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Help new card - android is missing the old apps

_abcd_

Lurker
Nov 4, 2016
5
0
Hello
in my old Sony Z2 (android 6) did I change the card. But now write android, the apps are on the card (the old one) and coudn*t be opened.
Is it possible to tell the android that it must forgot that apps on the old card?
Or have I to reset the whole phone and start new at the fabric status?
regards
foren
 
So you moved apps to SD then removed the card. Yes, that will break the apps, but the thing you need to know is that only part of the app is moved to the card, so you've got partially-installed (and therefore non-functional) apps on the phone.

Have you tried putting the old card back in the phone and moving the apps to the phone? If you can do that and everything will actually fit on the phone then you can swap cards and them move apps to the new card if you want. Even if you can't fit everything on the phone, I'd try this and see what you can fit. If that works you can uninstall the apps you can't move and then reinstall them once you'[ve swapped cards.

If that doesn't work (i.e. the apps remain broken even when you put the old card in) you could try uninstalling any broken apps and then reinstalling them (with the new card in the phone). A pain, but then so is restoring everything after a reset. (and if you reset, do make sure you have everything important backed up first). But if putting the old card back in doesn't work then those are your options: try to uninstall the broken apps or reset the lot. The phone doesn't know that you've changed cards, it only knows that it can't find parts of the apps that were moved to the card (i.e. there are broken pointers inside the part of the storage where the app should live). So provided this messed-up state doesn't prevent it uninstalling them, uninstalling the affected apps is the way of telling the phone to forget them without resetting everything.

Incidentally I am assuming that you moved apps with the old pre-android-6 "move to SD" option, and not by formatting the old card as internal storage. If you did the latter than it's possible that it moved more stuff, and I'd really recommend putting the old card back in your phone, moving what you can to the phone storage, and backing up everything you can. I've no experience with formatting cards as internal storage, but everything I read from people who've done it tells me it's less straightforward than it sounds.
 
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Hi Hadron,
thank for your helpful answer!
But my problem is, that I can't insert the old card. It isn't available no more. I dit it put in my new phone and it was overwritten before that change.
I think, there is no other way then reset the whole phone?
Or is it possible, to put into a new empty card in the phone? I would prefere this. But you did write about parts of the lost apps, being at the internal memory? Do this means, that only a new card can't solve the problem?
regards
abcd
 
Last edited:
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If the card is overwritten, then you can assume that any old media/data is gone from it.

Unfortunately, it sounds as if your app data is gone.

@Hadron was trying to explain that only a portion of an app actually gets moved to an SD card.

Generally, this means only the static part of the app- the part that does not change is on the card.

All of your personal data- the data that changes- is stored onto the internal memory, which in this case would be your old device.

As far as formatting the card as internal memory, this would not have helped anyway because the card would then be encrypted for only that device, and not readable by any other device.
 
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Yes, just sticking a new card in won't help because the apps are still partially missing (parts were on the old card, now unavailable). So all I can suggest is trying to uninstall and reinstall the apps that have been broken by doing this. Only do a reset if that won't work, i.e. the phone will neither let you install a new copy nor let you uninstall the broken copy that I assume is on there.
 
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I can't delete the broken apps:
if I try to open a broken app, write the phone that it can't start the app because the app is placed at the card.
In the menue where I can delete the apps doesn't appear that äpp.
Ergo: the last pssibility is to reset the whole phone and formate the card or use a new one?
regards
abcd
 
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