Develop Bugs

[SOLVED] Crappy experience using android via HaRET/SDCARD

So I have been playing with android builds for some time now.
I had successfully ran cupcake and donut builds using the HaRET on sdcard method.
(not every time was perfect but worked more times than not)
eclair has been very troublesome. with the introduction of the new installation method.
I have had limited success even getting it to install.
sometimes it would install without a hitch.
other times it wouldn't even get to the install screen.
SO HERE ARE MY FINDINGS.
while installing the latest polymod2.1g eclair build (actually with any version) I was watching the screen messages.
I know they are fast scrolling, but I can usually pic out errors.
I noticed almost every time I installed there were at least a few I/O errors of some kind.
and the times that I tried and didn't get any errors, the build would often install OK.
I obviously have either a crappy sdcard OR the phone is having problems writing to the sdcard.
either way is a problem, being that the new version of installing creates(writes to the sdcard) the system.img
with the installer program ON THE PHONE.
when using the previous android versions (cupcake & donut), the builds came with a system.img that was already built.
only the data.img was needed to be built on the phone.
that lead to fewer if any bad installs.
Now that there is more to write on the phone, its almost impossible to get a stable eclair build.
SO HERE IS WHAT I DID. (being that I am too stubborn to go buy another card yet...)
I first decided to go the route of partitioning the sdcard. (assuming there might be "bad" sectors on the card)
(1) fat32 followed by (2) ext2.
I then tried installing with the new 'install to partitions' options in the installer.
I was still getting I/O errors...
I tried again putting data on partition and system as an img.
still errors...
then data as img and system as partition.
still errors (but it worked)...
I reformatted the ext2 partitions and ran a check. (NO PROBLEMS)
at this point I got a crazy Idea....
ON MY COMPUTER I EXTRACTED THE ANDROIDINSTALL.TGZ AND PUT THE CONTENTS FROM THE SYSTEM FOLDER TO THE SYSTEM PARTITION ON THE SDCARD.
THEN I PUT THE CONTENTS OF THE DATA FOLDER TO THE DATA PARTITION OF THE SDCARD.
still having the andboot folder on the fat32 partition I confirmed the files: HaRET.exe, initrd.gz, zImage-eclair, and startup.txt.
Ran HaRET...
skipped installer...
NO ERRORS>>> INSTALLED>>>>> WORKS!!!!!!!
EDIT: OK, I did have a problem.
I couldn't install any apks. just got message that application was not installed.
first I reboot to installer and tried to fix permissions.
still couldn't install anything...
then I tried installing from market. got error message that there was no room left to install.
then I uninstalled an application and tried to install something else...
still no install...
it Had to be a permission issue. there is more than 50% free space on all partitions.
WENT BACK TO COMPUTER CHANGED PERMISSIONS ON ALL FOLDERS ON THE DATA PARTITION TO RW.(not sure if this is bad???)
and now everything works GREAT!!!!
the only problems are sometimes with the newly installed apps (probably due to I/O errors)
and I just re-install the app and it works.
*********I guess it is time for a new sdcard*******
but for now it is a nice work around.
however, it still doesn't rule out either the installer or the phone itself as the problem.
I will report back if I ever get a new sdcard.

mnjm9b said:
#1
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is an interesting approach, copying the files manually instead of using the installer script for that.
I have to say, I have tested with several micro sd cards (class 2,4,6) and I never had any problems with the installer (replimenu 0.9) using ext2 partitions and booting from haret
However, NAND is giving me massive problems still after flashing dzo's or vilord's nbh
After a cold boot, it's extremely slow and getting stuck at several places during the loading process
So I stick with Haret at the moment.
Using class 6 SD memory, the whole process from power on to Android just takes me only 45 seconds, which is working much faster for me than NAND. Another advantage is that the /system and /data mount points are only limited by the size (of the created partitions) of the sd card. I use a 8GB card.
Using Kaiser's internal memory for NAND only gives you 50-80MiB free space left for /data

Update...
I broke my data, which was to be expected.
after I installed a bunch of apps and had problems with many of them.
it finally crapped out on me.
Luckily I backed up my data partition using partimage on linux
so after I re-formated and restored the data partition
everything worked smooth again.
the system partition seemed to be unaffected....NICE!!!
although this time I manually added the apks that I wanted
to the data partition before I put it back in the phone.
they all work great now.
this is way to damn easy...
THANK YOU

EPIC FAIL: Is my phone a brick?

