SD Card Problems

[Guest scarrott]

I've installed the latest ROM and it's been great, so much quicker. I am however having problems with SD cards. I've got an 8gb that I use most of the time, but I also have the 2gb card which came with the phone which I have put some videos on for occasional viewing when travelling. Before I rooted and put the new ROM on, I could go into settings and choose to remove the SD card, and pop the card with videos on no problem. Since installing the ROM, once I have removed the SD card, the phone will not recognise that I have inserted a new card. It only spots the card when I reboot the phone. Then I can watch the videos.

When I try to revert back to my main 8gb I have the same problem and have to reboot the phone. When it has finished booting everything looks OK, but almost every app installed from the market force closes on running, or has other problems. I can fix this by uninstalling and reinstalling every one, but obviously this isn't much of a solution.

I am wondering if I have done something wrong with partitioning my card. Would this cause such problems, and is there a particular way I should partition the card to make sure I avoid problems.

Thanks.

[Guest zorm]

I've installed the latest ROM and it's been great, so much quicker. I am however having problems with SD cards. I've got an 8gb that I use most of the time, but I also have the 2gb card which came with the phone which I have put some videos on for occasional viewing when travelling. Before I rooted and put the new ROM on, I could go into settings and choose to remove the SD card, and pop the card with videos on no problem. Since installing the ROM, once I have removed the SD card, the phone will not recognise that I have inserted a new card. It only spots the card when I reboot the phone. Then I can watch the videos.

When I try to revert back to my main 8gb I have the same problem and have to reboot the phone. When it has finished booting everything looks OK, but almost every app installed from the market force closes on running, or has other problems. I can fix this by uninstalling and reinstalling every one, but obviously this isn't much of a solution.

I am wondering if I have done something wrong with partitioning my card. Would this cause such problems, and is there a particular way I should partition the card to make sure I avoid problems.

Thanks.

Are you using A2SD? In other words, is it built into your ROM & have you partitioned your main card to include an ext2 (or ext3/4) partition? If so, it seems to be a limitation of the way apps to sd works. I've found I get the same results as you see if I try to use my phone with the card not present & then subsequently with it reinserted - this is even if I power the phone down & pull the battery to change/remove/insert the card & regardless of whether I wipe the dalvik cache at the same times.

You could try creating an ext2 partition also on the smaller card, but obviously that would cost you valuable space & you'd still have the hassle of keeping the apps installed on both cards in sync, version wise. Even then I don't know if this would work, but I suspect it might.

If you find a solution please do post it as I'm sure it would help others too.

[Edit:] I've mentioned this issue in the Titanium Backup thread, as the author might have the relevant experience to address this & it could perhaps form a feature within TB's existing functionality.

Edited April 7, 2010 by zorm

[Guest scarrott]

Thanks for the reply. To the best of my knowledge, A2SD is not installed. I certainly hadn't manually installed it and if it isn't part of the core modaco ROM then it shouldn't be there. I take it there would be an icon for it in my programs if it was installed.

I did partition my card in case I decided I wanted to do this in the future though. Could the Ext2 partition alone cause this, even if there are no apps installed to it?

[Guest]

Apps2SD happens automatically at boot when you partition the card for it. It is part of Modaco Roms.

Reformat your card to just FAT32 and you should be ok. (once you've reinstalled all your apps. Titanium Backup recommended.)

Edited April 8, 2010 by Guest

[Guest zorm]

Thanks for the reply. To the best of my knowledge, A2SD is not installed. I certainly hadn't manually installed it and if it isn't part of the core modaco ROM then it shouldn't be there. I take it there would be an icon for it in my programs if it was installed.

I did partition my card in case I decided I wanted to do this in the future though. Could the Ext2 partition alone cause this, even if there are no apps installed to it?

A2SD isn't an app in the conventional Android sense. More or less, it's a script integrated into the ROM which on boot checks to see if the ext partition exists & if it does it moves your apps over then replaces the original folders with symlinks to point to the new folders on your sd card. And yes, it is a part of the core MoDaCo ROM, so that's your explanation.

[Edit:] I've no idea how I failed to see Wahwah had already replied. I did open a few thread tabs in advance of reading them, but not by half an hour. This has happened to me a few times in the last week. Maybe I'm just losing all my cognitive abilities prior to a complete mental breakdown. That would explain it.

Edited April 8, 2010 by zorm

[Guest scarrott]

Thanks for the replies. Clearly this is a bit of a flaw with Apps2SD. I appreciate that obviously the apps won't work when a different card is in, but at the moment EVERY app breaks the moment the card is changed. I have just turned my phone off, put a different memory card in, booted, turned off again, returned the normal memory card and booted once more, and every app I have installed is broken and force closes. Surely there should be a fix for this. Being able to swap memory cards like CDs should be a fairly basic capability.

[Guest zorm]

Thanks for the replies. Clearly this is a bit of a flaw with Apps2SD. I appreciate that obviously the apps won't work when a different card is in, but at the moment EVERY app breaks the moment the card is changed. I have just turned my phone off, put a different memory card in, booted, turned off again, returned the normal memory card and booted once more, and every app I have installed is broken and force closes. Surely there should be a fix for this. Being able to swap memory cards like CDs should be a fairly basic capability.

Are you using AmonRa's recovery rom? It has an option to fix permission issues. I've no idea if this would make any difference but it might be worth checking to see if that affects a broken installation. This issue bugs me too, but so far I've not been able to find a workaround.

[Guest scarrott]

Are you using AmonRa's recovery rom? It has an option to fix permission issues. I've no idea if this would make any difference but it might be worth checking to see if that affects a broken installation. This issue bugs me too, but so far I've not been able to find a workaround.

I don't think so. I'm pretty new to all this and just followed the instructions on Unlockr.