Android open or create database

Question

I am trying to create a database on my sd card. Whenever I call SQLiteDatabase.openOrCreateDatabase I get the error:

07-21 13:33:17.587: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(5541): Caused by: android.database.sqlite.SQLiteException: unable to open database file

Does anyone know what may be causing this? Here is the code I have in the open() method of my database class:

File sdcard = Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory();

String dbfile = sdcard.getAbsolutePath() + File.separator+ "external_sd" + File.separator + Schema.DATABASE_NAME ;

db = SQLiteDatabase.openOrCreateDatabase(dbfile, null);

As a side note, why are you trying to write the database to the sd card, rather than /data/data? — Leif Andersen, Jul 21 '11 at 18:48
I want to be able to give my users support if there is something wrong in the data. I am actually pulling the data from a sql server database so I want to be able to detect and manipulate any unexpected data. I suppose I could create some classes to import and export the database from private storage. — zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, Jul 21 '11 at 18:49

score 8 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:53

8

One possible fault on this could be that you did not set the appropriate permissions

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />

However storing data on a SD Card is considered to be insecure. Because every application which has permissions to store data on the sd storage could access the database.

Edit: Another possible problem is that external storage may not be available. You need to make sure that your external storage is currently writeable. One method would be to determine the state via getExternalStorageState (see reference here).

getExternalStorageState() returns MEDIA_SHARED if the media is present not mounted, and shared via USB mass storage.

Reference. There is also a stackoverflow post on checking the state here: Writing Text File to SD Card fails

edited May 23 '17 at 11:53

Community

1
1

answered Jul 21 '11 at 18:42

fyr

20,227
7
37
53

I already have that permission set in my manifest file. This is for a non market application so I am not worried about other applications trying to access my data. – zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Jul 21 '11 at 18:48
Environment.getExternalStorageState() == shared – zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Jul 21 '11 at 18:58
Thats exactly your problem @ == shared – fyr Jul 21 '11 at 19:07

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 10 '19 at 12:38

public static final String DATABASE_PATH=Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory().getAbsolutePath()+"/WebService/Databases/";


private static final String DATABASE_NAME="database_name.db";


SQLiteDatabase db=SQLiteDatabase.openDatabase(DATABASE_PATH+DATABASE_NAME,null,SQLiteDatabase.CREATE_IF_NECESSARY | SQLiteDatabase.OPEN_READWRITE);

Android open or create database

2 Answers2

Linked