Stuck with A2SD [fixed]

[Guest Nesousx]

Hi all,

I own HTC hero, with Amon_RA 1.5.2 recovery image and Modaco Custom ROM 3.1 from Kitchen. I tried to set up A2SD, but can't do it.

My problem is: already installed apps' links seem broken, ie: when I normally boot my Hero, I see shortcut on the "desktop" for my apps, but there is no shortcut image, and when I try to run it, it says because "the program doesn't seem to be linked anymore" or something close in French, (I didn't try to install new apps, since I'd like to fix the existing ones, first).

What I did.

• Installed MCR 3.1, everything was working fine.
  
• A nand backup.
  
• Then I booted to recovery, partionned SD (swap: 96mb, ext2: 512mb, data, the remainder), moved the apps thanks to Amon_RA tool, rebooted the phone to MCR. Didn't worked. (ie: apps are gone, I only have (non working) shortcuts.)
  
• Then, I reloaded my nand backup, wipe SD partition, partioned SD with Amon_RA, rebooted to MCR. Didn't worked. (ie: apps are gone, I only have (non working) shortcuts.)
  
• So, I went again in Amon_RA, and moved apps thanks to the same tools I've used, and used the fix apk and uid mismatches. Same problem.
  

I've tried to find my answer in here, and in xda forums, I can't. I can't see what I'm doing wrong, and obviously I'm doing it really wrong...

Any help would be much appreciated, thanks.

It looks like reflashing hero with MCR after partitioning the SD card fixed my problem. Thx kendon.

Edited January 12, 2010 by Nesousx

[Guest GodsDevil]

What do you mean when you say "Didn't work"???

Have you checked if there are any apps in /data/app...

If there are then it is working just fine....

D

[Guest Nesousx]

What do you mean when you say "Didn't work"???

Have you checked if there are any apps in /data/app...

If there are then it is working just fine....

D

I was referring to the problem I wrote at the begining of my post: apps are gone, I only have (non working) shortcuts.

I have no apps in /data/app

Moreover, it can't be working fine, since I lost all my apps :)

Edited January 12, 2010 by Nesousx

[Guest kendon]

I was referring to the problem I wrote at the begining of my post: apps are gone, I only have (non working) shortcuts.

I have no apps in /data/app

Moreover, it can't be working fine, since I lost all my apps :)

do this: wipe everything, then restore nandroid backup, then reboot. tell us what happens.

[Guest Nesousx]

Trying your solution, kendon and I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, I restored my nand backup. And did this:

Once the OS is installed first thing I would do is from a terminal on the phone / ADB Shell:

su

busybox df -h

If you don't see a row that has /system/sd on it then the process didn't pick up your SDCard. I'd suggest you to re-install / re-format the card.

Next if you didn't perform a wipe we'll move the data over, run these cmds either via terminal / adb shell:

busybox cp -a /data/app /system/sd/

busybox cp -a /data/dalvik-cache /system/sd/ (optional)

busybox cp -a /data/data /system/sd/ (optional)

The last two cmds here are optional (they are to move the cache for each app) & some have reported issues when copying these over so if you are having issues I would leave these on the /data partition.

1 Once your done with the above, power off your phone

2 Press & hold the Home Button & press Power to boot into Recovery Mode

3 Once the recovery menu opens & it's showing you JF's custom menu press ALT+X to enter the Recovery Terminal.

4 Press enter & a prompt should come up with a "#".

Next enter these cmds:

mount data

rm -rf /data/app

ln -s /system/sd/app /data/app

rm -rf /data/data (optional)

ln -s /system/sd/data /data/data (optional)

rm -rf /data/dalvik-cache (optional)

ln -s /system/sd/dalvik-cache /data/dalvik-cache (optional)

reboot

I ended up in a boot loop, stuck with the hero logo screen (and the annoying, after 10 reboots, green droid). :)

Edited January 12, 2010 by Nesousx

[Guest Nesousx]

@kendon:

I did wipe everything and restored nand backup.

