Develop Bugs

Read Only File System when removing apps

I am trying to remove some apps I dont use or want like the mail app and others and I know i have nand protection unlocked becasue I can run nand backup and restore. But when i run adb shell and rm Mail.apk i get message of rm failed for Mail.apk, read only file system. I am a noob with adb but is it possible i dont have nand unlocked?

Being able to NAND backup and restore doesn't have anything to do with having NAND unlocked.
You obviously don't have full root.

download or find (please pay for it on the market)
root explorer, run it, this will put you on the / directory which is the root of the phone, not the sd card, and up in the top right corner it says mount r/o or mount r/w
by default it is read only r/o
hit the button and beside it you will see small text saying 'mounted r/w'
if it lets you mount r/w then you should be good to go.
just navigate to your /system/app filder, long press on the apk file you want to delete and choose delete, it will error out if you dont have r/w access, but make sure the upper right corner still says 'mounted r/w' - sometimes when you mount the phone in the opening page, it doesnt mount everything as r/w so you might have to mount the /system/app folder.
so, if you have it mounted r/w and it says so, and it wont let you delete or rename anything, then you know that you do not have a full root, just the partial root and you will have to go thru and reroot it for full access.
there are simpler ways i imagine but root explorer is the king of file explorers as far as i am concerned.
the only thing it needs is a built in FTP and SMB (windows network) explorer.

FAndroidHTC said:
I am trying to remove some apps I dont use or want like the mail app and others and I know i have nand protection unlocked becasue I can run nand backup and restore. But when i run adb shell and rm Mail.apk i get message of rm failed for Mail.apk, read only file system. I am a noob with adb but is it possible i dont have nand unlocked?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Would you be running the stock rooted ROM?
Sent from my PC36100

rafroehlich2 said:
Would you be running the stock rooted ROM?
Sent from my PC36100
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
stock rooted rom doesnt matter, thats what i run from time to time and i can delete/move/rename anythign i want anywhere on the phone (ok i havent tried every folder but have not hit a file/folder i couldnt alter yet, because i have full root access.

v_lestat said:
stock rooted rom doesnt matter, thats what i run from time to time and i can delete/move/rename anythign i want anywhere on the phone (ok i havent tried every folder but have not hit a file/folder i couldnt alter yet, because i have full root access.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I asked because I had a similar problem when I had stock rooted. Once I changed it went away.
Sent from my PC36100

rafroehlich2 said:
I asked because I had a similar problem when I had stock rooted. Once I changed it went away.
Sent from my PC36100
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hmmm wierd.
maybe a bad rooted rom?
someone correct me here but do you have SuperUser installed?
doesnt he have to have superuser installed to do it via root explorer, or login to a terminal via adb with 'su' to rename/move/delete
if you didnt type su, and then get the $ prompt you cant do what you are trying to do. ... ???
i dont think you need to type su to do the following command but it probably wouldn't hurt ??
i am very adb green but do know enough to run some commands, its just that i prefer to do it with root explorer rather than command prompt.

download or find (please pay for it on the market)
root explorer, run it, this will put you on the / directory which is the root of the phone, not the sd card, and up in the top right corner it says mount r/o or mount r/w
by default it is read only r/o
hit the button and beside it you will see small text saying 'mounted r/w'
if it lets you mount r/w then you should be good to go.
just navigate to your /system/app filder, long press on the apk file you want to delete and choose delete, it will error out if you dont have r/w access, but make sure the upper right corner still says 'mounted r/w' - sometimes when you mount the phone in the opening page, it doesnt mount everything as r/w so you might have to mount the /system/app folder.
so, if you have it mounted r/w and it says so, and it wont let you delete or rename anything, then you know that you do not have a full root, just the partial root and you will have to go thru and reroot it for full access.
there are simpler ways i imagine but root explorer is the king of file explorers as far as i am concerned.
the only thing it needs is a built in FTP and SMB (windows network) explorer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can use Estrongs File Explorer and use the root option. No payment required. Unless you are running CM ROM, be sure to turn off the root option before closing the program, otherwise next time you open ES it will give a force close.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

wow I love this forum what a huge response in such a short time I'm gonna test to see if I don't have nand properly unlocked and I tried using android mate to delete the apks and that didn't work either but I'm running fresh 1.0.2 currently

Just tried using es file explorer with root explorer and mount file system as writable and deleted the apk and everything worked great the app is gone! Thank you for the help this means i have nand unlocked right? I must have been doing something wrong in the adb shell

You can also issue the command 'adb remount'.
The system partition is mounted read only at start up and this command mounts it read/write. It has nothing to do at all with your NAND.

