Develop Bugs

"Installation unsuccessful" Market error messages

Hi there,
For the past couple of days, I've been getting "installation unsuccessful" error messages whenever I download anything from the Market. The apps are downloaded, and Android tries to install them but fails every time. I've gotten successful installations on one or two occasions, though, seemingly at random.
I have 22MB of internal storage left, and I used to be able to install apps with only 10MB, so that's not the cause. And I have around 2GB on my SD card. Funny thing is, I can't even install some .APKs of beta apps that I know should work, because I've installed them before. I thought the issue was solely related to the Market, but the Market isn't involved when installing apps from "unknown sources", or is it?
Does anyone have any suggestions besides doing a hardreset? Anyone experiencing similar issues?
Cheers

I had the same issue with my Desire. After i searched on the internet, i found a lot irellevant sollutions to this issue.
What i did? I did a backup of my SD card, format SD, restore settings to default and that it.
It was a hard decision but i couldn't find any other solution. After that, everything goes normaly, even today!

Thanks for the reply! I still hope I don't have to do a hardreset, but if nothing else works, I guess I have to go ahead and wipe that thing.

Have you tried the fix_permissions script? You can run this from the Amon Ra recovery or go to the Market and download ROM Manager. It's under the Utilities section of ROM Manager

I guess that's only for rooted devices?

OK, I give up. If no one has a solution to this, I'll just hardreset the darn thing

OK, I give up. If no one has a solution to this, I'll just hardreset the darn thing.
Is there a backup tool that can restore all your apps in a way that the Market will recognize them under "Downloads"? I restored apps from a backup once, but that was pretty pointless since I no longer could enjoy updates through the Market without having to re-download every single app.

Titanium Backup has a "Market Doctor" to fix your Market links, but you need to be rooted.
If you aren't, I'd suggest syncing with AppBrain, which at least means you won't need to search for all your apps on the Market again.
Regards,
Dave

MapleDouglas said:
OK, I give up. If no one has a solution to this, I'll just hardreset the darn thing
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried connecting your phone to pc in disk drive mode and doing a scandisk of SD card.
I had the same problem (card was mounted as read-only)
After I done scandisk it found and fixed the problem.

Cooperman_UK said:
Have you tried connecting your phone to pc in disk drive mode and doing a scandisk of SD card.
I had the same problem (card was mounted as read-only)
After I done scandisk it found and fixed the problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, I had not tried that since the SD card appeared to be working. I used to get quite a few "SD card damaged" messages until I let Android format the card. I tried Scandisk now but it didn't take care of the Market issue unfortunately. Thanks anyway

But it does indeed seem like the SD card somehow is to blame. Those few apps that I actually have been able to install have been installed to the internal storage.
I think this problem started when I for some reason decided to clear the Market's cache and data. Thing is, I have set Android to install apps to the SD card by default (adb shell pm setInstallLocation 2) and that might have something to do with it as well, although it worked fine for three weeks.

I got this when I installed the unofficial OTA update for 2.2. Only fix was to try another custom rom.

Have you tried to go into manage applications and then clear all data for the market app ? This has solved some similar problems for me in the past.

Yes, I cleared the Market's cache and data, and I actually did that before the issue started as well. I just hope a hardreset will fix it all, going to erase everything later today

For the record, I had to not only perform a hardreset, but delete the .android_secure folder on my memory card where apps are stored to get the Market working again. I could probably just have deleted the .androd_secure folder, but then I would have lost all apps installed to the SD anyway
Works like a charm now.

hey did you find a solution to your problem???
if you did please tell me

tinman4124 said:
hey did you find a solution to your problem???
if you did please tell me
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, but not the one I wanted Look at my post about yours.

i was having the same installation unsuccessful problem. i deleted the .android_secure folder and i can now install all the apps that werent working. i did not have to do a full flash of the ROM.

genghiskav said:
i was having the same installation unsuccessful problem. i deleted the .android_secure folder and i can now install all the apps that werent working. i did not have to do a full flash of the ROM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But erasing that folder removed all the apps you had installed on your memory card, right?

MapleDouglas said:
But it does indeed seem like the SD card somehow is to blame. Those few apps that I actually have been able to install have been installed to the internal storage.
I think this problem started when I for some reason decided to clear the Market's cache and data. Thing is, I have set Android to install apps to the SD card by default (adb shell pm setInstallLocation 2) and that might have something to do with it as well, although it worked fine for three weeks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey man good to know im not the only one i have exactly the same issue,did u found the solution for it? i still want to use the trick setinstalllocation 2 .

