Google block protected apps from being displayed on dev phones. In fact it looks like its a whitelist and not a blacklist. So since the update some ID presented by the phone has changed, and so the Samsung isnt identified as a non dev device anymore.
The Hero had this problem too when it was first released on Orange but they fixed it. Google are taking their time to fix it - its a server side problem not a phone firmware/software problem.
The only way to get around it is to get the apk yourself and install the program from a computer using sdb. Its really anoying they still havnt fixed this.
Its the ones which have copy protection. Even some free ones have it.
When apps are copy protected they get installed to an area that only 'root' can access. So on a normal device you couldn't copy apps out from there and share them. On a rooted device you can.
So If the phone isnt recognised as a non developer device - i.e. a carrier locked device - all copy protected apps won't show up in the market.
Its the ones which have copy protection. Even some free ones have it.
When apps are copy protected they get installed to an area that only 'root' can access. So on a normal device you couldn't copy apps out from there and share them. On a rooted device you can.
So If the phone isnt recognised as a non developer device - i.e. a carrier locked device - all copy protected apps won't show up in the market.
umh mine is not rooted and is not a carrier device... so if i root the phone i can see all?
If it is not on their whitelist as a carrier device they assume it is rooted/dev device.
Untill google fix this on their servers there is nothing you can do
The Market gateway simply won't send you the list of apps with copy protection. There isnt anything you could do short of pretending to be a Hero - but i don't know which id they are using and how we could spoof it.
P.S. market enabler doesnt fix the problem either.
You should post on that google thread, and get everyone with an ITA rom to do the same. I'm pretty sure that's what got the fix sorted.
They need to add the ITV hardware id to their server I think. You should also moan to your carrier!
You could also try the German rom, it would have italian language in it
wan't to use a different rom.. i will post in the topic, my carrier is not related i do have an corparate contract and is not related to the phone, i do not have a branded phone...
and also i can't use 3g from the phone i use only 2g and wifi.
I bought my phone SIM-free and it shipped with I7500JVIG4 but I've since reflashed it to I7500XXIH7 as it didn't have the Market application.
The market now works and has paid apps, however Doggcatcher isn't appearing in the market yet it's definitely available in the UK. I'm in the UK and using a T-Mobile UK SIM. I'm connecting to the market using wifi at home.
Does anyone else have the same problem? I noticed that the ROM files (phone, PDA, Bootloader) all had ITV in their filenames; could it be that it thinks I'm in Italy? I didn't apply the CSC file.
Many thanks,
Chris Wood
Last edited by cpwood; August 31st, 2009 at 02:01 PM.
There are a few things that identify the region, and this is what I think is being controlled by them:
- The region customisations - This changes the 'fingerprint' in the build.prop file and stops the market displaying some apps. Changing the fingerprint hasnt helped with paid apps yet
- You SIM card / Carrier. This will stop alot of apps from being displayed, protected or not. You can use market enabler to display these. A good example is US only apps wont be displayer in the UK, eg E! online. If you want to use Market Enabler you need to root and install busybox
- The baseband region - This remains set to wherever you bought the phone from. It seems to be what NPS looks at as well, and this is what causes the 'unrecognised device' with firmware > FF even with a correct device id. It also stops updates from a different region being displayed even of you use a CSC file from that region. This also seems to be controlling missing paid apps (_i think_)
When you update to a new firmware apps will be missing either because the fingerprint changed, or the new version isnt in the google whitelist.
All of the above is why we are seeing two people using the same ROM having different experiances.
If you do an adb getprop you can see all the information returned about the regions etc. You'll notice the ril versions there.
You can edit the build.prop to display pretty much whatever you like there, except the ril stuff which comes back from an api in the ril library. I was thinking of compiling a 'replacement' for getprop that returned different values which might get NPS to work. I doubt Market uses getprop tho, and probably grabs the data directly.
I noticed particularly that no matter what ROM i go to (CSC or not), the version of the baseband increases (to say H7) but it always displays VIA there (My original firmware region).
