Related
First I thought that I'm crazy but now I can confirm that my NC will boot on it's own after about 5 minutes after power OFF. I have to shut down 2nd time and than it will stay OFF. Any idea what's wrong ?
Thanks
(Yes I did confirm after first shut down that it's actually OFF since no buttons will respond)
Any weather Apps running? Many of them have an option to wakeup in order to update. Check your mail, twitter and facebook apps. It has to be something you installed, I have run every update, tried all the froyo images and both Honeycomb releases and I have not seen that.
To expand on what gedster wrote, it seems kind of crazy and out there but what about any devices on your network that might send Wake on Lan requests? What if something on your network had located your NOOKcolor. I don't even know why a eReader Tablet would have a function for Wake on Lan but it's just another crazy avenue to jog down.
I do have weather app installed but I find it hard to believe that it can wake up OS that is not in standby but completely off. WIFI is also not enabled before shutdown.
Looks like the problem is there only if I used market, if market is not used it will shut down fine and it will not boot on its own.
lifeisfun said:
Looks like the problem is there only if I used market, if market is not used it will shut down fine and it will not boot on its own.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seems that's unlikely if you're the only one having the issue, I'd keep digging if I were you.
Looks like you're right I can't replicate the problem every time
The timing when it will boot also varies 5, 15 and even 35 minutes.
Don't know what to do, it's hard to imagine how it can boot on it's own from
complete power off state
I can't believe I'm the only one with this problem
lifeisfun said:
I can't believe I'm the only one with this problem
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just posted a thread about this issue for me less than an hour ago! Funny, no one replied to mine: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=940713. It was pretty long...guess I should've added a TL;DR.
It happens to me on any (or no) power source. Timing varies like yours as well. I'm going to pull my weather app based on the above recommendation, and I will try your Market theory out. Knowing someone else has this issue makes me hopeful that we can find something that we have in common as the culprit.
I did download the newest Honeycomb image yesterday and I'm going to put that SD card in and see if I can get it to turn itself back on on a Market-less, user App-less build. If successful I'll Titanium my 1.1 apps and remove everything non-system, then slowly add until I get this figured out. Keep me posted if you figure something out, I'll be sure to do the same!
In case it matters I bought mine about a week ago and the serial number starts with 20046.
EDIT: Testing with Honeycomb SD now so if that's the case here it should just stay off. I booted into Honeycomb at 9CST and turned it off at 9:01. I'll give it a couple of hours.
I used to have this same problem. I would randomly find my 1.0.1 auto-nootered 950mhz rom nook on, when I knew I had turned it off. interesting part is, this problem completely solved itself after I flashed my emmc with the custom nookie 5.9 img. so it must be an eclair issue and not a hardware issue
woot1524 said:
I used to have this same problem. I would randomly find my 1.0.1 auto-nootered 950mhz rom nook on, when I knew I had turned it off. interesting part is, this problem completely solved itself after I flashed my emmc with the custom nookie 5.9 img. so it must be an eclair issue and not a hardware issue
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really? I've been putting that off because I don't like the idea of not having Clockwork Recovery. I understand there are ways to do the same things using IOMonster's things but I'd really rather just have Clockwork Recovery working. Unless there's a way to get it going that I missed?
Yup, I've been having this issue as well. I really want to flash NF but I want hardware video acceleration.
oscillot said:
Really? I've been putting that off because I don't like the idea of not having Clockwork Recovery. I understand there are ways to do the same things using IOMonster's things but I'd really rather just have Clockwork Recovery working. Unless there's a way to get it going that I missed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you are correct that clockwork does not work with froyo. however the bootable sd card that you would burn automatically starts up clockwork first. you can run a backup and restore, as far as i know, without having to reflash froyo. on a personal note, froyo still has some issues but overall I'm exteremly pleased so far. i really just wanted to get rid of all of the b&n stuff (mainly the status bar) along with any possible way of them pushing an update to break root. I would recommend it, but CM 7 with gingerbread will probably be out sooner rather than later.
woot1524 said:
you are correct that clockwork does not work with froyo. however the bootable sd card that you would burn automatically starts up clockwork first. you can run a backup and restore, as far as i know, without having to reflash froyo. on a personal note, froyo still has some issues but overall I'm exteremly pleased so far. i really just wanted to get rid of all of the b&n stuff (mainly the status bar) along with any possible way of them pushing an update to break root. I would recommend it, but CM 7 with gingerbread will probably be out sooner rather than later.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which I guess brings us back to, why is Eclair doing this, and why does it seem to be limited to lifeisfun and myself?
