Incredible: ALL apps force close on startup

[anthonym83]

Well first off is it the same exact problem that I'm having?

Mine happened while rotating through stock battery and 2 very cheap batteries I bought from Hong Kong a few months ago when I FIRST bought the phone.

Is the problem still happening after wiping the phone? Wouldn't that be your answer ?

 

[techguru]

Do we really think it could be the Seidio battery causing this issue or have others had this happen with the stock battery as well???? Ugh, did I seriously just waste $50 on this Seidio battery? :-(

Since I reinstalled and finally got everything back the way it was, I've done a nandroid backup (and may now do this every WEEK!) just in case. As a side note, is there a way to have your SD card apps backed up as well through nandroid? Or is there a better backup method that gets both settings & apps on the internal memory and apps on the SD card?

I think it was my Seidio, but I don't think that is the only possible issue. I think it is because the Seidio was being carried unprotected in my pocket and because it is not quite as "tightly" put together as the stock battery it may have gotten flexed a bit and caused a short.

Take a look at Titan Backup (need to be rooted, but since you mentioned Nandroid, you are). It will backup apps that are installed on the SD as well, and the paid version will save the backup to Dropbox so if you lose the phone you can still restore (to a replacement).

Alan

 

[earthformed]

It seems I am having the exact same problem as Anthony. I powered down the phone, removed the battery, replaced with a new one and booted up. MOST non-stock apps are either just immediately closing or forcing closed and asking that I report them. Phone is running very slow and has had a hard time finding a signal for voice or data networks in places I know there should be good signal.

NOTE: I am switching between two stock HTC batteries. Not Seidio. My DH has the Seidio which is how I have two stock HTC.

Unfortunately, other than the backup assistant provided by Verizon to backup contacts I do not have a formal backup of my phone information. I have connected it to my PC and downloaded all the folders from the phone storage and my SD card as a precaution. I tried to do an app list backup with various programs which claim to successfully install on the phone, but then force closed like everything else. Some close immediately and others close when I try to access the phones information in any way - backup, restore, copy, etc.

 

[techguru]

It seems I am having the exact same problem as Anthony. I powered down the phone, removed the battery, replaced with a new one and booted up. MOST non-stock apps are either just immediately closing or forcing closed and asking that I report them. Phone is running very slow and has had a hard time finding a signal for voice or data networks in places I know there should be good signal.

NOTE: I am switching between two stock HTC batteries. Not Seidio. My DH has the Seidio which is how I have two stock HTC.

Unfortunately, other than the backup assistant provided by Verizon to backup contacts I do not have a formal backup of my phone information. I have connected it to my PC and downloaded all the folders from the phone storage and my SD card as a precaution. I tried to do an app list backup with various programs which claim to successfully install on the phone, but then force closed like everything else. Some close immediately and others close when I try to access the phones information in any way - backup, restore, copy, etc.

I think the only way to clear the errors safely is a hard reset, and then re-install everything. A real pain, but it is the safest. Contacts will automatically resync from Google.

Some apps automatically back up data or configurations to the SD card or have manual backups if they are apps you can get running before you reset. Try and look through the apps that will run and see if you have a way to back up their data if it is not easily re-produced (things like Note Everything, Various list and task management programs, etc...).

Then the first thing I would do is look into backup apps. The best ones (Nandroid and Titanium) require root. I found Sprite to be useless (worked great on my Windows Mobile, but only restored a few settings when I tried on the incredible).

Alan

Alan

 

[aaoaoo]

just had the EXACT same problem as Anthony not 30 minutes ago with my Incredible: most apps force closing on startup, Angry Birds uninstalled, note and to-do apps empty, most apps force close when trying to open them. the last app i installed was Sound Hound last night. uninstalled it this morning, still having the problem after a couple reboots and battery removals.

this is with the stock battery. no heat issues.

not happy.

 

[techguru]

just had the EXACT same problem as Anthony not 30 minutes ago with my Incredible: most apps force closing on startup, Angry Birds uninstalled, note and to-do apps empty, most apps force close when trying to open them. the last app i installed was Sound Hound last night. uninstalled it this morning, still having the problem after a couple reboots and battery removals.

this is with the stock battery. no heat issues.

not happy.

What had you done right before it started? Changed battery? Plugged it in? What is your battery level at?

I am trying to correlate as much about these incidents as we can.

Enough of us have had it that I think we should all be reporting to Verizon Tech Support or HTC as well. If 5 or 6 of us are discussing it here, it has probably happened to 5 or 6 hundred customers and they may already know or have a solution.

I'll make some calls tonight.

Alan

 

[aaoaoo]

i think it was the first time i woke it up that morning. it had been plugged in all night (but powered on as i use the alarm clock), so the battery was pretty close to full. i noticed that some of the app icons were slightly distorted and discolored - maybe elongated? i thought a power cycle would fix it, but when i powered it back on it immediately rebooted itself again, then when it did boot up again, i received all the force closes i described.

i did update 5-6 apps before i went to bed the night before, using "update all," but i'll never remember which ones. i steer clear of fishy apps, but my best guess is that one of the updates messed things up?

thanks for taking the reins, techguru.

