Cant find my hdd !!!!!! (Android)

[elmundo360]

First off. Sorry for the angry title but this is getting on my nerves! 

I love launchbox I paid for the license and all is good. It took weeks getting everything working and it's great but why won't It find my external hdd!!!

I am running my arcade cab on launchbox on my Samsung S10 and Samsung dex but storage is limited. So I transfered everything over to a 1tb hdd via a use c hub but launchbox wont find it. 

I have searched and searched, found countless posts and replies about nvidia shield this how Google changed the settings so you can't do it anymore bluh bluh. 

 

So can someone please explain to me why every other laucher , emulator and app will find and let me use my hdd. 

Lemuroid

Dig

Mame4droid

Duckstation

Neo.emu 

AetherSX2 the list goes on. 

Everything will let me use my hdd apart from launchbox! 

I have tried this on s10, Zfold3 , Google pixel 4, s22, Android tv, galaxy tab 2 and the results are the same. Each device and app will find the hdd apart from launchbox. 

I have followed tutorial after tutorial on this forum, reddit and YouTube and nothing works! 

Please can someone point me in the right direction as to why this is happening that hasn't already been said in countless posts or YouTube videos. 

 

Sorry for the long post. Sorry for being angry 😂 but please help this is driving me mad. 

 

Thanks for reading 👍🏻

 

 

[Jason Carr]

Alright, I've spent 2 hours trying to get USB drives working properly on Android 11 and 12, and unfortunately I don't have good news.

Once again, Google has completely screwed the pooch with USB drives on Android 11 and 12. Some of the technical details are here: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/176617573?pli=1

Yes, some of the apps you've listed can access USB drives, but that doesn't mean that things will actually work between a frontend and an emulator. For example, at least in my testing, the Dig frontend, which does see USB drives and can import the games, cannot launch those games with AetherSX2. It just doesn't work. I would expect that to be true for the majority of emulators, if not all of them (I'm guessing all of them).

Also important to note is that RetroArch, which is in my opinion the most important emulator to run on Android, cannot see the USB drives at all either.

So we can all thank Google once again for allowing security to get in the way of functionality here. From what I can tell, it's not possible to use frontends and emulators properly on Android 11 and 12 over USB drives. Hopefully this will be fixed in Android at some point, but as of right now I don't think it is possible.

Please let me know if anyone can prove that it is possible to successfully launch a ROM File that is located on an external USB drive from any frontend to any emulator. I'll need to know the details on the Android version, the device, the emulator and emulator version, the frontend and frontend version, and as many details as possible. If there is a situation that works, we might be able to figure it out and proceed. But as of yet, in my testing, nothing is working, so there's nothing we can really do here.

[elmundo360]

No. Problem mate. Thank you taking the time to have a look for me 👍🏻. I ended up buying a bigger sd card in the and it works fine. Keep up the good work 👍🏻

[88fingers]

Does anyone know if this is still an issue with Android 13?

[88fingers]

After messing around some more yesterday here’s where I’m at: 

With my Samsung s10e on Android 12 LaunchBox doesn’t see my external hhd. Can not import games at all. Retroarch sees the drive but won’t populate the files within the drive. In Dolphin 5.0-18498 I can import and play games with no problems from the hhd. 
 

On my Lenovo P11 Pro Gen 2 tablet on Android 12 Launch box does see the external hdd and will import the games, however Retroarch has the same issue. It sees the drive but won’t populate the files within the drive so I can’t play the ROMs. However, the GameCube and Wii ROMs load up and play through LaunchBox on Dolphin 5.0-18498 with no issues. 
 

Is there any fix one can do to Retroarch to get it to populate the files from the external drive? I’m presuming that this would be the same on Android 13. I only ask as I would get an s21 with Android 13 instead of the s10, and the Lenovo will eventually be updated to 13, but I feel like I’ll most likely run into the same issues with 13. 

[Jason Carr]

4 hours ago, 88fingers said:

After messing around some more yesterday here’s where I’m at: 

With my Samsung s10e on Android 12 LaunchBox doesn’t see my external hhd. Can not import games at all. Retroarch sees the drive but won’t populate the files within the drive. In Dolphin 5.0-18498 I can import and play games with no problems from the hhd. 
 

On my Lenovo P11 Pro Gen 2 tablet on Android 12 Launch box does see the external hdd and will import the games, however Retroarch has the same issue. It sees the drive but won’t populate the files within the drive so I can’t play the ROMs. However, the GameCube and Wii ROMs load up and play through LaunchBox on Dolphin 5.0-18498 with no issues. 
 

Is there any fix one can do to Retroarch to get it to populate the files from the external drive? I’m presuming that this would be the same on Android 13. I only ask as I would get an s21 with Android 13 instead of the s10, and the Lenovo will eventually be updated to 13, but I feel like I’ll most likely run into the same issues with 13. 

Unfortunately I don't know of a fix. There are several issues here, starting with the fact that Google has completely failed at their job of proper implementations of these things, favoring "security" over functionality and breaking everything over and over again. The issue is worsened by the fact that every device manufacturer has their own modified implementations of Google's already broken systems, and so the more obscure you get (such as connecting an external hard drive to a handheld Android device), the less likely things are going to work.

[88fingers]

37 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

Unfortunately I don't know of a fix. There are several issues here, starting with the fact that Google has completely failed at their job of proper implementations of these things, favoring "security" over functionality and breaking everything over and over again. The issue is worsened by the fact that every device manufacturer has their own modified implementations of Google's already broken systems, and so the more obscure you get (such as connecting an external hard drive to a handheld Android device), the less likely things are going to work.

Thanks for the reply, it really is too bad Google is such a mess with this stuff. I guess it is what it is. I’ll just have to get bigger SD cards and make sure to purchase Android products that still have expandable storage! 

[Bomza]

I used to an app developer, but no more.  I had a battery app, but starting with Android 11, Google introduced all sorts of problems (including for us the OS no longer knowing when extra large batteries were fully charged), but more importantly introducing problematic storage access issues for developers in the name of "security".  They also started making silly mandates of developers, and so a year ago I pulled my paid app from the Google Play store.  One of the mandates was we had to take the word "free" out of the name of the free version of the app even though it was.  Shortly afterwards, Amazon renamed one of their apps "Freevee".  Still there on the Play Store today.  Uh-huh...

I have a refurbished 2nd gen Fire TV Cube with Fire OS 7 (based on Android 9) and have been running the latest side-loaded 32-bit RetroArch (with almost all roms on an USB drive with an OTG cable) along with LaunchBox for the past year with no problem.  My suggestion to those who want to run emulation from Android is to get a cheap refurbished device with Android 9 or lower on it and use that.  Only the newest 2nd gen Fire TV 4K sticks are running Fire OS8 based on Android 10 and 11.  Even the 3rd gen Fire TV Cube is still running Fire OS7 (Android 9).  Anyway, don't blame LaunchBox.  Blame Google.

Edited February 17 by Bomza