Ok good to know thank you for the advice like I said I'm an adb noob lol

do adb remount then try again

I removed wireless_tether using root explorer. When i try to install another version of wireless_tether, it says i am trying to overwrite another app, then wont let me install because it says its a system app. then I go in to look and see if I had truly removed it , it has a different name "andro tether" under settings/apps/manage apps. It doesn't show this in the root explorer for me to delete it. How can I fully delete it if its not showing there anymore.
I still cant install the new version. Help

[Q] How do I install a bootanimation?

Ahoy! Simply put, I'd like to install a new boot animation on my rooted HTC Desire HD running Android Revolution HD 3.0.
I've searched how to do this but I don't exactly understand.
I understand that I can 'push' the new bootanimation.zip to data/local via ADB, but some guides/installation tutorials have simply said 'copy bootanimation.zip to data/local.'
I'd much prefer to be able to simply copy the .zip to data/local and not have to deal with ADB as I have not yet used it, but how do I do this? Am I misunderstanding?
I thought 'copy to data/local' would be as simple as using for example, Astro File Manager and copying the new bootanimation.zip from my SDcard to data/local, however there is no 'local' folder inside of the 'data' folder and the option to create a new folder is greyed-out.
Long story short:
What's the simplest method of installing a bootanimation?
Can I simply 'copy bootanimation.zip to data/local?' If so, how?
If I have to use ADB to install the bootanimation, what is the exact process of doing this?
I'm sure this has been asked before, but my searches confused me more than cleared anything up. Thank you for any help in advance!

You need a program like root explorer(es file explorer with root access should work too) for the copy/paste method because the bootanimation.zip isn't stored at your sd card but at the phones internal memory.
At the root of your phone you should see folders like sdcard, dev, root and many more. One of them is called data. In this folder there is one called local. There should be a file called bootanimation.zip. just replace this file with your bootanimation.zip.
Normally it can't damage your phone when your bootanimation has a wrong format or whatever. If the new file is broken, you'll get a black screen instead of an animation but the phone will boot anyway
Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk

I see the folder you're talking about in both Astro and ES File Viewer, but this 'data' folder is empty by default. There's no bootanimation.zip and there's no 'local' folder.
I'm confused.

take a look at /system/media

Denavar said:
I see the folder you're talking about in both Astro and ES File Viewer, but this 'data' folder is empty by default. There's no bootanimation.zip and there's no 'local' folder.
I'm confused.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use ES File Explorer, and make sure that you enable root mode in settings. Use hiapk mode. Also remount /system and /data, that option is also in the settings.

jkoljo said:
Use ES File Explorer, and make sure that you enable root mode in settings. Use hiapk mode. Also remount /system and /data, that option is also in the settings.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you. This worked perfectly. I wasn't aware I needed to do this. Thanks again.
Edit: I've encountered another problem. Whenever I now attempt to access my SD card via ES File Explorer, I get the error "SD Card Unmounted or not present." How do I rectify this? It works fine in Astro.
Edit 2: I attempted to unmount /system and /data simply by unticking the option in ES (i'm really only just starting to delve into this sort of thing now and don't know what I'm doing.) and it says 'failed to mount'. How do I fix this also? ;P
Edit 3: Re-installing ES File Explorer fixed the above two issues, but I assume it will do the exact same thing again. For the time being and a short fix, is re-installing the app each time OK? I don't exactly know what 'failed to mount' or 'SD Card unmounted or not present' errors mean. I get the idea, but I'm not sure if they're really doing any damage.

I found my original boot animation in '/system/customize/resource/' and replaced with a custom one. Worked!