 

[deepakp]

Same symptoms, suspect one cause

Hi,

I have started getting the same symptoms reported by many here, since yesterday. These include
- Lots of apps report a force close on boot, even apps that are not running at start up
- Widgets report errors
- Phone behaves funny (very slow, some icons seem to have effect when I click on them)
- Battery drains very fast
- Cannot synchronize email
- Apps I had moved to my SD card are not visible
- Any apps that access SD card won't run
- Some apps run but dont behave right and have lost all settings. E.g. Foursquare started prompting for a login again and doesn't accept my id any more. Some games have lost all progress. Astro crashes when I access any folder.

I am guessing that two events (shutdown and connection to USB) happening concurrently resulted in some corruption in SD card, or phone or both. However, when I remove the SD card I still get the same symptoms.

Someone mentioned they were able to access and back up data from SD card. I am on the road right now, so have not been able to verify that.

Is the only remedy a backup, hard reset and restore?

Thanks,
Deepak

I am using the stock battery. It all started when I attempted to connect the phone to my laptop to recharge, just as the phone started shutting down due to low battery. The phone hung at that point, I had to remove the battery to power it down. Once rebooted, all symptoms above started.

 

[techguru]

Only solution that seems to work is reboot and restore (hopefully you have some kind of backup, although Gmail, Calendar, and Contacts take care of themselves, and the market will take care of your purchased apps).

i talked to tech support at VZW and at least the rep I talked to hadn't heard of the issue, and since I am not currently having it, he said he couldn't do anything for me.

I'll try again though, and try to find time to call HTC as well. (ask any two verizon reps the same question, you will get three answers, so not surprised the first one I called didn't know about it).

Alan

 

[jgordon00]

Since this happened to me, I now run a nandroid backup every week and also double up by using Titanium to backup my apps. What a pain to have to reset everything and reinstall. If this happens again, I should be much more prepared.

I wonder if the update that is supposed to come out next week for the Incredible possibly addresses this issue. It's clearly not noted in the release details but you know that HTC and Verizon would rather keep the issue quiet and release a patch rather than admit to such a terrible bug.

 

[mizznici]

I too started having this issue this week. I use an extended battery purchased from Verizon. Haven't downloaded anything for months. Phone froze on startup so I pulled battery and now majority of my apps force close. My contact list disappeared. It was insane. I could go and make a message and when I typed a letter in the to field you could see all my contacts to choose from but they could not be found in the contact list. I never backed them up with Google - just saved to phone when saving a new contact.

I was able to get them back by uninstalling my work exchange account and readding it but my apps still force close.

I only have a few apps so thinking I will just factory reset if that is the only option but definitely sucks. I did get the new software today and my HTC rep said that would help but it didnt.

 

[Shade00]

Hey guys, just wanted to share my experience. I got my Incredible over the weekend and ordered an HTC 1500 mah battery from Amazon on Monday, received it yesterday. I turned my Incredible off at about 10:30, and at that time it was operating just fine. I installed the 1500 mah battery and let the phone charge overnight, then bump charged it in the morning. When I turned it on for the first time I started to have serious issues. Several of my apps force closed on boot and all of my non-Sense gadgets would not load. Angry Birds is also gone completely, and I too am a bit angry as I had advanced pretty far.

Anyway, something seems to have gotten corrupted when I switched batteries. Now I assume I'll have to do a factory reset to get things back to normal. This sucks though - if I can't switch batteries without corrupting the system, the phone will be significantly less useful. I am considering returning the phone and getting a Droid X.

Update: I went ahead and did the factory reset. Things are working normally again. I was able to get things mostly back to how I liked them because I had installed Appbrain prior to the self-destruct. However, I am still extremely gun shy over this problem. If it happens again, I will definitely return the phone for a Droid X. I'm afraid to try the Seidio 3500 I ordered too, for fear that I will have to factory reset again. The other big pain is that my text messages are, of course, all gone.

 

[techguru]

The one factor that seems to be consistent is that this happens when switching batteries.

I haven't had it happen again since the two times in early October. I am not sure if it is just luck, but there are two actions I am taking to try to prevent it.

1) when I replace the battery I make sure to remove the old and replace the new dead straight and I don't let the connection bounce. I want to make sure I am not shorting the leads and am not making and breaking a connection.

2) if the phone is hot, I let it cool down after I turn it off before putting the fresh battery in. when I had the problem the battery status widget I use reported that the battery was over heated, so I try to avoid that.

So far, so good, but I am still taking Backup every few days just in case.

Alan

Sent from my Droid Incredible using DroidForums App

 

[scottglass47]

same problem started yesterday

I had the same problem start yesterday after I switched to my stock battery. After reading the threads I switched from my stock battery back to the high capacity battery and everything works. The stock battery doesn't look damaged but it is the obvious culprit. Thanks for the advice.

 

[cybil66]

This happened to me today when switching from my stock battery to an extended battery I bought from ebay. It sounds like the only choice I have is to factory reset so I will give that a try.

Will backup assistant restore my contacts after a hard reset?