Develop Bugs

[Q] Cascading FCs, Whitescreen, and Half-Opening Apps

In the last few days I've had a cascading series of issues with my Evo, and things keep popping up. Can anyone help me figure out what may be going on?
It began with my phone "losing" the SD card in the middle of daily use. Eventually I formatted the SD card and put my backed up files on it, and everything seemed fine.
I had been experimenting with Go Launcher, and wanted to return to Launcher Pro, so I flashed my themed update - built off of Myn's Warm TwoPointTwo themed Launcher Pro. I've flashed this a number of times with no issues, but this time - nothing happens.
So I DL Launcher pro from the Market, THEN flash Launcher Pro. All I get is the stock Launcher Pro, no matter what I do. So I go poking.
I find out that my /Data folder is completely empty - despite the fact that the themed update puts com.fede.launcher.apk into /Data/Data/App. But there's NOTHING in /Data, and no subfolders.
Finally, I reboot into recovery and run "fix apk ui mismatches", but the recovery hangs up right after saying it's done doing that. I have to pull the battery, and when I reboot, I get perma-stuck at the Whitescreen.
So I Battery out/in, and go into recovery, re-run fix apk ui mismatches, and this time it goes smoothly. Except that when it reboots, I get cascatding apk FCs immediately.
So I go to Nand, and every Nand I flash just gives me a whitescreen.
Finally, I load the PC36IMG.zip onto my sd card, but before I hit "update" (which UNROOTED my phone last time I did that, but at least restored it), I decide to reflash the Rom I've been using.
Reflash, reboot, everything looks peachy. Reflash all the other stuff I normally flash (which includes no new files that I haven't regularly used before, and no new Kernels), and then get to trying to use the phone normally.
Now here's the thing: all my recent data is still there. But on about half of the apps I try to run (including XDA, Gmail, Internet, and Dolphin HD) it begins to open and then immediately closes.
Does anyone have any idea what may be going on, and what I can do?
Thanks.
MDM

MadDogMaddux said:
In the last few days I've had a cascading series of issues with my Evo, and things keep popping up. Can anyone help me figure out what may be going on?
It began with my phone "losing" the SD card in the middle of daily use. Eventually I formatted the SD card and put my backed up files on it, and everything seemed fine.
I had been experimenting with Go Launcher, and wanted to return to Launcher Pro, so I flashed my themed update - built off of Myn's Warm TwoPointTwo themed Launcher Pro. I've flashed this a number of times with no issues, but this time - nothing happens.
So I DL Launcher pro from the Market, THEN flash Launcher Pro. All I get is the stock Launcher Pro, no matter what I do. So I go poking.
I find out that my /Data folder is completely empty - despite the fact that the themed update puts com.fede.launcher.apk into /Data/Data/App. But there's NOTHING in /Data, and no subfolders.
Finally, I reboot into recovery and run "fix apk ui mismatches", but the recovery hangs up right after saying it's done doing that. I have to pull the battery, and when I reboot, I get perma-stuck at the Whitescreen.
So I Battery out/in, and go into recovery, re-run fix apk ui mismatches, and this time it goes smoothly. Except that when it reboots, I get cascatding apk FCs immediately.
So I go to Nand, and every Nand I flash just gives me a whitescreen.
Finally, I load the PC36IMG.zip onto my sd card, but before I hit "update" (which UNROOTED my phone last time I did that, but at least restored it), I decide to reflash the Rom I've been using.
Reflash, reboot, everything looks peachy. Reflash all the other stuff I normally flash (which includes no new files that I haven't regularly used before, and no new Kernels), and then get to trying to use the phone normally.
Now here's the thing: all my recent data is still there. But on about half of the apps I try to run (including XDA, Gmail, Internet, and Dolphin HD) it begins to open and then immediately closes.
Does anyone have any idea what may be going on, and what I can do?
Thanks.
MDM
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On the surface, two things come to mind : Virus and bad RAM. Make no mistake about it, I'm only speculating. If you don't mind, can you flash one of the stock roms and see if you have the same problems? You can download one from here: http://shipped-roms.com/shipped/Supersonic/ If you still have those issues using a stock rom, then it's safe to assume a hardware problem (bad RAM is my guess). If you find that those problem disappear with the stock rom then I would start from scratch when reinstalling RLS 5 and that includes reflashing the radios. I wouldn't leave anything to chance.

OK, I'm DLing one of the stock ROMs you linked to. I notice they're all .exe files. How do I go about this?

MadDogMaddux said:
OK, I'm DLing one of the stock ROMs you linked to. I notice they're all .exe files. How do I go about this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do NOT install or run the .exe after you finish downloading. I have not noticed that they were executables. Let me find another link for you for a 3.70 RUU zip.

Here you go: http://www.mediafire.com/?t7u904lm502vl7l

OK, that seems to let me run things normally. So I guess I'll assume that all the .zips on my SD card were corrupt and begin downloading/flashing new everything.
Weird, how Stock looks fresh and new since it's been so long since I've used it.
Thanks DJ!

Not sure if this is still part of the problem, or what.
I flashed the Warm TwoPointTwo themed Launcher Pro update, but it doesn't show up anywhere, and when I go to /Data, there's nothing in the folder at all.

MadDogMaddux said:
Not sure if this is still part of the problem, or what.
I flashed the Warm TwoPointTwo themed Launcher Pro update, but it doesn't show up anywhere, and when I go to /Data, there's nothing in the folder at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried using adb push instead?
If you're flashing it and it's not installing into the data/app folder then it's possible it's not actually being flashed properly.
I could send you a launcherpro apk that I use (the most recent one) but it has some lingering themeing effects in it.
You could use it for troubleshooting as far as installing goes. I have installed it myself many times. LMK.

Thing is, my /Data folder is completely empty. Is that right?
Additionally, it's an update that I've flashed before without issue - so why would it stop flashing correctly?
Come to think of it, I HAVE tried adb pushing it - it still shows up as empty in /data

MadDogMaddux said:
Thing is, my /Data folder is completely empty. Is that right?
Additionally, it's an update that I've flashed before without issue - so why would it stop flashing correctly?
Come to think of it, I HAVE tried adb pushing it - it still shows up as empty in /data
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It sounds like you are looking in the wrong data folder. It's possible.
Can you take a screenshot of the directory you are looking in with some sort of visual indication of the directorys actual location in the structure?

{
"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",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
This is everything right above /data, at the same folder level as /system. /data is the next entry listed right below /d. Opening up the update.zip, it drops the .apk in /data/app
Sent from my little black box using XDA App

MadDogMaddux said:
This is everything right above /data, at the same folder level as /system. /data is the next entry listed right below /d. Opening up the update.zip, it drops the .apk in /data/app
Sent from my little black box using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Assuming that what you say is true (that your /data folder is empty) then the next logical explanation is that your data partition is jacked.
That in itself is amazing because if that is the case it's a wonder that your phone is even operating at all.
Have you tried formatting your partitions (boot, system, data) and reinstalling another rom (preferrably "stock like" rooted roms that don't use any type of sd scripts [a2sd])?

I haven't tried formatting Data, no....I assume I can do that from Recovery or HBoot?
Flashing the stock ROM that dougjamal linked me restored the functionality of my phone - and I think a2sd is optional on Warm, and I haven't set that up.

