Problem syncing with Android micro SD card

[samadhiram]

The phone is a Samsung Galaxy S5. When I use FreeFileSync to sync about 100 GB of MP3s into the 128 GB micro SD card, the syncing goes flawlessly the very first time, when there's no files in the directory of the micro SD card where the files are being synced into. The problem is when doing further syncing. FreeFileSync will DELETE all the previously sinced files and do the syncing all over again, as if the directory was empty or all the files had been updated and, therefore, all of them have to be replaced.

I found that the problem has to do with the fact that, when being copied to the micro SD card the first time, the files' attributes (date and time of creation, modification, etc.) are changed to the present moment (probably by Android, but also possibly by FreeFileSync). This, of course, will make FreeFileSync think the next time that the synced files DO NOT MATCH the original files and that's why it will start the syncing all over again.

Does anyone have a solution for this problem? Is there a setting, either in Android or FreeFileSync, that can be tweaked to solve this problem?

This affects all versions of FreeFileSync, up to version 8.

Thanks for the help.

[Zenju]

This is a known limitation, Android doesn't support setting of file modification times. As a workaround you can use FreeFileSync's "compare by size" comparison variant.

[samadhiram]

Awesome! I will try that. Seems that it has good chances to work.

Thank you.

P.S. After having this problem, I have been thinking that how it is possible that Google would miss something as elementary as this, but the answer is that they did not miss it. Now I understand that, on the contraty, they are deliberately making it difficult for Android users to store/sync locally large amounts of their files, simply to push their Cloud storage and music services.

[zlhnxqgf]

That's not quite true since the root of the problem is the Most Troublesome Protocol (MTP). Even the Windows Explorer is crashing when trying to copy/move/rename files on a MTP-device. Setting file dates is also problematic on WP:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mobiledevices/forum/mdlumia-mdtips/copying-files-from-pc-to-windows-phone-does-not/7ccaf87f-5136-43bb-8db7-d53fb3255dfb

It depends on the device to support it but I think it's rare feature:
http://www.scootersoftware.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?13651-MTP-problem-file-dates-when-sync&p=46570#post46570

You may want to try BT Sync or Syncthing for transferring files wirelessly. I'm syncing my photos/music/backups on my phone that way.

[Giangi]

That's not quite true since the root of the problem is the Most Troublesome Protocol (MTP).

...here I have reported a few Android's official bugs still unresolved... :(