I'm glad I'm no longer special
My serial # is 200503 .....
Removing all application that I have installed didn't help.
Only 100% way to shut down is to let it boot and immediately shut down.
unknown.soul said:
Yup, I've been having this issue as well. I really want to flash NF but I want hardware video acceleration.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now that I understand the power of this things SD slot and that CWR can be run off of an SD, I can totally live with that. Hardware Video isn't a must for me yet, so I may take the plunge tonight after work...BTW, what are people's favorite video apps? I have been playing with VLC stream and convert, which works somewhat with my media server's samba shares. I have the share mounted to a directory on the sdcard since many apps look there exclusively.
More on topic, I couldn't get SD Honeycomb to start itself on its own. I tried booting then shutting down. 2 hrs of nothing 15mins light activity then shutting down. 2 more hours of nothing. About an hour of heavy use, seeing what could be installed, sideloading, testing, editing things like build.prop and rebooting often and trying to get swype working (don't think it's supposed to, but that's "heavy use" for me.) Powered down. Went to bed. Still not on this morning. This looks indeed to be an issue with the B&N stock Eclair.
Mine doesn't turn itself on with no interaction at all, but will turn on every time when you plug in the charger or cable hooked to USB port in computer.
I can turn it off once it is already plugged in and it will stay off, but remove and replug the charger and it is on again.
Strange.
Well, strange that only two or three of us noticed this strange problem.
Yeah, started for me after 1.1 update. Turned it off last night, tonight it was on with 40% battery! I think its 1.1 related, this didn't happen with 1.0.1 ...
I'm sure there's a condition that's causing or exasperating this issue, something common to us all. But at this point since I don't use the Nook as a video player (I actually bought it to read books, but I use Aldiko and the open epub format) I will likely flash Nookie to the eMMC and call it a day. Honestly can't wait to get a clean notification bar on this thing anyway.
A couple of days ago my dad got my sister and me nook colors. I installed honeycomb which ran off the sd card on both and rooted both. I was tired of not having YouTube flash and many other apps so I tried out froyo and cm7. After about 50 unsuccessful installs I have decided I must have a hardware problem because they will run on my sisters nook.
The problem is that after the install, it boots off the sd card and loads android completely but when it asks to complete with setup wizard or
Default action it freezes up for a second and shuts off. After I boot again it just says "Powering Down."
I don't know if I should try a native install or go return this one. I already restored it completely to factory conditions so they won't be able to tell. I have searched everywhere and cannot find this anywhere else (problem or solution).
I just find it so strange how it works on the other nook color but not mine. Even setting it up on hers and moving it to mine produces the same issue. I probably will return it unless someone can help me but I'm more curious to what the problem is than how to fix it, since I can simply go get a new one.
Any help is appreciated!
****bump****
Thats certainly a new one. I only have one nook so ive never tried them side by side. Ive never been able too successfully boot off an sd card and have it stable. I eventually just decided to go to cm7 internal and never looked back. I wonder if theres something different in the nook in how it reads from the sd card.
are you overclocking the image? or running it stock?
you said you set it up on your sisters nook then move it to yours and you have problems. did you try taking her good, working build and moving that sd card to your nook and seeing if the problems go away. Ive read alot about sd cards and different quality's of cards. maybe theres something up with the sd card you have.
I have problems no matter what. If i put it on hers to setup, it still has the problem. If i set it up on mine, still has the problem. I just tried phiremod v6.1 and it also had the problem (i expected this because it is still cm7). I probably will return it but i wish they would just update these things to android 2.2/2.3 and maybe even full honeycomb when it comes out and save all of us from these issues.
The image is the normal one. I have tried installing directly to the sd, using the "SD CARD TEMPLATE" files that you install and then boot from to install cm7, etc.
They all work on the other nook but mine is being stubborn for some reason.
I am at the airport getting ready to fly home and i might try installing it internally tomorrow. I just don't want to have this problem again and have to spend a bunch of time reinstalling the stock rom to return it.
