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[Q] Vanishing Apps

I recently bought my wife an Infuse, and have noticed a strange effect. A few apps will vanish after a reboot. I can reinstall them, but they will again vanish leaving only a blank icon, and a search of the apps list on the phone shows they are gone. I did a forum search before this post and did find something on vanishing icons but not whole apps. I use a Dell Streak so have some Android experience but this is weird. Maybe I need to reformat the internal card? Any ideas would be helpful. Thanks.

I've had that happen a couple of times; however, after waiting the app generally reappears. If you're having an issue with the apps actually being uninstalled... Dunno.
Are you running a custom rom? Stock? Rooted? Auto-Delete-My-Apps program? =P

I faced this issue when I backed up on Inspire and restored on Infuse. But well, learnt the hard way. I installed them again from market, and this time they persisted.
I didn't even have a blank icon then -- they just vanished leaving no trace.

diablo009 said:
I faced this issue when I backed up on Inspire and restored on Infuse. But well, learnt the hard way. I installed them again from market, and this time they persisted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are brave. I wouldn't attempt to restore a backup from a diff phone, regardless of OS. Was it intentional?

sometimes this happens because the apps are installed on the sd card which finishes loading after the phone checks for apps.
meaning the apps suddenly disappear since it can't find them because it can't find the sd card.
you have to install them onto the internal memory manually. The phone seems to default to installing them onto the sd card too

Rooted but otherwise stock. I guess I'm looking at a trip back to ATT.

I moved everything off the SD card, removed it, and haven't had this problem since.
Sent from my Infuse 4G

MikeyMike01 said:
I moved everything off the SD card, removed it, and haven't had this problem since.
Sent from my Infuse 4G
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm shocked that you only have as many thanks as you do when you look at your post count. Most posts I've seen of yours are helpful. Thanks for this info.

MikeyMike01 said:
I moved everything off the SD card, removed it, and haven't had this problem since.
Sent from my Infuse 4G
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your response. So it sounds as though I should remove the external SD card before installing any apps to make sure they go on the phone. Then I can reinstall the SD. Is that what you are suggesting? Thanks

antuus said:
You are brave. I wouldn't attempt to restore a backup from a diff phone, regardless of OS. Was it intentional?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Let me accept it, Yes. It was intentional. I did the same from Captivate to Inspire too. I love playing with my toys
And well, this time I had to reflash the ROM again

STraver said:
Thanks for your response. So it sounds as though I should remove the external SD card before installing any apps to make sure they go on the phone. Then I can reinstall the SD. Is that what you are suggesting? Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Basically.
Or transfer them afterwards.
Sent from my Infuse 4G

MikeyMike01 said:
Basically.
Or transfer them afterwards.
Sent from my Infuse 4G
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your help. I'll give this method a try tonight.

Tried reinstalling the apps then moving them to phone and it seems to work. None of the apps vanished after several hours and several reboots. Hope this solution helps someone else with the same problem! The only thing I'm still wondering is why others haven't posted the same issue? Could I have something wrong with the phone still?

I think the included SD card just sucks.
It's only 2 GB anyway... Not missing much without it now that my music is in the cloud.
Sent from my Infuse 4G

This happened to me the other day when I plugged in my phone to transfer some files to the SD card. The apps went missing. Then when I unplugged the usb cable, the apps reappeared.

Thanks for this thread!
I thought I had a buggy phone because of what was happening. I was kind of wondering if it had to do with the muiltiple SD cards. I uninstalled everything from my 2GB and took it out. Reinstalling everything to the internal.
Thanks again!

trdsnow said:
This happened to me the other day when I plugged in my phone to transfer some files to the SD card. The apps went missing. Then when I unplugged the usb cable, the apps reappeared.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do u have any apps installed on ur SD card?

I am having this issue currently as well and it seems that the device is also not showing my external cards contents. I have a 16gb card with tons of files and music on it (no apps installed to it) and the device isn't showing more then half the content.
I am also missing apps I had installed like Titanium Backup that I used to install my apps. It even removed addon apps like Animation Package for Beautiful Widgets.

[Q] Apps gone

Hi after having to switch my phone off, when I turned it on again it appears that all the apps I moved to the SD card are no longer there. I have just spent some time downloading them from the market again.
Question is why has this happened and how do I stop it from happening again
Thanks in advance