[Q] Is it the SD card at fault?

hi all,
thought i would ask here as my questions in the rom specific forum are getting swamped by every asking for the dev to install specific programmes or people asking wht OJ death is..
im just trying to narrow down if my SD card is faulty, the rom is causing the issues or i have or am doing things wrong.
on random occasions i have lost apps, photos and other info from my SD card.
the first time it happed i did a nandriod backup prior to a rom update.
right after the nandriod back up my phone booted up and every photo i had taken in the last 2 days were gone.
thankfully using Recuva data recovery program in windoiws i was able to find and restore the photos.
i then updated my rom the Open desire rom, the one that enabled the OTA menu system. as far as i know there were no other things changed in the initial update.
after rebooting all my sd card data was wiped.
BUT.... some of the apps on the sd card were still there and some were gone, as well as apps on the phone, some were gone some was not.

chuxsta said:
on random occasions i have lost apps, photos and other info from my SD card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're not alone... I too have a similar issue, with an un-branded, un-rooted Desire. The first think I noticed was a duplicate "Backgrounds" folder appearing in the 3D Gallery - which in itself is odd, because the standard Gallery app only shows it once.
Weirdly in one version of the folder I have a few less images than the other, but they're otherwise all duplicates and can only be found in one visible "Backgrounds" directory on my SD card. It's not just the Gallery app aither - some others (like Wall Switch) also see two "Backgrounds" folders.
Then I noticed a number of images had mysteriously disappeared from another folder - in both Gallery apps. The only app that's crashed is Wall Switch - which is probably related, as it's looking for images in that "Backgrounds" folder. It works fine most of the time though.
If any images have gone missing, I should be able to get them back as I recently upgraded to a 32GB card and copied all my files across before doing so. However, I'm more concerned that there's a problem with the new card. (Which, for the record, was not a cheap one from eBay.)
As such, I'll be spending some time this weekend testing the new card to see if I can identify any issues... but I too have a couple of questions in that regard:
i) Is there any benefit in formatting the card in the phone before use? (It came pre-formatted so I first checked it for errors in Windows first, then just started using it.) I realise before Froyo the phone could not format such big cards, but I think that may have been resolved now.
ii) What's the best way to verify the integrity of the card? (e.g. Will error checking via Windows - XP in my case - suffice?)
EDIT: I took the card out and copied the files (minus my MP3 library) back to the 4GB card that came with the phone. When I ran with this card the duplicate directory disappeared. CHKDSK found no problems on the 32GB card, but I reformatted it in the phone anyway and then copied everything back to it and all is now fine. I'm assuming the phone did a "Quick Format" rather than a full one, as it only took a few seconds. I'm not too worried about the missing image files as these may have been inadvertently deleted anyway. Fingers crossed the problem is behind me now, but I'll keep an eye on it.

I am having similar issues, it's almost like the SD card is not fully loaded, and tried to load but can't. Things are missing, and then they are there. I am using a new 16GB over the original 8GB.
I am rooted though, am I able to do a format of the SD card?
Also when I choose to make it work as disc drive, nothing happens, does not show up on system.

bmancell said:
I am having similar issues, it's almost like the SD card is not fully loaded, and tried to load but can't. Things are missing, and then they are there. I am using a new 16GB over the original 8GB.
I am rooted though, am I able to do a format of the SD card?
Also when I choose to make it work as disc drive, nothing happens, does not show up on system.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i had the same issue when i first rooted my phone i was able to put the card in an old HTC and it showed up as a drive in USB mode and i was able to run a file recovery tool to extract the data
then re format and copy the data back to it..
but the current issue is just random and strange...
stuff just seems to disapear as far as the phone is concerned ...
as i have already mentioned i had stuff vanish after running nandroid back up..

So for me it seems it happens shortly after bootup. Yes I give it enough time.
But once I open the all programs area, I see it load all of the icons. Maybe some issue with it not loading untill I open that area up.
Also, most of issues seems to be coming from the App Organizer Application, it's updated often so hopefully my issues will go away.
*As I play around with things it seems almost all my issues are related to the program. Even the issue with it not showing up on my computer when connected through USB. It does show up, just takes awhile, and once it does my Apps Organizer icons flash. So related.

try this: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=18971539
some cases seems related

App installer not working after root PLEASE HELP!!!

