
Hi,

Did you contact the ADATA support?

http://www.adata-group.com/index.php?action=ss_main&page=ss_content_online&lan=en

I fear that they are suffering with the same problem as some other vendors, e.g.:

http://www.phonearena.com/news/SanDisk-says-it-produced-some-bad-32GB-and-64GB-microSD-cards_id40986

http://www.kingston.com/en/support/technical/products?model=SDC10

From the Kingston page:

"A problem has been identified with some microSD cards and Android 4.1 & 4.2 based devices like the Samsung Galaxy S3, Samsung Galaxy S4, and Samsung Galaxy Note II that causes the card to become unresponsive after being used for a short time"

We are still waiting for a confirmation and explanation of the actual problem in the SD-cards. Without detailed knowledge about the problem, it's impossible provide a workaround in the phone SW.

BR,

Nicklas
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Knight77:
Same card of mine :((

Inviato dal mio Nexus 7 usando Tapatalk 4
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NicklasE:
I would really like to know what the ADATA support is saying about the issue.
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NicklasE:
Do you still have these SD-cards or have you returned them?
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] QualQuek:
I don't know if that can help you but i'm using the same SDCard since 6 month without any trouble, i've flashed my phone many times, reformatted the sdcard many times with differents files system, not a single problem : Samsung Memory Card Micro SDXC - MB-MGCGBFFP - Classe 10 64Go UHS-1 Grade 1 70MB/s
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Andre Verissimo:
One more card...

[MENTION=4987796]NicklasE[/MENTION]

Another one for the collection (a Sandisk Ultra 64 GB).

It came with a transparent blister, but I think the photo is sharper without it.

It was not possible to retrieve the CID string. :(
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] cedropol:
I haven't these card anymore... For now I am using Sandisk Ultra 16gb for 3 months with no problem... But till the problem will be officialy fixed I make backup of taken photos almost everyday...

---------- Post added at 10:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:26 PM ----------

Did you format card in exFAT or FAT32?
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Andre Verissimo:
As soon I've installed the 423 update (with its supposed microSDXC support), I've bought this card, inserted it in my C6503 Xperia ZQ (=ZL) and let the mobile formatting the card the way it chose. This 64 GB card was killed in just a few hours.
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NicklasE:
Thanks!

I took a quick look at the SanDisk forum and immediately found that many have problem with these SD-cards:

http://forums.sandisk.com/t5/Mobile...ltra-64gb-card-seems-to-have-died/td-p/291578

Did you contact SanDisk support? Did they reveal any useful info?

BR,

Nicklas
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] cedropol:
Ok, but why Z has a problem also with ex. Sony and Kingston cards?
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NicklasE:
Hi again,

Our current understanding of the problem is that the bricked SD-cards is due to a failure in the controller of the SD-cards. Many different vendors are using the same controller. I'm trying to setup technical calls with each of the mentioned vendors to get this confirmed. But it's hard to find the correct people to talk to...

BR,

Nicklas
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Entropy512:
You might want to take a look at the link I posted to Bunnie Huang's blog post about issues he had with "irregular" (possibly counterfeit) and definitively counterfeit Kingston SDs.

One thing is that many SD cards out there are just rebranded/rebadged internals from someone else. For example, for the raw NAND flash itself, Toshiba and Sandisk have a joint venture - Toshiba and Sandisk flash all come from the same factory. SanDisk appears to use their own controllers, but might also sell controllers to others for some of their product lines. There's also a lot of evidence, for example, that Kingston is selling devices that are in fairly good condition, but didn't quite meet Toshiba/Sandisk's own quality control standards.

A little more on the relationship between Kingston and Toshiba/Sandisk - http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=918#comment-512017
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] cedropol:
So let's make a list of problematic and probably-problematic cards and vendors...
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Andre Verissimo:
[MENTION=4987796]NicklasE[/MENTION]:

Thank you for your attention.

The card still works perfectly in my Windows 7 machine; I even made the full test with h2test_1.4, who copied (and retrieved) test files in all the places in the free space extension (60902 MB after formatting in exFAT).

Accordingly I didn't contacted SanDisk, because the trouble isn't in the card, but in the mobile.
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NicklasE:
Ah, ok. Thanks for the clarification. Since I only have time to investigate the totally bricked SD-cards I have placed an internal bug report for the file system experts to investigate your problem.

(Reference for Sony: DMS02726453)

---------- Post added at 08:55 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:51 AM ----------

These are the ones I have collected from various forum (since I cannot comment on the SD-cards I have received):

Kingston SDC4/4GB

Kingston SDC4/32GB

Kingston SDC10/32GB

SanDisk 32GB U1

ADATA 32GB U1

Sony 8GB U1

Sony 16GB U1
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] cedropol:
I can add Kingston SDC10/16GB which also failed me...