I completely understand your frustration, especially since you have 2 and are not seeing the same thing on both. Are you experiencing any other problems with the device. based on what your telling me i would have to assume there is something wrong with the sd card slot.
but if you forget about your sisters nook for a min, what you are describing is exactly what i experienced on my nook. that's why i went for internal. I started with the dual boot, but found that i stopped using the stock rom pretty quickly, and with the slow ports of cm7 to dual boot, i just scrapped dual booting all together, and now im full cm7 and its great.
john10101 said:
I completely understand your frustration, especially since you have 2 and are not seeing the same thing on both. Are you experiencing any other problems with the device. based on what your telling me i would have to assume there is something wrong with the sd card slot.
but if you forget about your sisters nook for a min, what you are describing is exactly what i experienced on my nook. that's why i went for internal. I started with the dual boot, but found that i stopped using the stock rom pretty quickly, and with the slow ports of cm7 to dual boot, i just scrapped dual booting all together, and now im full cm7 and its great.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried the internal install, but it is doing the same thing. I am recovering the stock image right now. Thanks for the help, but I am just going to take it back and get a new one and not root it or anything and just install it to the sd card.
I have the same problem too.
Hi all
Ever since upgrading to 2.3.3 I've been having random freezes that usually end up in needing a battery pull or pressing down on the power button until the phone reboots itself. This is with Darky's 10.1, although I don't think it's related to the "Darky parts" of the ROM itself, but something more to do with the OS.
Also, I've felt that the phone sometimes slows down. It doesn't feel like the original lag on 2.1, but rather feels like something's eating up CPU power. This will happen on ANY application, and even when moving through homescreens on TW Launcher or ADW Launcher.
Another thing of note is that it seems to be the UI or input process that hangs or dies or something. Because whatever's running keeps running I just can't make the phone respond to touch or any of the hard buttons. For example, today I was playing Age of Wind (sweet game, check it out) and after like 10 seconds of the game stuttering, the phone stopped responding, but my ship just kept going forward and the other ships were trying to keep up with me. Sounds and music kept going. And after 30 seconds of "inactivity", the screen went to sleep. As you can see everything's normal except there's no input.
So what I'd like is for ideas on how to fix or figure out what's wrong. I'm somewhat tech-savvy so I wouldn't be scared of using adb or some other debugging tool. So far I've not been able to figure out what's wrong because all the logs start over whenever I reboot the phone.
So, any ideas? Any additional information that would be useful?
Edit and update: I've changed the title because this has already happened on different custom ROM's, including Darky and Criskelo.
I have now tested for 5 days on Criskelo's ROM (based on 2.3.4) and it will happen also. So far what I've noticed both on Darky's and on Criskelo's ROMs:
- The phone will work perfectly for about 4-5 days
- On the 4th day it will start stuttering and lagging. That's when I know it's very close to locking up.
- On the 4th day it will maybe lock up once in a day
- After the 4th day it will start locking up up to three times a day
- The lock-up is at the UI level. Applications will keep running, it will ring if you call it, notification sounds are still alive, the screen will turn off normally after 30 seconds or whatever timeout you set up. But input is totally dead.
- When it locks up, both soft-buttons will light up and stay lit.
Possible causes:
- Something related to USB storage or SD card storage. Someone mentioned that it might be caused by the "fast media scanner". It's possible, because on one of my many tests, instead of reinstalling an OS, I formatted the minisd, the internal sd and phone storage and the phone was fine for 4-5 days and then it started doing screwy stuff again. This reinforces the theory that it's something to do with storage. My guess is the OS itself starts degrading the filesystem or handles or something. And my suspicion is that it's something in the /system/dbdata or /cache partitions, not the sdcard or external sd cards. Impossible to know because I have no idea how to debug using adb and nobody has given any ideas on this.
- I'm starting to suspect the BLN support in the kernel. I have BLN turned off, but I'm not so sure.
Hi,
Sorry don't have any answers, but am having the exact same problems on Darky's 10.1. Except I have a TouchWiz4 Port + Galaxy S II Icons.
Hopefully someone will know of this issue! Its starting to annoy me!!
Cheers,
Sunny
Tell me something, when you installed Darky, did you restore your apps via Titanium Backup? Did you select "Restore apps + data" or just apps?
I'm in the process of reinstalling Darky's from scratch, see if that works. If not I might go back to 9.5 or try Criskelo's ROM.
