[Q] Help! App2SD issues, SD apps disappeared & won't work!!

snovvman · Oct 30, 2010

N1, rooted, 2.2, many apps to SD (both natively or using root).

Things have been humming along just fine. Today, after a reboot from a hanging app update, I no longer have access to apps that are loaded on SD. LauncherPro displays them using generic Android icons rather than the actual apps.

When I go to Manage Applications, they are listed but are all grayed out.

Several reboots, no joy.

Went to Settings/SD/. SD is shown as mounted. Tried to umount, the process hangs.

HELP!!

How do I troubleshoot/get my phone back to normal?

Is there a Linux "chkdsk" I can invoke?

I would really appreciate some help.

Cheers.

Edit: It appears that I can take pictures and browse pictures stored on SD, which suggests that the SD is mounted. What could be wrong?

Edit 2: From what I can tell, the link or reference to all the apps on SD is lost or corrupted. How do I rebuild/fix? HELP!!

Edit 3: Under Manage Applications, all the A2SD apps are grayed out. When I select one, the size information hangs at "Computing..." PLEASE HELP!!

snovvman · Oct 30, 2010

Here is another clue: When I remove the MicroSD and boot the phone without it, there is no "SD missing" indicator on the notification bar. I thought there should be??

Without the MicroSD inserted:

The phone and the missing App2SD behave the same as if the SD were inserted except when I go to Manage Applications and select one of the App2SD apps, the file/cache/data size information show up right away (correctly). When SD is inserted, they hang at "computing size...".

Does this give someone a clue on what to do? Please?

danger-rat · Oct 30, 2010

Sounds like they are corrupt...
Just reinstall from the market.

Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App

snovvman · Oct 30, 2010

danger-rat said:
Sounds like they are corrupt...
Just reinstall from the market.

Thanks. It would seem like not the individual applications, but rather the table or links to all the App2SD is corrupt. Is there a way to fix this without needing to reinstall everything? I have over 200 apps!

Moreover, does the 1) lack of "missing SD" when it is not inserted, 2) strange behavior when trying to umount the SD and, 3) hanging at "computing size..." under Manage Applications suggest a deeper issue? (All described above.)

Here is a lesson for having a good backup.

highvista · Oct 30, 2010

I've had this happen to me a few times now. I'm running stock, rooted 2.2.1 and am using the native app2sd functionality of FroYo. It occurs after a reboot. Shelling into the phone and doing a "df" to show mounts reveals that none of the normal application mounts are in place. Going to the /mnt/asec directory shows that each of the application directories exist but are empty. When things are working, each application's directory contains a "pkg.apk" file.

The only way I've been able to recover has been to use Titanium Backup to re-install each app from the back-up I'd made before this happened. I've become very paranoid and keep my back-up up-to-date at all times. Recovering this way is still pretty tedious, and I only have about 18 apps on my SD card. I'd think there'd be a better way to rebuild the /mnt/asec directory. I've created a tar of /mnt/asec and, if I have this problem again, I'm going to try just restoring the tar and rebooting to see if I can avoid the one-by-one reinstall.

snovvman · Oct 30, 2010

highvista said:
I've had this happen to me a few times now. I'm running stock, rooted 2.2.1 and am using the native app2sd functionality of FroYo. It occurs after a reboot. Shelling into the phone and doing a "df" to show mounts reveals that none of the normal application mounts are in place. Going to the /mnt/asec directory shows that each of the application directories exist but are empty. When things are working, each application's directory contains a "pkg.apk" file.

The only way I've been able to recover has been to use Titanium Backup to re-install each app from the back-up I'd made before this happened. I've become very paranoid and keep my back-up up-to-date at all times. Recovering this way is still pretty tedious, and I only have about 18 apps on my SD card. I'd think there'd be a better way to rebuild the /mnt/asec directory. I've created a tar of /mnt/asec and, if I have this problem again, I'm going to try just restoring the tar and rebooting to see if I can avoid the one-by-one reinstall.