New thread with such list or pin it on could be good idea.
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Andre Verissimo:
Thank you very much. My mobile is a ZQ (Brazilian ZL) C6503, and I'm running stock 10.3.A.0.423.
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] E:V:A:
After reading THIS blog post by Bunnie, I'm just not surprised at all that these SD card manufacturers have some serious QC problems! (Yes, that is a USB stick, but the same flash junk inside.)

I mean look at this, FFS!

This is the QC...

And this is the pick-and-place machine, with carefully designed chopsticks! (And I'm not even kidding!)

Check out all that goo and dust on the die as shown in the larger version of this photo. (Click for large version.)

[Courteously stolen from Bunnies blog... Highly recommended and entertaining HW nerd reading.]
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NicklasE:
Hi,

Do you still have this card? We would like to have it for analysis to be able to discuss the issue with ADATA directly.

BR,

Nicklas

---------- Post added at 09:42 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:41 AM ----------

Do you still have this card? We would like to have it for analysis.

---------- Post added at 09:49 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:42 AM ----------

Hi,

Do you still have these cards? We would like to have them for analysis.

BR,

Nicklas

---------- Post added at 09:52 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:49 AM ----------

Hi,

Do you still have these cards? We would like to have them for analysis.

BR,

Nicklas
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] LosserKlosser:
My replacement card - a Kingston 32 GB class 10 - formatted with exFat is still working after having been mounted for a month.

My old Kingston was fried after a week.
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Knight77:
I gave it to a friend asking to try to check it, saying to try or eventually trash it since it was not working anymore. I'll let you know, but if I still have it what should we do?
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NicklasE:
We will ask DHL or similar to help us out with the transportation.
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] E:V:A:
Thanks for looking into these issues. But please keep us informed about your eventual findings. I'm sure there are many others interested in these problems, also outside of Sony product line...
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] rayblo:
Till today no response of sony. It shows the kack of interest. Swapped my z for a galaxy note 2 and must say im not regretting it
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] tom_bombadill:
Well or there is some serious probs with SD cards itself, or there is problem with android, couse it is not only Sony that goes through new SD cards like wearing socks. My Samsung galaxy s4 bought in the beggining of June also already killed two sd cards 32GB, one sandisc and one Kingston also if u check on s4 forum u can find more than one thread about failed sd cards (this is starting to smell like Google). It is a bit weird same probs on two different companies.
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NicklasE:
Ok, this is the status from my investigation:

* I have been in contact (directly or indirectly) with all of the mentioned uSD vendors that I mentioned previously.

* The information I have is confidential under NDA but I can share some details.

* I have sent some phones to the vendors for further investigation and testing of specific use cases.

* I have sent broken uSD card samples to the vendors.

* We have been looking through the schematics of the Xperia Z together with Qualcomm but didn't find any deviation from the reference design in this area.

Result so far: With a change in JellyBean the access to the uSD card was changed. The change means that the uSD is powered on and off much more frequently compared to before. We are talking about thousands of times per day. Why this is a problem, we don't know. But I think all uSD vendors have made some changes in their firmware (inside the uSD) to better handle this new use case.

As far as I understood: If you get a broken uSD card during normal usage in the Xperia Z, the vendor of the uSD will replace your card under warranty. But please note, I'm working with the technical stuff and not with warranty issues.
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] stiffi2011:
Wow, just checked into this thread after selling my Z a month ago for this exact issue. I only came back because of Sonys Q Lens Camera announcements. Seems like the Z is the best fit for that accessory. If this really is a JellyBean problem, then what can a user do now? Seems like the vendors who have abandoned SD support may have been on to something. Do you think Google even tipped them to this issue (conspiracy theory I know).

In truth, flash storage has always been a gamble. I mean, something that sensitive that people rip in and out of machines, throw on to desks and generally treat badly was probably never meant to be a long term solution. I'm really missing my 64GB HTC One now!
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] LosserKlosser:
Thank you for your efforts!

The quoted text confirms a hunch I've had.

Just a week after getting my Z, my Kingston 32 GB class 10 was fried. I got a replacement - again Kingston 32 GB class 10 - but this time it have been working for more than a month and it still works.

I've had a hunch that the new card is made in another way, but of course I have no way to know.

It's really great that you can and will use the skills you have, to get deeper into the problem.

Thank you very much.

Regards,

Hvilsted
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] E:V:A:
Very interesting! This sound an awful reminder to that eMMC sudden death problem and some other technical issues, that was discussed some time ago, in the thread: eMMC sudden death research. But what is more interesting is that we may be able to upgrade the SD MCU (arm M3?) by our selves, although it would be very technical until someone release a PC app to do it automatically.

