Develop Bugs

why do devs put updated apps in /system?

i mean is there a benefit to doing it over the data part? only diff i'm aware of is that (in this case, street view) putting an app in the system bit means i can't update it and as i can't get adb working on my PC, then i have to :
backup all my apps, barr those in system, flash a new rom (but remove the apks from the zip file), then reinstall all apps again
i need google street view and since adb doesnt work, this is the only way that i know of how to do this.

They're put on /system/app as that's where they originally live...if it's an app from the Market it will update itself correctly
It's also a space thing as if they were all on /data/app then you'd eat up your space in no time (unless using A2SD)

umm, ok stupid queston, why is it then no matter whose rom i try (here or modaco), if an app is on /system it is never updated? i *always* get an error during installation
few weeks back, it was google maps, now it's the updated street view.
i've flashed a new rom now but removed street.apk from the zip and can now install just fine, and can update as needs be.

I dunno, I'm stock and just today had Flash and Maps update automatically

If your system apps won't update there's something wrong with your custom ROM.

it wouldn't just be me then though?
i'm using leedroids latest and that's not updating, same with opendesire earlier on, modaco ones etc etc

Are you wiping before you install the ROMs? I've never had a problem updating system apps via the market in my ROM.

of course. full wipe

tommo123 said:
of course. full wipe
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
just uninstall the app and re-install it from market

You can't if its on the system partition. Updates go on the /data/ partition, though...
Other way is to get the APK in question and install it using a file manager, it'll do the same thing

uninstalling also isn't allowed, neither is updating. it seems that once it's there, it's there.
now, i've got adb working and can list what's in system etc but it gave a read only error when i was trying to 'rm Street.apk'
remount didn't appear to be a valid option. alls working now anyways. just need to remember to remove certain apks from a zip before flashing.
funky

You *can* update system apps with market updates, as has been said before. The app remains on the system partition and the phone uses the data version instead. If it's not working for you I don't know why, but it's absolutely fine for me.

So what we need is a mod that will give you the option of replacing the system/app with updated market version, but replaces it on system and not data.

j5m said:
So what we need is a mod that will give you the option of replacing the system/app with updated market version, but replaces it on system and not data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well that's exactly what I do in mine. And I get those by updating the system app via the market.

teppic74 said:
Well that's exactly what I do in mine. And I get those by updating the system app via the market.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats great for you, and i appreciate that you do that with your rom +mods, but it means relying on you. Would be good if android would have it as an inbuilt function.
But i guess with newer phones having increased internal storage + a2sd this won't be an issue for much longer.

It's never going to happen as part of standard Android, because the system partition is read only. Also the system has to be a set standard in order to allow upgrades to work.

[Q] Needed: Idiots guide to updating system apps

In a lot of the custom roms threads I see that people are always asking the cooks to update the system apps as soon as a new one is released.
Rather than us users constantly hassling the cooks to do this, could somebody post an 'idiots' guide how to update the system apps ourselves?
I have seen a few threads about how to remove apps using adb, but none on how to update them.
Any help would be appreciated, not just by the users, but probably by the overworked cooks too
Cheers.
EDIT: by this I mean a way to update the apk in the system folder rather than the date to save space on the phones memory.

One way is to open the market and click on the 'downloads' link at the top and it will give you a list of installed apps and the ones highlighted in red have updates.
Another way is to search the market or a free app called 'aTrackDog' which will check all your apps for updates.

Thanks, but that is not what I meant. I should have made it clearer in my question.
What I want is this: a way to update the applications so that the updated apk goes into the system folder rather than the data folder. That way the update doesn't take up any more of the precious space on my phone.
I'll edit the OP to show this.
But thanks anyway for your help.

Don't you mean the fact that certain apps included in roms cant be updated. Only possible by flashing an updated version of that rom.
Wrong section.

prodygee said:
Don't you mean the fact that certain apps included in roms cant be updated. Only possible by flashing an updated version of that rom.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, that's not true. Often when a cook produces their own rom they will release an "Update pack" when a system app has been updated (such as Flash or Maps). For an example, see here under 'updated system apps':
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=773997
What I am asking for is if anybody knows how to use adb to update apps on the system partition. When updating from the market a the update takes place on the data folder, not the system one.
Ta.

scutworker said:
No, that's not true. Often when a cook produces their own rom they will release an "Update pack" when a system app has been updated (such as Flash or Maps). For an example, see here under 'updated system apps':
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=773997
What I am asking for is if anybody knows how to use adb to update apps on the system partition. When updating from the market a the update takes place on the data folder, not the system one.
Ta.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
do you mean by example
Code:
adb push Vending.apk /system/app
adb reboot

TomLeeDesire said:
do you mean by example
Code:
adb push Vending.apk /system/app
adb reboot
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is something like it. What I want is a guide to what to do to update these apps when an update is out in the market place. Something like being able to update the app from the market, but then move the new apk to the system folder so to save space on data.

Thing is, if you're using a cooked ROM you're likely to be using A2SD+ which makes the need to not have system updates redundant as you've got your EXT partition. The other way would just be to edit the original ZIP file and reflash the ROM without a wipe

EddyOS said:
Thing is, if you're using a cooked ROM you're likely to be using A2SD+ which makes the need to not have system updates redundant as you've got your EXT partition. The other way would just be to edit the original ZIP file and reflash the ROM without a wipe
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is not entirely true, even though I sport A2SD+ (and it's 1/3 free) my /data is always begging for room... I'm always at the 15MB-free-limit.