Oh man I didn't want to hear that! Any idea what caused this? I saw it once before and things went back to normal after another reboot. This time, it didn't

Also, any idea why I am unable to umount the SD, no "missing SD" on notification bar when it is not inserted, and stuck on "Computing..." under Manage Applications when SD IS inserted?

Ugh!!

Edit: I'm Linux igorant. Is going to /mnt/asec simply as "cd /mnt/asec"? Also, what should I expect to see with a "df" and under /mnt/asec?

snovvman · Oct 30, 2010

This is what I see with "df"

/dev: 197552K total, 0K used, 197552K available (block size 4096)
/mnt/asec: 197552K total, 0K used, 197552K available (block size 4096)
/system: 148480K total, 125516K used, 22964K available (block size 4096)
/data: 200960K total, 178824K used, 22136K available (block size 4096)
/cache: 97280K total, 1768K used, 95512K available (block size 4096)
/mnt/sdcard: 7763968K total, 5470400K used, 2293568K available (block size 32768)
/mnt/secure/asec: 7763968K total, 5470400K used, 2293568K available (block size 32768)

I then entered "cd mnt/asec", and "ls -a", but nothing at all was returned.

I cd'ed to /mnt/secure/asec and ls showed these (abbreviated):

android.tether-1.asec
bz.ktk.bubble-1.asec
<snip>
ymst.android.fxcamera-2.asec
ymst.android.homeswitcher-1.asec

They look like reference to the apps.

I have no idea what I'm looking at...

snovvman · Oct 30, 2010

Trying to reinstall the apps, even on the phone rather than SD, does not work either. Is the only way to fix this to do a wipe/hard reset?

I'm really curious about what happened.

Forge94 · Oct 31, 2010

I get the same thing every time I reboot.
All I do is "Force Stop" LauncherPro then wait for it to start back up again and all my apps reload.
It may take more than one force stop, but 1 usually does the trick.

snovvman · Oct 31, 2010

Forge94 said:
I get the same thing every time I reboot.
All I do is "Force Stop" LauncherPro then wait for it to start back up again and all my apps reload.
It may take more than one force stop, but 1 usually does the trick.

I wish it were that easy. I've seen the problem you describe, where certain App2SD apps or gadgets don't show up on LauncherPro properly. A restart of LauncherPro fixes it. Under that condition, they still show up properly in the Market and Manage Applications. You can still launch the app by other means.

In this case, I believe the apps are actually gone...

highvista · Oct 31, 2010

snovvman said:
This is what I see with "df"

/dev: 197552K total, 0K used, 197552K available (block size 4096)
/mnt/asec: 197552K total, 0K used, 197552K available (block size 4096)
/system: 148480K total, 125516K used, 22964K available (block size 4096)
/data: 200960K total, 178824K used, 22136K available (block size 4096)
/cache: 97280K total, 1768K used, 95512K available (block size 4096)
/mnt/sdcard: 7763968K total, 5470400K used, 2293568K available (block size 32768)
/mnt/secure/asec: 7763968K total, 5470400K used, 2293568K available (block size 32768)

I then entered "cd mnt/asec", and "ls -a", but nothing at all was returned.

I cd'ed to /mnt/secure/asec and ls showed these (abbreviated):

android.tether-1.asec
bz.ktk.bubble-1.asec
<snip>
ymst.android.fxcamera-2.asec
ymst.android.homeswitcher-1.asec

They look like reference to the apps.

I have no idea what I'm looking at...

What you're seeing in the /mnt/secure/asec directory sounds normal. This directory wasn't altered by the problem when I had it occur, as far as I could tell.

Your description of the /mnt/asec directory is different than what I saw. It seems yours is empty. Mine had a directory for each app on the SD card, though the directories were empty, rather than having the pkg.apk files in them that they do when things are working normally.

I've always been able to re-install my apps, so your occurrence of the problem may be a bit different than mine. Are you able to install a new app and move it to the SD card via the standard FroYo method, for an app that allows this?

snovvman · Nov 1, 2010

highvista said:
What you're seeing in the /mnt/secure/asec directory sounds normal. This directory wasn't altered by the problem when I had it occur, as far as I could tell.

