Apps on SD card no longer available

[absinthe_boy]

Hi people, I am new here but competent with tech. However I have a real problem.

A few days ago I turned my phone on in the morning (having it off overnight) and found that the icons for all apps stored on my SD card are ghost Android icons. The apps are no longer accessible. The card has NOT been removed, nor had the phone crashed or done anything unusual for several days prior to the apps disappearing. All music and photos stored on the card are still there, and the system shows only 2.6Gb free on the 8GB micro-SD card - indicating the apps are still taking up storage space and have not somehow been deleted.

I like to keep most of the internal memory free for videos so most of my apps were/are on the SD card. This setup had worked for over a year with the same card, never had any issues. I don't think I have ever removed the card during that time, certainly not for some months.

I have since tried unmounting and remounting the card, removing it and giving it a quick wipe clean with a dry cloth, removing the battery and doing a full restart. None of this has any effect. The phone is otherwise working perfectly, it's just the apps on the SD card that are unavailable. They show up as installed in the App Manager (with the ghost icon) but if I try to move them to the device storage I get the message "Unable to move app. App doesn't exist".

I've done a quick Google search and found similar problems but no solutions. In some cases people pulled the SD card out without unmounting or tried copying apps via Windows to another card without realising there are hidden folders with important app info. These don't apply here, the card has not been removed. I'm grateful for any advice and help!

Further details: Samsung Galaxy S II GT-I9100, Android version 4.1.2 (updated from ICS on 16th May).

 

[EyeSpy]

Do you have a spare microSD you can format and copy over the contents of the old onto the new one? Maybe the phone is finding a corrupt sector thus not finding it.

You could copy the contents to your computer, format the card, then reload it, but just another thought...

Sent from my DROID3 using Tapatalk 2

 

[absinthe_boy]

Do you have a spare microSD you can format and copy over the contents of the old onto the new one? Maybe the phone is finding a corrupt sector thus not finding it.

You could copy the contents to your computer, format the card, then reload it, but just another thought...

Sent from my DROID3 using Tapatalk 2

I only have smaller micro SD cards (256Mb, 4Gb).

One idea might be to copy the contents to the PC, reformat the card and then try to copy back?

 

[bweN diorD]

I only have smaller micro SD cards (256Mb, 4Gb).

One idea might be to copy the contents to the PC, reformat the card and then try to copy back?

you could copy the contents to your pc, erase the card, then use this H2testw 1.4 ? Gold Standard In Detecting USB Counterfeit Drives « SOSFakeFlash to test the card before using it again.

 

[binodkarki]

save user data and then factory reset - a solution for most of the problems

you could copy the contents to your pc, erase the card, then use this H2testw 1.4 ? Gold*Standard*In*Detecting*USB*Counterfeit*Drives « SOSFakeFlash to test the card before using it again.

1) Take the back up of your user data (messages / call logs / phone contact / any apps )
2) Pull out the sd card
3) Do a factory reset of your device
4) Insert the sd card and install the apps
5) Install the backed up content to your device

You can enjoy using your apps in your handset again

 

[leeshor]

My suggestion is to do the reverse of what you planned, but you will need a bigger card. Keep the apps local and the movies on the SD card. There have been lots of problem reports, for different reasons, from moving the apps to SD.

 

[bweN diorD]

1) Take the back up of your user data (messages / call logs / phone contact / any apps )
2) Pull out the sd card
3) Do a factory reset of your device
4) Insert the sd card and install the apps
5) Install the backed up content to your device

You can enjoy using your apps in your handset again

not sure why you quoted me, but if the card is bad there is no point in proceeding. why not just check it and eliminate that variable.

 

[binodkarki]

I hope , he would have verified either the apps work fine or not on the sd card and i feel its a bug on the software which can be recoverd via factory reset.. waiting eagerly for the result..