Solution
Hi Nexus.
I think you'll find that the apps still exist, they're just fragmented on the SD
card. This has happened to me plenty of times.
I've found it's only apps that are installed on the SD card and it's never
happened with apps on the phone's internal ROM.
A good way to check is to go into: Settings- Applications- Manage applications-
then tap the SD card tab. That list shows all of your apps installed on the SD
card. I found that when apps here got fragmented/corrupt they didn't show their
original app icon. Instead they showed the stock android app icon. This is a good
way to tell if the missing apps in question are still there but are just fragmented.
The way to solve this, the way that's worked for me, is to plug the phone into a
pc and mount the SD card as a disk. Then on the PC access the SD card via
explorer and right click- properties- tools- then click de-fragment.
This may take up to 30 mins as it's not as fast as a HDD.
From using this technique my apps have always returned and I can use them
with no problems again.
I've also noticed that this issue only happens if I restart or turn the phone off. I
don't understand what is corrupting the apps as the SD card is mounted
correctly and is the one supplied as standard.
I hope I've helped, and I guess this will save you from re-downloading all of your
apps again.
I'm happy to hear anyone's thoughts/suggestions onto why this is actually
happening in the first place too.
Cheers, Dms

Hi thanks so much for the answer. This has been bugging me for ages and even though I have been searching I have not had any joy solving it until your reply.
As you said it only seems to happen to apps on the sd card, and I would like to know why they are not "persistent" There must be a developer who understands the Android system who can explain why this happens and what you can do to make apps you have on your sd card permanent.
As you said it only happens to me when I re start my phone.
Thanks again for the answer

Hi. It's no problem. Yes I havn't seen anything about this issue being mentioned either.
I'd like to know what's causing it. Whether it's a hardware fault or something in the software.
It's a real pain having to hook it up to my pc to sort it out. Especially when I'm away from a pc, I can't use half of my apps.
Sent from my HTC Desire S using XDA App

Android process media

I keep getting an error this has stopped. Any ideas?

Did you try clearing it's data? Manage applications -> All -> select the media process and force stop it then clear data. Hopefully with a fresh start on collecting data it will stop crashing.
Sent from my HTC Flyer P512 using Xparent Purple Tapatalk

Thanks.I tried your suggestions but the error just came back.
Is anyone else seeing this error.

Take a look here to see if it help
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1500580&

Thanks.
I am stock not rooted. took a look at the other thread but not sure if it applies to me being on stock.

tonyz3 said:
Thanks.I tried your suggestions but the error just came back.
Is anyone else seeing this error.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Odd. That's all it took for me to get it to behave. Force stop then clear cache and data. I restarted and used my tablet for about 4 hours last night and never had the error.
baseballfanz said:
Take a look here to see if it help
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1500580&
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting as I've been using zep's script for months and immediately added it when I first got my tablet. I didn't need to bulletproof anything just the force stop and clear data. But I did use the OOM groupings and minfrees it calculates. For those not using the script give it some consideration. It does wonders on lower end phone which are lacking memory but still makes a noticeable difference, to me at least, on current higher end devices like the Transformer or my HTC flyer.
Sent from my HTC Flyer P512 using Xparent Purple Tapatalk

thanks,
Also i just now rebooted my tf to find the micro sd card is not being read by the tf, it shows in the notifications and has all the music files etc still on it but is not recongnized by any apps.
Is this connected to the media process fail issue?
any idea how to fix.

Update:
I tried reformating the sd card putting some music and photos back on it.
Force stopping media from app list than wiped data from media, rebooted with new formated sd card but still shows sd card in the notifications and can access it from the sd card menu in notifications-seeing all the files on it, but none of the apps recongnize it- can go into any music app but does not see music on the card.
Any suggestions to try

I had this problem for 2 weeks, and then after upgrading to ICS, it persisted. So I did a reset to factory defaults, and that fixed it.
I'm sure there's a way to fix it without taking the reset sledgehammer to it, but I figured now was a good time, since I had just got ICS running, and other folks said a factory reset seemed to help fix other problems and make things faster. Plus I had tons of apps installed, many of which i didn't need, and uninstalling them would take time.
Just backup all your stuff! I ended up backing up files, and then rooting so I coudl backup apps and app data with titanium backup.

[Q] rooting, battery drain, and SD Card issues

So I have my new verizon SG3, and I wanted to root it to have access to the SD card. As I seem to have already filled up my storage.
So I started reading many threads, starting with this one for Jelly bean:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2046439
I had trouble with the custom recovery stage. ODIN kept failing when trying to flash it. So eventually I came with a prerooted stock flash at this link:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=33948598
and that seems to have got me to root status.
Now I am not really sure what I need the custom recoveries for, or if this link includes the boot loader or unlocker, or whatever it is, and if I really need it.
I'm looked at various ROMS and haven't really seen anything I think I need.
All I really want to do is have access to my SD card which I thought I had with the root option. But any apps that I say "Move to SD card" they only move to the internal SD card and not external.
How Do I actually use my external card?
Also, I have noticed that every time I turn the screen on, I see the "preparing SD card" message on the notification bar. and sometimes a message saying it has been removed.
What's going on with that?
And finally, my battery has been draining rather quickly. "MEDIA" seems to be using about 70% of the battery.
This is including two instances of Downloads
com.sec.android.providers.downloads
DRM protected content storage
and media storage
I read somewhere that it may be unwise to delete the preinstalled content, so I tried freezing the DRM as another forum stated that was ok as well as media hub, some of the google apps, and the verizon ringtones.
But in that process, I somehow managed to loose my notifications and ringtone selections, and when I try to reinstate them, it shows unknown ringtone, and the only options when I click to change is my GO SMS and Solid Explorer. I did locate the ringtones in the systems folder, but clicking on them only gives me an error.
I'm not sure how to get the standard selection screen back.
I tried flashing the previous stock rom again, but that did not help any.
So the question is, how do I get things back to working again, while still being rooted? Then how do I get true access to my SD card? And what can I safely remove. If a ROM will accomplish all this, which one is best and easiest to install?
I already used up half my data usage for the month installing all my apps, so I'd prefer not to do anything that would make me have to go through all that again. I have ROM toolbar installed, but it doesnt seem to want to let me do a backup. (I may need a recovery if I can get that working this time)

