IssueTracker

Fix uploaded for review at https://android-review.googlesource.com/#/c/31110/

Can you fix this we are waiting for these improvements!

Thank you for posting this, I had a folder of all files in a directory with .nomedia in it, and this fixed it!

It is solved renaming the folder (you can rename it back again) with the .nomedia file already inside.

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I placed .nomedia inside my empty eBook folder. I force closed gallery, cleared its cache and data, rebooted. Loaded up gallery and deleted a few 'ghost' images that it displayed as black boxes somehow it still remembered them but couldn't load the images because they were deleted.

Then, I copied all my books into the book folder where .nomedia already exists, loaded up gallery, and its STILL ADDING EBOOK COVERS TO THE GALLERY! The strange part is its only adding SOME of them. Wtf how does this functionality even get programmed? I mean, I can't imagine the convoluted mess that the gallery must be coded with

How do I make gallery ignore ALL the book covers not just random ones?

@scott.mceachern, you need to clear data for "Media Storage" as mentioned at the top of this bugreport, not for Gallery. Or do the folder renaming trick mentioned in comment #5.
These issues are fixed in Android 4.1

Still have the same problem on Nexus7 with Jellybean 4.2 and still have to reboot/clear cache manually. Is there another issue for that mediascanner (mis)behaviour?

How did you add the .nomedia file?

It seems I also have this problem w/ Android 4.1.2 on Nexus S. I've added the .nomedia file using "touch" from within adb shell, but the Media Storage process is still trying to index this folder...

If you're going to use adb to manipulate files, you should run the media scanner afterwards (adb is a debugging/developer tool, extra care is needed when using it)

But if you go through MTP or USB mass storage, they will be picked up automatically, and in the case of MTP you should see files disappear from Gallery within seconds after adding a .nomedia file.

I'm a Java/Linux developer so I feel at home in the adb shell.

I triggered a media scan using "SDrescan" (from Google Play). I don't wait until Media Storage finishes its work because it takes forever and eats >90% CPU (and therefore, battery).

I had created /storage/sdcard0/Android/data/com.ideashower.readitlater.pro/files/.nomedia and using 'lsof' I can see that android.process.media is not respecting it, its scanning files/folders underneath /storage/sdcard0/Android/data/com.ideashower.readitlater.pro/files

Putting a .nomedia file doesn't mean that the media scanner won't scan anything else further down the folder. It just means that whatever it finds there won't be considered "media" as far as the Gallery and Music app are concerned.
The media scanner will still build a complete list of all the files.

Thanks a lot, that explains the behavior I'm seeing. But why does the media scanner keep scanning a folder it should ignore? Wouldn't it be more efficient to just remove this folder and its subfolders from the scanning altogether?

This is mainly to support MTP. The files you see when connected via MTP are the files in the media database. The reason that's not done "on the fly" is because MTP lets you query a device for "all music files" or "all pictures", so we need to know ahead of time what's there.
Hiding those files from MTP is not an option either, because then you would never be able to access those files (to clean them up, say), without the help of a debugging tool like adb.

OK, I'll try leaving it running overnight while it's charging to see it if finishes scanning. This is a huge folder thou (24359 files inside 16670 folders totaling ~950MB).

IMHO these should not be visible from MTP because MTP is for transferring media files and I'm explicitly telling Android that these are _not_ media files. Besides, they should still be visible from USB Mass Storage so they wouldn't be completely unaccessible from user tools.

Not all devices have USB mass storage. And showing only "media files" wouldn't really help, because there would still be corner cases like dropping a file onto the device and then seeing it disappear, because it wasn't a "media" file to begin with, or because you dropped it in a folder that has a .nomedia file in it.

In any case, 24359 files in 16670 files isn't all that huge, and should take no more than 30 minutes on 4.1 for an initial scan, or <10 minutes for a rescan. If it does take substantially longer, I'd be interesting in a copy of your media database so I can try to reproduce the problem.

Comment #5 resolve the issue for me.
Renamed the folder, restarted the device and now Google Play Music will not show all the podcasts (from BeyondPod) anymore. There was a .nomedia file in the Podcasts directory, which was previously ignored. Thanks!

im having a problem with .thumbnails file. whenever i copy a picture, a file with pics, or insert a new sd or flashdrive with pics, the .thumbnails file returns and either replicates or grows in file size. ive been googling for weeks for a solution. any help would be apreciated.