[LineageOS Questions & Answers] maszeta:
Hello!

I installed LineageOS since Xposed is available for Nougat.

I'm using a Xiaomi Mi5s and since the first day I had issues with the WhatsApp folder.

I backed up my last folder before installing LineageOS.

Then, I installed LineageOS and started using WhatsApp.

Sometimes my folder appeared to have all the backed up data and sometimes not. It was really RANDOM.

Sometimes it used another folder and previously downloaded or sent images/audios sometimes weren't accessible (The app said that the file wasn't on the SD). So I had two scenarios:

1. WhatsApp using the backed up folder, showing all my 2000+ images and audios.

2. WhatsApp using another folder, which started with 0 files and ended with 200+.

These two scenarios were absolutely random.

Sometimes WhatsApp was using one folder and sometimes the other one.

The problem is that in scenario 1 I couldn't access to the files in scenario 2 and vice versa. Neither in WhatsApp nor the gallery nor the File Explorer.

So I had this problem for some time and started to think about it.

Turns out that there was a problem because in my storage there was TWO WhatsApp folders.

The first one is named "Whatsapp"

The second one is named "WhatsApp" (note the capital A).

I don't know HOW I ended having these two folders since the file explorer DOESN'T let you to create similar folders (for example: I can't create "Test" and "TeSt" folders).

Even using terminal and "mkdir Test" "mkdir TeSt" it doesn't work.

So the OS was having issues differencing those ones.

I used ES File Explorer and the folders appear to be the same.

If I were in scenario 1 BOTH folders contained all my +2000 files. In scenario 2 BOTH folders contained the +200 files.

But I couldn't access each folder separately. As I said, it was random, sometimes I rebooted my phone and I was on scenario 1 and sometimes on scenario 2. Even without rebooting, it changed from one to two randomly.

So I backed up my data on both folders (remember, I hadn't access to those folders separately so I had to copy the files in both scenarios)

And then, I renamed one of the two folders to "WhatsApp alternative" and instantly I had access to BOTH folders separately.

So I think the OS can't difference between folders with similar names. If you are having issues with this, the solution is to rename one of the two existing folders but please backup the data before.

I think it's a bug. LineageOS should be able to difference between folders with distinct capital letters and the file explorer, the gallery and all the apps should recognize them separately

I actually CAN'T rename the folders to "WhatsApp" and "Whatsapp" so I don't really know how I ended with that similar folders if the file explorer doesn't let you to do it.

After some research I found the way to replicate it.

First: You need to use the recovery, since you can't make folders with similar names in the OS even using Terminal.

1. Create two folders. One named "Test1". The other one named "Test2" and create a file inside each folder. "Test1" should contain a file named "1" (for example) and "Test2" should contain a file named "2"

2.Go to recovery

3. Use the file explorer built in to rename the two folders to "Test" and "TeSt" respectively. I don't know if this is intended to work or it's a bug, but in my case it works.

4. Reboot the system.

You will start to have issues with those folders. You won't be able to access the "1" and "2" files inside each folder separately since the OS can't difference between those folders.

You can try to do it with two images inside each folder. You won't be able to access the two images separately. Sometimes you will be able to access to the image number one and sometimes to the image number two, but not both at the same time.

I think this needs to be fixed.

Thanks for reading