update
Update:
I managed to get the CWM recovery flashed finally.
How do I know if my bootlocker is unlocked if I installed the prerooted jelly bean rom I linked to before?
I also managed to get the ringtone selection to work again. I had the Media service frozen still. But that was what I think was a big battery drainer, so we will see. Im not sure why it would be draining the battery so much, something is going on.
I'm still having issues with the SD card, and installing anymore apps even after I deleted a few of the big ones. I was going to install a battery calibration tool witch is less than 200 kbs and it still is showing insufficient storage. Let the drive doesnt seem full. Maybe this is a partition issue? If so, how do I verify that and change it?

Ez unlocker in the play store will unlock your bootloader if you are rooted.
Volume up the phone before clicking yes. ;]…
One thing I've always stuck to, if it's messed up, go back to the beginning.
Could be md5 of dl or build of rom/packing of .tar, flash, etc.
Flash pure motives rls 13, works great.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app

jam.i.s0n said:
Ez unlocker in the play store will unlock your bootloader if you are rooted.
Volume up the phone before clicking yes. ;]…
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nah bud, EZ Unlock v.1.2 will properly get you unlocked, it's available on rootzwiki.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app

Ok, so I am unable to install any apps now no matter what I uninstall. I'm getting an insufficient storage error now, yet I seem to have plenty of space. This is getting really annoying.
I bought the SD card for apps to save their data to it, yet all apps save to the internal SD CARD, and not the external. I see a few apps i can download to possibly switch this option, but I really shouldnt have to go through all that. Whats the point of having a SD card in the first place if no app uses it.
Regardless, something is messed up. Battery is still draining like crazy which seems to be a common problem, but I have yet to find a fix. I would consider a factory reset, but I need to figure out how to back up first, as I can not afford to go and reinstall all my apps again. Will the back up preserve all my apps and their settings without having to reinstall from the play store? I have less than a GB of data left and I'm only about 6 days in my plan.
I am trying to drain my battery completely now, to see if that may "reset" its calibration or whatever. I'm not sure how that works, but It was suggested in places, so I'm trying.
What are my options for a full data wipe? and what is the best way to get my apps back without using a lot of data to do so? I tried doing a backup with my rom toolbox pro last night but I don't believe it worked. I dont think my phone is connecting to my external SD card. I can see the data on it if I browse, but no app actually saves anything onto it. Also, the phone wont let me delete, rename, paste, or do anything accept maybe open files from the card. I had it reformatted to FAT32 before I loaded anything onto it. So I'm not sure the issue. If Its protected, I'm not sure how to unlock it as micro cards dont have he lock switches like the big ones (which was a whole other issue for me when connecting to my computer)
Any advice? I know I'm not the only one with these issues.

So I am still having insufficient space errors when trying to download apps, though for some reason I did manage to get one random app installed that was in my "All apps" section from my previous phone.
I have tried wiping catch, and dalvik, and battery stats. That did nothing.
I have also tried reflashing the unlocked jelly bean update, with no results.
I think a full wipe may work but once again, since I can't make a back up since I can't install the apps to do so. I'm a bit reluctant to do this because I don't want to have to reinstall everything again and use more of my data connection. I do have a wifi connection, but I'm not sure I want to risk that not working properly.
Is there a way to manually backup my apps and data? what should I make copies of?

SD Card Read Directory

I am absolutely and completely stumped in what I should do and can do.
My phone has that restriction where the SD card is located in a different folder and you cannot install apps to it. That frustrated me, so I searched for a fix. I came across one that allows me to change where to sd card it mounted to fix just that.
Of course because I'm a giant boob I didn't backup before, and to my horror I get a bazillion crash errors on restart, the main one not being able to save data that isn't internal. I did a factory reset hoping it would fix it, but It did not.
I suppose I should add my phone is of course rooted, and that I do understand the basics of flashing my phone (but like nothing exists for this phone). I also apologize for this possibly being in the wrong forum, but I'm certain one doesn't exist.
Tl;Dr: tried to fix sd card limitations, broke mounting, atleast I think.
Sent from my SCH-I200 using xda app-developers app