Android - Unable to open folder or create new vault

Bug reports
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1

I have had a thorough investigation online and I am unable to find an appropriate solution.

Whenever I try to open a folder as vault or create a new vault I get the following screen copied below. As you can see nothing shows up, despite having lots of files and folders stored on my device. It then crashes after about 5 seconds, therefore I can’t select a vault or create one.

Do you have any suggestions? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I have a Samsung Galaxy S10+, operating on Android version 12.

Steps to reproduce

I have downloaded the app and when I try to open a folder as vault or create a new vault, I get the following attached screen, which shows no files and when I try to navigate to anything it crashes ‘My Files’ application.

Expected result

A list of files which I have saved on my phone's internal storage.

Actual result

A screen showing 'recent' files which is incorrectly blank and I am unable to navigate to find anything.

Screenshot_20240730_213835_Files
Screenshot_20240730_213835_Files1080×2280 83.2 KB

2

It is the same issue as this post: How to get beyond Obsidian's greeting screen in Android? (Doesn't seem to open the vault)

3

This is another post that also appears to be the same problem: Can't open or select Vault on Android 11 (LineageOS)

One of the suggested solutions is to get the official file explorer app for Android. I have installed ‘Files by Google’, and I already have the default ‘My Files’ app but it still doesn’t work, even after trying to change the default file explorer to ‘Files by Google’.

4

I can think of 3 things

  1. Obsidian has not been granted the permission it needs to access file system
  2. The android app that manages the File browser is missing/broken in your phone (it’s not Files by google). This generally happens in “non-official” Android phones.
  3. You could also try to see if Android WebView is up to date in your phone
1 Like
5

Hi WhiteNoise,

Thank you so much for your reply.

Unfortunately, after trying all of these things it is still not allowing me to select a folder. I did update the My Files app which I optimistically thought might fix it to no avail. I feel like my phone is blocking the app from writing my files even though I’ve provided the permission for it to access my files and microphone.

I feel I might need to buy myself a new phone if I wish to use Obsidian, overdue for an upgrade but I don’t like to buy consumer goods unless I need to.