Develop Bugs

Question about app2sd and MoDaCo 3.0

Hello guys!
I am using this ROM with app2sd and Recovery Amon RA 1.5.2
My question is- when I install some apps from the Market, not from files, do they go to SD card or I have to install there manually?
Thanks a lot!

miragebg said:
Hello guys!
I am using this ROM with app2sd and Recovery Amon RA 1.5.2
My question is- when I install some apps from the Market, not from files, do they go to SD card or I have to install there manually?
Thanks a lot!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you have formatted your sd properly in ext3 partition... then you shouldnt do anything.just installing from market would put it on the card.

one question..
when a app is installed in the ext3 partion, why does the menu with the internal memory lose space? or is this normal?

With a2sd, your /data/app and /data/app-private directories are actually mounted to a filesystem on your sd card. The OS still installs the apps in those directories, which just happen to be on the sd card. It's all transparent to the OS.
The dalvik cache, where virtual machines are created to run your apps, still resides in internal memory, so when you run your new app for the first time, a VM gets created, and the amount of available internal memory goes down. That's normal.
Word of caution: Never remove the SD card while the system is running. Always turn it off first.

marinierb said:
With a2sd, your /data/app and /data/app-private directories are actually mounted to a filesystem on your sd card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
technically it is the other way around, the sdcard is mounted to the directories. but other than that you are spot on

so what happend when i'm over the internal memory?
i mean when the internal memory shows 80mb and i am installing a lot off apps, over the 80 mb what happend?^^
does the internal memory goes in the negative?

no just u cant install more apps. the problem is the dalvik cache. i moved the dalvik chache to the sd card too to save more space.

zerofigther said:
so what happend when i'm over the internal memory?
i mean when the internal memory shows 80mb and i am installing a lot off apps, over the 80 mb what happend?^^
does the internal memory goes in the negative?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol yes the memory goes into negative, and the data starts to leak out of your phone!
scnr, i can imagine two scenarios: android tells you that there is no more space left and you can not install more apps, or it will just start to freeze, give force closes, reset itself, stuff like that. i'd guess the first one, it is forseeable that one fills the rather small phone memory, so there should be routines that stop the phone from failing catastrophically. anyone up for a test?

a2SD & titanium backup help.

Hey guys Im running LeeDroid rom.
I wanted to get a2sd to work, so I partitioned my SD via Rom manager with 512mb EXT3/0 swap
I titanium backuped all my apps/data. Transfered the folder to my deskop then did
the partition part via ROm Manager. When that was done I batch > restore apps and data.
My internal memory on the phone still says 30mb available ?
SD & phone storage is as follows:
SD:
Total space: 6.92 GB
Avail Space: 6.90GB
Internal Phone Storage: 34.25MB
Did I do something wrong ? How I know if my apps are on my SD card? Also if they are am I suppose to have more Internal Phone Storage?
Update: Under manage Apps > On SD card .... There is no apps what so ever there so must of done something wrong :S
Thanks !

how many apps do you have? with apps2sd it still uses some internal memory and some cache so internal memory will drop

According to titanium I have 22 user apps 148 data. But like I said under manage apps,on SD there is nothing. So prob did something wrong. How can I check if my SD is partitioned properly with a 512mb. Or even if a2sd is working.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

22 apps seems like internal memory is being used and not apps2sd
heres how to check if its working
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=677073
it can be done using connectbot app from market
open connectbot and use local
then type
su
ls -l /data
this should list the top 2 items as:
lrwxrwxrwx root root 2010-04-28 22:54 app-private -> /system/sd/app-private
lrwxrwxrwx root root 2010-04-28 22:54 app -> /system/sd/app
ls -l /system/sd/app (will list apps on installed to your SD Card)

Awesome found my problem lol. I didn't have a2sd installed. I assumed it came with the Rom,just read and its optional and must be flashed.
Now is there a away to see if I partitioned correctly with a ext3?
Also do I back up apps and data or just apps.
Also how do I put my davlik cache on my SD or just put the apps.
Sorry first time doing all this LOL.
Thx for the help.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

