"SD card removed unexpectedly" .... eh? I haven't touched it!

[NorbertDentressangle]

Why am I frequently getting this message on my Samsung S3 mini when I haven't touched the phone let alone the sodding SD card?

Might be worth taking the (micro?) SD card out and checking if the contacts are clean on it. A small variation in voltage might 'kid' the phone (computer after all) into thinking the card is no longer present, hence the message you get.

Most systems require a sensible process, either explicitly asking to remove (on Mac/ Windows) or action by user, when not being accessed (on phone/ tablet) by any Apps.

Thanks NetworkGuy I'll take it out, clean and replace and see if it happens again.

If NetworkGuy's eminently sensible suggestions don't help, the SD card might be on the way out. Back it up while you have the chance if there's anything you're attached to on there, that way if it does die on you you're only out the £5 a replacement will cost, rather than any irreplaceable pictures or files.

It's a common Samsung bug (and very annoying). Much gnashing of teeth on t'internet about it.

I recently had a microSD card fail on me (in a Samsung, incidentally), hence my emphasis on backup - the thing was positively ancient and had been moved from phone to phone so it wasn't entirely unexpected, but very annoying nonetheless. It started throwing me random errors like that in the weeks before it went.

OK, you've spurred me on to try and transfer photos from the SD card to my laptop but its proving to be a major PITA.

Photos from my camera are easy to click and drag but these from the SD card are not working -argh!

Might be able to suggest some options... have you much internal storage available in the phone? There's a pretty good File Manager called X-plore which allows you to move/ copy to/from pretty much anywhere to/from anywhere (including Google Drive storage {15GB - your e-mails}) so you could leave it overnight copying all your photos (using home Wi-Fi) to your Google Drive for security (and access on the laptop at a later time), perhaps.

Depends on whether you have unlimited traffic allowed on the broadband, but it's probably a good idea to store things there too...