Database Develop

[ThinkTank] How to speed up Market after wipe (Partial fix)

Okay, this has been bugging me for a long time. I've been around since the beginning of G1 and have never seen a solution to this. I'm out of town on vacation, so my updates and responses may be slow. I've found a partial solution for this. If you don't want to read the fluff, drop down to Partial Solution sections, but be warned, this is not perfect (yet). Below is a quick spilling of my guts on this. Please excuse any grammar mistakes and fragmented thought. I posted this in DEV because more research needs to be done by someone that knows how this stuff works. If we get this worked out, I'll update this post with whatever information is necessary.
This post takes for granted the reader has some knowledge of file management and manipulation, so I won't get too detailed with how to copy/move/delete files. There is a lot of information here and I know most won't read it all, but I'm trying to get all the detail into this I can think of in hopes others have ideas that we can share.
I DO NOT KNOW THE RAMIFICATIONS OF WHAT THIS DOES! ANYTHING THAT HAPPENS TO YOUR PHONE IS YOUR FAULT, NOT MINE! Etc... Etc... Etc...
Issue: After flashing/Odin/wiping, sometimes the Market takes about a minute to load as does the app and security info screens. The Top Paid button is missing and all that's available is Top Free and Just In. Installing an app takes quite a bit of time. It eventually clears up, but it may take up to a week.
If you restore Market preferences via Titanium Backup or similar app, it can speed it up, but in the long run, you may get cross referenced apps over time or Market problems in general. For example, I install app1 and when it's finished, I select it in notifications and it takes me to app3. Some apps are also missing from Downloads and have to be installed again for them to show up. I also experience Titanium Backup not linking the Market correctly if at all. How to fix that is below, also.
How I Tested: I renamed /dbdata/databases/com.android.vending which reproduced the problem reliably and gave me a working set of databases and .xml's to look at.
Partial Solution: Save a copy of /dbdata/databases/com.android.vending/shared_prefs/vending_preferences.xml and put it back after you've restored your apps and opened Market once (just to lay down the directory structure). There are other files that will get more "stuff" back, but because of issues I've had between vending.apk versions, I choose to restore just this one file. It doesn't seem to change much. You can look in it and find some interesting things, but I've found changing it does very little if anything. Changing local_db_sync_required didn't do anything and it just reverted back to "false" for me.
What you will find, is Market will run quickly again BUT, you have no links so none of your apps show as installed. Although it will probably sync over time, the point of my messing around was fairly instant gratification. Thus the next section.
New Problem: Market speed is normal, but no apps are linked. Hey, I use Titanium backup! Fix Market links works, partially. I have 226 apps backed up in TB (Yes, this is why I wanted to get this working) and when I fixed Market links, it found 167. I fixed them again and it found 9, then 17, then 6 etc... It repeated some apps and never detected others. I checked and some of the "fixed" apps did not show in downloads... So I started looking. Menu -> Legend showed me part of the issue. Smiley face -vs- green M. For some reason, some of my apps were not linking properly. Here's how to get that part working.
Partial Solution: Here's what I did in TB. I filtered by Status: Backed up and Type: User. Starting at the top of the list, I long pressed on the first "smiley face" which means it didn't back up the Market link and if it was "Attached to Market", I Detached it. View in Market and installed the app. When it was done, I backed the app up again and viola, green M showing it backed up the Market link. I did this many, many more times to fix my links. It worked in all occasions as long as I could find the app in the Market. Of course, some apps installed outside the Market cannot be fixed (duh), but all others worked fine.
I still have a problem getting everything attached in one shot. If I fix Market links in TB, I still get strange results, but this is as close as I can get and I found quite a few apps that have not been linked for so long, they were a few revs behind, so I'm happy with how far I've gotten.
Questions that will be asked:
- Why didn't you force attach to Market with TB? Because it didn't work. Some indicated it did, but they didn't show up in Market as installed, they didn't back up as linked and some even reverted back to not being attached and the forced button was available. The above is how I got around all of that.
- What about the other cool DB's and .xml? I didn't find that it was worth any possible issues to restore anything else except this file. That is probably what got me into this in the first place. Your mileage may vary. DB's usually need an update script if any changes are made. If that doesn't happen and the schema doesn't match, that's usually bad. That's why a lot of ROM's require a wipe. The old doesn't match the new...
- Why can't you backup Market with TB now that it is working well? I could and it would probably work, but I know it won't work forever because it didn't before. It also won't help someone else who is in a similar situation. I've been using TB (paid) since it came out and I love it. But, it's not perfect.
- Why should I mess with this instead of waiting for it to fix itself? You probably shouldn't. I've found that if I did a restore of apps, some NEVER go back to the Downloads section without a re-install. That's my concern.
- I don't have any of these problems, why are you posting this? Because I and others have. The universe does not revolve around you. Please move on.
- Why did you post this in Dev? As I said in the beginning, because we need someone who knows how this OS works so maybe a reliable workaround can be had for all. I didn't post in DEV for exposure, I posted here because I started it and I don't know where to go. Maybe a fix can be turned into an app or incorporated directly within a ROM. Who knows? I'm not a DEVing, but I am troubleshooting an issue within the OS.

