Database Develop

New Transcend 1GB SD card causing TomTom 5.21 to lock up

Hi there,
It looks like newer Transcend cards are not immune to the TomTom lock up issue.
I have an O2 branded XDA2i with PUGS rom etc. It runs TomTom5.21 fine with the first Transcend 1GB card I bought.
When I'm in the car, I have the phone connected to my car kit via bluetooth. When I make a call, TomTom continues to run, but shows the mute symbol. When I hang up the call, TomTom carries on as normal.
I decided to buy another Trancend card as a backup. This time, though whenever I make a call - TomTom locks up. As in other peoples posts, sometimes this can be cured by pulling the card and re-inserting, other times a soft reset is required.
I thought I'd got a faulty card, so bought another with the intention of returning the faulty one.
The new card shows the same problem.
All three cards were bought within two months of each other.
Anybody else seeing issues with new Transcend cards anfd TomTom?
Cheers,
Chris.

Could you have a look to how are your cards format?
32kb in fat32?
May be they are different...
It's interesting!

Hi there,
I used PocketMechanic to reformat the card to the same spec as the working card. Also tried many other combinations.
Dosn't make any difference on either of the two non working cards.
Perhaps my XDA is extra sensitive to power or speed of the card - but the two newer cards are definetly different.
Be warned all of you that think Transcend is the Holy Grail for SD cards.
Chris.

I have lockups using transcend 2gb 150x...tried several different format tools - it didn't help...
i don't know what to do with it...=(
I can't even listen to music because of pauses... I even tried a player which cashes songs into ram.... but what is strange - it didn't help...
but I think thats because of player didn't cash anything but said that did...
because I don't understand how can it stop playing for 1-2 seconds each minute with cash for 5mb or 5 minutes of music... =|

There is another post related to the same subject:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?p=240871#240871
I am experiencing the same problem.
I've bought the 1GB x80 TRANSCEND SD card a little less than a month ago because it was supposed to cure all QTEK2020i problems.
But in fact it hasn't changed ANYthing compared to the LEXAR x32 1GB I was using before.
So, I decided to upgrade my QTEK rom with PUGS rom while taking the risk of voiding the QTEK warranty.
Unfortunatly, it hasn't solved my problems either. It seemed more stable initialy, and has cured GPRS usage problems and brought slighlty better GSM quality, but that's all with my settings.
Someone has reported this week, that moving from SD to MMC has cured his TT5 problems.
I keep my fingers crossed hoping that this one will be the right fix.
For people who bought their PDA through EXPANSYS, I encourage you to join this support poll:
http://www.expansys.com/forumthread.asp?code=121444&thread=35&man=QTEK
And for those who bought the QTEK version of this PDA, I encourage you to complain about the lack of any suppoet on that product.

look at my solution here....
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=43143
hope that will help..[/url]

Ice_mephi said:
look at my solution here....
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=43143
hope that will help..[/url]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am sorry Ice_mephi but I don't see any solution there, or I've mistunderstood your comments.
I understand that your SD card might have had errors and they got fixed with the StorageTools application, but I don't see any link between this problem and the TT5.21 freezes. Thanks anyway for mentionning this application.
Listening to music out of any SD card has never been a problem for me, and hans't ben reported as being one from polls I've read so far.
Have I mistunderstood anything ?

I've been using the Transcend 80x 1Gb card with Tom Tom 5.21 on my XDAIIi with absolutely no problems at all for at least a month now (including traffic updates via GPRS). I used tha card as supplied, without reformatting etc.

Andy R said:
I've been using the Transcend 80x 1Gb card with Tom Tom 5.21 on my XDAIIi with absolutely no problems at all for at least a month now (including traffic updates via GPRS). I used tha card as supplied, without reformatting etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello Andy, also including POIS? Or only with the default installation.

Yes - I have POIs installed. It is set to remind me when I am near petrol stations and wi-fi hotspots (which I have set up myself).
I couldn't believe that the type of SD card would solve this, but it did, and I have never had a problem since!

Andy R said:
Yes - I have POIs installed. It is set to remind me when I am near petrol stations and wi-fi hotspots (which I have set up myself).
I couldn't believe that the type of SD card would solve this, but it did, and I have never had a problem since!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
SD? Another users say that the MMC is working better. :?
I have trascend SD 1Gb 80x, without pois it works perfect, but with them I have freezes... :?

