File names being changed

Same problem. If htis was deliberate on the part of SanDisk, they have rendered my iXpand drive useless. Too bad, as I depended on this as a way of getting photos off of my iphone. Looking for alternatives, any thoughts?

it seems like it was a deliberate change. Open a support ticket with sandisk support and let them know you would like to see this changed back to the previous functionality. 

I am looking elsewhere for a solution. I cannot trust them to not mess with my data going forward.

Seems that the file renaming is a deliberate change Sandisk made. Their reply as below:

Dear Ken,

Thank you for contacting SanDisk Global Customer Care and providing us the feedback. I understand your concern.

Please be informed that in the latest iXpand Drive app release we have changed the functionality of manual file copies. When a file is copied the file name will be changed. This is not a bug, this functionality change was by design. We will share your feedback with the product team. We strive to improve our products and functionality and your feedback is extremely valuable.

Please reply to this email should you require further assistance. We are glad to help!

Best regards,
Matt T.
SanDisk® Global Customer Care

Very disappointed and very curious to know if their R&D can explain the benefit of this change.

It is not a problem. That is the nature of free enterprise. I simply purchased another brand (iDiskk) that does not have this flaw and pitched the SanDisk product. Thank you for your help.

Yes, please do not change the original file name when copying to the usb drive. Many people rely on that IMG_xxxx name for their own purpose. For example, I use the number to tell if I am missing a file from the sequence number. If you insist changing the filename is a “nice” feature, please make it an option so the user can pick the behavior. Thank you for listening.

Please, please keep the original IMG_1234.jpg file names! I depend on this file naming for keeping all my photos in some kind of sane manner. This change makes the iExpand drive essentially useless to me, and renders the camera in my iPhone much more difficult to integrate with my existing thousands of photos from a variety of digital cameras. This litttle change has destroyed this iExpand product for me.

At the very least, this should be made an option.

And now I have the problem of lots of files in my iExpand with these garbage names, which I may have to rename manually. I anxiously await not only a fix to the iOS iExpand app, but also an automatic way to undo the damage that has already been done.

What was the reason for this change, which is far worse than the problem it might have been trying to solve?

Hi all, I aslo have had this problem since noticing it in mid June after updating iXpand app to 5.0.1on iPhone X running iOS 11.4.  I called and takked to support. at that ime the first person I talked to had no idea what I was talking about and did not know anything about it.  He gave me some bugus advice (I think not his fault but standar solutions to try to fix) Delete app and reinstall.  Did nothing.  Then he suggested to reset and do Firmware update- can only be done on a PC running windows and I have all Mac stuff and iPhone.  The firmware update is really old and has nothing to do with newer app.  The name change happend after that latest App udate He sent me up to a higher level of support.  I wrote to Steven 6-24-18 explaining all and included screen shots of everything.  no one know anything.  Now i read on this forum that it is a “deliberate change” done by Sandisk.  As has been mentioned by someone in the forum this also makes my iXpand disk useless to me too.  I use to put movie files on my iPad so I can watch whenever I want.  Now all the files are the long string of letters, number and symbols so I have no idea what the list is.  Really STOOOOOPID.  I really do not want to have to go and buy another brand of lightning _ USB flash drive to work with iOS devices.  This is really bad PR from Sandisk by not addressing this stupid issue all of their making. Jeff

As unbelievable as this is, Sandisk takes responsibility (as others have been told) for making this change, rendering the flash drive useless for transferring photos, unless having each of your unique file names changed to a totally unrelated 40 character mess of numbers and letters is what you desire.  Shame on them for such a move without disclosing this.  I’ve wasted my money here.  Ugh.

They changed it back in app version 5.0.4. I would recommend updating the app. 

drlucky - thanks for the info!!

I’m a new user and use version 5.0.10. It still has the same problem and makes the iXpand and software useless. Can’t use it as a backup or transfer tool because it is nearly impossible to match the files. I’m talking about hundreds of photos and videos.

@drlucky wrote:

autobackup has to change the file name so it can do incremental backups. any file that was backed up using auto backup you would need to go to each one and manually rename the file.

 

You can you the copy files option to manually select and copy the files from the iOS device to the iXpand and the original file names will be retained. 

the app changes the file hame to some long gibberish name like 83X27022-C3ED-48E9-D17$L0$001-photo.JPG.  I have turned off automatic backup but that did not correct the issue.  Any help?  Am I overlooking something obvious?   Thanks

@britany wrote:


@drlucky wrote:

autobackup has to change the file name so it xender discord omegle  can do incremental backups. any file that was backed up using auto backup you would need to go to each one and manually rename the file.

 

You can you the copy files option to manually select and copy the files from the iOS device to the iXpand and the original file names will be retained. 


the app changes the file hame to some long gibberish name like 83X27022-C3ED-48E9-D17$L0$001-photo.JPG.  I have turned off automatic backup but that did not correct the issue.  Any help?  Am I overlooking something obvious?   Thanks

autobackup has to change the file name so it can do incremental backups. any file that was backed up using auto backup you would need to go to each one and manually rename the file.

@maytonh wrote:

I am a new user, but tried searching first for the solution.  When I take a photo on my iphone, the file name is something like IMG_1234.JPG.  But when I copy that photo to the iXpand the app changes the file hame to some long gibberish name like 83X27022-C3ED-48E9-D17$L0$001-photo.JPG.  I have turned off automatic backup but that did not correct the issue.  Any help?  Am I overlooking something obvious?   Thanks

 

I would like to inform you that  In the latest iXpand Drive app release we have changed the functionality of manual file copies. When a file is copied the file name will be changed. We will share your feedback with the product team. We strive to improve our products and functionality and your feedback is extremely valuable

So this has been fixed then? On auto back up or just manual copy?

I’m just starting to try to sort through hundreds of video files I took on a month long road trip over the summer that I’ll never be able to get back in order. I can not believe someone would be so incompetent not to realize what a disaster this would be.

Thank you so much! This fixed the whole problem!!

I was so annoyed by the weird naming …

The problem with changing of filenames by the ixpand app still persist.

When doing ‘Backup’, filenames are gibberish
When doing ‘Copy’, filenames are still changed with ‘photo’ text-string inserted in filename, this addition is superfluous.

Why are filenames changed in the first place?

The new filenames affects the manner in which image files are retrieved by name. The create/modified date stamps are not actually reliable for retrieving by images by date as it can change (unless retrieval is done via metadata dates), The actions of the ixpand app renders the flash drive useless as a backup device because of the huge inconvenience imposed on users on retrieving image files.

I purchased a flash drive from another company to back up my wife’s iPhone. It stopped working and so I bought a SanDisk flash drive. After doing a backup to SanDisk I now discover that it has arbitrarily changed all of the file names of the photos. SanDisk advertizing did not reveal this major defect and I am frustrated that I was deceived. I would not have purchased the flash drive had I known this.

I know your post is from 2018, but I just saw it and I did the same thing, stopped using the SanDisk and bought a iDiskk and it is great