MadDogMaddux said:
I haven't tried formatting Data, no....I assume I can do that from Recovery or HBoot?
Flashing the stock ROM that dougjamal linked me restored the functionality of my phone - and I think a2sd is optional on Warm, and I haven't set that up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Get a hold of calkulins "format all" zip and flash that.
If you flashed a stock rom and it restored your functionality then the possibility exists that the stock rom restored your data partition.
a2sd is not the only possible cause of your problems. Basically anything that moves system files to the sdcard has the potential of messing up your system which is why i don't use any of them anymore. The dalvik2cache script is another possibility. It doesn't move the files to the sdcard but it does move the dalvikcache out of its default location and app makers don't take into account all the modifications that can be done to the devices (really they shouldn't have to anyways) and so will always install extra files to their respective default locations.
If you need more space I suggest going the route of reallocating the partition amounts over moving everything to your sdcard.

MadDogMaddux said:
OK, that seems to let me run things normally. So I guess I'll assume that all the .zips on my SD card were corrupt and begin downloading/flashing new everything.
Weird, how Stock looks fresh and new since it's been so long since I've used it.
Thanks DJ!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're very welcome, my friend. I'm glad you got it up and running. In regard to how the stock rom looks, lol, I can believe it. I would definitely feel the same way since I rooted and flashed Myn's RLS 3 days after purchasing my EVO...laughing...Anyway, take care and enjoy your day.

lovethyEVO said:
Get a hold of calkulins "format all" zip and flash that.
If you flashed a stock rom and it restored your functionality then the possibility exists that the stock rom restored your data partition.
a2sd is not the only possible cause of your problems. Basically anything that moves system files to the sdcard has the potential of messing up your system which is why i don't use any of them anymore. The dalvik2cache script is another possibility. It doesn't move the files to the sdcard but it does move the dalvikcache out of its default location and app makers don't take into account all the modifications that can be done to the devices (really they shouldn't have to anyways) and so will always install extra files to their respective default locations.
If you need more space I suggest going the route of reallocating the partition amounts over moving everything to your sdcard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cool, I've got Calk's Format_All on my lappy already, but I think i'll DL it again just to be safe.

OK, so I flashed Calk's Format All, and then reflashed the ROM that DougJamal had me flash previously listed in this thread.
Result?

MadDogMaddux said:
OK, so I flashed Calk's Format All, and then reflashed the ROM that DougJamal had me flash previously listed in this thread.
Result?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just noticed your toolbar at the top of the image.
I am assuming (from memory) that you are using astro to view that folder.
If that is the case, astro is your first problem because it can't properly access and show the system files.
You would need to use root explorer to view the data folder. It is a paid app but you get what you pay for.
If you don't want to pay for it you can use terminal emulator and run these commands.
su<enter>
cd data<enter>
ls
After those commands you should have a list
backup, tombstones, system, agent, wimax, dalvik-cache, drm, property, etc.
You should see in that list "app".
Do the command
cd app<enter>
After that command you should see a whole bunch of "com.xxx" filenames. Those are your user installed apps.
Report your results.

LOL!!
Well, every now and again, it is good to be reminded that I'm a moron.
I didn't even think to question whether or not Astro could view that directory, as I remembered viewing it on my phone before.....now I'm realizing that I viewed /data with Ninjamorph. Here's my screenie.
Sent from my little black box using XDA App

MadDogMaddux said:
LOL!!
Well, every now and again, it is good to be reminded that I'm a moron.
I didn't even think to question whether or not Astro could view that directory, as I remembered viewing it on my phone before.....now I'm realizing that I viewed /data with Ninjamorph. Here's my screenie.
Sent from my little black box using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So we have established that your data folder does in fact exist.
What are your problems now?
I'm home early now so if you have gtalk pm me your gtalk name and I can try to help you more.

Kernel With Separate Cache Partition

Hello everyone,
I've compiled a kernel which separates the NAND memory into 3 partitions (well more then that but anyway). These partitions are system, data and cache like a native Android phone (which also has recovery but we don't need that). Previously cache was linked to a directory on the data partition which was constantly becoming corrupt causing errors on start-up. Often clearing dalvik-cache would allow Android to boot but data was lost. There's nothing to say that this will solve the problem but i'm giving it a go so thought I would post it up for you to try also.
The cache partition is 20mb which means the data partition is only 90mb or so. If you like a million apps on your phone either put some on your SD card or don't use it
I haven't completely incorporated this partition into the initrd which means that currently it will only mount if data is also on NAND but this can be changed easily enough, but for testing purposes I want everything on the NAND chip anyway.
Downloads from market on all versions of Android, unless the init.rc directory is changed in Gingerbread, all go to the cache partition and are deleted on restart. What this means is that you can't download and install an app larger then 20mb (which isn't recommended anyway with the small amount of data space available). This is a drawback but for those that use data on SD it should be possible in the future to utilise more of the NAND memory for cache so you can install whatever you want. I don't know of many apps larger then 20mb anyway though.
I have included a modified version of ATools in the zip. The standard version will overwrite the partition values and the kernel won't work properly so if you need to modify the kernel use the version included. It is also important that you DO NOT change the system or data partition sizes in ATools as this hasn't been modified to account for the cache partition so will mess it all up.
I have also included an androidupdate.tar modules update for the kernel in case your wifi doesn't work after flashing the kernel.
I think that's it for now, let me know how it goes!
EDIT::
One last thing, you will need to wipe your DATA partition to use this kernel because some of your data may be positioned where the cache partition is now, so if you load this kernel and android is heavily corrupt you know what you have to do!
To check the kernel is working correctly you can type "df -h" into a terminal and it should show all of the current partitions including one called cache on mtdblock4.
Should now work with polaris, kaiser and vogue. There is a VOGUEIMG.NBH included for those who have trouble with ATools. It is completely untested on Vogue so sorry if it doesn't work.

EDIT
I have re-uploaded a modified kernel because there was some issues with data with the last one. If you have already applied the last one flash the new one and apply the module update again

testing will leave feedback

Ok, using your Scoot CyanogenMod 6.1.2 (RLS6) [16.03.2011], overclock via atools+roguetools to 529, gpu oc, battery units tweaked to suit my battery.
No SIM card yet, don't have one to put there, sync with google to get contacts.
Installed GoLauncher. Enabled JIT and Keep Launcher in memory.
Once in a while, Android is killing all apps, launcher included... strange...
Nevermind that, it was Cyanogen and the LongPress BackKey. LongPress on our Kaisers during lag can become short press

First couple of days of heavy use I've had in ages with no corruption. First day of my new job today so it's been on Google Navigation for 3 hours and used extensively during the day. Had to do a hard reset at one point and everything was fine. had a few soft reset's too. Don't get me wrong, i'd be surprised if this is a fix, but it's been a while since I've used my Kaiser this much and not had to wipe my data partition!