Anyway all the above could be totally wrong, but from the experiments i've dont so far it makes sense.
And yeah the Baseband IS the modem. That would be where the simlocks, IMEI and probably device specific serial numbers are stored. It makes sense that region would be unchangable I guess, even on an unlocked device.
Last edited by kam187; August 31st, 2009 at 11:04 PM.
The G8 one seems to show up blank in getprop and doesnt work for the market. I took it from one of the custom roms. Can someone with a rooted device on G8 please check theirs.
EDIT:
You need to search over GPRS/3G at least once after deleteing the cache, otherwise the apps wont show. I guess it needs to verify your carrier properly before it will show them.
Market enabler is working to show US only apps (Use the T-Mobile US setting). So that means you can enable market in regions where its not available.
EDIT2:
So it looks like it works with the original fingerprint now too. So either there is some stale cache installed with the rom (unlikely), or they added H7 to the whitelist VERY recently, and you need to wipe the cache or wait for it to expire for it to take affect.
Someone feel like insalling a fresh H7 to confirm?
Last edited by kam187; September 1st, 2009 at 07:06 AM.
Cool, thought it might be.. It came from a custom rom, so i guess the guy modified it to reflect his username.
I'll edit the post above for consitancy and in case anyone direct links to it.
If anyone tries this, can they try just deleting the cache, then reboot, then try to search for a missing app over GPRS/3G first and see if that works i.e. without the fingerprint.
Cool, thought it might be.. It came from a custom rom, so i guess the guy modified it to reflect his username.
I'll edit the post above for consitancy and in case anyone direct links to it.
If anyone tries this, can they try just deleting the cache, then reboot, then try to search for a missing app over GPRS/3G first and see if that works i.e. without the fingerprint.
Hi kam187 - first, just wanted to say thanks for the detailed response to my question.
Regarding your message above, I cleared my cache and connected to the Market via GPRS (T-Mobile UK, I7500XXIH7); still no Doggcatcher for me.
I've got an O2 UK SIM at home which I'll try it again with tonight.
Failing that, I suspect it's time to root my phone and play with the fingerprint. My understanding of the preceding posts is that I should maybe change it to a G1 since this is available from T-Mobile UK (hence it would be consistent with my SIM and no MarketEnabler required).
No, actually the fingerprint only enables or disables paid apps, and that's all you need. So any existing android phone will do - just make sure its 1.5 because otherwise apps built with the new sdk won't show.
Market enabler is something you can use on top, to show you apps that are not available in your region - like US apps. You don't need to use market enabler to fix the paid apps problem - its an extra.
EDIT:
In fact maybe the Samsung G8 firmware fingerprint would be better to use. Can someone give it a try and let us know if it works
Last edited by kam187; September 1st, 2009 at 08:35 AM.
No, actually the fingerprint only enables or disables paid apps, and that's all you need. So any existing android phone will do - just make sure its 1.5 because otherwise apps built with the new sdk won't show.
Market enabler is something you can use on top, to show you apps that are not available in your region - like US apps. You don't need to use market enabler to fix the paid apps problem - its an extra.
OK.. I can see paid apps, so it doesn't sound like a fingerprint issue then. It's only one single paid app I can't find (Doggcatcher), so the granularity of my problem would suggest it's a region issue. Yet I'm in the UK and using a UK SIM.
Oh well, not the end of the world if I can't get it, and I really appreciate your help.
Well i say paid apps, but its more of a missing apps problem, caused by the protection on some of these apps.
For example I can see co-pilot, and buy it and download it - but I can't see cab4me which is free! (And even if i go directly to the link via cyrket I cant download it)
Well i say paid apps, but its more of a missing apps problem, caused by the protection on some of these apps.
For example I can see co-pilot, and buy it and download it - but I can't see cab4me which is free! (And even if i go directly to the link via cyrket I cant download it)
Actually the fingerprint info is to identify if the phone is a normal unrooted or the developer phone ie ADP1 and then hide copy protected apps for ADP1. The reason for this is that on the ADP1, root access is enabled by default and hence it will be possible to copy any app from the phone out.
