Database Info

Observations as to why market breaks / force close, and other anomolies

As I suspected early on the issues boil down to corruption within the User Data or Cache partitions, less often on the system partition due to an unexpected shutdown of the device. Shut on these devices need to follow the proper shutdown routine as any linux environment. Following this best practice will ensure that all data is written out to its corresponding file system by flushing all cache, unmounting the file system, etc..
Here are the culprits of why we see so frequent random Force Closes, Market Resetting, etc. ultimately resulting in an unclean shutdown, corrupting some data.
1. The button we use is also a forced off button. Typically if you hold it down too long you are powering off the device.
2. Some times when in sleep mode you see the Viewsonic logo upon starting - that means that the system shutdown (most likely crashed).
3. If your running Vegan your hitting the reboot.. I dont know for sure but I suspect this is NOT performing a clean shutdown... (I dont have a copy of the source)
Anyway... wanted to pass this on... as last night my data partition became corrupt after using the Reboot function on the Poweroff menu of Vega 5.1..

shouldnt need source code to debug a dirty shutdown..Cant you just run an adb logcat? maybe run the shutdown command in a terminal on the device and pipe the output into a text file for later viewing

My internal memory has to be repartitioned every few weeks - I'm certain that something is corrupting it over time. I had massive FC's just a week or so back where the SD partition re-do was the only fix.
I suspect that this happens in stock, as well - the problem of course is that there is no fix for a stock user, other than a return / exchange.

roebeet said:
My internal memory has to be repartitioned every few weeks - I'm certain that something is corrupting it over time. I had massive FC's just a week or so back where the SD partition re-do was the only fix.
I suspect that this happens in stock, as well - the problem of course is that there is no fix for a stock user, other than a return / exchange.
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I have been on stock since I got the device just moving to the newer versions when they come as OTAs and have never ever had to mess with my partition, so I don't THINK the issue is in the stock software. In fact, the only problems I've ever encountered were when I used the enhancement pack, in which case my screen started to become unresponsive and the calibration.ini I was told to try did not work. Since then I went back to 3389 and the device has been perfect ever since.
I could be wrong though and just very, very lucky....here's to hoping. Another thing to consider is maybe the memory is going bonkers for some reason. I've had flash memory that lasted forever and I've had flash memory that has gone wacky over a period of 6 months....even a wipe by the utility designed to do it doesn't fix it properly. I don't know how CWM wipes or partitions the memory, I do know there's supposed to be a special way to do it.
If it's not faulty memory off the bat, then that leaves something in the 'extras' being put into these ROMs. Maybe some of the newer tegra drivers or some coding to make the ROMs faster - I'm just saying, can't leave any stone unturned.
Has anyone that has stayed loyal to stock encountered these issues? We have to ask that question I think. Then we ask how many of the people playing with ROMs are seeing the issues, this would include people that have used CWM to partition and mess with their mounts initially.
I can say I've never seen data disappear from my internal memory or my SD and I can also say I've never seen multiple FCs except after putting in the enh. pack (keep in mind I got my tab on Dec 20something, so I had 3053 and then 3389 soon after).
The first sign of anything being 'corrupted' on it's own at stock and I'll be sending mine back. As an owner of Android since Android's been around, I've never had my G1 or MT4G (or any smartphone before it) become corrupted due to not being shutdown or reboot properly and while this is a tablet I think the fundamentals should be the same. Pampering 'faulty' memory is a risk. You can wipe and re-do all you want, but if it's faulty it's going to stay that way.