Update: CM is a bit slow, trying:
VaniljEclair RLS11 - A fast & stable CM 5.0.8 for Vogue/Kaiser/Polaris [2010-08-19]
And everyting seems good. I've pushed it a little, several normal reboots.
Had to reflash system (didn't reflash data). No errors, FC's, whatevar. Everything works, yet didn't try to make/receive calls. Its 1am here...
Now this particular version, has a god damn bug that is get the best of me. The Power Button and the red button won't make the phone go to standby. If i long press, i get the normal reboot/power off/airplane etc menu, on both keys. But single press is ignore... Any idea ?

scooter1556 , i have a question. It is not the purpose of the thread or kernel, but how difficult would it be to activate scalling of the cpu ?
Right now, the two 3 biggest issues with Android on the Kaiser are, IMHO, Data corruption, Battery life, performance.
Please share your thoughts

Using this kernel with Valentine 1.02. GPU overclocked and CPU @ 520mhz. Super fast and for the first time... no data corruption! Verry happy so far!

daedric said:
scooter1556 , i have a question. It is not the purpose of the thread or kernel, but how difficult would it be to activate scalling of the cpu ?
Right now, the two 3 biggest issues with Android on the Kaiser are, IMHO, Data corruption, Battery life, performance.
Please share your thoughts
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well in theory not too hard, there is a feature built into the linux kernel called cpufreq which is currently disabled in our kernel because our cpu and chipset code doesn't support it but krazy-killa has been working on getting it working in his kernels with a little success as far as i'm aware but i'm not that sure. I haven't personally looked into it but if I get some spare time I definitely will. I've started a new job now which i'm sure will keep me quite busy but I still intend to so some work on the Kaiser when I get time

Best of luck on your new job! I wish i had enough knowledge to continue the kernel development, but i'm quite a ignorant
Still, thank you, till now it's one of the best kernels i've used.

Hi Scoot!
I love your kernel. No data corruption so far (two days). did a few stylus resets and stuff.. Magical =D. Now IMO we only need better sleeping and autofocus to call kaiser a fully android device! Please Keep up the awesome job, scoot! thanx, danke, sposeeba, bedankt, aciu, dzenkuja!

Nice job scooter, I've been using Scoot CyanogenMod 7.0.2 RLS2 [28/04/11] @ 500MHz, and it seems fine so far.
I tried Fat Free Froyo before CyanogenMod, which also worked great for the few hours it was running. I'm not sure which one to stick with though.
Keep up the good work. I wish I could help with the development, but I have yet to learn programming (been ten years now ).

This kernel looks pretty stable, but just a few quick questions:
1) What filesystem is used for the cache? If YAFFS, could it get corrupted? If Yes, what would happend then?
2) Is it really needed to have 20MB for the cache? ATM it seems to be used only by a like 1-2MB on the cache partition, would not it be enough to have for example 10MB for the cache leaving more space for apps?
3) What is the difference using apps in the system and data partitions? If I would run off the space on the data partition, can I put some apps in the system apps folder to save the space without wandering about how it works?
Thanx for your great work, finally it seems to be fully usable for me and if you and Krazy-Killa would be able to work together to manage the power consumption, then it would be amazing, because I am going to get new phone (running some new extensive business and I can not afford to be not reachable when something happends on Kaiser) and give this lovely piece of HW to my son... And I really do not want him to have a WM machine But Android needs to be stable for him to use Well... he will get it for his 10th birthday at 6.9. so we still have some time to tweak it a bit more

if this works then it would be magical, your CM builds were so fast and awesome and if there's no data loss then... <3

Made 2 mistakes when building kernel (selected tilt instead of normal and forgot to OC to 480MHz), and running kingshui's 12/15/2010 build 2.2.1. seems ROCK solid and fast! I applaud your use of ramzswap for the extra 20mb, bravo!
I'm just hoping I can go back and rebuild the kernel with the correct settings without messing up the system/data/cache partitioning.

PoXFreak said:
Made 2 mistakes when building kernel (selected tilt instead of normal and forgot to OC to 480MHz), and running kingshui's 12/15/2010 build 2.2.1. seems ROCK solid and fast! I applaud your use of ramzswap for the extra 20mb, bravo!
I'm just hoping I can go back and rebuild the kernel with the correct settings without messing up the system/data/cache partitioning.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They aren't mistakes, those are the settings I need for my Kaiser. I included a modified version of ATools for you all to modify the kernel for your devices as I stated in the first post

a.s.j said:
1) What filesystem is used for the cache? If YAFFS, could it get corrupted? If Yes, what would happend then?
2) Is it really needed to have 20MB for the cache? ATM it seems to be used only by a like 1-2MB on the cache partition, would not it be enough to have for example 10MB for the cache leaving more space for apps?
3) What is the difference using apps in the system and data partitions? If I would run off the space on the data partition, can I put some apps in the system apps folder to save the space without wandering about how it works?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1) The cache partition is still using Yaffs2 because it is the easiest filesystem to configure at the minute, but the idea of making it a separate partition like on a native android device is that it can be changed to another filesystem in the initrd relatively easily. If it gets corrupted it will do what it used to I guess, but I haven't had any corruption as of yet so it's difficult to say. Hopefully if the cache partition get's corrupted it shouldn't affect data so you should just be able to wipe and format dalvik-cache in the install menu.
2) I made it 20mb because most android devices have 30mb or bigger and this is mainly because market app downloaded get downloaded here before being installed, so if you installed google maps for instance it would use up 6mb, plus the standard 1-2mb normally being used, but if you only had a 10mb cache for instance, you would only be able to install apps less then 8mb which is a little limiting really. I don't really care much about installing lots of apps in data or on the phone at all for that matter so having 95mb for data is more then enough for me.
3) You can put apps in the system partition in /system/app. The system partition is read only so all data for the app still goes to the data partition. You can still save a little data partition space though if you need it. Most installs of android are 80-95mb which should leave you 5mb or so to play with. Some all language builds pretty much use up all of the partition though so you need to look and see what space you have to play with before putting apps on the system partition. If you overload it you will probably end up corrupting it and having to reinstall. But to answer your last question, the system partition works in the same way as the data partition apart fro the fact that it is read-only and data is read/write.

I've modified my Kernel to use the NAND mtdblock3 (/data for everyone else) as the cache partition, since my NAND is pretty much shot to begin with, and have system and data on SD Card. So far it's made downloading Market Apps twice as fast, loading webpages pretty fast, and basically anything else that the cache is used for.

scooter1556 said:
They aren't mistakes, those are the settings I need for my Kaiser. I included a modified version of ATools for you all to modify the kernel for your devices as I stated in the first post
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Scoot:
I understand that the settings built into the .nbh are for your device. What I was meaning was I needed to modify the CPU clock up to 480MHz, and for some odd reason my device swaps the "@" and "!" buttons if I set it to "tilt", among other buttons being set wrong.
Also, I am used to having the left and right softkeys set as "vol up" and "vol down" respectively. Is this something I need to make an androidupdate for, or do I have to write a new NBH?

PoXFreak said:
Scoot:
I understand that the settings built into the .nbh are for your device. What I was meaning was I needed to modify the CPU clock up to 480MHz, and for some odd reason my device swaps the "@" and "!" buttons if I set it to "tilt", among other buttons being set wrong.
Also, I am used to having the left and right softkeys set as "vol up" and "vol down" respectively. Is this something I need to make an androidupdate for, or do I have to write a new NBH?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you not do all of this using the ATools i provided in the attachment in the first post? You should be able to load the nbh into ATools and then set the CPU speed, change the keyboard type and remap the buttons and then save it before flashing. Just don't change the partition sizes as this will mess up the cache partition I added until I make it more permanent.

4EXT Recovery Classic v2.2.7 RC5 | STAY @EXT4 | Convert FS | Rom -> Backupname | ..