One thing I've found that helps, is I kinda ignore if it shows up in Downloads in the market after a restore. I check for updates using AppBrain app, it finds all the apps on the phone whether they're in the market or not. Then, whenever an app is updated, it directs you to the market download page. If the market link was broken, that will say "Install" instead of "Update", but an install at that point will update properly, and you'll now have a working market link.
The main goal of having apps show up in the market, IMHO, is updates and uninstalls. Use the system uninstaller rather than the market for uninstalls, and use AppBrain to find updates. Works for me.

Thanks a lot for putting this up! I was banging my head against the wall last night, as I ran into this issue again and couldnt remember how I fixed it on my G1

zimphishmonger said:
Thanks a lot for putting this up! I was banging my head against the wall last night, as I ran into this issue again and couldnt remember how I fixed it on my G1
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Click to collapse
yw
lotherius said:
One thing I've found that helps, is I kinda ignore if it shows up in Downloads in the market after a restore. I check for updates using AppBrain app, it finds all the apps on the phone whether they're in the market or not. Then, whenever an app is updated, it directs you to the market download page. If the market link was broken, that will say "Install" instead of "Update", but an install at that point will update properly, and you'll now have a working market link.
The main goal of having apps show up in the market, IMHO, is updates and uninstalls. Use the system uninstaller rather than the market for uninstalls, and use AppBrain to find updates. Works for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I rarely uninstall via market. Have an app that throws me straight to the system uninstaller from the apps icon. I like appbrain, but it exhibits the same issue as the Market for me as far as detecting installed apps in some cases. I use the Market for updates and it works fine for me as long as the apps are linked. I think it has something to do with the hash getting messed up in the assets.db

[Q] phire mod forum discussion... .

I've seen in the phiremod development forum that people are having problems with the market showing all apps. Im curious if all the apps show up in a third party market app, i.e. appbrain?

I see all apps installed via Appbrain not like the usual My Apps problem but I still have an issue, if some apps show as to be upgraded in Appbrain, by clicking on them, it loads the Market but then says object not available
Anyone has the same issue?

weirdness
I'm having different pronouns, I flashed 6.2 and it wont load the Google widget, the icons are screwy,and every thing else is off. Like where the buttons are and where they look like they are.
and now it wont reboot to clockwork, ahaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[Q] Samsung Galaxy S apps not remembering their settings?

So a friend of mine updated his T-Mobile UK Samsung Galaxy S to the official 2.2.1 JPY firmware using Odin a few weeks ago. This went well, and is the same firmware that I've had on my unbranded SGS since December.
However, he has an interesting problem. Some of his apps (Handcent, Dolphin HD, plus a few others) seem to forget all of their settings every time the app is exited. For example, every time he goes back into Dolphin it enters the setup wizard as it it's being ran for the first time. This doesn't happen on every app, and it doesn't happen every time.
I noticed there are a couple of other threads on here with people reporting similar issues on custom ROMs (with no solution), but this is a stock ROM from samsungfirmware.com and certainly doesn't happen on my SGS, so it's not the ROM to blame.
Anyone know of a fix?

This question posted in the last few days .
jje

As I said in my post "I noticed there are a couple of other threads on here with people reporting similar issues ... (with no solution)". I wasn't being lazy and just starting another thread without doing some research first. I've read the other threads and they do not contain a solution that will work for him.
I'm assuming you're referring specifically to this thread? http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=992335 In my friend's case, rooting is not an option, so this solution won't work for him.
However, based on that it looks like a factory reset may fix it. If I don't come back people reading this can assume it worked.

Hello
I experimented the same issue.
Looking at some log traces event it reported some permissions errors on intestinal filesystem like database location access write errors. This can explain setting persistence trouble.
After various workaround, bypass or others kind of fallback I did a full reinstallation of filesystem including a wipe data of the system. Take care to backup application and sensible data SMS, photo...
Since all is working fine and no more problems with settings
I don't know if it's helping you.
This is just my personal experience on this same problem.
Perhaps more simple solution is possible
Regards
Gilles

Thanks. So far so good after a Factory Reset. If it were my phone I'd be looking at Logcat, etc, too, but it's a bit hard to do remotely.
It's odd how some apps saved their settings fine, but some don't.

