Galaxy S8 Enhanced Messaging issue, can’t read videos stored in SD card, other issues

This day’s #GalaxyS8 troubleshooting page answers some issues regarding texting and storage problems. We pay attention to a particular messaging issue regarding Enhance messaging feature in the Galaxy S8. We suspect that it’s the one causing confusion for one of the users mentioned below. We also discuss some ways to prevent causing untimely death to an SD card so keep reading. We hope that this post will be a good reference for those experiencing similar situations.

If you are looking for solutions to your own #Android issue, you can contact us by using the link provided at the bottom of this page.

When describing your issue, please be as detailed as possible so we can easily pinpoint a relevant solution. If you can, kindly include the exact error messages you are getting to give us an idea where to start. If you have already tried some troubleshooting steps before emailing us, make sure to mention them so we can skip them in our answers.

Problem 1: Can’t receive text messages from a Galaxy S8, Enhanced Messaging issue

I have the Galaxy S7 and a friend who has the Galaxy S8 who I am having problems receiving text messages from. A) If I do not open his texts within a certain period of time, they disappear. I have discovered this because I have seen a message from him in the app, but was unable to open at that time due to work, gone back later to read it and it was gone. Yet my message app shows I have an unread message, but it is nowhere to be found. This has happened 4 times now so it always shows I have 4 unread text messages. Yes this is very annoying because the messages are nowhere and it just keeps accumulating. B) Messages from this contact will randomly pop up in the middle of a thread from another contact and vice versa. C) This is the only contact that shows “John Doe is typing…” like the iphone messenger does, and he says the same is true on his end. That I am his only contact that shows that when I am typing. It will also show “Delivered” when message is sent. Also the only time this occurs—with him. Any ideas? This is very annoying.  I really can not tell when I have a new message now because it always shows I have unread messages. — M.johnson925

Solution: Hi M.johnson925. Your concerns may or may not have one and the same cause so let’s discuss briefly the possible reasons why they are happening right now.

Incorrect time and date

Having incorrect time and date in the system can confuse the messaging app resulting to erratic sorting of messages your received. This is often the reason why users may initially receive a notification of an incoming text message but will be unable to locate it because it’s tucked in between old and new messages. If you sometimes change your phone’s date and time settings for whatever reason, make sure to revert it back to the correct one. Better still, use your network’s default date, time, and timezone.

Enhanced Messaging feature

Newer Samsung Galaxy devices like the Galaxy S6 and later has a messaging feature called Enhanced Messaging that lets users chat for free. It works similarly to Apple’s iMessage as it also uses internet connection to transmit and receive messages. And just like iMessage, Enhance Messaging is only available for Samsung devices that support the said feature. If you and your friend enabled this feature in both your devices, this is the most likely reason why both of you can see each other typing.

Enhanced messaging feature only works when you have internet connection, either wifi or mobile data, so you may not receive your friend’s messages when you’re offline. However, you can continue to send and receive messages via Enhanced messaging if you enable one option under its settings. To check that, follow these steps:

  1. Open Messages app.
  2. Tap More icon (three-dot icon) at the upper right hand side.
  3. Tap Settings.
  4. Tap Enhanced messaging.
  5. Move slider for Send as SMS/MMS messages to the right.

Corrupted messaging app cache and data

If you’re not using the default Samsung Messages app or its Enhanced messaging feature, there may be a problem with the current messaging app you’re using. Make sure to wipe its cache first, then see do a clear data wipe if nothing will change. Here’s how:

  1. Open the Settings menu either through your notification shade (drop-down) or through the Settings app in your app drawer.
  2. Navigate down to Apps. This may be renamed to something like Applications or Application Manager in OEM skinned versions of Android 6 or 7.
  3. Once in there, look for the application and tap it.
  4. You’ll now see a list of stuff that gives you information about the app, including Storage, Permissions, Memory Use, and more. These are all clickable items. You’ll want to click on Storage.
  5. You should now clearly see the Clear Cache and Clear Data buttons for the application.
  6. Tap Clear Cache first and observe how messaging works. If that will not fix your issues, proceed to clearing the messaging app’s data.

Contact your carrier

Should the issue persist after doing all the steps above, contact your carrier to see if they’re familiar with the problem. This can be an issue isolated to their devices so only their technical support team may be able to help you.

Problem 2: Galaxy S8 can’t read SD card after an update

ISSUE: After a recent software update pushed to me, I started experiencing issues. As of today I can now no longer see my SD Card via phone or PC. A restart did not fix the issue. I cannot do the fake battery pull (I tried), likely due to the up volume button having been stuck for many months. more info: The software update was done a couple of nights ago. The Card was working fine prior to this and had images and music on it. I could see the images on the Card via the phone as recently as yesterday, Jan 29 2018. I have run updates as they are pushed to me. After the recent software update, the Gallery icon looks different today (maybe I just didn’t notice yesterday). The music files dropped from app Rocket Player first and then from Player, which is how I realized something was very wrong. I could see the SD card on my PC as recently as this past weekend but cannot now. The phone is in excellent condition, except that within a few months after receipt the “up” volume button decided to get stuck and now I use a downloaded software for volume (have used that now for many months). It has not been dropped and it has not gotten wet. — L

Solution: Hi L. Your SD card may had been corrupted. There’s no way for us to know though if the newly installed update has caused it directly, or if it’s something else. For an issue like this, knowing the reason why is really futile since you’ll be left without much option anyways. The best course of action is to move forward and prevent the same thing from happening again.