4EXT Recovery Classic v2.2.7 RC5 | STAY @EXT4 | Convert FS | Rom -> Backupname | ..
{
"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",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
Quick note about themes:
Available themes as of Oct/18:
Themes by [URL="https://forum.xda-developers.com/member.php?u="]GuestK00388[/URL]
Themes by Apaquette420
Themes by Whiskey103
Themes by Amresh
Themes by Apaquette420
Themes by CWhitney24
Themes by DaMyth
Themes by Blindndumb
To uninstall any "flashed theme" and to revert to your own custom settings you had before flashing, just use this Theme Uninstaller in recovery.
It will clear any theme you might have flashed and revert to your own custom settings you had before flashing that theme!​​
THANKS:
All credits and my deepest respect go to Koush for his extremely great code!
Without him 4EXT Recovery wouldn't have been possible!
Biggest thanks possible go to Sebastiaan15 for his brilliant ideas and who spent whole weeks testing my buggy code with his Desire
Without you I could never have made it!!!
So BIG THANKS to SEBASTIAAN15 and KOUSH for his hard work with CWMR !!!
Many credits to the Desire S community ( especially to loveboatcaptain - LBC Mod Android Development and Marylandcookie ) for testing, very nice ideas, feature suggestions and helping to get the code running on the Desire S!
Special big thanks to RAVENNA from android-hilfe.de board for hours of testing for the Desire!
BIG Thanks to Hussainmushahid who helped me a lot spending much of time with solving a bug I could not reproduce on my device.
And many thanks to all users who reported and helped to identify problems ( can't any longer list all of you here since the list has grown too large )!
Even more thanks to people who 've bought me some beer YOU ROCK!! ZEEKIZ, A USER, PHILOS64, STEVEATHOME, PREACHER65, BEN_PYETT, ULTRA DROID, PTR_HAMILTON, BEANBEAN50, SEBASTIAAN15 and LOVEBOATCAPTAIN
​
v2.2.6 RC4 Released: Oct/01
Rare Superuser problem when tar backups were enabled (disabled by default) was fixed.
Converting partitions between ext3 and ext4 without data loss now correctly calculates the space needed to successfully complete the operation
New option: check and optionally repair the file system on your sdcard (fat32)
Removed duplicate format cache option inside the format menu (wipe cache does the same)
When formatting fat32 it will now save your 4ext.prop settings and restore them afterwards
Changed partitioning of the sdcard to not use LBA mode for new fat32 partitions as requested by Ghiki
Added new size option (128mb) to the partitioning menu per request
Parted is no longer used to format fat32 in the partition menu-> This solves a bug where sometimes the creation of the fat32 file system failed and produces better quality results​
4EXT Recovery themes should now stay when formatting /system or flashing new roms
New option: format /sdcard fat32
New 4EXT Recovery Control API because I'm forced to drop "extendedcommand" (see App for the reason why)enables file names and directories to include spaces for installations​
calculates needed space to complete a full or advanced backup at the beginning of the backup.​
This ensures that you are not left with a non working backup.​
Size for recovery greatly reduced
New 4EXT Recovery Control Features
Please see www.4ext.net for more.
Fix permissions
Calculate real values for the space needed to create a new full or advanced backup
Advanced Backups: While you are selecting / deselecting partitions, it will display and update the currently needed space to complete that custom backup set.​
As an example, the following would be possible to do in just one session: Restore a backup, set to create a backup / advanced backup before the restore,
format all partitions with a file system of your choice before the restore process starts,
flash additional zip files afterwards, fix permissions and select to stay inside recovery or to reboot automatically once all actions are complete.​
Features: Use 4EXT Recovery Control or Recovery Updater for complete Changelogs and Known issues!
not all features may be relevant for all devices
Displays additional information:
Identifies your current rom and displays its name
Current filesystems on your partitions
Free space remaining of all of your volumes
Current battery charge level
Backup | Restore:
Correctly calculates free space needed to complete a backup ( version > 2.2.6 RC4 )
Tar backups (can be switched on or off)
Complete CWMR5 compatibility
All Backups you create will be named after your currently installed Rom for easier identification.
Never unwillingly get "downgraded" to EXT3 again
Always restores backups using the file systems you HAD on your partitions at the time of creation!-> all partitions formatted with ext4 at that time, will be restored to ext4. The same is true for ext3.​
You can manually change any existing Backup to ext4 or ext3-> so that after a restore, all partitions and up with the file system you wanted!​
Advanced Backup: backup only a single partition
Convert any of your partitions to EXT4 or EXT3 without data loss.
Formatting:
When you wipe or format it will always use the same file system you currently have.-> but you can change that​
When you format ext4 it will always create an aligned file system
Correctly identifies unformatted sd-ext partitions-> if it finds one it displays a warning and suggests you may format them by visiting the 4EXT menu​
Filesystem check and repair option in advanced menu
Partitioning:
Alignment check of your partitions
Full support for up to 2 sd-ext partitions + swap (Backup/restore/format/convert, fsck, et.c.)
(RE-) Partition your sdcard for sd-ext without removing your fat32 partition.
All partitions created with 4EXTRecovery will be perfectly aligned to 4k
Installing:
Integrated md5sum checking option
Themes:
Customize all colours used throughout recovery
Use your own icons, background images, progress bars.. more to come.
Assign different backgrounds to different menu categories (version >= 2.1.2)
Create a flashable zip for others to flash your theme.
Menus:
Most popular menu items rearranged
Format menu
Power Menu + option to reboot into bootloader
Less "No's" in confirmation dialogues
Changed Advanced Restore: first select what you want to restore, then select the backup-> Useful for restoring from "Advanced Backups"​
4ext.prop:
Configuration file on your sdcard where you can set options to be used by 4EXTRecovery
Change all settings conveniently with 4EXT Recovery Control
Many more options to come
Share your settings / themes by packing your config into a flashable theme
Other stuff:
USB Storage Autostart (must be switched on)
Mount usb storage exposes all partitions on your sdcard to the os (not just fat32)-> you could even partition your sdcard from your PC while connected via USB​
Switch haptic feedback on/off
You don't need to reboot recovery if you transferred a file to show up in the install menu.-> This bug affected only some users with either CWMR or previous versions of 4EXT.​
Button backlights (Desire S, Desire HD and Incredible S only)
​
Download:
All downloads are now available through 4EXT Recovery Updater. It's free, no ads, no tracking, no nothing, don't worry
.. and of course via 4EXT Recovery Control
This ensures that your downloads are ok by automatically verifying md5sums and that known issues and changelogs are easily accessible
It also notifies you when there are any new critical bugs found
Recovery images will be uploaded for download soon too, but they can also be acquired easily by using Updater or Control.
You can for example just download a recovery.zip containing the image. The download will be automatically verified for correct md5sums!
4EXT Recovery Control
Free version: Recovery Updater
Fully featured version: 4EXT Recovery Control
For a list of its many features, visit www.4ext.net
Some examples :
Flash as many zip files you want in one go
Automatically calculate and display the md5sums of all zip files you are going to flash
Check your backups' health to ensure they will restore later when you need them, by verifying their md5sums!
Optionally, but highly not recommended:If md5sums don't match but you REALLY NEED that backup BADLY, you might want to restore it anyway.
You can you this app to fix the md5sums of a given backup to "forcefully" restore it!​
Calculate real values for the space needed to create a new full or advanced backup
Advanced Backups: While you are selecting / deselecting partitions, it will display and update the currently needed space to complete that custom backup set.​
Identifies and adds your romname so you don't need to type so much when chosing a meaningful name for your backup
As an example, the following is possible to do in just one session: Restore a backup, set to create a backup / advanced backup before the restore,
format all partitions with a file system of your choice before the restore process starts,
flash additional zip files afterwards, fix permissions and select to stay inside recovery or to reboot automatically once all actions are complete.​
Much, much more! See www.4ext.net
Recovery theming
Uninstall and Install themes with live preview and the option to change their colours without the need to reboot into recovery.
Change all colours with live preview and a nice colour picker.
​

Working great on my dinc2 this is the one thing i missed since switching from the inspire and now i have it back. Thanks max!
Sent from my Incredible 2 using xda premium

oxlong27 said:
Working great on my dinc2 this is the one thing i missed since switching from the inspire and now i have it back. Thanks max!
Sent from my Incredible 2 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you very much for that!
And for jumping into the cold water for me
If it booted up fine it's alright and I can remove the warning. Everything else is just like on the IS.
---------- Post added at 01:09 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:48 AM ----------
Added 2.1.1 Final, but that version is really old.
I'd try the latest first. It has been extensively tested and issues if any should only be minor.