Here's the story, Please read. I don't think anything like this has happened to anybody else...
Running CM6.02, unrevoked forever (s-off)
Using my 8GB SDHC card from my old phone (It's about 2.5 yrs old)
Over the past few weeks the SD card will randomly go corrupt, I can't recover data and must format it.
SD card went corrupt again 2 days ago. This time it refuses to format. I tried formatting it in the phone, and 2 laptops, no go.
I ordered a new SDHC (class 6) from newegg and it's in the mail. I don't have any other SDHC cards to use.
In the meantime, today the phone was acting weird so I decided to reboot it. The phone gets to the CM6 boot animation andd gets 2/3 through it and then it loops over and over, never getting into android OS.
Did a battery pull, removed SDHC card completely and it still won't get past the CM6 boot animation.
OK... so I go into bootloader and perform a "CLEAR MEMORY" in hopes to get the phone to boot into CM6.
NOW the phone doesn't get past the lock screen, it just sits there forever.
Another battery pull.
Getting desperate and I go into clockworkmod and hit "clear data/cache" and it pops up lots of errors that it can't mount the internal volumes!!!
Is this a very bad sign, wtf have I done and is there anything I can do to get it to work without a SDHC card??

I have seen something like this before. Here is a useful link

I wouldn't be to worried about it at the moment. You might have a brick till you get a new sdcard, but once your new one comes in the mail you should be all set. If your still having issues after you get a new sdcard then you might have problems.

Is it possible to install any rom or the RUU without a SD card? I won't have that SD card for days......

For whatever reason now instead of showing the Dinc splash screen it goes straight to FASTBOOT. It looks like bootloader but has options:
BOOTLOADER
REBOOT
REBOOT BOOTLOADER
POWER DOWN
wth?

A friend let me borrow his SD card. I flashed a new rom on my phone through clockworkmod. Everything appeared to go fine, no errors. Reboot phone and it is still stuck on the HTC splash screen.
How do I rebuild the internal partitions through ADB using parted?

I was able to format 2 of the partitions and now I can atleast wipe data/factory reset without errors. When I wipe dalvik cache though I get an error:
Code:
E:Can't mount /dev/block/mmcblk1p2
(file exists)
Dalvik cache wiped.
Loaded a rom (ruby) and it still doesn't get past the splash screen.
parted shows 3 partitions, I only formatted the first 2
Code:
print
Model: MMC HYNIX (sd/mmc)
Disk /dev/block/mmcblk0: 8095MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 8192B 797MB 797MB primary
2 797MB 1007MB 210MB primary
3 1007MB 8095MB 7088MB primary fat32 lba
(parted)
Should I try formatting the third?

I fixed it, phones working now.

wouldn't you think it might be potentially useful to tell people what the problem was and how you fixed it, should somebody else run into the same issue?
just sayin...

cosmicjoke said:
wouldn't you think it might be potentially useful to tell people what the problem was and how you fixed it, should somebody else run into the same issue?
just sayin...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yea but it seemed like a one sided conversation in here so obviously not too many ppl cared

I was glad to see that the Cyanogenmod link helped you.

Funny enough
Long time "researcher" here on xda, keeping up with trends and techniques. Took the plunge and tried some roms this week after deciding to root it and go figure I get stuck unable to mount that 3rd partition.
Would have been nice to know what you did to get it to work. Guess I'll continue the search of google. It's funny that most people have issues with the first two storage mounts - teacher's always said I took the path less traveled. Damn!