So I installed a2sd.
Now my available internal phone memory is 125MB ... Is this right ?
Also under applications> manage apps> on SD nothing shows there is this normal ?
I thought that I would show all the apps.
Pretty sure its all installed properly. Because yesterday there was only 30mb of interal storage.
Just wanted to confirm if I should see apps under "on SD" in manage apps.
thanks

aCx85 said:
Hey guys Im running LeeDroid rom.
I wanted to get a2sd to work, so I partitioned my SD via Rom manager with 512mb EXT3/0 swap
I titanium backuped all my apps/data. Transfered the folder to my deskop then did
the partition part via ROm Manager. When that was done I batch > restore apps and data.
My internal memory on the phone still says 30mb available ?
SD & phone storage is as follows:
SD:
Total space: 6.92 GB
Avail Space: 6.90GB
Internal Phone Storage: 34.25MB
Did I do something wrong ? How I know if my apps are on my SD card? Also if they are am I suppose to have more Internal Phone Storage?
Update: Under manage Apps > On SD card .... There is no apps what so ever there so must of done something wrong :S
Thanks !
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your big mistake in my opinion was when you restored the Titanium backup. This not only restores apps (to their original location!) but also restores system data, some of which may not be compatible with Froyo and A2SD+
I recommend you do a factory reset/full-wipe including davlik cache, then check free memory at next reboot (before restoring anything).
With EXT3 and A2SD+, you should have 130MB+ free in phone memory.
If you get 130MB+ free, then don't restore the backup this time, but instead re-install all apps from the market manually.
Assume you have an 8GB SD card? The fact you have 6.92GB free on SD and not 7.5GB, suggests your 512MB ext3 partition is there, and probably working fine.

Sounds right as most people are getting 135mb after a fresh install with that rom.
Also try Quick System Info and in there it will give you a reading of the A2SD+ memory being used.
I think the way A2SD+ works is to trick the phone (with shortcuts to the programs on SD) into thinking its on the internal memory so maybe that's why they don't show up as installed on SD.

[Q] ROM full, even with app2sd; dalvikCache

So, you are thinking 'not again the *** apps2sd n00b question', but here I am
I did some research on XDA and the rest of the internet though, but nobody seems to have this problem.
I have a rooted Desire with DeFrost 6.0. With it, it is very easy to install your apps on the SD-card. I have only 8 apps on the ROM itself, but those are widgets and apps with notifications like Facebook (notifications don't work if they are installed on de sd-card is my experience).
The rest of my applications are installed on the sd-card (around 80 apps). But the problem is that all apps also have a piece of dalvikCache on the ROM as well. You all know that of course. For instance, I installed Documents To Go (5MB) on the sd-card. It also has 5MB dalvikCache on the ROM, so thats double the price .
Now if people ask here 'is it safe to move the cache to the sd-card', most of you say 'unless you want to show off how much empty space you have on your phone, I would just keep it on the phone'. But I do not have any free space.
With DiskUsage I can see that I have around 150 MB of data: 26MB system data, 15MB free space (and he is already nagging the telephone is running out of space), and more than 100MB of applications, with most of it is dalvikCache.
So is this normal? Is 80 apps really the max you can have?
My biggets app is by the way Documents To Go (5MB), and I had to delete it. So I don't have very big apps.
Just want to know how much apps you guys have
Thanks.

How have you forced the Dalvik Cache to stay on the phone memory and why/how have you copied your widgets on your phone memory?
PS: Do you use an EXT3 Partition or the Froyo legacy A2SD?

It's not unusual to move dalvik cache as well as the app. You will need root though, and then just partition your sd-card and install a rom with a2sd+. The only /data/data will take up space on the phone.

UpSpin said:
How have you forced the Dalvik Cache to stay on the phone memory and why/how have you copied your widgets on your phone memory?
PS: Do you use an EXT3 Partition or the Froyo legacy A2SD?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't do anything to force the cache to stay on de phone. But it's normal the dalvikCache is on the phone memory right?
I use defrost 6.0 and in it you can go to settings > applications > manage applicatons, an you can move all your apps to the sd-card. I'm not sure what kind of A2SD that is.
I move any applications with widgets to my phone memory, because otherwise widgets don't work anymore if you reboot your phone.
@mortenmhp: But also a lot of people do not recommend to move the dalvikcache. Is it safe to do?

you're confusing a few things:
APPS2SD:
There are two methods used at the moment.
The Froyo method, made by Google, which you use at the moment. It installs the app on the phone memory and is able to outsource a small amount of data to the FAT32 partition on your SD-card. It does create failures with apps that use widgets or run in the background.
The A2SD+ method, integrated in DeFroST and almost every other custom ROM. You have to create an EXT3 partition on your SD card (use ROM manager for this) and then reflash the rom. After that it gets activated automatically. All apps and also the dalvik cache gets moved on the EXT3 partition on your SD card. You don't have to and you shouldn't move any apps around afterwards with the Froyo A2SD described above. Only some small data gets stored by the apps itself on the internal phone memory.
Moving the dalvik cache is safe. Maybe you confuse it with SWAP? Which isn't necessary on the HTC Desire.

ok, this is a little confusing
I'm running defrost
let's suppose that I installed the firefox app.
the diskusage tool tells me that it takes 13,4 MB in internal memory.
in applications settings, I have the option to move the app to sd card.
When I do this, my available memory does not change (102 mb)
Does that mean that firefox was already on the sd card ?
In that case how do I know what eats up my data storage ?
Thanks for precisions ?