Yep everything i tried is working as it should. Havent tested the formatting yet but im sure its fine everything else works. And as far as trying something thats untested, well thats what xda is about, if you dont get a soft brick here and there your not having any fun. But yes this works fine thanks again
Sent from my Incredible 2 using xda premium

I gave it a go and seems to be working just as it should. Was jealous of this recovery on the Incredible S forums because it let you create EXT4 file structures and now its here. Thanks!

Quick question, what's the advantage with EXT 4? I have heard that it's faster, but then several others say it's a waste of time. I do like this layout a lot more aswell.. The backgrounds are an awesome idea! Great job with this
Sent from my Incredible 2 using XDA App

You should add this to ROM manager.

jonathon2011 said:
Quick question, what's the advantage with EXT 4? I have heard that it's faster, but then several others say it's a waste of time. I do like this layout a lot more aswell.. The backgrounds are an awesome idea! Great job with this
Sent from my Incredible 2 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you very much
Yes, theoretically it's faster.. depending on usage it can be much faster.
On a phone the difference is less than on a computer though.
Deleting larger files is definitely much faster, also formatting.
Most newer mobiles get shipped with ext4 file system instead of ext3.
It's difficult to answer your question
You should try it out and check if you feel the phone is faster
shoman24v said:
You should add this to ROM manager.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I really can't imagine that I had a chance or that it would be possible
Also obviously I would like ppl to use my app.. it was a lot of work.
And yeah, also if it is the free version!
It's a big advantage for me as the developer and I hope for the users too.
That way I can send you news about critical bugs found in a new release (which happened with rc1 for example), I can make sure you get to see at least the Changelog when you install a new version and since it's just a button press, the chance is greatly increased that you also take a look at any known issues.
There are times when I release many updates in a short time. This really comes in handy.
At the moment there is only the preview, but I will release the free version today or tomorrow

Downloaded this morning and gave it a run. I like this recovery a lot.
I ended up making a backup, and then converted my file system to Ext 4 on data and Cache (system already is.)
This is a very nicely done recovery, I like that it is easy to navigate, and has a few more options when doing wipes.
The app is nice to.
Thanks for sharing this!!

PacerguyDon said:
Downloaded this morning and gave it a run. I like this recovery a lot.
I ended up making a backup, and then converted my file system to Ext 4 on data and Cache (system already is.)
This is a very nicely done recovery, I like that it is easy to navigate, and has a few more options when doing wipes.
The app is nice to.
Thanks for sharing this!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you very much
BTW Free version of the app is finally up

madmaxx82 said:
Thank you very much
BTW Free version of the app is finally up
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I went ahead and bought the market version. Excellent job, Ive been waiting for a recovery like this.

I would have to say I like this recovery a lot. I like having the partion information and battery level in recovery. Also the option to convert partions is a plus. Already tried it on a couple different roms and currently running them all as ext4.
Great job and keep up the good work
Sent from my Incredible 2 using XDA App

After converting everything to ext4 cant get wifi tether to work anyone else have this issue? Boots 100 times faster though on cm7
edit fixed by updating to the latest nightly

Great recovery, got the market version. Super smooth on a few roms here.
Anyone with a sense rom should go without saying but make sure the kernel supports ext4. Drellisdees kernel does well

This Recovery looks great, I'll try it soon. A couple questions...
1. It replaces Clockworkmod 5.0.2.0?
2. Has anyone actually done any benchmarks to see if Ext4 is faster than whatever is on the stock phone?
I use Ext4 on my Ubunutu Linux box and I understand it improves performance and adds journaling, but is it actually faster on a phone. It would be cool to see boot times, application install and launch times, task switching, etc. So often people say even minor updates to ROMs are "much faster" and it's nonsense.

Thank you all very much
regarding ext4: yes it will be faster, but how much depends on usage and it's really difficult to say on a phone. But certainly it won't be slower.
Also since newer phones seem to ship with ext4 it might indicate something
Yes, when you flash any other recovery it replaces the previously installed one.

ph1nn said:
This Recovery looks great, I'll try it soon. A couple questions...
1. It replaces Clockworkmod 5.0.2.0?
2. Has anyone actually done any benchmarks to see if Ext4 is faster than whatever is on the stock phone?
I use Ext4 on my Ubunutu Linux box and I understand it improves performance and adds journaling, but is it actually faster on a phone. It would be cool to see boot times, application install and launch times, task switching, etc. So often people say even minor updates to ROMs are "much faster" and it's nonsense.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well as far as benchmarks I haven't dug in too deeply. Unfortunately with quadrant file systems tend to fool it anyway but I haven't gotten linpack or similar
The biggest advantage I see are the same things that we both likely saw when linux changed to ext4 (ubuntu fan here too ) that being, things involving large amounts of data being moved at once have the biggest improvement. Obviously there are more instances of that on a computer than a phone . Boot times, it knocked a few seconds off my boot time on cm7 which is not slow to boot by any means already. I think it would be even more drastic with something as big as a sense 3.0 rom..everything else I don't know that its particularly faster after everything settles down but is most definitely not slower and is just as snappy as before. It does seem to be a bit quicker in terms of settling down more quickly after a reboot (not laggy for as long) and everything getting precached etc.

Just want to tell everyone, that there is a new known issue with tar backups!
It can happen if you have enabled tar backups that superuser stops working after you restored a tar backup.
To anyone not familiar with this: it is disabled by default! So don't worry if you didn't enable that setting!
I have updated known issues and also sent a notice about that.
To work around this, you can flash your rom again (no wipe needed) and it will be ok.
Nonetheless please deactivate tar backups for now.
It doesn't happen for everyone and always.
Difficult to track it down and I couldn't reproduce it on my device yet.
It is or was also known to happen with CWMR5 which introduced tar backups.
Maybe it's solved in the newest version I don't know however I have seen a lot of posts regarding that.
I'm working on this.
If someone runs into this problem, please send me a pm or a report telling me which version of superuser and which rom he was running.
Thank you very much and sorry about that.
Anyone entering the app gets a one time notice about it.

I've been using the tar backups since installing 4EXT last week. No problems on my end, but since I really don't need the tar backups anymore, I'll go ahead and disable that option and go with the default format.
Thanks for letting us know Madmaxx. And thanks again for the great recovery!!