Then you've either got a LOT of apps storing data or something's not right

Small dirty 0.1beta guide
I'll use teppic's update zip as example (hope he doesn't mind), sample of his updateapps.zip can be found in this thread -> http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=773997
1. Install the update from Market, then open Appmonster and backup it on SD. After that, uninstall the update, to free up space.
2. Open the update.zip with WinRar (don't unpack it), you'll see 2 folders
META-INF
system
Open the inside of META-INF till you get to update-script and open it for editing, here's the example:
Code:
show_progress 0.1 0
delete SYSTEM:app/YouTube.apk
delete SYSTEM:app/YouTube.odex
delete SYSTEM:app/Facebook.apk
delete SYSTEM:app/Facebook.odex
delete_recursive DATA:data/com.android.vending
copy_dir PACKAGE:system SYSTEM:
set_perm_recursive 0 0 0755 0644 SYSTEM:app
show_progress 0.1 10
Replace/add/remove .apk's (you can add .apk without .odex) in this list, as those commands will delete existing apps from /system/app on phone
The rest of the script will copy the content of the other folder you saw before (system with subfolder app), so you want to add/remove apk's you like to there. Remember to use WinRar's function to add the file to archive, everything done here's is inside of the archive. When you're done, save the update-script, check everything again and close WinRar.
3. Flash the zip ;]

or do it manually:
h_ttp://forum.cyanogenmod.com/topic/8067-how-to-manually-update-system-apps/

EddyOS said:
Then you've either got a LOT of apps storing data or something's not right
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do think A LOT fits (about 300 apps installed)...

That's exactly what I wanted.
Thanks for the help, everybody.

Does this work on a Rooted (Unrevoked) phone with HTC's Original Froyo?
- I've been following teppic74's thread for some time now, and for every app that get an updated I get closer to flashing his ROM... but if I can just update my apps I wouldn't have to go through the process of reinstalling everything else after...

gosa said:
Does this work on a Rooted (Unrevoked) phone with HTC's Original Froyo?
- I've been following teppic74's thread for some time now, and for every app that get an updated I get closer to flashing his ROM... but if I can just update my apps I wouldn't have to go through the process of reinstalling everything else after...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sure thing.

thed0g said:
Sure thing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice!
That means my weekend is saved, I 'm gonna give myself some updates!
- Thanks!

One thing...if using the push and pull commands in adb to move the apk files to the system partition, what happens to the .odex files? Do you move them as well?

scutworker said:
One thing...if using the push and pull commands in adb to move the apk files to the system partition, what happens to the .odex files? Do you move them as well?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
.odex files are only on some custom rom's, you probably dont have them.

Hello again...
I kind of never got around to doing this last weekend - both because lack of time but also because the more I read the more worries I have. (Don't know when I lost my "gung ho" attitude, but age seems to turn me into a chicken...)
Anyway - I wanted to ask one important question.
How do I keep an eye on the space I have available for updating my apps? What if the updates are so much larger than the apps I'm replacing, what will happen then?
I read in teppic74's thread that he recommended some adjustments to save space, but how do I know what I have to "play" with? Is there a good app to read available space in "system"?
Thanks in advance,
gosa