Do you use A2SD+ together with an EXT3 partition.
If so, every app you install will get installed on the EXT3 partition on your SD-card together with the Dalvik cache, instead of your internal phone memory. If you move this app with the Froyo A2SD tool to the SD card then you'll move the app from the EXT3 partition to your FAT32 partition, stupid.
However, every app, while running, creates some temporary data files. Those files remain on the internal phone memory. And maybe Firefox mobile creates some huge data files, but the main app is installed on the EXT3 partition, now, because you moved it with Froyo A2SD, a small part is installed on the EXT3 partition and some part, the moved on the FAT32 partition. The created data remains untouched.
I had 106 MB free internal memory. Then I installed Firefox and still had 106MB free. I started Firefox, 103 MB free.
Diskusage tells me Firefox needs 2.81MB internal memory. 2.81MB of this is data.
In the Android app settings android tells me Firefox occupies 16.19 MB, 13.38 MB for the app, 2.81 MB data.
So those 13.38 MB are located on the EXT3 partition. If I move Firefox now, parts of the 13.38 MB get moved from the SD card to the SD card.

Ah, I get it now. Thank you very much. I did everything you said, so it should be ok now. So there is no need anymore to move apps, with widgets for instance, to the memory of the phone?
Thanks!

If you use app2sd with the ext partition now, then no, you don't have to move any app or widget around, and you shouldn't.
With Quick System Info you can check how much free space is left on your ext partition.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

[Q] Low internal storage, using OpenDesire and Apps2SD

My phone is rooted and I'm using OpenDesire (4.0.36) with Apps2SD. My phone has recently started telling me it can't receive text messages due to having low space. I opened Quick System Info and it's reporting this for the storage:
SD card storage: Total 3.21GB, Free: 1.61GB
A2SD storage: Total: 457MB, Free: 180MB
Internal storage: Total: 148MB, Free: 5.12MB
System storage: Total: 250MB, Free: 155MB
System cache: Total: 40.00MB, Free: 12.16MB
I presumed it was the internal storage that was the issue so I uninstalled a few apps which brought it up to 19.63MB free and things seem fine now. I'm confused though as I'm using Apps2SD so nothing should be being installed in the internal storage, should it?
I've got plenty of Apps2SD space left but I can't install any more apps if they're going to start using up my internal storage.
Can I find out what's using up my internal storage space?

Read up on how A2SD+ works. Either use search or start here. (feels like I'm repeating myself)
/data/data is probably using most of your space.

I did search and I had read that before but I knew it anyway. That's why I was posting because I knew that using A2SD shouldn't be using this much internal memory.
However, I noticed in the comments that someone was having the same issue as me and did a cachesdreset to sort it out. I've just opened up a shell on my phone using adb but the a2sd executable doesn't seem to exist. I looked in /system/bin and even did "find / -name a2sd" but it didn't find it.
I presume this means I have to install Darktremor Apps2SD? Presumably OpenDesire doesn't come with it.

For the a2sd script look in /system/etc/init.d
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

TheGhost1233 said:
For the a2sd script look in /system/etc/init.d
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope, not in there either. But I wouldn't really expect it to be as an executable shouldn't exist in the init scripts directory.
I'm sure it's not on my phone otherwise it would have been found when I did "find / -name a2sd".

I think you're right about it being my /data/data directory. I just changed to that directory and did "du -h" and it's coming out at 120MB which seems really big.
What is this directory exactly? Can I get away with deleting these files?
Doing "ln -al" in /data shows that the symlinks are set up for the app and dalvik-cache directories so I know that's all ok.

/data/data is mostly used for lib's that come with the apps you installed and cache, I presume cache can be safely deleted, but the lib's can't be deleted.
Have you ever tried do delete the cache, especially the browser cache. I don't know if on 2.2 it's the same but on 2.3 there is a option to clear cache if you go to settings-applications-manage applications, otherwise try a cache cleaner from the market.

Cool, thanks. I'll have a look.
Actually, I seem to remember that Quick System Info has a button for clearing cache from all the applications.
Is this safe to do? I presume I won't lose anything important?

Never done it so I don't know for sure, but I would be surprised if it would delete important files. If you want to be sure wait for a answer from someone how has done it before or make a nandroid.

Not sure if A2SD+ is working properly or not.

Ok, i have just finished re-installing all my apps after flashing AceSMod007-3D, the first A2SD+ ROM i have used, and i am already running out of space. I have noticed that any "phone only" apps i download seem to be placed on the internal memory whilst anything movable seems to be placed on the EXT partition and doesn't decrease internal space at all. Is this how A2SD+ is supposed to work? Is my only option to free up more space to delete some of my phone only apps?