Thank you
New versions of recovery and 4EXT Recovery Control.
Big changes

[MOD] ext2 file system for /system - Feb. 17 UPDATED

In short, what I will be doing here is mounting the /system partition as file system EXT2. Default is EXT4. The reason for doing this is simple. The /system partition is more of an access database where information is read and never written. The goal here is to remove journaling and not only journaling but the redundancy of the code tree of EXT4 by simply killing the EXT4 journal and leaving it mounted and formatted as EXT4.
EXT4 – The file system uses a function called journaling. Journaling, in short, is a file system log. What this provides to you as the user is a quick method of recovery if there is ever a system failure: unclean shutdown, file corruption, etc. If there is ever a problem, the journal is called and the data is restored with no issues. The cost of this journaling feature, however, is CPU time/usage. CPU cycles are used to write the journal to the disk.
EXT2 – This file system does not use journal. No recovery method, etc. So if something is corrupted, there is no way to recover corrupted files/blocks/data.
What does all of this mean? – Simple. What it means is those of us who are rooted, running a stable ROM/Kernel combo, and using a backup method such as TWRP or CWM, can safely use EXT2 for /system without any worry because all we need to do is make a backup of our /system partition via recovery, tuck it away on our internal SD card and save it for a rainy day - restore it if there is every an unclean shutdown (battery pull, reboot caused by an unstable kernel, etc.).
What benefits will you see/feel?
Honestly, I have no idea at this point. I know for a fact that the device will boot faster and read operations on the /system partition will be absolutely insanely fast. As fast as they can possibly be on the Note 3. As far as “end of the day” battery savings, well, this is kind of the point of me doing this and sharing. I am going to find out, and post my results here so other people can decide if they do or don’t want to do this as well. If all goes well, I’ll edit this post tomorrow with some quick instruction on how to convert the file system. It should be a quick and easy process.
Other benefits of using EXT2 instead of EXT4:
EXT2 is backward compatible with EXT4. What this means is you can have a file system formatted to EXT2, and it can be mounted as EXT4 and it will only utilize the newer useful features found in EXT4 that were not originally present when EXT2 was introduced. When mounted as EXT4, EXT2 will not use journaling, but will use EXT4’s superior block allocation and “tagging” feature. EXT4 has the ability to mark unused blocks on the disk so it knows to not look there for data – this saves precious time in read operations. EXT2 does not have this feature… except when it is mounted as EXT4
The biggest advantage, here, is to get rid of that useless EXT4 journaling feature used on our RO /system and save CPU cycles. We use backups.We are a different breed of users, right? We demand performance and push our devices to the limits and somehow manage to maintain a stable and usable system, correct?
YES! So, we’re gonna go ahead and take advantage of this super awesome backward compatibility of EXT2 on the /system partition and get some positive performance index out of it
INSTRUCTIONS - convert /system to EXT2
1. Unzip the .zip folder of your ROM of choice.
2. Find /META-INF/com/google/android/updater script.
3. Open the updater-script file in a text editor.
Any lines where you see "EXT4" and "system" in the same line, you need to change that 4 to a 2. Only do this for lines with system and EXT4 in the same line.
4. Save the changes, then zip the ROM back up.
5. Place ROM on your internal SD card, then boot into recovery - YOU MUST BE USING TWRP FOR THIS
6. Once you get into recovery, you will see your TWRP options (there are 8 tiles in recovery) - select the one that says "Advanced"
7. You will now see 6 tiles. On the left side, select the one that says "Terminal Command"
8. At the top you should see a / symbol - this is the directory you are going to begin your session in. You want it to be /
9. On the bottom right of the screen, hit "Select"
This next part is very important. Do not mess up.
When you get to the terminal screen, type this command:
Code:
mke2fs /dev/block/mmcblk0p23
DO NOT continue until you have double checked that the number you punched in is 23! I cannot stress this enough. 23.... 23..... 23..... again that last part is "...mmcblk0p23"
After you have verified the correct partition number 23, hit the GO button on the keyboard to execute the command. It will run for a couple seconds and finish up.
After it finishes reformatting, flash your ROM of choice (the one where you edited any lines). When you are done, boot up.
You are now running an EXT2 file system for your /system partition. Welcome to the thunder dome

Cool, can't wait to try, thanks for this finding
Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk

Why not just create and mount an ext4 filesystem with no journal? There is a reason they made the ext4 driver able to mount ext2,3 filesystems. Aside from journaling, which can be disabled, ext4 and it's driver are generally better.
edit - Didn't mean to quote.

muqali said:
Why not just create and mount an ext4 filesystem with no journal? There is a reason they made the ext4 driver able to mount ext2,3 filesystems. Aside from journaling, which can be disabled, ext4 and it's driver are generally better.
edit - Didn't mean to quote.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The reason is because the op paths in the file system tree (speaking of EXT4) are optimized for the journal. Without the journal the code path is redundant and the journal-optimized block has empty overhead. EXT2's strength is it's simplicity in structure.
Basically what this translates to is EXT4 formatted disk, mounted as EXT4 and with no journal, is not as fast or efficient as EXT2 formatted disk mounted as EXT4.
I am running this set up right now. This thread will be updated soon with instruction on how to convert it.

Ext4 has quicker read times than Ext2 which too me is going to the biggest perofmance increase.

This sounds interesting, but I think I'll wait to see others' experiences before giving it a go myself. Will be keeping an eye on this thread though.
Sent from my SM-N9005 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

The only reason EXT4 has faster read times is because of what I just explained - ext4 uses a method of marking unused blocks on a disk, so it doesn't scan them looking for something. EXT2 does not have this feature. However, when an EXT2 formatted disk is mounted as EXT4, it does utilize this feature of EXT4.

Do you have any data, your own or third party to back this up? Do you plan on using an ext2 system with the ext4 driver? Or the old ext2 fs driver? As I understand it, the ext4 driver was given the ability to mount 2/3 filesystems for simplicity sake as well as the newer driver being better but I could be mistaken.
edit - The way you explained it in your last post seems to sound like you'll use ext4 driver on an ext2 fs, I was just asking because I wasn't 100% sure.

muqali said:
Do you have any data, your own or third party to back this up? Do you plan on using an ext2 system with the ext4 driver? Or the old ext2 fs driver? As I understand it, the ext4 driver was given the ability to mount 2/3 filesystems for simplicity sake as well as the newer driver being better but I could be mistaken.
edit - The way you explained it in your last post seems to sound like you'll use ext4 driver on an ext2 fs, I was just asking because I wasn't 100% sure.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That was the intention, correct. Using EXT2 formatted /system but mount it as EXT4 - for the reasons I outlined. To effectively remove journaling and not only that, but the redundant overhead of journaling in the fs tree which would still remain if I were to, say, run this command...
Code:
tune2fs -O ^has_journal /dev/block/mmcblk0p23
EDIT** and so far, yes the difference has been noticeable in boot up time - which is a clear indicator of a performance increase. It loads the /system much faster during boot. Battery life has been slightly better as well.

Do you have a video or benchmark showing the differnce?