Deodexed & Zipaligned /system for VZW Tab

So, yeah. This is deodexed & zipaligned System. It will overwrite your /system partition so any changes you have made (theme, hosts file, etc...) will be lost. In addition to the deodexed /app and /framework folders this will add a transparent notification bar and ad blocking host file. Why? Cause, I made this for myself, so it's the way I like it. Flash this if you want, I'm not forcing you to. Nor will I be held responsible if it eats your first born or tries (succeeds) to commit suicide. You've been warned. If you just want the deodexed files, I'll leave the manual method below and you can do it the hard way. Maybe I'll get the update-script working at some point, but I don't know. If you're good with the new sytax for CWM's update script, hit me up in IRC, I'm stumped.
Note: As I said, this formats your /system partition. Not your /data partition, so all your apps and such will still be there.
So, Once More
What you get:
Deodexed & zipaligned (ready to theme) system
Transparent Notification Bar
Ad blocking host file
No warranty
No mobileprint apk. I couldn't get it deodexed no matter what I tried and can't be bothered to try anymore. Never used it. Never will.
Nandroid Recovery Method
YOU MUST HAVE CWM RECOVERY INSTALLED
use either the bootstrapper from the market or follow his instructions found HERE be careful and use this at your own risk, it is very beta. I recommend doing a backup from it before you flash this as well.
How To Flash
extract the folder to /sdcard/clockworkmod/backup
Boot in to CWM Recovery go to advanced restore, select restore /system only. Once that is complete clear the cache, reboot. you can then delete your dalvik cache (note: clearing the dalvik cache doesn't work via CWM currently). That's it.
If you have anything go wildly crazy, lemmie know. Also, I doubt it's success on any other carriers version of Tab, but if you feel like it, go ahead, I already gave you responsibility for your own actions. Do what you want with it. If it works though, let us know.
Oh yeah- Download if you feel like it.
ODIN Restore Method
Flash via Odin PDA PDA PDA PDA PDA PDA PDA
If you need any more instructions on how to flash via odin, search.
Download the tar HERE
OLD PITA BORING MANUAL METHOD
FIRST
So, Back up your system first. Wait, yeah, you can't in recovery yet, so seriously people- don't touch this yet unless you know what you're doing since you won't have a supersimplehappynice backup to revert to if you mess up. Only the cold, cold darkness that is Factory Reset.
I haven't been able to manually deodex these successfully yet. If anyone has, please, hook me up and I'll update the package (or I'll update it when I get around to deodexing them).
What are these for???
These files will allow you to theme your Tab, some say it speeds up your system and others say it allows you to get all the ladies and even others think it's a threat to democracy so PROCEED WITH CAUTION.
What do I do with these???
Okay, this isn't hard, but it's easy to get a negative result if you skip a step so keep reading, follow the directions and don't blame me if you are singled out for the 3D imaging system at the airport.
Basically you want to use ADB push or Root explorer to delete the apks/jars/odex/*.* in /system/app and /system/framework and then replace them with the files from the archive (the archive has an app and a framework folder for you, I think you know where each belongs).
Now if you use root explorer to delete everything from /framework, things will get sticky for a minute and you'll get some FC's and such, but I was able to copy all the files over, so just be patient.
Also, remember how I told you to read the directions? KEEP READING OR YOU'LL MISS IMPORTANT STUFFS. So, hi there. You shake the boredom out of between your ears and giving me your full attention again? Good. Now is important. You are really going to want to clear both your normal, and dalvik chache. Otherwise you're going to reboot and your phone is going to be slower than an Audi R8. You can do this with cache cleaner, recovery (if you're running noobln's script) or adb. I used recovery for standard cache and this adb command.
Code:
adb remount
adb shell rm -rf /system/sd/dalvik-cache
Then just reboot and start porting some themes over for me (revolution plzkthx).
A couple of notes:
All these are from a VZW Tab. Will they work on your T-mobile one? Well, find out, if you want, or not. I don't care. Just don't come crying to me if you screw up your phone. I did not put a gun to your head and force you to use these files.
Also, if you screw up your Tab, for the love of the gawds, it's not bricked, calm down.
I suppose you want the download link, huh.
Here you go for the manual files.
Finally, if you like my work, donate to me so I can donate money to devs that make my world easier (and therefore yours).

cheers for the upload
any chance of a deodexed email.apk as it's not in there?

Any screenshots of what the themed versions can potentially look like? Need to weigh up the pro's / con's of being "experimental"
Thanks

Johnston411 said:
cheers for the upload
any chance of a deodexed email.apk as it's not in there?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Darn it, I'm sorry, I meant email.apk and not browser.apk. I haven't been able to deodex that apk yet. Sorry I should have it done soon but in the mean time you can use gmail or go back to an odexed FS. Original post updated.
risq said:
Any screenshots of what the themed versions can potentially look like? Need to weigh up the pro's / con's of being "experimental"
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They look exactly the same as on your Tab, just without being odexed. This is not a theme, nor does it change the appearance of any of these applications. It changes the way they function within the OS and allows for the ability to theme.
I mean absolutely zero offense by this, but if you're weighing out the pros/cons of doing this, you probably shouldn't. Just wait a while longer for recovery to be functional, then people will start putting out easily flashable ROMs and themes.

Sorry i misunderstood.
I thought they had been edited / themed already from the initial description..
Its been a long day. Im a risk taker anyways but ill pass for time being.
Keep up the good work.
Sent from my GT-P1000 using XDA App

Johnston411 said:
cheers for the upload
any chance of a deodexed email.apk as it's not in there?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, I just got email deodexed.
HERE YOU GO
I'll have the other remaining apks out soon.

very kind.
I want to try it on my dell streak but the odexed email.apk kept force closing.

Let me know if it works.

f.c. as soon as you launch it.
i'll see if it needs any framework stuff added to work tomorrow.

Hi Boushh,
After removing files in both folders it FCs many and froze. It won't reboot now. Let me know what I did wrong. No compliants like you mentioned. Any rescue?
Thanks

Like I said, you'll get that, I was able to copy them over with root explorer between the FC's. If you can not easily do that, plug it in and adb push it.

Added a flashable zip to the first post, happy holidays guys and gals!

I tried the flashable zip with CWM, but it aborts when install.

How can I clear cache & dalvik cache in CWM. There is only with the clear data/factory reset.

Can you tell me the exact error that recovery prints?
I'm almost positive *clear cache* is in the root of recoveries settings and then *clear dalvik cache* is under advanced.

Error is "Installation aborted"
I use the CW Bootstrap recovery, then reboot recovery that purchased from Market for "Bootstrap for Tab".
Select install zip in SD card. Wipe clear cache & in advance for clear dalvik cache. It's still installation aborted.

Okay, I need to change something in the install script, illtry and do it in the next couple hours.

If you ever get the other apk's integrated into the update.zip, I'd be happy to give a test run on my VZW tab.