A factory reset did fix it... for a while. But then other apps started suffering from the problem.
So I've been researching this a bit more today. Here's what I've discovered:
The problem is unique to Samsung Galaxy S phones, and appears to be only ones running 2.2.1 (but maybe 2.2. too?).
Samsung have renamed /data/data to /dbdata/databases, and shared preferences for applications are persisting in this folder even if the application is uninstalled. If you install the app again, the app becomes a different user from the one that owns the shared preferences.
For example - If you install some random application and you look at its process running with the ps command, it will show as "app_XX", where XX is some number. For our example here let's say it shows as "app_55". When it then saves its settings in /dbdata/databases the folder the settings are saved in will have owner (shown by ls -l) as "app_55" too. That's fine, and normal.
The seed of the problem is sewn when you uninstall the app. Those shared preferences are not removed. Even using the "Clear data" option before uninstalling doesn't seem to help. If you then install the app again and look at the output of ps you'll see the new app is "app_56". The shared preferences are still there from last time with owner "app_55", hence the permissions error when it tries to save its settings, as user app_56 cannot modify user app_55's files.
A factory reset obviously cures it as this, at least temporarily, as it wipes the data in /dbdata/databases.
If you're rooted, you can go into /dbdata/databases and delete the relevent folder for the application that's having the problem. It will be recreated with the correct owner next time the app saves its settings.
I didn't try chown to change the owner to the correct one, but maybe that's a way to keep the old settings and correct the problem.

Bingo. No wonder my titanium backup is not remembering the preference settings.

[FIX] Nook Color - Market stuck in "Download starting..."

All of a sudden my nooted Nook Color, which has been running beautifully for a long time, refuses to download new apps or updates in the Market app. They are stuck at "Starting download..." forever.
I have tried unmounting/mounting my SD card, and changing my status in Gmail (following instructions in other threads) but to no avail. For obvious reasons I can't toggle between Wifi/3G either. So I don't know what to do...
I have also tried stopping/cancelling all downloads and wiping the data for Market and rebooting the Nook.
OMG! After doing all of the above, in no particular order, when I went into Settings -> Manage Applications, all of a sudden all of the previously stuck downloads downloaded automatically - even the ones I had cancelled.
Now everything is working again. Just thought this might help someone else with the same problem in the future.

Yeah, I have that issue on rooted 1.2. Sometimes the only way to get it working is to clear cache, force stop, or reboot. Annoying, sure, but I don't install that many apps to make me pass on the rooted's better battery life.

Interesting.. I just had the same issue on CM 7.0.2.
I tried everything from other threads with no luck. Then I remembered that I disabled a lot of things with Autostarts. Autostarts is an app that can prevent other apps from starting upon certain events.
Apparently I disabled Marked from starting upon com.android.vending.*, some *intent.RECEIVE and some other events. Once I enabled these events I was able to download and install everything.
I read many people have the same problem and most of them probably don't have Autostarts app. My case could be coincidence or, maybe, some notification mechanism breaks in Android in some cases.

bengt_a said:
Now everything is working again. Just thought this might help someone else with the same problem in the future.
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Click to collapse
OK, now this is even weirder. I downloaded some new apps and updated all apps that needed updating, but after that no downloads worked again for about 12 hours. But then this morning miraculously they started by themselves - again. Seems very erratic...

Good for you...for me NOT
I have the exact same problem you reported (ie, apps I try to download to my rooted HTC Magic suddenly became stuck in "Starting download..."
I did everything you did and including checking in Settings -> Manage Applications, but all without success. What I have not done is enable "Market from starting upon com.android.vending*, "*intent.RECEIVE and some other events" as suggested by Miksha since I don't have a clue as to how to do that.
So if someone can advise me on how to "enable events" and/or has another solution to offer, I would be appreciative.
Laurie

LAFitz said:
I have the exact same problem you reported (ie, apps I try to download to my rooted HTC Magic suddenly became stuck in "Starting download..."
I did everything you did and including checking in Settings -> Manage Applications, but all without success. What I have not done is enable "Market from starting upon com.android.vending*, "*intent.RECEIVE and some other events" as suggested by Miksha since I don't have a clue as to how to do that.
So if someone can advise me on how to "enable events" and/or has another solution to offer, I would be appreciative.
Laurie
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you don't have autostarts app you probably don't need to enable anything. I had to enable events because I disabled them in autostarts prior to that. You could not do that without autostarts.
It is probably possible that events are disabled because of something else. The only way I know to check this is to buy autostarts (one dollar app).

[Fixed] Facebook popup "open with"

This may be the wrong subforum but this is happening on my Verizon Note 8. Several days ago, when browsing in Facebook, after finishing with reading a post that links to an article, website, whatever, and hitting the lower back button, I get a popup with "Open with" at the top and numerous apps to choose from and none of them make any sense. If I select one of them, that program opens up but never has anything to do with the article. I can also double press the back button and go back to browsing. I tried searching for a solution and have tried them all. I have cleared the cache, I have cleared data and cache, I have uninstalled and reinstalled Facebook. When doing any of these, it might stop temporarily but always comes back. I am thinking that it might have to do with maybe a recent update? And if so, a future update may solve it? Its driving me nuts...

After latest update, it no longer does this...