LancerV said:
Do you have a video or benchmark showing the differnce?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A benchmark? People actually use those? lol.
My own device before doing this mod booted in about 21 seconds from the off position. After doing this it was 15 seconds. I full booted it 3 times for each EXT4 and EXT2... it was consistently the same.
You don't need a benchmark to understand there is an obvious performance increase there. Battery life has also been a little better today. My usage on a daily basis is consistently the same with no changing variables. 15 hours off the charger and 75% battery with 1 hour and 30 minutes screen on time is what I typically see. Today I was 15 hours off the charger, 81% battery with 1 hour and 30 minutes screen on time.
CPU cycles have been reduced, obviously.
If you wanna give it a go... You won't regret it. Post your results here so we can compare :highfive:

Nothing wrong with storage benchmarks, hell the best Windows/Linux/Unix storage benchmark is from 2006 and works perfectly. It's pretty much a staple when it comes to setting up Fibre, and 10Gbe SAN's to make sure the throughput you should be getting you are getting and to test various raids in their IO performance along with read/write performance.
So to say lol people still use benchmarks is pretty naive.

LancerV said:
Nothing wrong with storage benchmarks, hell the best Windows/Linux/Unix storage benchmark is from 2006 and works perfectly. It's pretty much a staple when it comes to setting up Fibre, and 10Gbe SAN's to make sure the throughput you should be getting you are getting and to test various raids in their IO performance along with read/write performance.
So to say lol people still use benchmarks is pretty naive.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have not seen one benchmark available on the playstore that is even remotely relevant. What a joke it is to see a tech article running a quadrant test comparing two devices using a benchmark... so, if you were talking about one of those - quadrant, antutu, etc... none of these are going to give me an accurate representation of what kind of performance increase or decrease I am seeing for /system because they don't test those partitions. There are more accurate ways to run a performance test on a disk.... but it's quicker for me to just go ahead and reboot the device since, well, I know what I am doing and happen to be doing it on a portion of the disk where a majority of the work by the CPU is coming from accessing this particular partition of the device.
During boot, there is one task being executed and one task only... booting! Any most everything being loaded is coming from where? /system
Naive? I spent time on Google's team as a software engineer a couple years back... I am far from naive. You are just not looking at this from a practical or logical point of view.
I'll give you an analogy before I go to bed so you can better understand:
If your car runs out of gas, and stops running, and somebody gives you a ride home, then somebody else calls you and says "Hey, I just saw your car on the side of the road, saw your post on G+ about running out of gas. Well, I happened to have a gas can with me and put a gallon of gas in it for you. Go pick it up!"
Now you get a lift back to your car, put the key in, and it starts right up. Do you then turn it off and walk to a gas station, get a gas can, walk back, put more gas in it, and drive away? No, you don't. Because you have already obtained a positive result. There is no need for "testing" at that point. You have clearly established a positive result.
Anyways, benchmarks.... can be useful sometimes. But you are mistaken if you think:
A) They will give me anymore information than I know at this point regarding the test method...
B) I am going to be allocating more time and resources to run a "relevant" test on my /system partition
C) I have not already obtained a clear result
Not trying to sound arrogant... but I've been doing this a while. I'll pass on the benchmarking this time around.

cun7 said:
I have not seen one benchmark available on the playstore that is even remotely relevant. What a joke it is to see a tech article running a quadrant test comparing two devices using a benchmark... so, if you were talking about one of those - quadrant, antutu, etc... none of these are going to give me an accurate representation of what kind of performance increase or decrease I am seeing for /system because they don't test those partitions. There are more accurate ways to run a performance test on a disk.... but it's quicker for me to just go ahead and reboot the device since, well, I know what I am doing and happen to be doing it on a portion of the disk where a majority of the work by the CPU is coming from accessing this particular partition of the device.
During boot, there is one task being executed and one task only... booting! Any most everything being loaded is coming from where? /system
Naive? I spent time on Google's team as a software engineer a couple years back... I am far from naive. You are just not looking at this from a practical or logical point of view.
I'll give you an analogy before I go to bed so you can better understand:
If your car runs out of gas, and stops running, and somebody gives you a ride home, then somebody else calls you and says "Hey, I just saw your car on the side of the road, saw your post on G+ about running out of gas. Well, I happened to have a gas can with me and put a gallon of gas in it for you. Go pick it up!"
Now you get a lift back to your car, put the key in, and it starts right up. Do you then turn it off and walk to a gas station, get a gas can, walk back, put more gas in it, and drive away? No, you don't. Because you have already obtained a positive result. There is no need for "testing" at that point. You have clearly established a positive result.
Anyways, benchmarks.... can be useful sometimes. But you are mistaken if you think:
A) They will give me anymore information than I know at this point regarding the test method...
B) Allocating the time and resources to run a relevant test on my /system partition
C) I have not already obtained a clear result
Not trying to sound arrogant... but I've been doing this a while. I'll pass on the benchmarking this time around.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Right on. Great work OP. While EXT2 isnt for everyone. Experienced users can gsin value from using it. Nice Work!!!
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 3 using JellyBombed Tapatalk.

My phone takes about 15secs to boot up not sure Im going to really notice a 1-2sec diffrence, a better analogy would be taking a car that does 0-60 in 6secs and a pos looking car and one that does 0-60 in 6.2 secs and be looking like a sports car. The differnce would be so minuscial that if you asked people which one accelerated faster they would naturally pick the one that looks like a sports car because thats how peoples minds are trained to think sportty looking car = quicker.
Its kinda a mental placebo effect, hence why I asking if you had a boot up video seems like that would be proof enough.
Also ran a top command and suprise system is using 1% and its the top command so I dont see where you are coming up with the extreme cpu cycles you say journaling is causing. Not to mention the fact /system is pretty much only called upon boot. Most other times its going to be pulling r/w cycles from /data or /sdcard.

LancerV said:
My phone takes about 15secs to boot up not sure Im going to really notice a 1-2sec diffrence, a better analogy would be taking a car that does 0-60 in 6secs and a pos looking car and one that does 0-60 in 6.2 secs and be looking like a sports car. The differnce would be so minuscial that if you asked people which one accelerated faster they would naturally pick the one that looks like a sports car because thats how peoples minds are trained to think sportty looking car = quicker.
Its kinda a mental placebo effect, hence why I asking if you had a boot up video seems like that would be proof enough.
Also ran a top command and suprise system is using 1% and its the top command so I dont see where you are coming up with the extreme cpu cycles you say journaling is causing. Not to mention the fact /system is pretty much only called upon boot. Most other times its going to be pulling r/w cycles from /data or /sdcard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The placebo effect you are speaking of are typically people that don't know what they are doing, and are simply just excited about something.
An example of this would be the 9 out of every 10 posts I see in a ROM thread over the years talking about how much smoother their device is after flashing "xxxxx ROM"... a stop watch is a pretty reliable method for checking boot times, which is what I used for this particular scenario because I knew it would be relevant. Also the fact that my usage is pretty much exactly the same every day is a pretty solid test attribute. Any change in battery life at 15 hours... even if it is 1%... I notice it.
Also, my own personal ROM that I use is entirely odexed. So, nothing is being drawn from /data/dalvik-cache that is a /system/framework or /system/app function. It is noticeably more efficient because the 280+ .odex files are being read from the same location... which is now ext2, and not ext4.
Is this kind of starting to make sense now or am I losing you more?