I did the manual files delete and paste before, but froze the Tab and non bootable anymore. I'm on my second tab, definitely need the update zip for this.
Sent from my SCH-I800 using XDA App

Just an update- I got back from vacation last nightand need a day to recover but I plan in fixing the zip tomorrow.
Also, regarding the mobile print apk, I have tried using every resource possible to deodex it without success so I've given up on it. I blame bad coding, lol.
If any of you care about quadrant scores (which I don't) I was recently asked what I was getting, around 1150-1170. So a bit better I than stock I suppose bit I only deodex for themes really.

[MOD] Xoom: symlink /system/apps to /data for GApps on CM10-based ROMs (11/28 update)

Disclaimer: This mod is provided as is. I am not responsible for you or your actions, I can barely handle myself most days. This will probably kill your dog and frame your spouse, so if your not feeling up for it, maybe sit this out.
What is this?
This addresses the lack of space on the /system partition that has been forcing people to compromise on GApps packages, and generally be subjected to wonky behavior.
How do I install it?
First you must make a nandroid. This is a flashable zip that you apply in recovery *in between* flashing cm10 and GApps. *NOTE* There are -NO- GApps in this download. This is just a shim to make room for them!
How does this work?
It's mostly edify, with a shell script that shouldn't have been necessary, but I got impatient, and hell, it works.
What it does is it will create folder on your /data partition called /data/system.app.
It makes sure that the permissions match the original.
Then it will migrate the *entire* contents of the traditional /system/app folder into the new folder, also preserving the owners, permissions and attributes of files
Finally, it deletes the original, and creates a symlink in its place, so that anything that tries to read, or write, to that folder, will end up on the /data partition.
You can now install a full GApps package, and you'll have a lofty 25MB or so to spare!
Is it safe?
I have tested this on my 4G Stingray using CM10 nightlies and Rogue Recovery as both a clean flash and an upgrade. It works under that configuration. See "Before you download" below for currently known issues.
Is this only for the Stingray?
Yes and no. Yes, I only have that one device that suffers the partition issue, and on which to test this. No, I don't see why it couldn't work for at least one other device. But still probably don't try it unless you really know what you're doing.
Why did you make this?
I wanted to solved this problem, and now it's my gift to you all! Enjoy!
Can I incorporate this in my ROM or on my website or at my grandmother's bingo party?
Knock yourselves out. I hope this ends up being super helpful for everybody.
Something broke and it's all your fault!
Before you download!
Make a nandroid! This is twice that I'm telling you, so I mean it!
As of right now, if you were to factory reset your device, it would be necessary to restore or reflash from recovery. Do not factory reset if you apply this mod! (Thanks runandhide05!)
This mod does not work with TWRP recovery at the moment (But I'm working on it). (Thanks dodgefan67!)
Face unlock currently fails to install. I am working to address this.
Some future version will use addon.d so that you don't have to flash this every time. This will be implemented once the above issues have been dealt with.
The zip file was updated on 11/28 to fix an issue where the shell script had windows-style line endings, causing it not to run in TWRP and possibly some other recoveries.
The download:
http://www.tangerinepulsar.com/files/cm10-xoom-system-symlink-mod-signed.zip
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
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}

the only problem i see here is that you have no way to backup you rom, well, if you run a backup it will say its successful, but you have nothing to get /data/system.app backed up and re symlinked when you restore, and if you preform a factory reset you will loose all of your system apps,
you should look at how EOS symlinks there gapps data at /data/ you have to include addon.d scripts so that if you run a backup it will backup your new folder too, otherwise problems may/will happen.
edit:
for example for the /usr/srec stuff ( google now hotword and talk back files) you have to do something like this
Code:
. /tmp/backuptool.functions
list_files() {
cat <<EOF
EOF
}
case "$1" in
backup)
list_files | while read FILE DUMMY; do
backup_file $S/$FILE
done
;;
restore)
list_files | while read FILE REPLACEMENT; do
R=""
[ -n "$REPLACEMENT" ] && R="$S/$REPLACEMENT"
[ -f "$C/$S/$FILE" ] && restore_file $S/$FILE $R
done
ln -s /data/eos-srec /system/usr/srec
;;
pre-backup)
# Stub
;;
post-backup)
# Stub
;;
pre-restore)
# Stub
;;
post-restore)
# Stub
;;
esac

runandhide05 said:
the only problem i see here is that you have no way to backup you rom, well, if you run a backup it will say its successful, but you have nothing to get /data/system.app backed up and re symlinked when you restore, and if you preform a factory reset you will loose all of your system apps,
you should look at how EOS symlinks there gapps data at /data/ you have to include addon.d scripts so that if you run a backup it will backup your new folder too, otherwise problems may/will happen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll definitely look at incorporating this approach, thanks!
At the time I didn't think that backups were that big of a deal so long as you backed up both system and data, all of the symlinks would still be intact. I did write the edify script in such a way that it allows for an existing /system.app folder to already be there and will re-symlink it. But there are always times when you want to restore one and not the other, or switch ROMs without losing data, and this doesn't handle that at all. I definitely agree that a factory reset would trash you pretty badly, it's not a scenario that I accounted for in any way.
Thanks for the nudge in the right direction, I'll keep working on this.

Thanks for workings on this, very exciting news.