From my experience, changing from a LEXAR x32 1GB to a TRANSCEND x80 1GB didn't solve the problem. Other persons mentionned that they got to the same conclusion with latest TRANSCEND SD cards.
Changing the SD formatting seems to have fixed most of TT5 issues with my TRANSCEND card but I haven't got on trip for hours to confirm it.
People who moved from SD to MMC seem to have got rid of any TT5 freezes.
EricD

MMC is the way ahead
I've tried all the stuff mentioned here, including getting a transcend sd card, and although it behaved for about an hour, it started freezing and locking regular after that. I now use a 1Gb TwinMOS MMC+ card, and after 400miles yesterday have not had a single problem. Take what you want from this, but my TT5.21 seems to prefer MMC.

MMC.... is the answer
Replaced my Transcend 1Gb & SanDisk Extreme III SD's for MMC and had no more lockups since
See this similiar post:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?p=240871#240871

Mine solution for lockups of SD card

So... Yesterday I did one thing - and as the result - no lockups while listening to music today...
I have Qtek 2020i and trancsend 150x 2GB SD card.
What I did:
1) formatted my SD card using card reader.
2) than copied music to card with card reader too.
3) inserted card into ppc - tried to listen to music and got lots of lockups....
4) some days ago I found a tool for fixing errors SD card on ppc(format and defragment also): "Storage Tools 2.0". I tried to check sd card with it - and it found lots of errors on sd card.. (there were 2 kind of errors: "lost chains of files" and "2 files pointing same data").. so I runned it and it removed those errors...
5) today I listened to music almost all the day - and wow! there were no lockups!
I do belive that that lockups are caused by some harware fault while reading and writing data to SD card via ppc. but that program somehow corrects errors...don't know how..
but ! be carefull - I tried to format my card using that tool - but after that - my ppc and PC showed me that the card has no free space - I tried to reformat it via card reader and other tools - it didn't help.
but on transcend homepage I found util for correcting "free space issue" (that is that card's known issue i think..) and it saved my card...
and one more advice - when you'll check your cards for errors - set option to correct errors automaticly, or you will get thousands of messages asking fix or not each found error, and aborting checking won't help.. (I waited for 20 minutes after I pressed stop button - than just soft reseted ppc...)...
so here is that util:
http://www.softwinter.com/storagetools.html
you can use it without paying for it as I understood.
use at your own risk anyway...

That sounds like good news Ice.....
Lets see what others have to say, especially with TT5.

Well I still get the occasional TomTom lock up with my bog standard bought in Tesco's 256MB SD card, formatted to FAT32 2kb (about 1 lockup per 3 days, compared to 1 lockup per 30 mins before I switched to PUGS 1.11.162 and reformatted the card), so I just downloaded and tried this with some interesting results...
I analysed my storage card and it told me that there were errors. So I ran repair (manually clicking ok on each error) and I got a few lost file chains, but about 30 "Bad Directory Entry". When it finished, I ran the "Verify" again, and it told me there were still errors. Ran repair again, this time just 3 "Bad Directory Entry" errors.
Upshot, each time I check it with this tool it tells me there are errors, and doesn't seem to be able to fix them. Pocket Mechanic on the other hand tells me that my card is fine and that there are no errors.
Don't know which to believe.

hm...wes there any work with card between checks? if there were some write operations it could cause new errors.. if that util worked from sd card exspecially..
I have no other card to test it myself...but my seems to work fine..
while listening to music I had lockuos about every 5 minutes...it's gone..
now I am going to try installing some programs to card and more music and see what happens...

So I tried to add\remove some data from card - no errors appeared - and no lock ups still...
so now i think that formatting SD card clears only header of a card, and leaves some info on free space - which can cause such trouble when accessing new data....

Used StorageTools to reformat SD as FAT32, 2K cluster size
Downloaded TT5 maps and ran Scan with Repair option but still issues with TT 5.21 lockup!!
Tried with both 1Gb SanDisk Extreme III and 1Gb Transcend 80x

heh =|
btw, you all speak about tomtom lockup, do you have lockups when listening to music? because I never used tomtom - I just had problems with music....

I think the corrupted data on the cards is caused by momentary power losses which the card reader experiences (thanks to a fault in the Alpine hardware), if I remember past discussion on this forum correctly...
Also, is the Transcend SD card an MLC or SLC card? Because as far as I know, SLCs don't suffer from the data problems MLC cards suffer sometimes when used in Alpines.

Chris,
How can you find out if the Transcend SD is MLC or SLC ?
Would upgrading to a later ROM fix the problem?

