Root [Virgin Mobile/Sprint] UIDs on the system are inconsistent

[adam97202]

I upgraded my rooted F3's SD card from 16GB to 32GB yesterday. I have almost all my apps stored on a 2nd partition using Link2SD, so I cloned both partitions to the new card, then started up again hoping everything would be OK. And it almost was. However, on startup I got the following warning, in front of the swipe-to-unlock screen:

System UIDs Inconsistent

UIDs on the system are inconsistent,
you need to wipe your data partition
or your device will be unstable.

And then there's a single button labeled "I'm Feeling Lucky". I clicked the button to dismiss the warning and found that a bunch of my apps (but not all) were force-closing when I tried to run them, but I got them working again by re-installing from the Play Store.

Now, everything seems normal again, except that I still get this "Inconsistent UIDs" message when I boot up. It makes me nervous, obviously.

I've googled this and found some suggestions on fixes (usually involving "TWRP"), but haven't found anything that mentions the F3, so I thought I'd see whether anyone in this forum has dealt with it.

 

[sandix]

That is very strange, have you done this before on another phone?

 

[adam97202]

No, but I did switch SD cards once before and had none of these problems.

 

[sandix]

Well I do believe that when you flash a ROM to the phone it generates a new UID for the system. I could be wrong. you might have to start from scratch.

 

[adam97202]

I didn't flash a ROM, I just rooted it (with saferoot).

 

[sandix]

try this:
1. with the phone powered on, hold the power button.
2. when the power menu comes up, select and HOLD "Power Off"
3. When asked if you are sure you want to boot into safe mode, select OK.
4. let the phone reboot and see if you still get a warning about system UIDs.

If you do, then it is an app you have installed and you should uninstall each of them one by one while rebooting between each uninstall.

 

[adam97202]

I'm sure this isn't about a specific app; I didn't install anything new to make this happen. The problem is most likely related to Link2SD.

 

[sandix]

I understand that, and if it is links2sd related, it is an app you installed at some point

I'd still try safe mode just be sure of that, or redo your whole links2sd solution all over again.

But since I do not use links2sd I am unsure of how to troubleshoot issues related to it, I figured I'd try to help out as much as possible though.

 

[adam97202]

Well, things got worse before they got better... I tried using the batch "fix permissions" function in ROM Toolbox, and everything went to hell! Almost all of my apps were unusable unless re-installed, and I was still getting the "Inconsistent UIDs" message. I was about ready to throw in the towel and restore my phone to out-of-the-box factory status.

But first I tried a slightly less drastic approach: I uninstalled EVERYTHING that was linked to the SD card's second partition, and reformatted the partition. (Figuring out how to get the partition to unmount so I could format it with "Aparted" was tricky; the command "umount /data/sdext2" in a terminal emulator did it.)

Now it seems to be OK (knock on wood), but I'm left with the annoying task of re-installing all of my apps.


But there's still no explanation for why everything blew up to begin with...

 

[robaho]

Well, things got worse before they got better... I tried using the batch "fix permissions" function in ROM Toolbox, and everything went to hell! Almost all of my apps were unusable unless re-installed, and I was still getting the "Inconsistent UIDs" message. I was about ready to throw in the towel and restore my phone to out-of-the-box factory status.

But first I tried a slightly less drastic approach: I uninstalled EVERYTHING that was linked to the SD card's second partition, and reformatted the partition. (Figuring out how to get the partition to unmount so I could format it with "Aparted" was tricky; the command "umount /data/sdext2" in a terminal emulator did it.)

Now it seems to be OK (knock on wood), but I'm left with the annoying task of re-installing all of my apps.


But there's still no explanation for why everything blew up to begin with...

are you sure you are using an ext (Linux) partition? fat partitions can't store the uid values

 

[adam97202]

are you sure you are using an ext (Linux) partition? fat partitions can't store the uid values

Yes, ext2.


Update: halfway through re-installing my apps (from Titanium Backup), I rebooted and started getting the UIDs message again.

 

[gherkaul]

Look in /data/system. You'll see a file named uiderrors.txt. It will list all apps causing a uid error. That might help you pin down which app/apps is causing the error.

 

[sandix]

Look in /data/system. You'll see a file named uiderrors.txt. It will list all apps causing a uid error. That might help you pin down which app/apps is causing the error.

I didn't even know that! wow!

 

[rklatte]

I had the same thing (Inconsistent UID message) after setting up Link2SD awhile back. I never had weird behavior though, just the popup message every reboot. I think I fixed it by fixing permissions for the offending app but I don't remember how I actually found the app. I'm using an EXT4 partition, FWIW.

Hopefully the error log Gherkaul mentioned will point you in the right direction.

Sorry I can't be more helpful!

EDIT: if you still haven't fixed this, try EXT4 instead. I was never able to get EXT2 to work and I seem to remember that the F3 might not have the needed libraries for it??? Sorry, fuzzy on this detail too!

 

[adam97202]

I never had trouble previously with ext2... I think I used that format because I was able to get my Mac to read it.

As for the uiderrors.txt file, it's weird: when I checked just now the file was FULL of error messages from all the problems I had on Sunday and earlier on Monday (almost every app was showing an error), but then, after about 22,000 characters, it cut off in the middle of a line, as if it was "full" and couldn't store any more errors! So I erased its contents and will check it again if I have any more problems.


The good news is, when I had problems during the app-restoration process last night, I was able to go back a few steps, find the one with problems, and remove it... and then the error went away on the next reboot. So maybe the Titanium Backup packages were corrupted somehow. I also think doing lots of them at once was asking for trouble.