I'll start cranking out eos test builds soon. Then I'll take a look at what kind of gapps solutions are available. One thing for sure is it will be a bare bones package. That means anything that can be acquired from the Store will be.

this is good news indeed. i will try this out on my wifi xoom in the next day or two
i understand about doing a factory reset, but if i just update from one nightly to another (dirty flash) i would have to run this each time as well, correct?

dodgefan67 said:
this is good news indeed. i will try this out on my wifi xoom in the next day or two
i understand about doing a factory reset, but if i just update from one nightly to another (dirty flash) i would have to run this each time as well, correct?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You should not have to.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

runandhide05 said:
You should not have to.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
doesn't the script actually move the contents of /system/apps though? installing a new version would put apps there right? and overwrite the symlinks?

dodgefan67 said:
doesn't the script actually move the contents of /system/apps though? installing a new version would put apps there right? and overwrite the symlinks?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well it depends on how/if he updated it.
But if its the same as earlier then ya you will need to reflash.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

runandhide05 said:
You should not have to.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
dodgefan67 said:
this is good news indeed. i will try this out on my wifi xoom in the next day or two
i understand about doing a factory reset, but if i just update from one nightly to another (dirty flash) i would have to run this each time as well, correct?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
runandhide05 said:
Well it depends on how/if he updated it.
But if its the same as earlier then ya you will need to reflash.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't released an update yet. Please reflash per the current instructions. I'll make it obvious when the script has changed.

ok, i used CM10 stable from 11/13/2012 and the official GApps JB package from 10/11/2012
flashed CM10
flashed this mod
flashed gapps
on first boot, i did not get any google account sign on screens, went straight to homescreen, no play store or any google apps installed
reflashed gapps and rebooted and this time i got the play store and google search, but that's it. is there more to gapps? i think they took out gmail, but would expect more for a 90meg file. never really looked at this, i have been using the EOS version of gapps with Zigackly's rom
by the way, according to TB i have 29.4mb left on /system and that is before i remove the other stuff i dont want. so it seems to have worked on a MZ604 wifi device
i will use it this way for a couple of days, restoring some apps and installing things and changing settings and see how it goes. then i will update to a nightly and see how that goes
so far so good

dodgefan67 said:
ok, i used CM10 stable from 11/13/2012 and the official GApps JB package from 10/11/2012
flashed CM10
flashed this mod
flashed gapps
on first boot, i did not get any google account sign on screens, went straight to homescreen, no play store or any google apps installed
reflashed gapps and rebooted and this time i got the play store and google search, but that's it. is there more to gapps? i think they took out gmail, but would expect more for a 90meg file. never really looked at this, i have been using the EOS version of gapps with Zigackly's rom
by the way, according to TB i have 29.4mb left on /system and that is before i remove the other stuff i dont want. so it seems to have worked on a MZ604 wifi device
i will use it this way for a couple of days, restoring some apps and installing things and changing settings and see how it goes. then i will update to a nightly and see how that goes
so far so good
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm a little perturbed about the way that first flash went. If you experience that again, will you please post the log from /cache/recovery prior to the re-flash? I want to make sure that there's not some scenario that I'm not handling properly with just one flash.
BTW, Did you flash it all from recovery or did you use something like ROM Manager or ROM Toolbox to script the recovery actions? Just so I cover my bases.

oscillot said:
I'm a little perturbed about the way that first flash went. If you experience that again, will you please post the log from /cache/recovery prior to the re-flash? I want to make sure that there's not some scenario that I'm not handling properly with just one flash.
BTW, Did you flash it all from recovery or did you use something like ROM Manager or ROM Toolbox to script the recovery actions? Just so I cover my bases.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i will do it again and get you the log file. i'm using twrp and did it all from there. i even did each zip one at a time even though twrp lets you do multiple ones in one go

good news and bad, i got the log file but i had to dump it to a plain text file so it is hard to read, but if you search for symlink-mod you will find the section where your mod starts and right after that is where i flashed gapps ***edit***never mind about the formatting, i clicked the attachment below using Chrome and it came up fine
i was able to duplicate my issue. i wiped everything three times and installed a different rom and different gapps package and everything was fine. then i wiped three more times and installed cm10 stable, your mod, then the official jb gapps, rebooted and same thing. no google apps installed. this log file is from right after the first reboot
then i went back and flashed gapps again, rebooted and have the play store
i can put CWM on it and try it with that recovery if you want

Here is the problem, u can not have anything in the /system/app folder.. Nothing at all, so the problem lays that if you try to flash a ROM, then the sy link it will copy everything in system/app to data, remove the directory (system/app) then link it to the new directory in /data. Then you are trying to flash gapps which tries to put stuff in /system/app which that directory does not exist so its going to create it. Which will undo the symlink or will not be able to flash anything to /app.
So for the sy link to work u must flash both rom and gapps, which is where the problem of limited space cause now u won't get all your files over to the /system because not enough room. So to fix this you can do one of several things, one of which would be...
Change the gapps package to where the system apps flash to the new /data directory created by the sysmlink.
So if the new directory is /data/sysapp/ open the gapp package and take all the system/app/ and move it to a new folder on the root of the zip called data then in there create a folder called sysapp and put all the /system/app/ content in there. And remember to update the updater script for the resource "data" "/data" and that "should" fix it
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

