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Failed xfer to USB “ghost” folders - how to get rid of them?

Padcatt

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I have a few folders which failed to transfer from iPad to USB drive. They neither finished loading, nor disappear, nor are they deletable.

When I connect the same USB Drive to a Mac, the folders which failed to transfer do not appear on that drive.

Can the iPad eventually resolve whatever is there to reflect reality?

Thank you!
 

twerppoet

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Is this a Lightning or USB-C iPad, and are you using any adaptors/dongles? Is this working with a third party USB reader/app, or in the iPad’s Files app?

I probably don’t have an answer, but I need this info to make any guesses.
 
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Padcatt

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Lightning ipad, 12.9” gen 3 iPad Pro, using iPad’s files app

thank you!
 

twerppoet

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The third gen 12.9” iPad pro has a USB-C port. If you are using the USB Thumb Drive with no dongle or hub, it must have at least one USB-C plug. It’s pretty common these days to find a drive that has USB-C on one side and the older USB-A on the other. Older Macs will need that, newer ones have USB-C ports.

Lightning is what you use to plug into your iPhone, if you have one. No USB-C iPhones, yet.

That said, since you did not mention dongles/hubs, and it’s the Files app, I can think of only two possibilities. Either there are residual files on the drive that the iPad recognizes as folders, and the Mac does not, or the iPad is keeping a catch of info for the drive that it has not updated.

In the first case you could probably view the hidden files/folder using the Mac and delete them. It’s been a long time since I had a Mac, so I’m a bit fuzzy on where the command is and it’s exact wording, but somewhere on the drive’s viewing options you should find something like “show all files”, “show hidden”. or the like. Look for any files that begin with a dot, and look like they are about the folders you want to delete. Leave the . and .. files alone. If you are familiar with the command line, you can view and delete the files that way, using the “ls -a” command to list all files in the current folder.

Hiding certain files (that begin with a dot) is typical of Linux, Unix, and MacOS which is a version of Unix at heart. These are mostly system files that you don’t want to edit or delete by accident.

If it’s problem on the iPad, then my first recommendation is the all powerful restart. If the cache that is keeping the folder info is in a temporary file, then this will probably clear it. If it’s a glitch, it will clear it. I can’t think of nothing else you can do on the iPad itself other than hopping the cleanup routines eventually catch and remove the ghost directories.

Then there is the simple yet extreme method most support techs would probably use, because it’s less work than figuring it out. Make sure there is no data that needs to be saved off the drive. If there is, save it off the drive. Reformat the drive. There will be no possibility of unseen files on the drive, and the iPad will (probably) see it as a different drive and there for not show folders that only exist (in theory) on the other completely not the same drive.

Well, that was a long winded way of offering three fairly simple (maybe) solutions.
 
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Padcatt

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Thank you..going to try the restart the iPad method now. Will later try the invisible files on the Mac.

FWIW, this iPad does not have a USB port; it’s lightning. I use an adapter to connect my USB thumb drive.
Perhaps I got the generation # wrong...my bad!
 

twerppoet

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No problem. Please let us know what happens.

The third generation iPad Pro was the one that started using the USB-C port. I thought it was the second, but that’s probably because the USB-C model was the second one I bought (oops).

Here’s the Wikipedia article comparing models, in case you were interested.
iPad Pro - Wikipedia
 
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Padcatt

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No problem. Please let us know what happens.

The third generation iPad Pro was the one that started using the USB-C port. I thought it was the second, but that’s probably because the USB-C model was the second one I bought (oops).

Here’s the Wikipedia article comparing models, in case you were interested.
iPad Pro - Wikipedia

thank you for that wiki link...mine is 2nd gen after all!
 
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Padcatt

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Thank you for asking, twerppoet.

The “ghost folders” are no longer on the USB drive. I believe it was your suggestion of restarting the iPad which cleared them, or persuaded the iPad that they really aren’t there after all.

I also tried your suggestion of connecting the drive to a Mac Pro, then revealing the invisible files (Shift-CMD-dot )
but that did not show them, which supports your idea that the iPad was keeping their memory in a temp state, which was flushed by the restart?

good to know for future. I was prepared to offload the files, wipe the thumb drive and re-load everything, but..I would’ve been disappointed had it come to that.

I take seriously the “Pro” in “iPad Pro.” Nearly all of my personal work is done on the iPad - housekeeping and file management are an essential part of doing pro-level work. Macs certainly have their problems, too, but I’m glad to have gotten to a solution on this issue, and I’ll know how to handle it next time.

Thank you again for your help!
 

twerppoet

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No problem, and thanks for letting us know how it ended.

My iPad Pro is my primary computer. My secondary computer is the iPad Mini. So, I’m onboard with getting work done on the iPad. :)
 
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Padcatt

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Some things which I feel that Apple could do to enhance the Pro aspects of file management would be to add a progress indicator for all file movement operations, error warnings in case something fails, and to have item counts appear on the destination side as well as on the source. Those would go a long way toward informing the User whether or not files successfully moved / copied, and whether and why such operations fail, if they do.

To me, Files / file management / external storage feels very much like it’s at the nascent stage in iOS
 

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