Thanks
Hi,
Nope I didn't backup or restore any apps. My data is all on my SD card and I just reinstall apps.. I came from DebusROM G1.
Thanks,
Sunny
Maybe a factory reset (do it in recovery) would help?
I actually did a factory reset before installing.
@sundazetoo: Do you have Voodoo lagfix enabled?
Last night, while in the process of reinstalling Darky's ROM, I disabled the lagfix (converting to RSF) and after almost an hour i decided to pull the battery. Then when I rebooted again, it went through the conversion process, finished in 2 minutes (wut!) and an error displayed (it couldn't mount some partition, one that I know is not critical).
So I'm suspecting a filesystem problem.
I already installed and DO NOT have Voodoo's lagfix enabled. I also did a complete wipe and restored my apps without data. So far it seems fine but it's only been a few hours.
@Lunchbox115: I did the factory reset when I installed too.
@ferparedes: Yep voodoo is enabled. I am now running on the stock launcher that came with Darky's 10.1 and it seems to be running a lot smoother. I was running a TW4 port so that may have been my problem!
I will monitor it and let you know how it goes.
Have you tried clearing the data / cache for the launchers you are using? That seems to fix alot of FC issues for apps for me.. I guess no harm in trying anyways?
2 days in after reinstalling.
Voodoo EXT4 lagfix NOT enabled. Phone is pretty snappy and I've haven't had any more freezes. I think it was either a bad EXT4 conversion or the lagfix itself was causing it. Anyways, since the phone is pretty fast I'm leaving it with RFS lagfix only.
One thing of note, though. I'm running stock GB launcher atm, because ADW was giving some problems.
Yesterday ADW Launcher *died* and although the phone was working and responsive, the launcher never came back. The result was that when I pressed the home button nothing happened but a blank screen. The power button worked, though, so I was able to do a clean reboot and switch to Launcher.
Interesting, I dont seem to have the same issues with the voodoo lag fix.
Also I am now using ADW Launcher EX and have not had any issues. I think my problem was the TW4 port.
Same again
I get these issues too. I seem to get them RFS and ext4 (I think - mostly its been ext4 though). Often get a delay on the keyboard. Its driving me a bit nuts but I am reluctant to go back to Froyo just for this (I hate having to restore all my user names and passwords).
Silly thing is I cannot recall if I got in when I tried Gingerreal (on Darky 10.1 now).
Would love to see thoughts and theories too..
G
UPDATE
After almost 2 days of totally flawless operation, I reinserted my 16 GB Micro SD card with all of my stuff in there. Among many things:
- Audible audiobooks, along with bookmark and "furthest listened" data
- Music, playlists. All created by TuneSync (which I use to wireless sync music and playlists from my PC's iTunes)
- Dropbox download folder
- Photos and videos taken with the phone
- Some other files not associated with any app
2 hours after doing this, blam, the phone locked up again requiring a reboot. So I removed the Micro SD and when I got home I backed up my photos and videos on the PC, reinserted it in the phone and formated the card. This was last night.
So far the phone's working fine.
My current theory:
The Micro SD card I originally bought for the phone was an 8gig. When I got the 16 gig one, I just copied everything from the 8gig onto a folder on the PC, then copied everything over to the 16 one. This might've broken something.
After going to Gingerbread, it's possible that the way some applications look for their data (for example, Audible) changed but when encountering the same data (that was copied over from a windows folder on the PC) it might've generated errors which in turn put the interface into a deadlock.
My strongest suspect is Audible. After installing Darky 10.1, the app just chugged away remembering all my farthest listened to data, all my audiobooks were visible, etc. After reinstalling (and removing the Micro SD) I had to redownload some, but it still remembered where I was and didn't have to reactivate the device. Now, after formatting the Micro SD, I've had to redownload everything, it didn't remember where I was on each audiobook and I also had to reactivate the device.
If the phone doesn't lock up during the next 4-5 days then I'll conclude that errors on accessing the Micro SD by some app was the cause.
sundazetoo said:
Interesting, I dont seem to have the same issues with the voodoo lag fix.