dodgefan67 said:
good news and bad, i got the log file but i had to dump it to a plain text file so it is hard to read, but if you search for symlink-mod you will find the section where your mod starts and right after that is where i flashed gapps ***edit***never mind about the formatting, i clicked the attachment below using Chrome and it came up fine
i was able to duplicate my issue. i wiped everything three times and installed a different rom and different gapps package and everything was fine. then i wiped three more times and installed cm10 stable, your mod, then the official jb gapps, rebooted and same thing. no google apps installed. this log file is from right after the first reboot
then i went back and flashed gapps again, rebooted and have the play store
i can put CWM on it and try it with that recovery if you want
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay, I see a couple of things that are downright strange. To start off, the reason it looks like a flat text file is because the line-breaks are unix-style ('\n') and windows apps generally don't show linebreaks unless they have a carriage return preceding a newline character ('\r\n'). Open files from android in Notepad++ and they'll render much more nicely. Turn on viewing end of line characters and you'll see the difference between the Windows and Unix styles of newlines.
In practice, these are invisible control characters that don't visibly render, except in so far as their introduction of a line-break. '\r' and '\n' are aliases of them used in programming. They are actually the hex values 0A and 0D. But, since they are also characters, unexpected ones will have some kind of effect.
On lines 4066-4067 I see an error in the copy.sh: "/tmp/copy.sh: line 2: '\r' : not found"
There is a stray carriage return in the middle of this log file. There should be none. Line 2 in that file is BLANK. The source *should* have a single unix-newline '\n' and nothing else. I would bet that busybox is trying to interpret it and as a result, the shell script never runs. Nothing is getting copied out of /system/app.
I checked the zip I uploaded, and sure enough, the shell script has windows-style line endings. Oops. I've replaced it with a version that does not, but is identical other than that. So that part is fixed. Not sure why it works in CWM and not in TWRP, as far as I'm concerned, it shouldn't have worked in either. They must have slightly different busybox binaries is all that I can think.
The other issue is that both the deletion of /system/app and the subsequent symlinking both claim to have worked. However it's clear that /system/app was not deleted because if it were, you wouldn't have booted correctly. The symlink couldn't have worked either because you can't symlink a location that has files in it. So what in the world happened here? I'm kind of not sure, especially since those steps each returned 0, or else we wouldn't have gotten the success messages.
The wrinkle that you got *no* gapps after a flash is even stranger. But There is one more bit of interest here. I see an error message on line 4135 "cp: target '/system/app' is not a directory". At this point, this is the gapps trying to install face-unlock. I went ahead and looked in my own log files and here's what I found: "cp: target '/system/app' is not a directory." I never used it, but further inspection confirms, no portion of the face-unlock is installed using my mod, and the reason is the syntax of the gapps install-optional.sh: "cp -a /tmp/face/* /system/". Because /system/app is a symlink, you cannot copy the folder /tmp/face/app over it successfully.
This begs the question, how is it displaying the properties of being both a symlink and NOT a symlink?
I'm going to work on these issues, and I'll probably flash TWRP and test against it as well and try to come up with some answers and a one-size-fits-all solution. In the mean time, I would appreciate it if you could confirm whether you have a /data/system.app directory, and if so, what the contents are. I have a hunch that you'll find the gapp apks (minus face-unlock) in that directory, but none of the system apps. I'm not sure how that would be possible, or what it means, but it makes the most sense from where I'm standing. In the meantime, I'm going to add some notes to the main post.
I'll hopefully get some of this figured out by this weekend.

oscillot said:
Okay, I see a couple of things that are downright strange. To start off, the reason it looks like a flat text file is because the line-breaks are unix-style ('\n') and windows apps generally don't show linebreaks unless they have a carriage return preceding a newline character ('\r\n'). Open files from android in Notepad++ and they'll render much more nicely. Turn on viewing end of line characters and you'll see the difference between the Windows and Unix styles of newlines.
In practice, these are invisible control characters that don't visibly render, except in so far as their introduction of a line-break. '\r' and '\n' are aliases of them used in programming. They are actually the hex values 0A and 0D. But, since they are also characters, unexpected ones will have some kind of effect.
On lines 4066-4067 I see an error in the copy.sh: "/tmp/copy.sh: line 2: '\r' : not found"
There is a stray carriage return in the middle of this log file. There should be none. Line 2 in that file is BLANK. The source *should* have a single unix-newline '\n' and nothing else. I would bet that busybox is trying to interpret it and as a result, the shell script never runs. Nothing is getting copied out of /system/app.
I checked the zip I uploaded, and sure enough, the shell script has windows-style line endings. Oops. I've replaced it with a version that does not, but is identical other than that. So that part is fixed. Not sure why it works in CWM and not in TWRP, as far as I'm concerned, it shouldn't have worked in either. They must have slightly different busybox binaries is all that I can think.
The other issue is that both the deletion of /system/app and the subsequent symlinking both claim to have worked. However it's clear that /system/app was not deleted because if it were, you wouldn't have booted correctly. The symlink couldn't have worked either because you can't symlink a location that has files in it. So what in the world happened here? I'm kind of not sure, especially since those steps each returned 0, or else we wouldn't have gotten the success messages.
The wrinkle that you got *no* gapps after a flash is even stranger. But There is one more bit of interest here. I see an error message on line 4135 "cp: target '/system/app' is not a directory". At this point, this is the gapps trying to install face-unlock. I went ahead and looked in my own log files and here's what I found: "cp: target '/system/app' is not a directory." I never used it, but further inspection confirms, no portion of the face-unlock is installed using my mod, and the reason is the syntax of the gapps install-optional.sh: "cp -a /tmp/face/* /system/". Because /system/app is a symlink, you cannot copy the folder /tmp/face/app over it successfully.
This begs the question, how is it displaying the properties of being both a symlink and NOT a symlink?
I'm going to work on these issues, and I'll probably flash TWRP and test against it as well and try to come up with some answers and a one-size-fits-all solution. In the mean time, I would appreciate it if you could confirm whether you have a /data/system.app directory, and if so, what the contents are. I have a hunch that you'll find the gapp apks (minus face-unlock) in that directory, but none of the system apps. I'm not sure how that would be possible, or what it means, but it makes the most sense from where I'm standing. In the meantime, I'm going to add some notes to the main post.
I'll hopefully get some of this figured out by this weekend.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Any new news on this?