I am not aware of all the file systems on linux. What happens to the partition if you restore a nandroid backup of the system partition that was converted to ext2 but the backup was ext4? And/or if backup was ext2? Just curious.
Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk

Compusmurf said:
I am not aware of all the file systems on linux. What happens to the partition if you restore a nandroid backup of the system partition that was converted to ext2 but the backup was ext4? And/or if backup was ext2? Just curious.
Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It will write the data to the disk as it should. You can do this without having any issues.
I've never tried restoring an EXT2 backup to an EXT4 formatted disk... So I have no answer for you there. It all kind of depends on exactly how TWRP's backups are created... I think they use .tars ... I'm not sure

Would this by any chance work on an AOSP/CM/AOKP ROM? I've tried using it with CM and LiquidSmooth but it stops every time after "erasing system" with "script aborted (no error message)".
Nevermind, I found out the issue. I went back into the updater-script and removed this line: "format("ext4", "EMMC", "/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/system", "0", "/system");". It flashed perfectly after that (Liquid Smooth AOSP ROM).
Edit: Had an issue with the ROM not booting at first, it hung on the splash screen. What I did was reboot into TWRP, wiped cache and dalvik cache, went into terminal (in advanced) and typed this command: "setenforce 0". After that, type "getenforce" and make sure SELinux is set to Permissive. I'm not sure if the SELinux command helped at all but I did it just in case.

Hypercore said:
Would this by any chance work on an AOSP/CM/AOKP ROM? I've tried using it with CM and LiquidSmooth but it stops every time after "erasing system" with "script aborted (no error message)".
Nevermind, I found out the issue. I went back into the updater-script and removed this line: "format("ext4", "EMMC", "/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/system", "0", "/system");". It flashed perfectly after that (Liquid Smooth AOSP ROM).
Edit: Had an issue with the ROM not booting at first, it hung on the splash screen. What I did was reboot into TWRP, wiped cache and dalvik cache, went into terminal (in advanced) and typed this command: "setenforce 0". After that, type "getenforce" and make sure SELinux is set to Permissive. I'm not sure if the SELinux command helped at all but I did it just in case.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Code:
"format("ext4", "EMMC", "/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/system", "0", "/system");"
Change that 4 to a 2...
Code:
"format("[COLOR="Red"]ext2[/COLOR]", "EMMC", "/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/system", "0", "/system");"

I reallt need to invest in a class 10 SD card

Just for kicks, i tried turning my phone off, taking out the SD card, and turning it back on. holy frig! It loaded the apps (in settings, to clear caches and stuff, force stop if needed), turned off, SO much faster!! Like, warp speed. Compared to the well over a minute with my current class 4 sd card installed... im truly amazed!!
I need one of these like, tomorrow!! lol
The one thing i didnt understand, is that since moving app data to the external SD card isnt actually possible (despite the deceptive "move to SD card" in the app settings)... alot of the apps didnt show their correct icons or names in the app settings menu with my card out. But - even to just take the card out and look at it on the computer, all thats on there is camera photos, wallpapers..... a couple of things in directory bind, but only for 2 apps. well over 2 apps showed the incorrect icon and name. But... why??

ok, so ive since invested in a class 10 sd card...... and i notice no difference with having the phone calculate storage, powering off (the 2 main time wasters) since when i had my class 4 card.....
the only extreme difference is with no card in it.
For all of you who used class 10 SD cards, did it take the storage roughly 3 minutes to calculate (when you keep your caches cleaned out regularly), and the phone over a minute to power down, when you power down or at least restart once a day??
im just wondering if the extreme difference in speed is to be expected. even with the best type of sd card.

Hi
what ROM and Kernel?
-----
Sent from my SGH-I927 using XDA Android mobile app

xdajog said:
Hi
what ROM and Kernel?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The rom is this one here actually: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1994902
Since i was new to the android world and rooting and such (still kind of am), i went with the pure stock version. I had actually decided to use the legit update, but it turned out my "brand new" phone had already been rooted, realized after a couple hours of trying to get it to update the legit way... maybe they had to to carrier unlock it, not sure. I knew for sure once i got into recovery for the first time, that it was already non factory. But, i didnt complain, the phone worked well and had no physical scratches or anything.
The kernel says (im not sure what much of this means):
"3.1.10-I927UCLJ3-CL970642
[email protected] #3
smp preempt thu oct 11 14:00:57 KST 2012"
Im guessing that last line isnt important but i didnt want to leave anything out.
Im not too sure what kernel means, unless referring to corn. Is that an important factor in the speed? Would changing it if needed ruin my whole current rom setup?

Ok so it is more or less stock and rom and kernel are UCLJ3. Thats fine just wanted to be sure. Btw: the whole kernel line is important as one can see the build, builder and build time which all is important to identify.
You can try another kernel without any impact to your ROM as long as it is ICS compatible. You may take a look into sediROM its installer has all available Kernels where you can choose from (v2.0 beta has absolutely all added). You can start sediROM installer and choose to not install the ROM but only modify the kernel. That way you can be sure that all requirements for flashing a new kernel are met (e.g. removing dalvik cache) without loosing data. But be warned i never tested that on pure stock!!
A better way may be to install sediROM and then choose the modify mode instead but I absolutely do not want to force you to choose sediROM !!
Nevertheless flashing sediROM or simply flashing a new kernel only:
As always keep in mind that doing a nandroid backup is essential!!
But back to topic: to be honest I'm not sure about your problem itself. You told that you have slow speed when opening your app drawer in the launcher? The other thing mentioned was calculating storage (I believe you meant those in settings?) and powering down.
Well i have a class 10 card with atm 1 GB free storage and need 10sec for all calculatings (settings). A power off need about 10-30sec and opening my app drawer with 114 apps installed take less than 1 sec.
I use sediROM v2.0 beta.
So you may try flashing a litekernel version. Maybe removing the dalvik cache may help a little, too - at least it will not harm (remove dalvik cache from within recovery).
My recommendation would be - if I were you:
0) backup! /efs and nandroid!
1) remove dalvik cache and /cache
2) if that doesnt help: flash a litekernel
3) if that doesnt help: flash another ROM
-----
Sent from my SGH-I927 using XDA Android mobile app

I do go into recovery regular and clean the regular cache, but never the dalvik cache. Ive read everywhere that people recommend doing that just before formatting and installing a new rom, so ive always thought that the dalvik cache held something important (like user data).
is that something i should be regularly cleaning out too? If so, and i havent for over a year, could that be any part of the issue??
The main 2 spots i notice it very slow is when opening the storage (within settings), and when powering down. the app drawer does open right away, but it does take a while for everything to load up and all app sizes are accurate, probably the same 3ish minutes as when starting from storage.
but other than that its been running great so its weird that only those 2 spots are slower.

Pawprints1986 said:
I do go into recovery regular and clean the regular cache, but never the dalvik cache. Ive read everywhere that people recommend doing that just before formatting and installing a new rom, so ive always thought that the dalvik cache held something important (like user data).
is that something i should be regularly cleaning out too? If so, and i havent for over a year, could that be any part of the issue??
The main 2 spots i notice it very slow is when opening the storage (within settings), and when powering down. the app drawer does open right away, but it does take a while for everything to load up and all app sizes are accurate, probably the same 3ish minutes as when starting from storage.
but other than that its been running great so its weird that only those 2 spots are slower.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cleaning the cache on a regular base will not harm but IMO not doing anything useful.
The dalvik cache does not contain anything important like user data. It is filled when you boot your ROM with let me say "uncompressed" version of all your applications. That means because they are "uncompressed" they will open faster. Removing that cache will only let the ROM re-create that cache and this can solve some problems too. But it is an important thing you ever should do after flashing a kernel. Normally each ROM out there will do that for you, too because there it is needed too of course.
So no you do not need to do that on a regular base Android will update the cache for you (normally). Only when you encounter problems, flashing or upgrading ROM or Kernel.