Phone upload or download will create Pictures1 folder in OneDrive

[Otto Gunter]

I have had this issue posted in <cough>useless<cough> Microsoft Community for over a year now, and have yet to resolve it. And I'm not the only one, this issue has persisted through the 8 to 8.1 upgrades and the SkyDrive to OneDrive evolution, and the intro of the Developer Preview. It has something to do with camera sync...

My OneDrive, all 95gb of it, will sync flawlessly between the cloud and my Surface Pro 2, Surface 2 (no music), and Lumia 620 (Camera Roll). However, if I dare use my Lumia to manually upload a photo, or use OneDrive to manually download a photo, all hell breaks lose. My "Pictures" folder on the SP2 will start replicating into a "Pictures1" folder, sometimes its entirety, but usually it moves all 24gb of photos and videos into "Pictures1" and leaves "Camera Roll" (or Saved pictures" or "Mobile uploads", depending on what I did) all by itself in a "Pictures" folder. Needless to say, this totally fubars any links or libraries or backup scripts I have in place.

I suspect this has something to do with a bug in either "camera sync" settings or "save to SD card" settings not being cosmically aligned, plus the fact that my user folders (Contacts, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, Videos) have had their "location" changed to be in OneDrive. Oh yeah, and I'm running the WP Developer Preview now. Do all this and things do not work as designed.

Anyone had this experience? I can correct it by moving all the folders back and renaming or deleting the duplicates, but I know it will happen again if I use my phone camera the way its meant to be used. Very frustrating ...

 

[ven07]

Did you try to install dropbox on all the devices and then check if the issue still exists? it would tell us if the issue is only tied to onedrive

 

[Otto Gunter]

Thanks but I prefer a one-cloud solution, and OneDrive has the integration and features I need, and for the right price. I can fix my problem by correcting wrongly-placed files/folders on my Lumia, but I cannot prevent the problem from happening again next time I manually save or upload a file. I'm wondering if anyone else has had this problem and knows the preventative action, rather than the fix. I want to prevent it, not fix it.

 

[ven07]

Lol my friend I wasn't asking you to call it quits on OneDrive.. I simpl wanted to know if the problem would still occur if you used a different storage service and you would simply have to install it and move a few files, not GB's but MB's would be fine.. Hope someone has a solution for you

 

[Otto Gunter]

More analysis after spending 24 hrs fixing "Pictures 1" in OneDrive...

This issue is likely caused by normal use of my Lumia 620, the same problem does not occur when I use my Surface 2 or Surface Pro 2 to take pictures or take screenshots or download photos. "Pictures 1" will propagate in OneDrive alongside the default "Pictures" when one of the following default Win8.1 folders is created: "Camera Roll" or "Screenshots" or "Saved pictures" (which used to be Mobile uploads"?).

I suspect it may have to do with settings for using the SD card to store photos? When the photos are saved, the default folder is created in "Pictures 1" instead of using the existing folder in "Pictures", then OneDrive gets confused and starts moving all my files into "Pictures 1", causing havoc in batch files, backups, links, etc. The issue is not related to the WP Developer Preview, this issue predates that software release and all its updates.

 

[ven07]

What happens if you were to upload a picture that is stored on the phone itself and not the SD card?

 

[Otto Gunter]

There are zero pictures on my phone itself. I have "storage sense" set to "SD card" for "where to store your music, photos, apps, and more", which as noted in my post above, could be part of the problem since that is when "Pictures 1" starts to propagate. The fix is to use my WP OneDrive app to move the rogue folder to "Pictures" as soon as it is created. If I am too late, "Pictures 1" will contain all my photos once sync is complete (overnight).

To answer your question, I would have to first download a photo to my phone, or take a new picture and move it to my phone itself, but I cannot get that far without first creating the new folder on the SD card (per storage sense settings).

It's worth repeating; I can fix the problem by moving the rogue folder to Pictures, but if not done right away it can take hours and hours to fix and remove "Pictures 1" from OneDrive. The key is preventing it in the first place, which I believe requires a bug fix in the WP OS or in WP OneDrive app. If MS is interested, I can easily recreate the problem...

 

[ven07]

There is an app in the store to analyze your phone and problems for MS, but I'm not sure if they actually use the information... I'm not sure if we have anyone from MS on the forums

 

[Otto Gunter]

UPDATE: I got a brand-spanking new Lumia 830 for Xmas, love it, but guess what? I've been spending the better part of today, and I'm not done yet, correcting YET ANOTHER OCCURRENCE OF THE "PICTURES 1" PROBLEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This time, I didn't catch it quickly enough and now have to correct and re-sync not only my Surface Pro 2, but my Surface 2 as well. I've got screen captures of the whole mess, but this is my favorite:


It gets better yet, why stop at Pictures 1, why not create a 3rd Pictures folder??


Not so Merry Christmas.

 

[realwarder]

WPCentral posted about Microsoft people being in the forums here. Track down that post and PM them and see if they can help. If there's a bug that is easy to reproduce they should be able to open an internal bug report.