A little update on what I tried on my MZ-601 Everest. Any feedback will be welcome
Basically what I did was:
1. Trimmed down the CM10 Stable a little (132MB vs the original 141MB) by removing mainly the wallpapers.
2. Flashed the modified CM10 Stable zip (after a full wipe - factory plus cache).
3. Modified the Mod Script to point to "/data/system/app" (just to satisfy my OCD ) then flashed the zip. On first try it aborted with Status 7 on "Fixing permissions" so I had to manually create the directory "/data/system/app" after which the flash was successful.
4. Modified the GApps package (GApps from 11th Oct) by:
a. Removing the "optional" directory, install script and removing the relevant lines from "updater-script",
b. Moving the "/system/app" directory to "/data/system" and
c. Modifying the "updater-script" to reflect the change.
5. Flashed the GApps zip package which went uneventfully.
6. I now have 51.4MB free in "/system" according to Titanium Backup
PS: I am including the modified "Mod Script" and "updater-script" from GApps package if anyone else wants to try it. Of course you mileage may vary and I cannot claim any responsibility for any loss of data that may occur
UPDATE: Tried it with the CM10.1 nightlies and it works flawlessly. Flashed the nightly over the last nightly, flashed this script then the official gpaps and rebooted. All the settings and customizations retained! Still have some 56MB left in /system

[Q] Getting Gapps on [JUNE 17][4.2.2] PARANOIDANDROID v3.60 | HALO

A first post here, please be gentle with me, and huge thanks to everyone who has made posting here unnecessary until now.
After a long time using CynogenMod 7.1 on my Desire, when I came to switching SIMs on it, I decided to look for a new ROM too because I was having a problem with shortage of app space and I was missing a few features I have become used to on JellyBean.
A look at the options found the one in the title by WoH (development forum link). It separates out the ROM and the Google Apps. I can install the ROM, and I like it a lot. I can't get the Google Apps to install.
Tried: flashing the zip file at http://woh-roms.weebly.com/gapps.html via the recovery menu, and installing a2sd. It has the right MD5 and appears to go OK, but the apps don't appear when the phone is rebooted, or appear in the list of things moved by a2sd. I have made repeated attempts, both with wiping user data before and afterwards, and doing it before rebooting after installing the ROM and after an initial boot with it, all without success.
Tried: reading the instructions there. However I don't have adb installed and because I don't have Google Play, I can't install a file manager that unzips files (the one in the ROM doesn't appear to - no unzip option is given).
Tried: installing the ROM mentioned in the development subforum thread by timvdlinde which does have Google Play. That works, but I am not so keen on the ROM itself. This may be incredibly shallow, but I liked WoH's use of the Nexus boot animation, and the timvdlinde ROM has the Nova launcher which I am not interested in.
The phone: an unlocked, rooted, AMOLED GSM Desire. The recovery is the Clockworkmod ROM Manager one. I don't remember ever changing the hboot settings. There is a sizeable ext4 partition on the SD card and it is being used by a2sd.

lovingboth said:
A first post here, please be gentle with me, and huge thanks to everyone who has made posting here unnecessary until now.
After a long time using CynogenMod 7.1 on my Desire, when I came to switching SIMs on it, I decided to look for a new ROM too because I was having a problem with shortage of app space and I was missing a few features I have become used to on JellyBean.
A look at the options found the one in the title by WoH (development forum link). It separates out the ROM and the Google Apps. I can install the ROM, and I like it a lot. I can't get the Google Apps to install.
Tried: flashing the zip file at http://woh-roms.weebly.com/gapps.html via the recovery menu, and installing a2sd. It has the right MD5 and appears to go OK, but the apps don't appear when the phone is rebooted, or appear in the list of things moved by a2sd. I have made repeated attempts, both with wiping user data before and afterwards, and doing it before rebooting after installing the ROM and after an initial boot with it, all without success.
Tried: reading the instructions there. However I don't have adb installed and because I don't have Google Play, I can't install a file manager that unzips files (the one in the ROM doesn't appear to - no unzip option is given).
Tried: installing the ROM mentioned in the development subforum thread by timvdlinde which does have Google Play. That works, but I am not so keen on the ROM itself. This may be incredibly shallow, but I liked WoH's use of the Nexus boot animation, and the timvdlinde ROM has the Nova launcher which I am not interested in.
The phone: an unlocked, rooted, AMOLED GSM Desire. The recovery is the Clockworkmod ROM Manager one. I don't remember ever changing the hboot settings. There is a sizeable ext4 partition on the SD card and it is being used by a2sd.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Repartition your sd-card by using the partitioning guide in my sig.