[Q] Harddrive Mode won't work in android, but bootloader usb host works

Hi,
i have a severe problem with my Desire. In at least two different ROMs i can't get the Hard Drive Mode to work. The SD Card contains a FAT32 partition and an Ext2 Partition when i activate it, my windows PC tells me, i should format the card.
What's interesting, is that it works, when i boot into Clockwork and mount the SD in the partitions menu. I get full access to the FAT32 partition in Windows (obviously no access to Ext2 Partition).
WHY is that, and what can i do against it? I find this extremely annoying.
Regards, Max.
PS: I'm gonna bump this topic into the sky, until my problem is solved, so don't even try ignoring it

First thing, it's been almost 2 hours and I'm responding. Topics do get answered eventually, just no one lives on XDA really.
Windows doesn't pick up ext partitions because ext partitions are Linux and Windows does not support it. I also am assuming your using A2SD. The ext2 partition is old so going to ext3 might solve your problem, although you will need to format your SD Card to do that.

first of all: thank you for your answer.
1) i've asked questions here before and most of them havent been replied to at all, so i'm kinda frustrated.
2) windows doesnt work with ext 2. i know that. thats why i wrote "in Windows (obviously no access to Ext2 Partition)"
3) my problem is that the FAT partition doesnt work in windows, linux sometimes recognizes it, but thats not the point.
Windows keeps telling my to format the device, when i put it in mass storage mode (booted android of course). but when i use the usb host in clockwork recovery, windows can work with the FAT partition flawlessly.
Maybe my initial post was a little misleading. I just wanted to be able to move some files around on my phone in windows!

Just format it and it'll be fine. Just remember to take what ever you have off your SD card, back it up first then format it. I do agree, sometimes they cannot get answered but still. Also, yes it was a little misleading, maybe I read it wrong I don't know. Just a format will do.

Complete SD Card Corruption with A2SD+

Hi,
Tonight I installed some updates for apps on my phone running Leedroid 2.2d A2SD+. Some of them stubbornly decided to stay on the SD card so I went to move them (I haven't managed to get pm setInstallLocation 1 to work, though I have yet to try it from ADB and that was the way I got setInstallLocation 2 to work before I rooted). I moved several at once and suddenly had the applications manager restart itself and found one of my games that was being moved (Cordy) was no longer working and couldn't be moved either to or from the phone (said move failed). So I tried restarting the phone incase that would fix it.
The phone wouldn't get past the HTC logo so I thought it might be a corrupt A2SD partition, but since it was ext3 that I could probably just get fsck on the computer to replay the journal. Upon putting the card in the computer (using an SD adapter) and booting into Ubuntu 10.10 I tried running disk utility with 'check filesystem' and it reported an error and that the filesystem was not clean and changed the partition to unknown. The same thing happend for the FAT32 partition and I couldn't mount that either. I tried running fsck from a terminal and it said something along the lines of 'Bad superblock or possible short write' and was unable to check the partitions and exited immediately (sorry I have since rebooted and assumed the same error would occur next time so didn't write it down specifically).
I restarted into Windows 7 to see if it could fix the FAT32 partition so I could get my Nandroid backup I made yesterday and it worked fine and said the partition was fine! Usefully Nandroid makes an md5 checksum of the backup so I was able to confirm at least that was intact and make a copy (I didn't really have anything else not backed up on the card as I only rooted a week ago).
I then rebooted back into Ubuntu and it now reports the FAT32 partition as clean, and actually makes some attempt at repairing the EXT3 partition but reports huge quantities of nasty errors like multiply allocated blocks and allocated blocks marked as free and an error with the journal when I run from terminal using 'fsck -t ext3 /dev/sdb2'. I don't really have any experience with fsck as I mostly use windows but there were a lot of errors that sounded pretty unresolvable (from memories of my couple of lectures on ext at university).
Yesterday I flashed an UOT theme using (ClockworkMod 2.5.0.7 as installed by Unrevoked3) install from zip for battery percentage and some icon changes, I chose Leedroid 2.3d from the file list. I had also installed DSPManager using the flashable zip on the Leedroid site.
My card was partitioned using GParted with FAT32 first followed by a 512MB EXT3 partition as recommended on the Leedroid site. I was sure to create the EXT3 partition second as I noticed adding it first at the end made it the first partition in the table. The card had been made a goldcard (though this might be gone as I erased the card with disk utilities Format drive button which may have deleted the MBR, I'm not really sure).
I'm guessing somehow Android tried to do multiple writes at once but I was under the impression these kinds of issues were solved by putting the partitions in the correct order, besides, shouldn't Andorid work correctly with its built-in support for ext anyway like any other version of linux? If this is a known, common problem with A2SD+ why doesn't every ROM have a big warning about this like Data2SD ROMS generally have about SD wear and being able to persist system settings?
PS: I realise there are some other threads on this but they are fairly old and seem to all involve connecting the phone to the computer or after a reboot.