I've just rooted and installed AceSMod007 (v33) and im also confused by what goes to SD-Ext4 vs Internal... so far it is hitting Internal, although one app does have the SEND 2 SD option but not sure if that means to the FAT32 or Ext4 partition.
so well confused so far... im holding off customising the phone until i have a better idea.

Open titanium backup, it should show u system memory, internal memory, sd-ext memory and sd card memory..If the app2sd is working u should see that sd-ext is not empty
Leave away the SEND 2 SD option..this is the android stock move to sd, not the app2sd

Its definitely sending apps that were already movable to the EXT partition, but i was under the impression that A2SD+ meant that apps that previously weren't movable would now be able to be spread over the EXT partition as well. If all it does is send the movable apps there automatically then its basically the same as stock A2SD, just without the need to move them yourself

Paratax said:
Its definitely sending apps that were already movable to the EXT partition, but i was under the impression that A2SD+ meant that apps that previously weren't movable would now be able to be spread over the EXT partition as well. If all it does is send the movable apps there automatically then its basically the same as stock A2SD, just without the need to move them yourself
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
NO, that is the stock move to sd: mean a part of the app can be moved on the sd card fat32 partition, it doesn't allow every app to be moved, and the app is partially on the sd card
The a2sd move every app u install on the ext partition, is not in ur sdcard fat32 partition..it move completely the apk on the ext partition..so the space saved is enough (u will STILL see that the app can be moved on the sd card..but u HAVE to leave it on the internal memory to make the a2sd/a2sd+ fully work)

ok .. but why does the Internal Memory indicate decrease (by megs) if it is installing on EXT. I can see my game is on SD-EXT/APP but Internal went down by 3megs.

kazgor said:
ok .. but why does the Internal Memory indicate decrease (by megs) if it is installing on EXT. I can see my game is on SD-EXT/APP but Internal went down by 3megs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The data saved from each app (settings, preferences) is still on the internal memory /data/data so that probably is normal if the games need to save a lot of things
Btw how much is ur free internal memory?

its now 108MB of 148MB, with only Mini Info and HyperJump Installed

Its definitely not just the data. one of the apps i install is 7.5mb and 450kb of data. it decreases the internal space by 7.95mb in total after an install, NONE of the app what so ever is going to the EXT partition, and i suspect there are several other apps doing the same thing

quick system info will show the a2sd size

kazgor said:
its now 108MB of 148MB, with only Mini Info and HyperJump Installed
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
then? even if u uninstall hyperjump and mini info, u will see that u will never have 148 mb free!
try installing all of ur apps...u will see that it does't decrease too much

Paratax said:
Its definitely not just the data. one of the apps i install is 7.5mb and 450kb of data. it decreases the internal space by 7.95mb in total after an install, NONE of the app what so ever is going to the EXT partition, and i suspect there are several other apps doing the same thing
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if u install from the market an application, it will be downloaded on ur internal memory..that the space that u see probably
restore all ur apps, and stop looking for a mb more or less..u will have lots of space available..if this is not the case then u did something wrong.

andQlimax said:
then? even if u uninstall hyperjump and mini info, u will see that u will never have 148 mb free!
try installing all of ur apps...u will see that it does't decrease too much
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes.. from a fresh install of the ROM it started with around 111mb free, so yeah you are correct never will get the 148mb back.. but then the Stock Rom DID have 148mb free so that like 37mb lost from the get go.
Its all new to me this apsd+ stuff so i'll start install Apps and see how far i get, on stock i HAD to use Froyo "Send to SD" to get everything installed.
thanks.

kazgor said:
yes.. from a fresh install of the ROM it started with around 111mb free, so yeah you are correct never will get the 148mb back.. but then the Stock Rom DID have 148mb free so that like 37mb lost from the get go.
Its all new to me this apsd+ stuff so i'll start install Apps and see how far i get, on stock i HAD to use Froyo "Send to SD" to get everything installed.
thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
could it be you have a few extra bits thrown in (app wise) with your rom that is taking up extra space?
afaik apps2sd+ you should leave everything on internal

ok this was a good read.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=7458565&postcount=8
it kind of implies that because there a symbolic link from NAND/Apps to sd-ext/apps, the phone thinks apps are still internal so will reduce the freespace indicated in Settings --> SD & Phone Storage

andQlimax said:
if u install from the market an application, it will be downloaded on ur internal memory..that the space that u see probably
restore all ur apps, and stop looking for a mb more or less..u will have lots of space available..if this is not the case then u did something wrong.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well obviously something is wrong, as i have installed around 30 apps and i'm already out of internal memory.