Your description of the /mnt/asec directory is different than what I saw. It seems yours is empty. Mine had a directory for each app on the SD card, though the directories were empty, rather than having the pkg.apk files in them that they do when things are working normally.

I've always been able to re-install my apps, so your occurrence of the problem may be a bit different than mine. Are you able to install a new app and move it to the SD card via the standard FroYo method, for an app that allows this?

Thanks for replying. I pulled the SD, did a wipe last night. The SD has a .android_secure directory. In it, there is a file for each app that is installed on the SD. Each file has the .asec extension.

After the wipe, I reinstalled the SD and experienced similar problem as before: Can't dismount SD, installing app from Market hangs, etc. Titanium restore hangs too. Strangely, browsing to that directory using Root Explorer shows the directory to be empty.

It was when I decided to rename the .android_secure directory when everything returned to normal. The OS recreated the directory, app installation worked, and I was able to run a Titanium restore. Unfortunately, the backup is old.

I wish there is a good explaination to what happened...

Edit: Something interesting...

I did a "df" now that things are working.

I still saw everything I did yesterday (sizes a bit different):
/dev: 197552K total, 0K used, 197552K available (block size 4096)
/mnt/asec: 197552K total, 0K used, 197552K available (block size 4096)
/system: 148480K total, 125516K used, 22964K available (block size 4096)
/data: 200960K total, 178824K used, 22136K available (block size 4096)
/cache: 97280K total, 1768K used, 95512K available (block size 4096)
/mnt/sdcard: 7763968K total, 5470400K used, 2293568K available (block size 32768)
/mnt/secure/asec: 7763968K total, 5470400K used, 2293568K available (block size 32768)

(note that the /mnt/asec still shows 0k used.)

BUT NOW I ALSO SEE:

/mnt/asec/net.cdeguet.smartkeyboardpro.en-1...

and one for each app.

Was it that these apps were just not properly mounting, therefore the OS cannot "see" them?

Jack_R1 · Nov 1, 2010

Yes. It's what the post above is telling you.

snovvman · Nov 1, 2010

Jack_R1 said:
Yes. It's what the post above is telling you.

What could have caused this? Was there a way to repair the issue without a wipe? Some way to get the apps to re-link or mount?

alix0056 · Nov 11, 2010

I was having the same problem on MicroMod. I boot into RA recovery and under partition sd I repair sd extension and upgrade ext2 to ext3 and that fix my problem. Hope that helps someone

Zanzarismo · Dec 2, 2010

I think i have a same problem but don't know how to fix it.
I used Titanium Backup to back up my files.
I copied these files to my external sd.
After this is did a hard reset.
After this reset the files were in the .android_secure folder on my external sd.
All the files have the extension ''asec''.

Can someone help?

nagasgura · Dec 28, 2010

I had this problem a while ago and the only way I got it to go away was to do a factory reset via clockworkmod recovery. Just today, the problem came back. What I've noticed is that after a few hours, the apps come back. I have read that this problem could be caused by corrupted files on the sd card. The only way to fix it is to format the sd card (and posibly partition it). I am planing on waiting until they come back, backing them up, backing up my SD and partitioning my sd card (which wipes everything on it.)

zuberio · Dec 28, 2010

So regularly performing a backup image of the SD card would help someone recover from this problem?

As well, are all the phones that are having this issue using aftermarket SD cards?

houzuoguo · Dec 29, 2010

few days ago I had corrupted App2SD function for 3 days.. during those 3 days I kept working to fix it and finally I had to format my SD card and reinstall all applications... it was kinda fraustrating.

But I notice that when I execute "move all apps from internal storage to SD card" on Titanium Backup, sometimes it gets stuck (when there are more than 140 apps) and all applications on SD card get corrupted.

Jack_R1 · Dec 29, 2010

I can only suggest to all those still stuck with default Froyo Apps2SD method, make a (long due) switch and move to DarkTremor's Apps2SD. The hassle is completely worth it.

[Q] Help! App2SD issues, SD apps disappeared & won't work!!

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Similar threads