[Q] Need help with internal memory partition structure on Incredible

I have an Incredible, rooted (and I have issues)... I appear to have repartitioned my internal memory area. Thankfully, the phone is useable, but it's not quite right as some programs don't work properly, the video recorder hangs hard, and I have either corrupt data or areas stomped on by other areas due to incorrect partition information. If certain files get touched, then the phone immediately protects itself by flagging the internal memory as read only. I did find a workaround to the phone automatically going into ReadOnly at boot by simply adding a ".nomedia" file in the root of MP3 (where some corrupt files happen to reside). As long as the system doesn't touch the files, the file system remains R/W.
I stupidly did this to myeself. I did it while using a Partitioning tool (specifically Acronis, making a "secure zone") on my PC while my incredible was charging in the USB port and I accidentally used the wrong drive. It was one of those "oh crap" moments. If I connect the phone to my PC, the internal drive comes up as being unformatted and windows asks if I want to format. Another disk utility (EASEUS) sees the drive, can show how its partitioned, and I can explore within the partitions to see that files exist.
I've been searching for a long while to find someone somewhere who might have info on how to fix the Internal SD partition information, but have yet to find anything. Reflashing the factory ROM, "factory reset", etc. appear to just repopulate the already partitioned areas. The closest thing I have found to my problem is a post called "Challenge to members... Help me fix internal partitions without recovery" on the Incredibleforums elsewhere (can't post external links yet). Unfortunately, trying those solutions doesn't fix the issue. That post deals with /dev/mount/mmcblk0p1 and /dev/mount/mmcblk0p2. My issue appears to be in /dev/mount/mmcblk0p3. Parted doesn't like that one much. I have attached a couple of files that show parted output for all of the drives that get mounted, per /etc/fstab & /etc/recovery.fstab. This was done in ADB while the phone was booted into recovery.
If anyone can point me in the right direction how to properly (and safely) repartition the *internal* areas back to how they should be, I'd really appreciate the help!
Thanks,
Blue

I ran across this:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=15746
.... hope it helps send you in the right direction anyway. Good luck!

Formating instructions i think it would be a better idea to try using the ruu.exe tool to reflash your phone and it should format that partition back and put all the old apps it came with back in proper order. Since the phone is use able right now you could also try a factory reset first if you don't want to try the ruu.exe.

Thanks for the link and tip for RUU.
sfdisk does not appear to be a useable command on my DInc. Is there an Android version/port? Also, that link suggests that the partition should be msdos, but isn't the boot sector type supposed to be ext2/3 or yaffs2 (?) on the DInc?
I have already tried the factory reset as well as reformatting the phone areas using CWM Recovery (3.0.0.8). I also reflashed a factory stock ROM found in the lastest RUU. I also flashed the 2nd to latest ROM from that RUU (2.1). All of these only reformatted and re-installed stock ROM. Unfortunately, doing so only reformats the existing partitions, but does not fix the screwed up partition sizing. As far as I can determine, setting my phone back to S-ON and running the RUU will do nothing different than what I did by placing the stock PB31IMG.zip in the root of my (external) SD card and flashing it from HBOOT.
If the RUU truly repartitions the internal memory, then I'm game to set S-ON and try that. However, all indications are that doing so will be no different than flashing PB31IMG.zip. Is that correct?
Thanks again,
Blue