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Help SD card change causes force close on incoming calls

JB in AZ

Android Expert
Oct 27, 2009
1,869
267
Florida
Hey guys, strange problem with my son's Hero. Short version: Force closes on incoming calls wirh new 8GB sd card.

Although I have gotten pretty good at figuring out many things on the Hero, this one has me stumped, so I/we would appreciate some help.

Although the phone is rooted with Fresh 2.3.3, I doubt that is the cause here, as my Hero is also rooted with 2.3.3 and I am using an 8GB class 6 card in mine with no issues. But I thought it was important to mention it anyway. If need be, this post/thread can be moved to the all things root sub forum.

He bought and installed a new 8GB class 6 micro sd card. Formatted it in his phone, then, after having copied all his data from the old card to his computer, he then copied it all back onto the new card. He can view his pictures and listen to music, he can make out-bound cslls, but when he receives an incoming call, he gets a mesage something like "process android.phone has unexpectedly quit', and of course, the only option is to click Force Close. Then he has to reboot the phone to be able to use it for anything. Putting the stock 2GB card back in returns the phone to normal behavior.

This has been very hard for us to troubleshoot, as he doesn't live near me, and we each only have the Hero as our only phone. After quite some time without any positive results, we figured it was a bad sd card and returned it.

He then bought a different brand sd card, Kingston, 8gb class 4, and after the same data transfer process, he experiences the exact same behavior on incoming calls!

Any ideas or help??? I will probably be driving out to see him tomorrow (Tuesday) to try to figure this out with him.

Thanks!
 
Anybody have any ideas? One thought I had: He is using a custom ringtone that of course, is on the SD card. Perhaps the path to that sound file is getting "confused" during the copy and paste? When a call come in an the phone looks for that file to play, it can't find it??? Just grasping at straws at this point. I have emailed him and suggested that he set the ringer to be one of the default sounds with the standard 2 gb card, then put in the new 8GB card and then try it.
 
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Has he tried factory resetting the phone? Or even reflashing the ROM? That's what I would do. Then I'd put the new sdcard in before I booted for the first time.

It's not much of a hassle for root users, since we have titanium backup :)

While we haven't factory reset yet, we have tried going back to the first Nandroid backup from right after rooting, same FC with either new SD card. I'm not sure if he has reflashed the ROM.
 
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The first thing that came to my mind as I read the OP was sd card curruption, JB ("putting the stock 2GB card back in returns the phone to normal behavior").

Fairly easy to test and then remedy (switch cards, etc). ;)

That was my first thought also, but two new different SD cards? And he tried it with the newest sd card... just formatting it in the phone, and before any data was put on it, it still FCs.
 
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YAY! Its fixed! As I suspected, it apparently was the path to the custom ringtone on the new sd card. We set the ringtone to a default one on the phone with the stock 2GB card in, then tested. Worked fine. Then put in the new 8GB card, still using the stock ringtone, all good... We then re-assigned the same previous custom ringtone he was using, and ta da! Success!

Thanks for all the help and suggestions!
 
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