Hello Everyone!
I just rooted using UnRevoked 3.0. I was installing apps on to sd card and suddenly (while installing free spades from Market) the phone just sat there at "Installing spades" and never completed. Even worse now NOTHING installs. Not even the OTA Sprint voice mail upgrade app. What I did notice is that I can't format the SD card, the option button is grayed out. When I try to unmount the card I get this error:
"Sorry! Activity SD & phone storage (in Application Settings) is not responding."
I have the option to FC or wait and if I try and wait, the message just loops. Is there ANYTHING ANYONE can tell me about this. Please, please help!!!!

Try restarting the phone and see if that helps.

restarting doesn't work, re-running Unrevoked doesn't work. I don't know what else to do. Am I just app-less now?

It happens. Sometimes it takes a few hours to go back to normal, at least in my experience. Is it working for you yet?

Amy7 said:
Hello Everyone!
I just rooted using UnRevoked 3.0. I was installing apps on to sd card and suddenly (while installing free spades from Market) the phone just sat there at "Installing spades" and never completed. Even worse now NOTHING installs. Not even the OTA Sprint voice mail upgrade app. What I did notice is that I can't format the SD card, the option button is grayed out. When I try to unmount the card I get this error:
"Sorry! Activity SD & phone storage (in Application Settings) is not responding."
I have the option to FC or wait and if I try and wait, the message just loops. Is there ANYTHING ANYONE can tell me about this. Please, please help!!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I encountered a problem similar to this with my Evo. Basically the card stopped working and said I need to format it, but then it wouldn't let me actually format it. I contacted HTC and apparently they had a "bad batch" of the cards and they'll replace it for free, when they have some in stock. My advice would be to contact HTC or Sprint.

Not working yet. But one thing I forgot about is that after I rooted it I also installed "Choose install" from the Market and set the default to the storage card. I wonder if I should try and unroot my phone. I'm stuck there to because if I understand things right I would have to access my sd card to load a new zip file on it in order to unroot. My pc will no longer let me browse my device.

donnie_darko said:
I encountered a problem similar to this with my Evo. Basically the card stopped working and said I need to format it, but then it wouldn't let me actually format it. I contacted HTC and apparently they had a "bad batch" of the cards and they'll replace it for free, when they have some in stock. My advice would be to contact HTC or Sprint.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the tip. That could be why I can no longer browse the device from my pc. I will give that a shot. Thanks!

Amy7 said:
Not working yet. But one thing I forgot about is that after I rooted it I also installed "Choose install" from the Market and set the default to the storage card. I wonder if I should try and unroot my phone. I'm stuck there to because if I understand things right I would have to access my sd card to load a new zip file on it in order to unroot. My pc will no longer let me browse my device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You will need access to an SD card to unroot. My advice would be to either buy another one or just borrow a friend's or something. Why do you want to unroot anyways?

Aerodynamix said:
You will need access to an SD card to unroot. My advice would be to either buy another one or just borrow a friend's or something. Why do you want to unroot anyways?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't really want to, I just thought I would have to do that to try and go back to "stock" or if I'm using the word right, back to the way it was when I got it. I thought it might be my last resort to fixing it. I would still re-root again so I can try and figure out how to get rid of all of sprints bloatware.

Just an update - I bought me a new sd card from buy.com, a 16 gb for about $30. It fixed the problem for a little bit. I started installing my apps, got a good amount of them on there and it happened again! I'm starting to wonder if you just can't install very many apps for this phone or by some odd coincidence I got a 2nd bad storage card????. Weird. I might start a new thread for this but thanks for all you who participated. You rock!

when it's stuck on install can you go to your manage applications option in settings and see if they're all stuck on 'computing' too?
Because this sounds all too familiar.

mmmtacos said:
when it's stuck on install can you go to your manage applications option in settings and see if they're all stuck on 'computing' too?
Because this sounds all too familiar.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the same issue (seems to have started after I started using modinstallocation). About one in ten times I'm able to get my sd card apps back after battery pulls and multiple reboots, but not this time. When I go to manage apps, all the SD card apps are 'computing'.

greyopaque said:
I have the same issue (seems to have started after I started using modinstallocation). About one in ten times I'm able to get my sd card apps back after battery pulls and multiple reboots, but not this time. When I go to manage apps, all the SD card apps are 'computing'.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i got mine all back today. I wiped the Dalvic cache from clockwork mod, and everything came back after a reboot about 5 minutes later.