Would you have access to this firmware by any chance? (Please PM me if you prefer.) We might have a way to do this, that you should already know about...
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NicklasE:
Personally, I think Google made this choice for other reasons. Furthermore, I always want the SD card option on my phones. In my private phone I have a several years old SanDisk 8GB uSD which still works fine. Still contains pictures of the kids since several years back. Although, everything is of course backed up at some other places as well. Unfortunately, the 8GB is also too small and have to remove some stuff every now and then.

---------- Post added at 08:22 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:17 AM ----------

That is very true. There is constant battle for the uSD vendors to improve and make the cards actually work and last.

---------- Post added at 08:24 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:22 AM ----------

Ok, that's great! Thanks for the confirmation.

---------- Post added at 08:39 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:24 AM ----------

I haven't asked specifically for this option from any vendor. But usually, they want to do this kind of operation themselves. Basically, they don't want to reveal the commands sequences and passwords required to unlock the uSD cards to programming state. That imposes a too big security risk. When we get new firmware to eMMC for evaluation, we usually only have one person allowed to perform the firmware upgrade. The computer used during the upgrade is not allowed to be connected to the network etc.

But we are looking into different options to minimize the risk of damaged uSD cards.
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] MrRockliffe:
Kingston 32GB Class 4 died today. Had everything on it (photos, music, apps),

Don't have a computer to test it on.

Screen started flickering a few days before, and has stopped since.

4th time I'll be replacing the phone. Well, it won't be replaced now, it'll be my 530 quid day 1 purchase money back.
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] wonneil:
My Sandisk 32gb Class 10 died on 21st (three days ago) and have now just discovered this thread.

I have never taken it out my phone and yet it just died suddenly, can't remember exactly what the XZ said but it was something like SD card is no longer being read, then a few hours later a message came up saying to reformat the SD card as it wasn't working correctly (which I didn't do as I wanted to keep my files) and now it is not being recognised at all, either by phone or my PC.

I now wish I'd reformatted so I didn't have to go through the trouble of sending back for a replacement! lol

I have contacted Sandisk directly and I have to send the card back to the Czech Republic if I want them to replace it, so I'm now contacting the retailer I purchased it from.

Edit: Have just inserted my card into the phone again and after a while it says 'Removed SD Card' so the XZ does know that there should be one there...
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] zyxel25:
can u still move large files even though your 64gb sd card is formatted to fat32?
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] digitalray:
just wanted to report i got massive problems with SD Cards in my xperia z.

once i connected it with usb cable and everything was corrupted. the mobile phone didn't recognize the sd card anymore and even windows could not access it anymore. i got it working again by using windows startup repair on the connected usb volume.

now again half of my (new) photos and videos are corrupted when i wanted to copy them to my hard disk. they still worked fine on the xperia z. tried chkdsk /f and only got grey pics and unplayable videos.

this is so annoying. it was pics and video of important events like birth of my nephew, academic degree of my brother and stuff, all gone.

and all sony can do is to say it's not their fault ??? wow, that's premium. just like my 2000 USD Sony TV that got blue blobs all over the screen after 3 years and they promised it will last for 50 years with changing bulbs.. no refund, no NOTHING here in germany.. in the US people got 15 % on buying a new sony tv. good for nothing when you invest a lot of money like with the xperia z. it cost me 630 euro here in germany at amazon when it was new.

today the audio jack went to hell only playing audio on the right channel anymore when connecting to a stereo. screen fades when turning it more than 10 °, i wonder what will happen next..

and it's not only photo and video, it's concerning ALL Data on external SD, important files copied from a different computer.. CORRUPT and GONE.

---------- Post added at 03:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:34 PM ----------

had the same issue.. windows would not access it anymore for formatting.

start your pc and windows with the usb device connected and it will bring up a repair screen for the usb volume.

i had windows startup repair the usb volume and was able to access it again, even all data was still there.

give it a try.

---------- Post added at 03:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:39 PM ----------

i switched to interal sd card two days ago because the external was nearly full.

yesterday 4 gigs of photos, video and data were corrupted, that were working before switching to internal sd card in camera mode.

so seems it's the same situation.

btw i am using an A-Data 16 GB Card.

is there a way to format the external SD Card on the XPeria Z ? i just saw an option in the google settings to delete pics and videos.
[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] wonneil:
I wish I could have tried that, unfortunately my card has gone back to the retailer now so waiting on them to replace it :eek:

It happened a day before I was about to transfer all the files on there to my pc so I could format it to exFAT and test it out before using a 64gb card in there, oh well at least it's saved me a job now lol