Flashcard Database no longer updates

I had this problem a few days ago where anytime I tried adding flashcards, I couldn't and got the error "Flashcard Failure - Sorry, the flashcard could not be created because your flashcard file could not be accessed - please exist and reopen Pleco and try again." and I closed it and opened it but it still didn't work. I couldn't even make a database backup. In the end, it worked when I shut it down.

Now that I'm looking at what has happened in the past few hours, I'm thinking that it's possible that the flashcards I added after this weren't added at all. This is because when I was moving cards around into categories a few hours ago, I noticed that they weren't moving after a while. Usually, when they don't move, I try to move it a few more times and it moves and no big deal. But this time, I was trying to move it many times and I saw I couldn't at all.

I restarted my phone, thinking it would work, but when I did, I noticed that all the changes I had made were gone. I tried adding another flashcard to the database and restarted the phone and it reset to the way it was before again.

I'm using an old phone, Galaxy S4 and I have about 5,000 Flashcards. I looked at the Pleco App info and I saw that the Cache says 1.04 TB and I'm fairly sure I have nowhere near that amount of space on my phone.

If I clear the Cache or the Data, would that fix the problem? I'm weary about doing it because I don't want to lose my flashcard database. I also don't want to export the problem to another version that's fixed if the problem is with the database itself.

Thanks in advance

Sounds like our app is no longer able to write to the flashcard database, yeah. Could you email or PM me a backup of that database? We can check here if it's corrupted (and hopefully fix it if so) - if the database looks fine then this is probably an issue with permissions or with your device's flash storage (internal memory or an SD card?).

mikelove said:

Sounds like our app is no longer able to write to the flashcard database, yeah. Could you email or PM me a backup of that database? We can check here if it's corrupted (and hopefully fix it if so) - if the database looks fine then this is probably an issue with permissions or with your device's flash storage (internal memory or an SD card?).

Click to expand...

OK, I think I've sent the file. Please tell me if anything's wrong.

This seems to be a totally blank / empty file, oddly enough. Try this: reboot your phone, then instead of doing a flashcard backup within Pleco, go into /Android/data/com.pleco.chinesesystem/files/databases using a file manager utility, make a copy the flashcard database file from there in /Documents, then PM/email that.

Or, since this suggests the problem is something other than corruption, instead of copying the file /Documents, move it there and then go back into Pleco and use the backup restore command to restore from that file in Documents.

mikelove said:

This seems to be a totally blank / empty file, oddly enough. Try this: reboot your phone, then instead of doing a flashcard backup within Pleco, go into /Android/data/com.pleco.chinesesystem/files/databases using a file manager utility, make a copy the flashcard database file from there in /Documents, then PM/email that.

Or, since this suggests the problem is something other than corruption, instead of copying the file /Documents, move it there and then go back into Pleco and use the backup restore command to restore from that file in Documents.

Click to expand...

I sent you another file. I took this one from the Pleco app again, but it isn't empty. If you want me to send you one with the steps you listed, I can definitely do so.

I also tried clearing the Cache in the App Info, and the button does nothing. The size decreased to 0.98 TB, though that was unrelated to me clicking the button.

I'll just wait to see if the file I sent you is fine and has the database in tact. Another thing I noted is that if I do a test with the flashcards, any responses I give doesn't seem to affect the card either. If you think the database file I sent you is fine, then I think I'll probably erase the app from my phone, reinstall it and apply the database again.

When I try to restore the backed up file I just sent you, it says "Sorry, but we were not able to access your selected backup file".

The file you sent looks fine, yes. About 6000 cards from which you have review history for about 2000, does that sound right?

A reinstall should indeed help, yes - most likely a permissions issue and reinstalling Pleco should restore its permission to access your storage.

That's definitely my database.

I think there's something weird with my phone because I can't delete the data associated with Pleco. It just sorta stays there as though it was never deleted and I can't delete it through App Info.

Looking through things now, I'm not exactly sure when it happened, but something updated or changed on my phone. I can't access my SD cards through any apps, whereas a few months ago (or, really, maybe even just a few days ago), I'd never had a problem. That's probably what happened to Pleco. I'm going to do a factory reset because, since none of my app seem to be able to use the SD card, I may as well, (plus, storage issues) and see what happens. I'm assuming that there'll be no problem at all after the factory reset.

Thanks for the help!

mikelove said:

The file you sent looks fine, yes. About 6000 cards from which you have review history for about 2000, does that sound right?

A reinstall should indeed help, yes - most likely a permissions issue and reinstalling Pleco should restore its permission to access your storage.

Click to expand...

I factory reset my phone and I have the same problem I did before. When I first opened Pleco on my factory reset phone, it synced with everything I had before I did the factory reset. No problems until today, almost about 5 days later.

Now my app seems to, again, not be able to write to the database and I have a cache that's supposedly .93TB and, if deleted, just refreshes itself.

What do you think I should do to be able to use the app without any problem?

Maybe replace your SD card? If a factory reset doesn't clear this up and it's also preventing other apps from accessing the card as you say, the best two explanations are a serious firmware bug (unlikely in a device as popular as the S4) or a hardware failure.

mikelove said:

Maybe replace your SD card? If a factory reset doesn't clear this up and it's also preventing other apps from accessing the card as you say, the best two explanations are a serious firmware bug (unlikely in a device as popular as the S4) or a hardware failure.

Click to expand...

Oh, thanks for the tip! I wasn't aware that it was saved to my SD card. I thought that I had moved it away from that. It makes sense why everything was always there.

Thanks for the help!