Some applications and files disappear from SD card after SAFELY removal in Windows 7

Good afternoon, dear xda-developers forum members.
I really hope to find some help here.
In last two months I had the following issues:
1. This one happened two times already: after using my phone as a flash in windows 7 and "safely removal" of it, all my applications which were installed on SD card were saying that "Application is no longer installed" when I tried to run it, although other documents and files were readable from ASTRO File Manager, i.e. SD card was mounted. In Settings->Applications all these applications had black icons with SD card image on it and rather with package name than regular application name(for example com.navitel instead of regular Navitel, etc.). I've restored all these applications from Titanium Backup, but I'm afraid that there is something more disappeared also which I don't know about.
2. My "Android" folder on sd card became a file with weird contents(this folder was used for NFS Shift data only). I couldn't restore it. Again: if this folder corrupted, then there is definitely something else also corrupted.
After I saw these things for the first time, I used Windows checkdisk with auto-fix errors. It found a lot of files and put it into "FOUND.000" directory. I recognized in these files few apk-files of installed applications from SD and also few images from my SD. Then I restored applications to SD card and for some time it seemed ok. But one time it happened again.
My assumption is that Android fails to re-mount SD card after I disconnect it from PC.
I don't know what to do... is it Android bug or is it Desire bug or what? I swear that I ALWAYS make "safe USB removal" in Windows before disconnect the USB-cable and I ALWAYS wait for the message "It's now safe to disconnect your device".
I'm very disappointed with all that Please, advise me something useful...
P.S.: If needed I can give you any debug information you want, I'm a programmer, so I've been around

You could try to format your SD card, just backup the contents first, see if that works. As for Android, it does a pretty good job of mounting straight after. What version of Android are you running?

GoogleJelly said:
You could try to format your SD card, just backup the contents first, see if that works. As for Android, it does a pretty good job of mounting straight after.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will, but strange that it happened, because I formatted the flash before using it for the first time...
I have two assumptions:
Maybe I shouldn't press power button to switch the screen off just after disconnecting USB cable from PC. I was doing that as a habit, because every time you disconnect your phone from PC, the screen turns on.
Maybe I shouldn't try to run application which is installed on SD just after disconnecting phone from PC. Maybe I should have waited for a minute. I've tried to do it once, because I wanted to see the result as soon as possible, so the phone said that "Application is no longer installed", I though that Android haven't mount SD yet and tried later. It worked. But next time when I used USB cable, all SD-card apps became uninstalled.
GoogleJelly said:
What version of Android are you running?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm sorry, forgot to mention. I'm using HTC Desire with Android 2.2(2.10.405.2).

Fast Boot option may be the culprit
In case anyone checks this old thread...
CUT TO THE SOLUTION BELOW -- SEARCH FOR ////
Some (not all) of my apps moved to SD (all by Titanium Backup Pro) have begun to disappear and (sometimes) reappear without warning after I began to add and delete large Virtual Machines created in QEMU from my 16GB SanDisc class 10 microSD card on my HTC Droid Incredible running rooted stock Verizon Android Froyo 2.2.3. I know this thread is far from my phone's "home base", but from what I can tell this problem with disappearing apps located on an sdcard is NOT determined by hardware or even Android version.
I also happen to use LauncherPro by Federico Carnales instead of the built-in HTC Sense launcher. I noted elsewhere on XDA that a user had suggested that because at least some (maybe all) launchers start before the SD Card that this may be a problem, especially if changes are made to the sdcard that the launcher did not perform, or was not active during their performance by other apps such as Titanium Backup. That fits my situation, because I unmounted the SD, physically removed it to a PC, and added/deleted large VM files to save (lots) of time. No problems of this sort before I did this, so there must be some connection.
I noted that other users have tried reformatting SD, substituting different brands of SD, using newer/older SD etc. None of these reliably helped. So I skipped these options.
//// The (simple!) solution I tried that SEEMS to work (only time will tell!) is buried in the main Android Settings (accessed from the Menu button while in Home screen). Under "Applications" there is a setting "Fast Boot" that I checked long ago and forgot about (it seemed like a good thing to do at the time). The text warns "Turn off to use some Market apps" (that shows the age of my 2-yr old used phone and Android OS -- ohmygosh!-- because it refers to Market rather than Google Play Store!) Anyway, I unchecked the option and rebooted the phone.
Yes, it took a bit longer to boot (maybe a whole minute!), but after waiting about another minute ALL my home screen apps had normal icons and loaded properly. Titanium Backup Pro batch scenarios confirmed there were no apps in a forced uninstalled state (i.e. I had not done the deed, the system somehow had done it or at least rendered the apps "invisible" to Titanium, which decided they needed reinstallation).
The only odd behaviour was that auto brightness was turned off after I unchecked Fast Boot and rebooted. Going into Android Settings > Display and rechecking "auto brightness" took care of that. No other oddities or strange behaviours thus far (but it has only been about an hour).
I will report back here on this thread only (Samsung Fascinate > Fascinate Q&A > What just happend? apps on sdcard) if anything else requires reporting. Silence implies success!
link: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1873670
(I am copying this post to other relevant threads, but will not post anything further elsewhere -- only there. This is a bit arbitrary (although this thread appears to be the most recent active one on this topic), but I hope this approach pleases the XDA sysops/admins) :angel:

