Here's what I did last night which seems to have solved the issue. Please keep in mind that I'm using a Z4 Tablet. All of us being Xperia users I think it's certainly worth a try. Having scoured the internet for days trying to find a solution, I stumbled across a forum or article in which there was mention of using a media scanner. From the Play Store I picked out the following app- media.Re.scan: media scanner for android2.3 by Hiroyuki Mizuhara. I used the advanced option to further add directories of my choosing. I have a great deal of content on my SD card which meant it took a few hours to complete. So please be patient and let it do its thing. This morning, once the scan had completed, I checked Album and another app which requires external access and all my SD card content was showing again just like it was before the ghastly 7.1.1 update. This may not be necessary but before using the scanner I cleared the data in the Media Storage app followed by force stopping it and then restarted the device. Some have suggested this step alone as a possible solution but it didn't work for me. Good luck fellow Xperians!