onknope what
abaaaabbbb63 said:
Repartition your sd-card by using the partitioning guide in my sig.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, but I did that before starting this. I used gparted, ending up with a large FAT32 partition, followed by a smaller ext4 and finally a small swap.

lovingboth said:
Thanks, but I did that before starting this. I used gparted, ending up with a large FAT32 partition, followed by a smaller ext4 and finally a small swap.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Theres no need for a swap partition. If you are using PA it will just act as a waste of space, since the rom doesnt utilize it in any way.
Try doing a full wipe and reflash the rom. Then flash these gapps. I can guarantee those work, as i use the same rom with those gapps and everything is fine. After flashing run the a2sd script through terminal.

chromium96 said:
Try doing a full wipe and reflash the rom. Then flash these gapps. I can guarantee those work, as i use the same rom with those gapps and everything is fine. After flashing run the a2sd script through terminal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To quote Napoleon Wilson, you can't argue with a confident man even if that's the file I've been trying - same source, same MD5
OK, I'm about to give it another go.
(And apologies if you don't identify as a man!)

lovingboth said:
To quote Napoleon Wilson, you can't argue with a confident man even if that's the file I've been trying - same source, same MD5
OK, I'm about to give it another go.
(And apologies if you don't identify as a man!)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lol, weird. Im on the same rom and used the same gapps. Everything worked fine.

chromium96 said:
Lol, weird. Im on the same rom and used the same gapps. Everything worked fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not for me. I took some photos of the process, which I can put somewhere, but it was...
Repartition the SD card
Boot into recovery
Wipe data
Wipe cache
Install ROM.zip (using the one downloaded from the right place, no reported problems)
Install Gapps.zip (ditto)
Reboot
Notice that the Google apps aren't there
Do the su / mount / a2sd install anyway
Reboot (through saying yes to the third question)
Notice that the progress of the move to the ext4 partition says its moving 59 items, none of which are Google apps
Confirm that the Google apps still aren't there
I'm about to try again with another SD card on the basis of 'why not'

lovingboth said:
Not for me. I took some photos of the process, which I can put somewhere, but it was...
Repartition the SD card
Boot into recovery
Wipe data
Wipe cache
Install ROM.zip (using the one downloaded from the right place, no reported problems)
Install Gapps.zip (ditto)
Reboot
Notice that the Google apps aren't there
Do the su / mount / a2sd install anyway
Reboot (through saying yes to the third question)
Notice that the progress of the move to the ext4 partition says its moving 59 items, none of which are Google apps
Confirm that the Google apps still aren't there
I'm about to try again with another SD card on the basis of 'why not'
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go to system/app. Are the google apps installed? What permissions do they have?

abaaaabbbb63 said:
Go to system/app. Are the google apps installed? What permissions do they have?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah, no they're not.
About sixty are, owned by root, with rw (owner) and r (group and global) permissions.
I am being tempted to bite the bullet, install the ADK on something and try the adb method.

What about /sd-ext/gapps/system/app. Anything there?

chromium96 said:
What about /sd-ext/gapps/system/app. Anything there?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, they are there, with what I presume are the right permissions: as above, owned by root, rw-r-r.

Doing some more nosing around, and looking at the alternative installation instructions on woh-roms.weebly.com/gapps.html
$ adb shell ls /sd-ext/gapps/system
app etc framework lib usr
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, doing
ls /sd-ext/gapps/system
produces that.
# enable extgapps (quotes needed)
$ adb shell "echo x > /sd-ext/gapps/.extgapps"
# gapps dir should look like this (if .extgapps doesnt exist the init script wont run)
$ adb shell ls -a /sd-ext/gapps/
.extgapps system
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, doing
ls -a /sd-ext/gapps/
produces that.
.extgapps is a zero byte file, rather than one byte containing 'x' as there, but the root explorer instructions would produce a zero byte file, so presumably a) there's no touch command and b) it's the presence of the file that's important, not what it contains.
BUT...

... if I do
logcat -C
(after doing logcat -c, going oops, rebooting, and getting it right )
then the lines that are supposed to be there aren't.
I'll get the email working, email the output to myself and stick it in a pastebin or similar.

pastebin.com/Qtrps3A8 has the whole thing.
At the start, various links are possibly not set up:
I/run-parts( 75): ln: /system/etc/permissions/com.google.android.maps.xml: Out of memory
I/extgapps( 155): Created /system/etc/permissions/com.google.android.maps.xml
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
is just one example, then later
D/AlarmScheduler( 1300): No events found starting within 1 week.
I/Goo Parser( 839): GAPPS: No file, skipping item 0
I/Goo Parser( 839): GAPPS URL: http://goo.im/devs/paranoidandroid/roms/gapps/pa_gapps-full-4.2-20130702-signed.zip
I/AlarmReceiver( 839): gooVer: 3601
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
.. so what file is it looking for, and is this down to trying to do things with the card before it is ready?

What has changed:
The search 'app' has gone from the list - I can see from the logs that it is supposed to be replaced, but here it's just missing.
The browser is now very like Chrome... and I don't remember that being the case.