Ive done that but I guess you can say unfortunately I have had only clean shutdowns since then... The last corruption I had I formatted my data and cache partitions before I ran logcat.... Of course thought of that afterward....
Generally if any has FCs, etc. etc. run a logcat and post it here... we will be able to confirm this...
We could change the way the partitions are created and add a sync which will further reduce chances BUT will take a performance hit...
I am very surprised though as the EXT3 filesystem is very resilient to dirty shutdowns (more than EXT4)...
I reviewed the out of the box framework source on the google GIT and technically if a reboot command is given a clean shutdown is performed via the framework... but the widget on the shutdown screen I suspect is not calling the method properly or is not being called at all... All speculation at this point... But for sure there is corruption occurring..
Since the last corruption I switch over to pershoots kernel... Even though his kernel seems to be a little slower he seems to have included the latest drivers which other items relate to data integrity (im reading into the release notes).
NEO: The first thing I did when I got my device install CW, Vegan... Updated Kernels also... Never had an issue until the first time (yes about a day ago) I used the reboot feature of Vegan. That corrupted my user data. I suspect if you have not been performing clean shutdown then you are just lucky. Linux, like any other OS, even with Journaling if you do not perform a clean shutdown you will surely encounter SOME corruption. Typically the corruption is re-mediated by the the file systems integrity controls. You dont even know it happened... 1 in 1000 the integrity controls can not overcome the significant loss of data and thus results in crashes, etc. Some times the corruption happens in areas where are lightly used thus why you would get a Market Reset... that data is easily replaceable on the fly. Core components that require subsystem to run are not replaceable and thus why I had to reformtat. What upsets me is that this failsafe is not working properly most likely as its far too frequent.... I too suspect it has something to do with CW.
But again.. between the wrongly placed power switch, the unprovoked reboots (ie viewsonic screen showing when trying to wake up the device) and the reboot button possibly not performing a proper shutdown will sure increase the chances in a wider distribution of users. So it may not be a CW issue and just some poor design.
When I have time today I will verify if the reboot function performs a clean shutdown... if anyone has the time please post the logcat... Im going to be running around today and will try to get to it..
watson540 said:
shouldnt need source code to debug a dirty shutdown..Cant you just run an adb logcat? maybe run the shutdown command in a terminal on the device and pipe the output into a text file for later viewing
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stanglx said:
I am very surprised though as the EXT3 filesystem is very resilient to dirty shutdowns (more than EXT4)...
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AFAIK they're running yaffs ATM. Next move is to ext4...
Read some articles about this several weeks ago, apparently many apps do not properly flush file caches. One of the articles was a Google developer post about file corruption along with their API method which did a cache flush prior to a close, then a bit later was the Google indication that they were planning to move to ext4 FS to further help alleviate the problem.

stanglx said:
I am very surprised though as the EXT3 filesystem is very resilient to dirty shutdowns (more than EXT4)...
I suspect if you have not been performing clean shutdown then you are just lucky. Linux, like any other OS, even with Journaling if you do not perform a clean shutdown you will surely encounter SOME corruption. Typically the corruption is re-mediated by the the file systems integrity controls. You dont even know it happened... 1 in 1000 the integrity controls can not overcome the significant loss of data and thus results in crashes, etc. Some times the corruption happens in areas where are lightly used thus why you would get a Market Reset... that data is easily replaceable on the fly. Core components that require subsystem to run are not replaceable and thus why I had to reformtat. What upsets me is that this failsafe is not working properly most likely as its far too frequent.... I too suspect it has something to do with CW.
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Click to collapse
That's my point. How many times since we've had our Android and smart phones have we had situations where they are turned off or rebooted without the proper procedures? Power drains till they die, they drop and reboot, we clog them up with stuff or some app drives them nuts and they reboot or shut off....Yet you rarely if ever hear about a phone's data being 'corrupted' with stock software. Sure it may happen with official OTAs etc, but never just off-the-bat like what's happening with the G-Tab. But it's not happening to everyone either so I'm just looking to see if there's a pattern.
Even since the G1 and newer phones, you don't really hear about or see file corruption issues on stock software with these phones. It's when users start going to ROMs that you hear of issues cropping up. That's not to say it doesn't happen at all at stock, I just think we're seeing it in a more concentrated fashion here because of all the formatting, re-partitioning, etc. At first you hear, 4GB is a great partition size, then you hear there are problems so move to 2048, then you hear 256MB swap, then no swap since Android doesn't use it. Then dataloop for speed, then no dataloop because of critical issues. Rules and instructions change almost on a daily basis. I think it's more than these poor flash drives can take I find sometimes it's good to keep it simple.
I owned a Vibrant for a while...decided it was a PoS when at stock I was seeing bad lag (because of Sam's terrible FS). People said...do the speedhack, it'll be fast!, but what was the caveat? Having to reboot the phone almost weekly, sometimes several times a week, and people were seeing what? Data corruption. That's not for me. Give me something that is lag free (doesn't have to be a bullet train, just don't skip on video or audio and make sure my live wallpaper and drawer animation is fluid and I'm happy!). Point being....keeping it simple may help to alleviate some of the issues. If people are seeing these problems with stock, then you're absolutely right and it would be a point of contention that the failsafe isn't working right.
Otherwise it seems the stock OS on these things are able to self correct in most situations and it may just be some of the many tweaked features in these ROMs doing something it shouldn't - or, I may just be very lucky indeed.
I'm still dying to get the OTA - I haven't seen one since 3899 yet.