If you search the forums for the threads discussing MLC Vs. SLC, I think you'll find out your answer.
Basically, I believe the only ways to tell if a card is SLC or MLC are to either have a program which will tell you (I don't know of one myself), or check the manufacturer's web site for technical information... Or ask someone who may know.
I don't believe upgrading the ROM will solve the problem, it's a hardware issue (the card readers are too sensitive to power fluctuations). It was previously assumed that the latest Transcend cards were immune from the problems with some other makes of SD card, but it seems from various user reports that they do indeed suffer - usually randomly - from similar problems.
Another user reported that after switching from SD cards to MMC cards, the problem was alleviated, and he went from experiencing quite a few lockups daily to absolutely no problems at all. Therefore, it may be worth your while sending back the Transcend card and buying an MMC (which you're quite entitled to do if you're a UK resident and you purchased the card recently from a UK retailer, thanks to the Distance Sale of Goods Act).

There are other posts related to the same subject:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?p=240871#240871
and
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=39122&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=25
Someone has reported last week, that moving from SD to MMC has cured his TT5 problems.
For people who bought their PDA through EXPANSYS, I encourage you to join this support poll:
http://www.expansys.com/forumthread.asp?code=121444&thread=35&man=QTEK
And for those who bought the QTEK version of this PDA, I encourage you to complain about the lack of any support on that product.
_________________

christopherwoods said:
Another user reported that after switching from SD cards to MMC cards, the problem was alleviated, and he went from experiencing quite a few lockups daily to absolutely no problems at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ericd91 said:
Someone has reported last week, that moving from SD to MMC has cured his TT5 problems.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We're on the same wavelength

I had a 1Gb Sandisk, I had to buy a Transcend 80x 1Gb, and know do you think we have to buy another card (MMC)!!!??
Please QTEK!!!! Solve IT!!!!

Well, if you can't return the item for a refund, you could always flog it on eBay.

christopherwoods said:
Well, if you can't return the item for a refund, you could always flog it on eBay.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

I don't think the problem of TomTom lockups is caused by momentary power losses which the card reader experiences as stated by christopherwoods.
The card readers may be too sensitive to power fluctuations, but after doing the following testing, here is below the results I had:
1 - Transcend 2 Go SD card 150X (2Go) with QTEK 2020i using TOMTOM
5.21, but I took out the SIM card of my phone (so no more GSM signal)
I did not suffer any lockups with TOMTOM during many trips
2 - Transcend 2 Go SD card 150X (2Go) with QTEK 2020i using TOMTOM
5.21, but I put back the SIM card in my phone, and here are the
lockups back again.
I noticed that when my phone is searching for GSM signal (when moving from one cell to another, or in weak signal area), then it is precisly the time where TOMTOM lockup. Maybe it is when QTEK2020i search for GSM signal then there is power fluctuations on the card reader of the phone, which result with a lockup of TOMTOM or other applications (as stated by other people).
In this case, christopherwoods would be right.
Anyway, I have moved since more then one week to a Kingston 2Go MMC Plus Card, and I said goodbye to all the lockups problems, it works perfectly, and I'm very happy with my 2020i.

I can't say for sure, I've never experienced any problems like this on my 2i (but I have a fairly old 256mb SD card which JUST fits TT5 and the GB and NL plus maps, my largest SD card I use in my digital camera). All I mentioned in my previous post were things other people either took an educated guess at, or mentioned might be the cause of the problem. It seems that a fair few peoples' bug reports and diagnoses of their problems were quite similar though, which led me to believe that this is probably the cause.
It would fit, if the device needs to draw more power than available to boost the signal strength to handshake with a cell, I'd expect all the other interfaces to suffer as a result, the memory card unfortunately being particularly susceptible (especially with these newest, HUGE memory cards which I can only imagine are really sensitive to voltage change, being so tightly packed into the chip).