Also I am now using ADW Launcher EX and have not had any issues. I think my problem was the TW4 port.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I actually don't think ADW launcher is causing this particular problem. But in a different problem altogether, it did die and in this case required me to do a reboot, albeit a clean one. But if it gave me this one single problem than I'm inclined to stop using it. I don't want the phone disabled for the 3-5 minutes it takes to boot up if I need it in an emergency (it's a phone first and foremost, after all)
tw4 is an EVIL for SGSi9000 imho... because almost everyone have problems with it !!! so just use another Launchers... LauncherPro, Launcher EX (my favourite) but not TW4 )))
I tried to fix with a reinstall of stock jvp and then went to F1 v8 jvp rkm but I also formated ext_sd card as suggested here (and deleted audible application which I was not using.
So far so good but it's only been an hour...
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA Premium App
Definitely something related to sd card. Everything is screwy now but less so with the sd card out.
Anyone find any solutions?
I was getting double boot screens and freezes on the dialer. Realized it was the sd when my backup would not load.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA Premium App
Had this happen to me today,
I had the phone boot up and it would get to the lockscreen, then media scan, then it would lock up, only a battery pull would turn it off.
Tried booting without the External SD and it didnt occur, hmmm
Put the microSD card in the card reader on the PC, and performed a scan for errors/fix bad sectors, it didnt find anything but i put it back in and it goes fine now, im sure its the external card.
related info
Found this thread that seems related;
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=367912&page=3
Trying the chkdisk utility now...
It did it again with the micro sd card out. So today I reformated the internal SD storage (usb storage) and will see how it goes. If this last attempt fails I will either go back to froyo or try another ROM.
But I do think it has something to do with one of the SD card storage.
gfacer said:
Found this thread that seems related;
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=367912&page=3
Trying the chkdisk utility now...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Should be fine
More things to try
Looked at my rom page (F1 JVP) and noticed that V8, which I have now, had the faster media scanner as does Darky's 10.1-which is not getting updates often now it seems. Well the faster media scanner only lasted 2 days until V9 of the F1 rom when the delevoper removed it. My guess it that it was causing issues.
Leads me to wonder if that might be causing the corruption in the first place or at least a contributing factor.
Also read some threads at google about similar issues across a whole wave of devices and one person there mentioned H2testw utility to test the sectors of your SD card. It sounds like cheap ebay sd card and larger SD cards my have more issues (mine is a 32gb). It is best to format and then test with h2testw but I decided to run just on the empty parts of the card and decide from there.
G
I did a search and couldn't find any other topics covering the same issues I'm having, both here and a general Google search. I also called my mother, and she did indeed say I was special.
Anyway, bought a Nook HD+ two weeks ago and left everything stock for a few days before using Bokbokan's Hybrid SD/EMMC. Everything worked great and enjoyed it for a full week until my Nook started freezing and getting an odd ghosting and slow refresh on the screen.
Figured it was a rom issue so I removed the SD but even when powering it back on the screen had the same effect. And it continued into the stock rom. I de-registered and returned to stock and still had the same issue. Washed out screen, slow refresh, slight flickering an odd randomish burning which held even when the device was powered off and left off for hours. Used the HDMI adapter to see what happened and the output to the TV was fine, making me think I just had a defective screen.
So I returned it for a new one. Followed the same path. Stock a few days, then hybrid install (with the newer Bokbokan rom). Ran great for another few days until I had the screen freeze on me. Not ghosting like I had before, just lines like a disconnected ribbon cable. I reset a few times though and everything was fine. The next day it did it again but took removing the SD card and hard resetting into stock to get it to fix the screen. Then a few hours later I could only get it to boot into the stock rom with a normal screen(CM10 would always have lines and be unusable before it even started booting) , but would go out after 30 seconds. Booted into CWM from the SD card and the screen was fine so I did a factory wipe and left out the SD and booted into stock. De-registered before the screen went out and started over. Started re-registering it and the screen would start going out after the 30 seconds but then snap back to normal after another ten or on a new screen. Once it finished setting up my BN account I reset and... now it seems to be running normal... Left it sit like this for a few hours (checking it every few minutes) and I haven't had a single issue.
This seems to me to be something I'm messing up. I can't see having two defects like that in a row, when I know other people who bought the same week/store from me and haven't had any issues (also running the same Bokbokan rom). And the fact that it seems to fix itself the longer it sits in stock. I haven't dropped it. There has to be something I'm not thinking of that's causing the issues. But I'm completely out of ideas.