[Q] Software for hardware troubleshooting on 5113?

Hi folks,
What is a good diagnostic software package I can run to see if I have a memory or other hardware problem?
My Tab 2 10.1 p5113 has been glitchy for more than six months. I initially blamed it on the horrible software update late last year, but even after taking the subsequent update (MK3) this thing still has force closes all over the place and reboots often. My other identical 5113 has been rock steady since the MK3 update.
I've wiped the tab, installed several different custom ROMs. OMNIROM was much less glitchy, but it still would die after a while and reboot. I would also see some graphic artifacts on the screen, sort of in a line from left side about mid-way down the screen. This persisted over a few different roms I've tried, coming and going.
Eventually I wiped everything and did an Odin-to-stock MK3. The tab is still unstable, even before installing any non stock apps. IT rebooted while doing its initial setup (right after entering Google account), then again during the first app update once playstore realized it was a year out of date for the apps.
If it were a PC, I would be running memtest and other utilities to troubleshoot memory and "hard drive" communications.
What's the best thing to try here? I'm thinking to sell it on the Swappa Boneyard, but interested to do full diagnostics first...
Marc

Dying TF700-t?

So, I know am not as knowledgeable as most on this forum, so please be gentle!
I am using the TF700-t, 64 GB internal, with a 64 GB sdcard.
I installed Crombi-kk 4.4.4 on my TF700 a few months ago. Everything worked fine for a couple of months, then I started noticing apps would freeze, the tablet would suddenly reboot on its' own volition...the tablet seemed to have a mind of its' own!
I formatted the tablet, reinstalled, clean install of apps (no backed up data), it worked fine for a few weeks, then the same issues, along with app icons suddenly disappearing from the main screen and new app icons appearing on their own. Really spooky!
Three days ago, I formatted the tablet, installed Crombi-kk again, clean app install, worked fine for a few hours, then started misbehaving again, with the same issues, but now some of the apps (e.g.: Alarm Clock Xtreme) did not function at all (resulting in me oversleeping and being late for work).
Today, I formatted the tablet twice, reinstalled Crombi-kk, installed apps, and rebooted after each app installation (prior to opening the apps). I am noticing that some apps (specifically Google Play Music) refuse to open on the tablet (Apollo works fine). Several apps take a significantly long amount of time to open. There is no seeming pattern as to the issue.
Call me perplexed in North Carolina! Any suggestions or ideas as to what could be occuring? I am on the verge of going out and purchasing a new tablet (but it will not be another ASUS), but do not really want to spend the bucks.

Are you on the correct bootloader???
Other than that, I would recommend to flash a different rom and see if you get the same problems.
I would start with CROMI-X or even stock rooted, try ZOMBi, CM11 - lots to choose from.
That should tell you if this is rom specific or unique to your tablet.