Apps on SD disappeared???

Hi everyone,
In panic mode right now...
I downloaded an app that helps you find all your apps that can be moved to the sd card. So it found 150 or so. After an hour of manually moving each one, I had over 400mb of free internal space and only like 40 apps left on the main phone storage. Awesome... but then this morning I noticed that things were running real slow... so I rebooted my phone. When it came back up I noticed some of my home screen shortcuts had become generic android icons. I went to my launcher & lots of apps were missing. I have a LOT of apps so I can't quite confirm yet whether its all the apps I moved to sd but it seems that way.
When I go to the market I see apps that I had yesterday as not installed. I have astro but I'm not quite sure what folder to look in to see if the apps are all still there, just not being seen by the android system maybe?
I've been driving all morning so I haven't gotten to research this much yet. Just rebooted a couple times hoping to fix it but no luck yet.
Any help is majorly appreciated. As soon as I'm at a computer ill be working on this all day. Freakin disaster!
Dave
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App

update to my question
so now that i'm in to work i can mess with this... quick update...
when i go to manage applications and go to "on SD card" i get a big list of apps that have the names like "cn.miren.browser" instead of Miren Browser and "com.alphonso.pulse" instead of Pulse which is kinda normal except usually they then refresh with the regular name and the size listed underneath. well it's been sitting here for 5 minutes now and hasn't change and it still says "Computing..." under each one and instead of the normal icons, its sort of a grayed out generic Android icon with an SD in the bottom right corner of the icon.
so clearly it still knows that these apps are there. it just maybe can't access them? i dont know. could it be the sd card? this is the original 8gb sd card that came with the g2...
any thoughts?

???
so i found out that the sd card had some errors in the file system. so i let windows fix the errors. no help (although my phone boots WAAAAAYYYYYY faster now).
so then i found that i have an extra 8gb microsd laying around (which also happened to be a better, class 6 one too). so i cleared it off and copied over alllll the files to it. booted up. STILL NO GO.
anyone have any ideas here? i'm really running out of ideas here.
when i boot, everything runs great, but all my apps that are installed to sd are gone. also it never says "preparing sd card" in the status bar when booting. then if i go to manage applications it never finishes "computing" the size of apps. if i go to "on sd" it shows all my apps, but says computing, and i can't access them, uninstall them, move them, etc. i'm totally out of ideas here and i really don't want to have to do a system restore.
anyone?

think im having the same problem . has ur market gone too?

fix?
ok so i ended up getting mine fixed using these steps that someone from a company that makes an apps2sd app sent me... the only difference i had to do was since my phone also wouldn't recognize my pc, i had to pop the sd card into my pc directly to delete the .android_secure folder... i don't want to mess up your phone or anything so make sure to read around a bit more before trying this, but this is what worked for me. after i started adding all my apps back one by one i've been fine ever since.:
"I guess the problem is ".android_secure" is not recognized by Android.
Would you try the following steps (I am not sure if it works)?
1. mount phone with PC
2. backup all files under .android_secure
3. delete .android_secure directory
4. unmount
5. try to move an app (any app) to SD card (it forces Android to
create .android_secure on SD)
6. mount phone with PC
7. restore all backuped .android_secure/* files to .android_secure
8. unmount => check if it recognized the apps that you moved to the SD card"