If you’re hoping to get any advise on how to undo the SD card corruption, we’re sorry to disappoint you. Once a card gets corrupted, that’s just it. You can’t do anything to reverse the current situation and make the card well again. All you can do right now is to see if your SD card can still be detected by another device like a different phone or PC. If you’ve already tried that and no second device can read the files you saved on it, that’s unfortunate. If you think the files you had in that card are worth a few hundred dollars or more, you can tap the expertise of professional companies to help you with data recovery.

As far as making sure that future SD card failures won’t result to heartaches, you can do the following:

  • Never interrupt a device when it’s trying to access an SD card. You may be doing this unintentionally by stopping the app or removing the SD card physically from the phone without unmounting it first. Also, sometimes your phone may turn off on its own due to low battery while an app is saving to or reading from the SD card. Any of these situations can potentially cause file or SD card corruption.
  • SD card malfunction due to aging. SD cards can age too. Although we have cards that’s been running for years now, there’s really no telling when they’re going to fail. There are way too many factors that cause an SD card to fail and any one of them can occur any time. The older your SD card is, the more likely it runs the risk of failing.
  • Keep a backup of something irreplaceable in the cloud. Despite the negative raps storing files in the cloud gets following the US government’s access to popular services, we continue to recommend that you store irreplaceable files like photos or videos in the cloud. This is your insurance in case something bad happens to your local storage, like your SD card.
  • Handle your electronics properly. Electronics may be indispensable right now but most of them are largely unreliable, especially the storage aspects. Storage devices like hard drives, SSDs, and flash drives are still susceptible to failures from time to time. They need care like a child. If you don’t treat them well, they may not last long. SD cards are especially prone to failure as users tend to ignore them most of the time. They usually work in the background and a lot of people don’t know how to take car of them. To minimize the chance that your SD card fails on you, make sure take care of the device that uses it. For instance, if you tend to abuse your phone where you insert your SD card by exposing it elements, carelessly removing the SD card from its slot, or regularly stopping apps, updates, or the devices during read/write situations, don’t expect your gadgets to run properly.

Problem 3: Galaxy S8 can’t read videos stored in SD card

Hi there. Maybe you can help me with this. I have looked on Google for some help but nothing yet. I have an 256GB SanDisk Ultra Micro SD card. This is my storage place for my picture and videos. It does not recognize many pictures and videos when I go to my Gallery. It says ”Cannot play video – This file type is not supported” for videos.  It also does not recognize pictures and videos I am sending from my old device (LG G3) also. Is the Micro SD card too big to be supported by the phone or anything like this? The person that I bought the phone from just had this purchased. I did just try to format it and put back files into it and it does not work. I think there’s even less files showing now.. Help is very appreciated! — Alex

Solution: Hi Alex. ‘The error ‘Cannot play video – This file type is not supported” is telling you that your phone is unable to read or open the file. It has nothing to do with SD card capacity.  It only means that your S8 is not compatible with the files you’re trying to open. It may not have the right apps or codes to read the files format. Keep in mind that there’s no universal file format for photos and videos. If your S8 is unable to recognize the file, that simply means that you have an incompatibility issue. To fix the problem, try to access your files using your computer and remove them from your SD card.

Another possible reason for the error may be due to your SD card being formatted differently. In other words, your S8 is unable to read the contents because they are incompatible. To ensure that your SD card works properly with your S8, format it using your phone. Here’s how:

  1. From a Home screen, touch and swipe up or down to display all apps.
  2. From a Home screen, navigate: Settings Settings icon > Storage Storage icon.
  3. Tap Format SD card.
  4. Tap Format SD card. If presented, enter the appropriate password, PIN or pattern then tap Continue.
  5. Tap Delete all.

According to Samsung, the video file formats that your S8 can support includes the following:

  • MP4
  • M4V
  • 3GP
  • 3G2
  • WMV
  • ASF
  • AVI
  • FLV
  • MKV
  • WEBM

The audio file format supported by the Galaxy S8 are the following:

  • MP3
  • M4A
  • 3GA
  • AAC
  • OGG
  • OGA
  • WAV
  • WMA
  • AMR
  • AWB
  • FLAC
  • MID
  • MIDI
  • XMF
  • MXMF
  • IMY
  • RTTTL
  • RTX
  • OTA
  • DSF
  • DFF

 


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