Looking to Undo Root and All Customization, Need Help to do So

Ok, so as the title says, I'm looking to completely undo having rooted my tablet, and all the customization I did to it, but I'm having a bit of trouble.
According to multiple apps my tablet is no longer rooted, and I got the stock rom from Sammobile flashed on it, and I have the stock recovery back, but I seem to be suffering from the wifi problem that CM suffers, I know this as I can connect to my 5G wifi as well, which I'm never able to do when the tablets wifi is working correctly, and also even connected I barely have any speed, if even any.
Now I know of the wifi fix you can flash through TWRP, but as I said, no more TWRP, and I don't want to reinstall it, I want everything back to stock.
Now, I know of Wifi Fix's for other tablets, like the Galaxy S4, that you can flash on with Odin, but I can't seem to find one like that for the Note Pro 12.2. So if anyone can send me a link I'd really appreciate it.
And also, I can't remember, but did the Note Pro 12.2 ever get anything higher then Android 5.0.2? Because I try to update it, and it says because my tablet was modified I can't do so. Plus Sammobile doesn't have higher then 5.0.2 but I read somewhere that it got 5.1.1 so I really don't know, any help on that front as well would be great.
Now, you may be wondering why I want to do this, in truth I'd rather have my tablet rooted, I save so much battery life getting rid of all the bloatware. But no matter what I do, there always ends up being a problem with my tablet.
I follow all the instructions given, I do exactly what everyone else does, even having someone walk me through it step by step once, and always it goes horribly wrong.
The first time my Nova Launcher would crash constantly, and then everything else would start crashing with it. Then the second time all my videos would play stuttering and jerky, and the audio would be out of sync horribly, and nothing I did would fix it. And now most recently, even though the tablet it connected to the computer, the drivers always fail installation, and even when they are successful, I'm still unable to actually access the tablet from my pc.
I read somewhere that it may be because I disabled Media Storage, but with Media Storage I have just as many problems, it drains my battery like crazy, it causes things to load up extremely slow when accessed through the computer, if a folder has a hundred files for example, it will take almost twenty minutes for them all to load up, and you can't do anything until they do, and if you try copying something into a folder without going into it you'll just be stuck in an endless loop of copying that never ends.
But without Media Storage everything loads up just as quickly as say an SD Card, so said 100 files only takes a few seconds.
And worse thing it caused, which troubled me for a long time before I found out what caused it, at random the media storage would decide to claim 20gb's of space, saying it was all taken up, when it isn't. And it would keep happening at random times, and at random sizes. Near the end it had taken up every bit of free space I had and didn't change back even after several days which is what led me to looking up what was causing that in the first place.
So as you can see, leaving Media Storage enabled is a big no for me. So as such I'm unable to root and customize my tablet for that reason as well.
Now, before you say how weird it is that I have such trouble, and how you have no idea why it would happen, there is a very key reason, Technology HATES me. Trust me, more often then not when I try to do something that works for literally everyone else it fails for me, like say connecting an Xbox controller and getting it to work on my pc. Yeah, never works even after almost 5 hours of trying. So yeah, technology hates, maybe even dispises me.
So anyway, if you can help me fix the wifi, and the update problem if that's possible, I'd really appreciate it.

Are you able to get it connected to a PC?
There are tutorials on how to go back to complete stock if you haven't tried Knox I might search for what people have done before they take the their device back to the carrier. Many people want to un-root before they give up their old devices.

Both my TF700 and TF101 are painfully slow. Factory reset did not help. Need advice!

I have both TF700 and TF101 and they have the same issue. They have become agonizingly slow over time. I did factory reset, I did try custom ROMs on TF101 - it doesn't really help. I remember them being fairly fast and lag-free when they were new. Now everything takes forever, even on a clean tablet without many installed apps, just a few. What's the problem and is there a fix? I'm sure I'm not the only one with this problem. Something is getting them crawling over time. Maybe hardware related, or partition format or something? It has to be something other than just a ROM, because it does not help much to have a new ROM or do a factory reset. Is there anything else I can do?

Yes, you can:
a) format /data instead of just wiping it. That helps quite a bit for some time until you have to do it again. So work on your backup routine
b) change /data to the f2fs file system and install a rom that supports it. The only roms still under development for both tablets are the KatKiss roms by timduru. They support f2fs
c) don't expect anything close to the performance of current devices from these old geezers - even if cleaned up, polished and rom'd properly. They will work better and not drive you crazy, but these tablets are 4+ years old.. That's ancient by todays standards.....