Database Develop

Very Specific Market Server Error

All,
I know there have been a bunch of threads about market errors and how they've been solved. There's been the vendor_preferences.xml solution, the wipe everything solution, the infamous "log in with a new gmail account" solution, etc.
However, my concern is that I am wondering if I'm the only one out there with this specific problem: SERVER ERROR ON DOWNLOADS PAGE OF MARKET. (and it's not intermittent...it's every time all the time).
I was able to solve the problem with not being able to install apps, and the infinite "computing..." error in Manage Applications, by just backing up my Sd card and reformatting it. I Think the .asec files in the sdcard from 'pre-release' Froyo builds were messing up the attempts to load and compute applications. With a clean SD card I am now able to download and install apps with no issues. I'm also now running FRF91 rooted.
What I have NO solution for is the Server Error on the Downloads page, and I'm just wondering if anyone else is experiencing THIS SPECIFIC Problem. Because none of the other market 'fixes' I've seen have solved it, and after trying every ROM from 2.1 through Froyo, rooted and unrooted, xml files, build.prop fixes, wipes of every kind and doing so in various orders, different gmail accounts, etc, I have come to the conclusion that it MUST be a Google error with my account, as the Downloads page comes up JUST FINE with a freshly created gmail account on the same ROM, but not with my primary Google account.
If anyone has been experiencing THIS SPECIFIC problem and has seen it go away on its own, or has fixed it themselves by some miracle of tweaking, please let me know. Google doesn't seem to be answering questions these days in the Market support thread, and I am looking for any evidence at all this is a fixable problem on OUR end, vs. waiting for a Google server-side miracle.
Thanks in advance,
Randy

[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
Click to expand...
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

[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.
Click to expand...
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).

Storage causing crash after update to Marshmallow?

A few weeks ago I received the Marshmallow update to my Moto G 2014. I switched back and forth between Internal/Portable storage, and also bought a bigger SD card to go in the phone.
Somewhere along the way, certain actions consistently cause an app to crash.
- starting the Uber app (it lets me log in, and shows the splash screen, but crashes before showing a map)
- attaching a location to a WhatsApp conversation (although attaching photos and documents seems to be fine)
- selecting "Start activity" from Google Fit.
These all worked fine before the update, and some searching didn't show any obvious suggestions of what to do. I've tried uninstalling apps, and also wiping their data but neither made any difference.
I can get a log using adb if it's useful and someone can point me to the right bit to look at.
Can anyone suggest how to stop these apps crashing?

I've tried taking traces using adb logcat. The crashes often seem to have an early error line like the following:
Code:
cutils : Failed to openat(/storage/emulated/0/Android): Permission denied
I can't find instances of similar issues online - has anyone seen this before or know what the problem might be?

Android.Processes.Media has stopped.

I am using X-Rom 2.3.1 and have issues trying to do anything in the Gallery or Google Photos app. Trying to copy, move, and sometimes view pictures throws an error saying it has stopped responding. This happens about 3 or 4 times for every picture moved, and it is frustrating. I've tried clearing Media Storage and Download Manager's , restarting the phone, and even disabling Media Storage. Disabling Media Storage worked, but I could no longer access the Gallery (which defeats the point of even trying to solve the error to begin with.) What should I do about this issue?
Edit: So I've gotten the error to stop appearing by using Simple Gallery instead of the Samsung Gallery. Simple Gallery is a better app anyway, so I don't mind using it. However, the thought that I am putting a band-aid on the problem doesn't sit well with me. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. I've tried basically everything a Google Search will find and no amount of cache clearing, app preference resetting has been able to fix it.
Edit 2: I apparently had some file in my downloads folder that was refusing to be read. I backed up the folder and deleted it and it works now.