[Q] Phone is rooted but /system and /data are still not writable

Hi everyone,
I've successfully rooted me GSM Desire and am running CyanogenMod 7 (I also installed Redux v.1.1.1 and CyanogenMod 6.1 without any problems). For some reason, though, the /system and /data directories still seem to be read-only. In Root Explorer it seems to let me rename files in those directories and says "Rename Successful," but if when I leave the directory and come back the file is back to its original name. I also can't move any files there. When I use ES File Explorer it just says "Sorry, operation failed!"
I have enabled "Mount R/W" in Root Explorer and "Mount File System" in ES File Explorer but nothing seems to work. Is there some extra step to making these directories writable that I have missed?

Hi there, you need to have s-off (aka security off or full root) to write to /system and /data with the device booted, i.e. using root explorer etc.
You can also do it with s-on, but you have to to that with your PC via cmd prompt and adb shell which is less convenient.
Great guide to getting s-off here, took me <10 mins!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=794314

Yeah, that did it. Thanks!

Root Explorer Error

I just unlocked, rooted and restored all files in my nexus. I went into root Explorer to delete unwanted files and am getting a delete failed error every time I try to delete a file. Also my screen shots are no longer saving it says storage is in use. Anybody experience anything like this after rooting?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

Marcg23 said:
I just unlocked, rooted and restored all files in my nexus. I went into root Explorer to delete unwanted files and am getting a delete failed error every time I try to delete a file. Also my screen shots are no longer saving it says storage is in use. Anybody experience anything like this after rooting?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you trying to delete system files? Do you have SU installed? Are you clicking the R/W option. More details please.....

Several people have reported the issue with screen shot, to fix it they've had to rename the pictures folder(Seems like the folder is read only).
Swiftkey'ed on my CM9 Galaxy Nexus

No system files just old pictures, music files and other misc. It is set as r/w, also I am getting a few apps saying I need storage available that is writable. Something has to be up with the internal storage not allowing me to access or write to it.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

Well I am able to take screen shots by renaming he folder. However, I am still unable to write anything to my sdcard or modify files through root Explorer or any other file manager app.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

Root explorer - How to text edit
Hi All,
I have a problem with my root explorer. I am not able to open a file to edit. If i long press on a file , i dont get any option to open/edit the file.
i was supposed to edit gps.conf file under /system/etc but unable to do so from root explorer.
PS: i mount r/w from the root explorer every time i try..
Please help.

If you have any directories/files that you can't modify or delete, then boot into CWM recovery, plug in the USB cable, go into adb shell. Also make sure that /data is mounted in the CWM mounts menu. Then:
cd /data/media
chown -R media_rw.media_rw *

root explorer delete failed
danger-rat said:
If you have any directories/files that you can't modify or delete, then boot into CWM recovery, plug in the USB cable, go into adb shell. Also make sure that /data is mounted in the CWM mounts menu. Then:
cd /data/media
chown -R media_rw.media_rw *
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i'm having this crazy "delete failed" error every time i try to delete any file in sdcart, external, and root directory (copy-paste, root, permissions works fine )
i tried to delete any remains of root explorer with es file explorer ((which works fine btw so its not a problem of partitions i think), re installed the program again but its the same . Flashed the rom from the beginning with a full wipe but its the same
this error happened first when i updated from blackmart alpha to some rootexplorer v.99. I uninstalled that but it left this error
Any idea what is causing that
I'm very curious and would appreciate it
thanks

I found a way to delete the files you suggest using Root Explorer. Go into /data/media/<navigate to the directory that you want to delete files>.. make sure the folder is mounted as r/w and delete the files you want to delete. This is how I bypassed the delete failed issue in Root Explorer...

rester555 said:
I found a way to delete the files you suggest using Root Explorer. Go into /data/media/<navigate to the directory that you want to delete files>.. make sure the folder is mounted as r/w and delete the files you want to delete. This is how I bypassed the delete failed issue in Root Explorer...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
^^^^ this

Thank you rester, this worked for me too. Was pulling my hair out.

Can't write to /system OP3

Hello,
I wanted to edit the file mixer_paths.xml present in system/vendor/etc to solve the issue with my incall speaker. But I'm not able to save it with a root explorer. I tried to paste another xml file in that folder with a root explorer with super user access, but it said access denied.
I tried also to mount the system folder with - rw permissions but it still doesn't work.
I also tried to move the file through twrp by mounting the system folder, but same issue, the transfer ended with an error.
Do someone have any issue to write on the system folder on a OP3?

Which firmware? Which root solution?