The network operator code is to allow operators to block out certain types of programs if they want google to do so. So by spoofing the code, you can access apps that your provider doesn't like... like say tethering apps on at&t.
Oh and the operator code allows the market to decide if you can see paid apps.
Last edited by pegasus21; September 1st, 2009 at 11:55 AM.
Yep... but it seems new roms (hero had the problem, galaxy had it, saphire had it) apps go missing. That's why i think its a whitelist and not a blacklist.
Having said that it still doesnt make sense because 'missing apps' in this case doesnt mean paid apps, but a random combination of free and paid apps! I have a feeling maybe its something to do with compatability marked against each app or something.
DoggCatcher can neither be found with the line for H7 nor for the HTC Dream line, here. I did kill the process and deleted the cache. WLAN is disabled.
Surprisingly, I'm having again this problem. I installed mustymod and then, some apps (i suppose copy-protected ones) are missing. I have reinstalled IK5, IK4, IH7, and even changed the fingerprint. I have removed all the cache (and all the data) about com.android.vending, and even dalvik-cache related to the market.
Nothing seems to work. And I've tried everything I've seen around...
Is there any way to fix this? Is just a server thing and I have to wait for something? Or maybe my gmail account has been marked as "developer" and I won't ever be able to access to these apps?
Layar, Crazy Stories or barcode scanner are some of the apps I cannot see...
Thanks
Last edited by dexem; January 9th, 2010 at 11:58 AM.
Hmm wierd. IK5 isnt whitelisted yet.
IK4 should be. Are you sure you installed IK4, killed market, then cleared its cache, reboot and tried market again?
With a spanish Movistar SIM. I had no problems using this firmware with free apps like layar, or paid apps like Crazy stories. Before testing mustymod I had these apps available. Now they are not there. I've tested to:
- kill market process (until ps showed it wasn't running)
- cleared /data/data/com.android.vending/cache/*
- reboot
And market still doesn't show these apps... any other idea?
I'm on IK5 and I can see paid MyBackup, Layar and other stuff. It's whitelisted!
I guess paid apps may also be blocked by your IP. When I travelled to Russia last month and used WiFi there - I could not access paid apps, as they are all blocked in Russia.
May be you IP range is not "whitelisted" somehow?
Update:
Though I also used Russian SIM-card then, which might also make a difference. Could it? I don't know.
The point is, I'm now on IK5 on Three UK and I have access to all apps (except those US-only of course)
Last edited by informale; January 11th, 2010 at 03:48 PM.
Uhmmm... I can access to paid apps, and I can also see doggCatcher (copy-protected). I cannot see Layar (free copy-protected) and Crazy Stories (which is paid app and I think copy-protected). Also MyBackup and MyBackup Pro are shown. Do anybody know more apps from both sides?
I think that Google also has a server-side cache for my previous searchs, and until it's not cleared, I will not be able to download these apps (which I tried to search using mustymod). I hope this is true and cache is cleared frequently :P
Hi everyone. I'm a new user but i'm reading this forum about four months ago.
I have the same problem like dexem. I installed MustyMod Eclair Rom to test it and
when i returned to the ii5 rom i saw that a lot of applications of the market
have disappeared.
But when i change the google user of the phone (clearing google apps cache) i can
see all the applications like Crazy Stories, Layar, Nimbuzz, Barcode
Scanner, etc. But if return to my normal google account these applications
disappear from the market.
Any idea? Thanks a lot.
No, i didn't tried this because i only have tested MustyMod ROM for two hours and i returned to the Official Firmware.
I will try when Mustymod has a new release.
Thank you for signing up to receive updates for the 4
An email has been dispatched to confirm your signup. Please click the link in the email.
Buy the Samsung i7500
Sign up for instant notification when the Samsung i7500 goes on sale!
When Samsung joined the Open Handset Alliance, excitement and anticipation engulfed the mobile world. With industry leading mobile phones such as the Samsung Instinct and Samsung Omnia already on the market, expectations soared. The speculation can f... Read More
samsung galaxy apps missing
