can't find an app

[mohamed075]

hey guys, I moved a game to the SD card, now I lost the SD card and that game won't open and I can't find it in the system and I can't reinstall it. Please can anyone give me an idea on what to do in this case and I can't restore the phone to factory settings because I will lose all my data

 

[puppykickr]

Sorry to say this, but your data in that app was on the SD card.
Only fragments remain in the internal memory.

Because you moved it onto a SD card (which is never recommended for various reasons), you now require that card.

Without it, all you can do is uninstall the remaining bits and install the app all over again.

 

[mohamed075]

Sorry to say this, but your data in that app was on the SD card.
Only fragments remain in the internal memory.

Because you moved it onto a SD card (which is never recommended for various reasons), you now require that card.

Without it, all you can do is uninstall the remaining bits and install the app all over again.

i can't uninstall it either when i try it the system crashes

 

[ocnbrze]

what phone do you have? was the sd card formatted as internal or portable?

 

[ocnbrze]

i can't uninstall it either when i try it the system crashes

what do you mean by the system crashes? it turns off? the screen gets frozen? error?

 

[mohamed075]

what do you mean by the system crashes? it turns off? the screen gets frozen? error?

when delete the app the phone freezes and it returns to home screen and the app still there

 

[ocnbrze]

what phone do you have? was the sd card formatted as internal or portable?

?????

 

[Hadron]

I'm guess that the sd card is formatted as external storage rather than internal, and you moved the app through the system Apps menu (I'm adding this qualification because there are at least 3 different ways of moving apps which have different properties).

Unfortunately unless you can find the card you are out of luck. As said above, parts of the app are now on the phone and other parts are on the card. The result is a mess: the phone thinks the app is installed but only bits are. Hence you can't install it (because the phone thinks it's installed), can't uninstall it (because some of the places it wants to delete stuff don't exist), and can't run it (because only a bit of it is there). I'd expect that the app icon might look rather "generic" when it's in this state, but it's been a while since I moved apps to sd (OK, 9 years...) so can't be sure.

Depending on how the game works your progress data may be on the card or in the part of the phone storage that only that app can access. But even if the data are on the phone you are stuck unless you already have root, and possibly even then. Without root only the app can access those data, and the app is broken. With root there are methods that might be able to back them up, but not all phones are rootable and for most phones the process of rooting will require a factory reset - so if you don't already have root (and you'd know if you had, because you'd have had to modify the system software to get it) this isn't going to help you.

In short, unless you can find that card your options are either to give up on that game or to back up everything else and do a reset, after which you'll be able to reinstall the app but unless it had an online backup you will have to start again.

 

[mohamed075]

?????

portable

 

[mohamed075]

I'm guess that the sd card is formatted as external storage rather than internal, and you moved the app through the system Apps menu (I'm adding this qualification because there are at least 3 different ways of moving apps which have different properties).

Unfortunately unless you can find the card you are out of luck. As said above, parts of the app are now on the phone and other parts are on the card. The result is a mess: the phone thinks the app is installed but only bits are. Hence you can't install it (because the phone thinks it's installed), can't uninstall it (because some of the places it wants to delete stuff don't exist), and can't run it (because only a bit of it is there). I'd expect that the app icon might look rather "generic" when it's in this state, but it's been a while since I moved apps to sd (OK, 9 years...) so can't be sure.

Depending on how the game works your progress data may be on the card or in the part of the phone storage that only that app can access. But even if the data are on the phone you are stuck unless you already have root, and possibly even then. Without root only the app can access those data, and the app is broken. With root there are methods that might be able to back them up, but not all phones are rootable and for most phones the process of rooting will require a factory reset - so if you don't already have root (and you'd know if you had, because you'd have had to modify the system software to get it) this isn't going to help you.

In short, unless you can find that card your options are either to give up on that game or to back up everything else and do a reset, after which you'll be able to reinstall the app but unless it had an online backup you will have to start again.

thank you

 

[mohamed075]

I'm guess that the sd card is formatted as external storage rather than internal, and you moved the app through the system Apps menu (I'm adding this qualification because there are at least 3 different ways of moving apps which have different properties).

Unfortunately unless you can find the card you are out of luck. As said above, parts of the app are now on the phone and other parts are on the card. The result is a mess: the phone thinks the app is installed but only bits are. Hence you can't install it (because the phone thinks it's installed), can't uninstall it (because some of the places it wants to delete stuff don't exist), and can't run it (because only a bit of it is there). I'd expect that the app icon might look rather "generic" when it's in this state, but it's been a while since I moved apps to sd (OK, 9 years...) so can't be sure.

Depending on how the game works your progress data may be on the card or in the part of the phone storage that only that app can access. But even if the data are on the phone you are stuck unless you already have root, and possibly even then. Without root only the app can access those data, and the app is broken. With root there are methods that might be able to back them up, but not all phones are rootable and for most phones the process of rooting will require a factory reset - so if you don't already have root (and you'd know if you had, because you'd have had to modify the system software to get it) this isn't going to help you.

In short, unless you can find that card your options are either to give up on that game or to back up everything else and do a reset, after which you'll be able to reinstall the app but unless it had an online backup you will have to start again.

i found the sd card but my sim tray is broken

 

[puppykickr]

i found the sd card but my sim tray is broken

Does the SD card share the same tray as the SIM?

Anyway, if you can carefilly piece the thing together it may still work.

If not, did you try turning the device off and then back on?
You should be doing this anyway when you physically mess with the SD card .
I am just wondering if this would allow you to uninstall the app after the device is rebooted.

I once had a SD card fail that was formatted as internal, and I had multiple apps moved onto the card.
My situation was similar to yours, except for the format of the card.
I think that the type of format allowed even more of the app data to be on the card, so after a reboot they were easy enough to uninstall.

Still very frustrating, and there were games that I liked and never went back to.

On the bright side, time has passed and I no longer even remember the names of those games.

Now I just play games that fit onto the internal memory of my devices, and dont mess around trying to put apps onto SD cards.

I used to be good at getting apps onto cards, even on devices that don't like that or apps that were not able.
Then I did the internal format on a SD card, and it was great for about a month or two until it crashed and took everything with it.

That was it for me with putting apps onto cards.

 

[Hadron]

i found the sd card but my sim tray is broken

As @puppykickr asks, does the sd card go in the SIM tray? (Some phones have combined trays, some have separate).

Have you tried to find a replacement tray? That would be the simple answer.