I don't think temporary power losses have anything to do with the problems we are facing.
TRANSCEND SD cards as most of FLASH cards assemblers work at 3.3V +/- 10 to 20%. For example the TRANSCEND 1GB x80 SL is given to work between 2.7V and 3.6V.
Also, the problems I have been having were the same with LEXAR 1GB x32 that used to be one of the reference cards for IPAQ2215, behaves the same way the TRANSCEND 1GB x80 does.
And TT5.21 freezes happen when the 2020i is plugged to the cigaret lighter adapter as well as being used on its onw battery.
A problem has been identified with TT5 when changing cell towers, and this might be still be the case even though TT5.21 was supposed to cure it.
I can reproduce the freezes 5min from home when entering a particular area, and changing cell tower migh have something to do with it.
When changing cell-phone tower I think it induces either higher data transfers between the radio module and the processor, or the opposite way keep it in hold for a pretty long time.
When looking at SD or MMC specs, I found out that several revisions of the MMC standard specifications have been released. So, I think the 2020i hardware or firmware version we are using, only supports a certain sets of this MMC/SD standards. The same issue was known on the IPAQ221x serie regarding BlueTooth.That PDA wasn't able to communicate properly with certain BT devices that implemented BT1.2 standard because of its hardware design. Also on that PDA certain SD cards weren't supported properly when running TT2 or 3. I found out at that time that running TT app & sound files out of RAM instead of SD was the cure to problems whatever SD card was used.
Unfortunatly, running TT5 and associated files out of SD or RAM doesn't change anything on the 2020i regarding freezes.
I think the problem is a hardware/firmware issue between cell-phone tower changes and SD card support.
Hope we'll figure out what the real issue is, and have a definitive fix for it.
So far, Bigdede's tip seems to be the one, unless other people than sybaseian have fix their problem when moving to newer ROM updates.

Hmm. Well, my old SD card is a PNY 256Mb, if that helps in diagnosis. I have the occasional problem with TT locking up if I try to load too many POI or display them on the map, you have to be patient with this SD card It's just got quite a slow access rate. That has to be one of the main reasons for this problem... Maybe the CPU just can't keep up with the fastest read/write rates of these new cards when it's having to think about loads of other stuff at the same time? Resulting in momentary data loss or corruption, just like WMP will sometimes stutter or crap out.

ericd91 said:
...I can reproduce the freezes 5min from home when entering a particular area, and changing cell tower migh have something to do with it...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The same for me I can reproduce this lockup it in a particular point. But only when I have additional pois activated.
(I have trascend 1Gb 80x)
Without these pois, it works perfectly.

my tilt keeps eating files on the sd card

my tilt keeps eating files on my sd card which hasent botered me much untill today it ate my tomtom maps and im over 200 miles from home so I don't know how im going to get home on thursday what could be causing this?

Could be a bad or dying card. I had one that behaved similarly -- got a new one that so far has been rock-solid

Newegg has some pretty cheap cards, I got a 2 gig for only 4 dollars, free shipping.

burtcom said:
Could be a bad or dying card. I had one that behaved similarly -- got a new one that so far has been rock-solid
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd say the same..
OP you got more chance that your card is corrupted than that your device has an appertite for data

that's what I thought when it 1st started but this card is only a cople weeks old. usually it just eats my wisbar themes or the folders there in this is the 1st time its ate anything oter than that.

Are you sure the files are totally gone? I had this happen a few weeks ago, where my ENTIRE SD card's contents were missing, and then out of the blue, they reappear unchanged. It happened again yesterday, and then, back to normal. Maybe an external reader could see if the files were there or not. Or try a data recovery program if they were deleted, there are a ton of free ones on the web. I think there was an alright one called something like Recuva. Good luck finding your files.
Dave

Disappearing files is not normal. Run a checkdisk.

I've had this happen to mine, as well. The files were there, but the file system had to me manipulated in order to get them to appear again. It would say on my computer that 5.38 GB of my 8 GB card were used, but no files were present. The only way it they would show up again was if I tried to recopy the files from my computer on a card reader. It would ask if I would like to overwrite the files, then they would reappear. I narrowed it down to an unknown error that kept happening after the Tilt would write a new file to the card. A hard reset is the only way I found to fix the problem. Since I did my most recent hard reset and formatted the Micro SD card and reinstalled everything, it works like a charm. Don't bother with AT&T. They are convinced it's a problem with the card. When I called, it was the first time that they had dealt with the issue. I even ended up talking to a rep from HTC, and they had never dealt with the issue. I, too, had TomTom Navigator, and lost maps. I have a SanDisk 8 GB MicroSD HC card. Maybe one or both of those components plays a factor in the error. I hate to say that you have to reset it to fix anything, but so far, it's the only thing that's worked. Back up your data. I carry a MicroSD card reader with me on my keychain with a card with duplicate data on it, just in case I am ever 200 miles from home without my GPS maps. I pop it in and worry about the issue when I get home.

I've to say you are not the only one person has this problem. My Tilt eat up SD contents all the time, especially when it try to write some contents to the card but the Tilt just switched-off during the writing. (I have some SW that pull data periodically from the Internet. Sometimes takes longer than the auto-off timer).
The only solution I have now is to make a backup mSD card on my notebook, and if anything suspecious happend to the card, I first run a chkdsk with notebook, or if the problem is beyond repair (like whole Tomtom missing), I just re-format the card then copy everything back.
Anyway, just chkdsk the card on PC periodically, my experience shows those small errors in begin will accomulate and finally eat up all files on the card.
And oh, yes, it's not necessarily a card problem. I have several mSD cards from various vendor with verious spec (speed, size) all shows the same problem.
Not perfect solution, but it serves me well. (Better than stuck 200miles from home...)