Is this maybe some kind of new anti-rooting thing by B&N? Does someone have a voodoo doll of my Nook? My SD card have some type of bacterial infection? Maybe a full blood moon overhead? An allergic reaction to my screen protectors?
Any ideas?
Do you have some big magnetic source or other device in your house that could be effecting your HD+? Just grasping for straws. Never heard of this before.
You might try verygreen's NEW SD scheme and see if you get the same thing.
Sent from my Nook HD+ running CM10.1 on emmc.
leapinlar said:
Do you have some big magnetic source or other device in your house that could be effecting your HD+? Just grasping for straws. Never heard of this before.
You might try verygreen's NEW SD scheme and see if you get the same thing.
Sent from my Nook HD+ running CM10.1 on emmc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My case does have a magnet in it, but this started before I got this new case.
But the way the screen looks is the way a screen looks like when it needs degaussing... But wouldn't explain why it only clears up after running a fresh stock rom for a bit.
Which has me thinking now it is something wrong with my rom. Even though both Nooks used different roms. I shall try using verygreens and see what kind of results I get.
I hate problems like this. =p
I'll report back in a bit!
Wow. This just gets weirder and worse(r). We've been running first CM 11 and then CM 12.1 on this HD for awhile and all was fine. Suddenly the battery indicator became wonky, dropping from 50-ish% to 1%, precipitating a shutdown unless the tablet was immediately plugged in. Then suddenly the battery indicator would return to normal and you could unplug the tablet.
Next, after running a backup on the CM 12.1 ROM the tablet started crashing during boot (the cyan android phase) UNLESS it was plugged in to the power supply (USB to computer is not sufficient). This, despite a good charge level on the battery. After a minute or so when the boot was complete, you could unplug the tablet and go on your way.
Today the screen flashing began. Makes the tablet completely unusable. Sometimes you can calm it down for awhile by connecting via USB to computer, sometimes not. This thing is freaking me out. I just recently took the tablet all the way back to stock and resintalled CM 12.1 from scratch, including building a new SD card from new files. Before someone asks, it's a class 4 card. I've always been fine with Class 10 or UHD cards when working with my Nook Tablet, but for some reason I decided to play it "safe" with the HD and hunted around for a lower class. Maybe a mistake?
Finally I took the tablet back to stock again today, completed the sign-in process to the old B&N account and everything is fine. No screen flashing, no funny business with the battery indicator, no problem booting without the power cable.
I just ordered a "new" (out of box) replacement for the tablet on ebay, but it doesn't seem like this is an actual hardware issue.
What scares me now is a potential repeat of this process with the new tablet. I've never had any experiences like this with my old Nook Tablet. I'm at a complete loss.
Help!
Edit: OK, we seem to have tracked down the general source of the screen flashing. The backup we have been restoring is from July 2017 so quite a few apps want updating. We noticed things would be fine for awhile and then the flashing would start. At one point "Unfortunately Google Play Services has stopped" kept popping up. I began to suspect either a bad or incompatible update was messing with the system. So...we did another restore of the same backup but immediately turned off auto-updates from the PlayStore. Three days later and no display flashing. One small victory.
Could the shutdown during the boot animation be caused by a corrupted file? I don't see how since it boots OK when plugged in, just not on battery, but I'm willing to pursue any possibility.
Edit.Edit: Well, well.... We got a "new" open-box HD from ebay and I started working on it. I noticed in making new SD cards that one I had been working with was not properly set to 0x0C FAT32 LBA. I fixed that. This time the tablet will boot into the OS without being plugged in! Yay! Still have to test that on the old one after I finish building a duplicate system.
I'm restoring apps and everything is fine until suddenly the flashing starts up again. But now I know when it did. The offender seems to be the 0.15 version of Lithium Epub reader. I managed to uninstall that via ADB (with screen flashing you can't do much with the tablet except ADB). Voila, no more screen flashing. I found a copy of version 0.13 and installed that. No flashing screen. Needless to say I've set the app to not auto-update.
Edit.Edit.Edit: Well, $40 later we now have a second Nook HD and both are running fine. Hard to imagine that the goof that somehow happened to the SD card would manifest as only being able to complete boot when plugged in, but that must be it. Returning to stock (tried that...) and reflashing with the newly prepared SD card did the trick. Moral: sweat the small stuff.