Wow. I am blown away at all the numerous posts, on numerous sites, involving numerous types of Android phones concerning this problem. And there isn't ONE clear answer.
I have an HTC Incredible. Everything is stock. No rooting. No special launching apps involved, just HTC Sense. No special 'apps2sd' program used, just 2.2's system of moving apps to SD. Few month-old 16GB SanDisk SD card added.
My situation was that the Android Market popped up yesterday with about 15 updates. Of course, it tries to just update them all at once and the installs get bottle-necked (I think this is a flaw in the Market app, IMO). Why it doesn't update one at a time when "Update All" is pushed, I don't know. After multiple Market app Force Closes from the installs getting choked up, I decide to reboot the phone and get a fresh start. I cancel all pending Market updates first, then reboot.
When my phone comes back up, several messages pop up saying this app and that app can't be found now. Over half of my icons turn into the generic Android icon and none of those can be opened. All of these programs were Moved to SD using 2.2. Astro shows that all of my SD files and apps are still on the SD card. When I go to the Applications area in Settings, all of my apps are listed under the "Downloaded" tab, but under the "SD Card" tab, it is completely empty! Multiple reboots of the phone, battery and SD card removal change none of this.
Scouring the forums shows that multple people have run into this exact same problem, but no solid answer is given beyond 'bad SD card' or 'reset everything'. To me, this seems like some kind of initialized-file, boot-sector-type problem. Some file somewhere on the internal phone memory that points to the SD card and says 'here is where your SD apps are'. This file, that boots with the phone, gets corrupted somehow and POOF, all of your apps disappear, as far as your phone is concerned. What is this file (or files) and how do I back the damn thing up!
Since the applications can still be listed in the Settings, I can't believe this isn't just some kind of text file, loaded on boot, that acts as a traffic cop to tell your phone WHERE the app is. Can some heavy Android programmer shed some light on this, or just tell me that I am way off base and the Android file system doesn't work like that.
UPDATE: I just formatted my SD card, tested it by moving one reinstalled app to it successfully, and then copied over all files back to the SD card that I had backed up on my PC (the SD card is not the problem). After a reboot, absolutely nothing changed. This HAS to be a file (or files) that got corrupted on the internal phone memory side. There should be some kind of "Restore to last good install"-type thing for this operating system. Why even have an SD card if its file system can just be corrupted so easily by the OS. Frustrating.
I have an HTC Incredible. Everything is stock. No rooting. No special launching apps involved, just HTC Sense. No special 'apps2sd' program used, just 2.2's system of moving apps to SD. Few month-old 16GB SanDisk SD card added.
My situation was that the Android Market popped up yesterday with about 15 updates. Of course, it tries to just update them all at once and the installs get bottle-necked (I think this is a flaw in the Market app, IMO). Why it doesn't update one at a time when "Update All" is pushed, I don't know. After multiple Market app Force Closes from the installs getting choked up, I decide to reboot the phone and get a fresh start. I cancel all pending Market updates first, then reboot.
When my phone comes back up, several messages pop up saying this app and that app can't be found now. Over half of my icons turn into the generic Android icon and none of those can be opened. All of these programs were Moved to SD using 2.2. Astro shows that all of my SD files and apps are still on the SD card. When I go to the Applications area in Settings, all of my apps are listed under the "Downloaded" tab, but under the "SD Card" tab, it is completely empty! Multiple reboots of the phone, battery and SD card removal change none of this.
Scouring the forums shows that multple people have run into this exact same problem, but no solid answer is given beyond 'bad SD card' or 'reset everything'. To me, this seems like some kind of initialized-file, boot-sector-type problem. Some file somewhere on the internal phone memory that points to the SD card and says 'here is where your SD apps are'. This file, that boots with the phone, gets corrupted somehow and POOF, all of your apps disappear, as far as your phone is concerned. What is this file (or files) and how do I back the damn thing up!
Since the applications can still be listed in the Settings, I can't believe this isn't just some kind of text file, loaded on boot, that acts as a traffic cop to tell your phone WHERE the app is. Can some heavy Android programmer shed some light on this, or just tell me that I am way off base and the Android file system doesn't work like that.
UPDATE: I just formatted my SD card, tested it by moving one reinstalled app to it successfully, and then copied over all files back to the SD card that I had backed up on my PC (the SD card is not the problem). After a reboot, absolutely nothing changed. This HAS to be a file (or files) that got corrupted on the internal phone memory side. There should be some kind of "Restore to last good install"-type thing for this operating system. Why even have an SD card if its file system can just be corrupted so easily by the OS. Frustrating.