Maybe you should feed your phone more often so that it doesn't have those crazy urges to feast on your presious sd card files.

[Q] Dead External SD Card?

This may just be a case of me being genuinely unlucky in my purchases but humour me anyway!
Like you lot I have an SGS and with all the recent mods regarding sound I like to use it as my mp3 player, so buying a micro sd card for additional storage was a must.
I had a spare 4gb class 2 card lying around so I've been using that for some months. Finally decided to upgrade to a more meaningful 16gb class 4 card.
Ordered one off Amazon through a seller. As soon as I put the card in the phone, it refused to recognise it but my PC, digital camera, old blackberry 9000 and n95 saw it just fine. So I formatted the card in the pc using the downloadable SD Card formatter as some googling suggested this might return the card to a working state. After that the phone saw a 16gb card, so I copied some music onto it, it worked for about 30 mins and then the card died totally. Upon reinserting it into the pc, windows only saw an 8mb card in RAW format and nothing I've done since has recovered the card. Card was dead.
Anyway I contacted the seller who posted me a nice shiny Kingson 16gb class 6 card right away.
New card arrived last night, appeared in the phone straight away as a 16gb card. Great start.
Plugged the phone in, started copying some music on it - the write speed was incredibly slow. I mean really slow, 100mb of mp3s was taking the best part of 3 minutes. Popped the card in the PC, same problem.
I find that I can actually write data to the card till its full (albeit slowly) but once you've written more than around 4gb of data, the files start to vanish.
I know it sounds incredibly stupid but anything written after around the 4gb mark just doesn't appear when I plug it into the phone or the PC. The card claims it is full, but only 4gb of data is visible, let alone accessible. I've done the usual formatting of the card and changing card readers etc etc but the result is the same and this is starting to grow boring.
So, question. Am I just incredibly unlucky in my purchases or is my SGS killing cards? Because I'm quite weary of buying yet another card now.
Funny enough my old 4gb card still works just fine like it has for years.

I know you'll have a FAT (file allocation table) that usually reserves a predetermined amount of space on the card for file locations. But your memory card should not be able to accept more than whats available and should be displayed correctly no matter what your using. IE pc or phone. Kingston are fairly reputable, but is your dealer reputable. There are a lot of counterfeits out there. I don't believe the phone itself is damaging these cards. Since your stating your old trusty card still works like a champ
Sent from my GT-I9000M using XDA App

Data is getting automatically lost from memory card. Reasons??

I am using Samsung Galaxy note 2 and a song 32gb class 4 SD card. A couple of days back, I noticed that something was missing from my gallery and holy ****..all my pics and videos from the camera folder were missing. There were more than 2000 in number and around 10gb in size. But when I checked for storage size, free space was same.. 4GB even after the loss of 10 GB. I recovered them using Recuva. After recovering the data I did a quick format and moved the data back to memory card. Today when i was in the gym, I noticed that songs were getting repeated very frequently and when I checked, I had only 29 songs left out of 550 and again i was left with the same amount of free space as I had before the loss. I tried to recover it through Recuva, but this time I could recover only 121 songs. I use to swap my card between my htc chacha and note 2, but that's not the first time. And when i recover files from my card, the path shown in Recuva is something like this.
G:\? \
Anybody got an idea, what's the matter? I hate SONY and this is a last Sony product that I have bought in my life. It's my 3rd card which I got as a replacement from the company. I was planning to buy a ps3, but I have changed my mind. I will go for an xbox instead, because after one year of buying my psp one of its button stopped working and company said it can't be repaired.

I have a similar problem. The card disconnects very often and usually many of the stored data become corrupted. I changed the sd with other brand and the same thing happens.
Maybe there is a problem with the sd reader of my note.
Have you tried another microsd to check if it is the microsd's fault before blaming sony?

I guess you didn't read my post properly my friend. I have mentioned that it's my 3rd sd card, which I got as replacement from the company. I had kinda similar issues with the those 2 cards too. Kingston was working fine. Now I have placed an order for samsung sd card. But I wanna know the reason why it is happening? That wired drive path... Whats is that

I have the same issue on the TW roms. But on CM roms no problems at all..

I have same problem