My SD is partitioned, my phone is working fine, but apps are still inside the phone internal memory. I can tell this, because I see them in /data/app and because the internal storage free space is only 65mb (was 109mb after moving them which resulted in an empty /data/app dir).

What should I do now? Run move script from recovery image (which I did), manually do it(which I also tried)?

Thanks.

I even tried to manually:

cp /data/app /system/sd/app

   ln -s /data/app /system/sd/app

Concerning this command "ln -s", is it "ln -s oldlocation newlocation" or something else? (Edit : I also tried "ln -s /system/sd/app /data/app")

Installed a new app from the market, and tracked it down. It is installed in /data/app AND /system/sd/app, then I removed (rm -rf command) /data/app dir (while phone was turned on). I couldn't launch anymore applications. I rebooted phone, everything was working fine again, and my /data/app was back to live with all the apps inside...

I really feel lost.. Even rm -rf /data/app doesn't "stay"... after a reboot my dir is back and running!

More edit:

I tried to partition SD which worked fine, then reinstalled MCR 3.1, then rebooted to Amon_RA and launched the tool to move apps and dalv cache to SD. After reboot I have more free space on internal memory (98mb) but still a lot of apps in the /app/data dir. Something is different, but not sure if it works as intended.

Edited January 12, 2010 by Nesousx

[Guest kendon]

@kendon:

I did wipe everything and restored nand backup.

My SD is partitioned, my phone is working fine, but apps are still inside the phone internal memory. I can tell this, because I see them in /data/app and because the internal storage free space is only 65mb (was 109mb after moving them which resulted in an empty /data/app dir).

i am not really up to going through everything you did, so here is the quick way to clean it up:

please read and understand this:

1: apps2sd works automatically in mcr. all you need to do is have an sdcard with an ext2/3/4 partition on it in your phone. do not execute any commands or scripts, you will blow it if you don't know what you are doing.

2: despite apps2sd the installation of apps will take storage from your phone. please search for this, it has been explained to exhaustion here.

if you think you got it go into recovery, repartition your sdcard, then wipe everything you can wipe, then install mcr3.1. do not restore any backups, as this will bring back whatever you did before you made the backup (obviously). make a nandroid before if you want the ability to fall back, if it works start putting your settings back. imho this is the easiest way to get a working setup on your phone, since something seems to be messed up.

[Guest Nesousx]

Ok thanks.

I guess I got it to work, by "simply" reflashing with MCR after partitioning SD card. Looks like it is working fine, but I did run some commands on my own... I will redo everything clean as soon as I received my new microSD.

[Guest kendon]

Ok thanks.

I guess I got it to work, by "simply" reflashing with MCR after partitioning SD card. Looks like it is working fine, but I did run some commands on my own... I will redo everything clean as soon as I received my new microSD.

good to hear it worked for you. one of the beauties of android is that you CAN do all that manually. another is that it can be automated.

no offense intended, but you don't seem to familiar with the linux command shell, so you should be carefull with what you do in there. you can destroy your phone's system! not unrecoverable, but there might be data loss and a lot of work included to repair it... basically all i want to say is: be careful with the command line :)

[Guest Nesousx]

good to hear it worked for you. one of the beauties of android is that you CAN do all that manually. another is that it can be automated.

no offense intended, but you don't seem to familiar with the linux command shell, so you should be carefull with what you do in there. you can destroy your phone's system! not unrecoverable, but there might be data loss and a lot of work included to repair it... basically all i want to say is: be careful with the command line :)

All I know is to never do a "rm -rf /"

Starting here, I will try some stuff more or less harmfull. B)

[Guest kendon]

All I know is to never do a "rm -rf /"

Starting here, I will try some stuff more or less harmfull. :)

lol ok, so you know one of the worst commands you could possibly enter B) sadly there are lot of commands that won't delete everything, but do just as much harm...