I have recently reinstalled Pleco latest version in a new phone Mi5 and restore the settings files without problems. However when I tried to backup settings/history, there is an error message "Turn on Documents in Settings > Installed apps first". I can't find this setting in Pleco nor in Android phone settings. Any ideas?
Unable to backup settings & history
- Thread starter gcan
- Start date
That's not a Pleco error message but rather a MIUI one; "Documents" is actually at the bottom of Settings / Installed Apps, a totally separate item from Pleco, which you have to enable before you can use the Android system file picker to open / save files in any app.
(we can't use our own file picker because then we'd lose the ability to save directly to Google Drive et al, so instead we'll most likely add a warning message in our next update explaining what that Xiaomi message means)
(we can't use our own file picker because then we'd lose the ability to save directly to Google Drive et al, so instead we'll most likely add a warning message in our next update explaining what that Xiaomi message means)
In the list it says "disabled". Then when I tap on it, on the bottom of the detail screen, I have a "force stop" and a "disable" button, but both of those are disabled 
I did force stop it once, and afterwards even rebooting didn't re-enable that button. But even before the force stop, I've never seen an "enable" button or anything similar.
I did force stop it once, and afterwards even rebooting didn't re-enable that button. But even before the force stop, I've never seen an "enable" button or anything similar.
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That's odd - no other options in that screen that might enable it?
Another thing you can try: go into the Pleco "Settings" screen / "Miscellaneous" and turn on "Force legacy file chooser"; that will avoid this need for "Documents" entirely, though it may make it difficult to access files on your SD card or on external storage services.
Another thing you can try: go into the Pleco "Settings" screen / "Miscellaneous" and turn on "Force legacy file chooser"; that will avoid this need for "Documents" entirely, though it may make it difficult to access files on your SD card or on external storage services.
I'm having the same problem on miui 8. My documents app is corrupted and can't enable or disable. Now its missing from installed apps. Many apps can access cloud drives and SD card without the documents app eg. ES file explorer. Why does pleco require the documents app? On other android platforms or stock android it can access cloud drives without the documents app. This only happens on miui devices. I tried forcing legacy file chooser but doesn't work?
Force legacy file chooser definitely should work - are you using the latest version of Pleco? What exactly happens when you use it - do you still get that note about enabling the Documents app, or is the problem just that you can't access cloud storage services?
It's certainly *possible* to access cloud storage services outside of Documents, but it's a ton of work to support; not unreasonable for a dedicated file manager app like ES File Explorer, but for us, making an app that mostly does stuff other than work with files, it would be hard to justify going in and adding support for each cloud service's API just for that one small aspect of Pleco and just for the small % of our users on Xiaomi phones.
It's certainly *possible* to access cloud storage services outside of Documents, but it's a ton of work to support; not unreasonable for a dedicated file manager app like ES File Explorer, but for us, making an app that mostly does stuff other than work with files, it would be hard to justify going in and adding support for each cloud service's API just for that one small aspect of Pleco and just for the small % of our users on Xiaomi phones.
Thanks for quick response, I'm using the latest "beta" or I think it should beta as I'm a playstore beta tester for Pleco. Its not a show stopper as I can still download from Google drive and import. I have 3 android devices and 1 iPad running Pleco and share data among these devices via export/import. Just hoping there is a solution without having to factory reset the phone just for the documents app .
.I don't get any errors, it just shows the local storage with no option to select cloud drives as if the documents app is disabled. It only started after the documents app was corrupted. I can't see it under installed apps anymore. I even disabled miui optimization hoping that would fix the problem.
Ah, that was actually an intentional change a couple of updates ago - we stopped even trying to connect to Documents on MIUI devices because it was causing so many problems for so many users; better a reliable but limited solution than a bunch of people totally unable to open or save files in Pleco.