Help Apps Ghosting? Wont Stay when downloaded..

[ShelaghDB]

Samsung S4 and am using a 32 gig card since the internal file is rather small at only 16 Gigs.

Has been fine for several months although occasionally I will notice that one of the icons looks "ghostlike" and when i click on it it says "Application Not Installed" so I would install it again and it would then be fine.

Since this started happening some time ago, perhaps one app at a time, admittedly when I re-downloaded it, since the new icon just overtook the ghosted one, I never gave it any more thought as all that worked ok and didn't think to check to see if it automatically went back on to the extra card or stayed on the internal 16 g card.
But I noticed on the "ghost image it does say SD in the lower corner which leads me to believe they weren't making it onto the larger memory card.

Yesterday I noticed that i had several doing this for the first time. Not just one so I went to download them again and at first it seemed fine until I noticed that the ones I were re-downloading, moments later would "ghost" themselves again and I would have to repeat the process, to no avail.

I began to double-check to see if all the recent newer apps had been installed on the new 32 Gig card and not all had so perhaps I had a problem due to overloading on the 16Gig card?

In any event, no matter how many times today I have re-downloaded apps they don't remain installed and become "ghosted" again so I am not getting any further ahead.

Looking at my settings, It appears that both cards are fine and that i have room on both.

But I notice a few other wonky things.
I suddenly cannot take any screenshots.
I used to e able to lay the side of my hand down on the far right hand side of the screen, slide it across and I would hear the sound that tells me a photo has been taken.
Not only can I not take any but when looking at my albums, all are fine except for the one album that I guess are my camera photos.
Byt this i mean, they aren't really an album but just a hundred or so photos i have taken over time and now i just see a black page with a grey square background and then a white figure inside and what appears to be a lightening bolt in grey.

MUST I take this back to the beginning, by restoring it which is a LOT of work OR is anyone familiar with this being some sort of bug that can be fixed easily?

And IF I must restore it, does anyone know what might have caused this, so as I may avoid it happening again in the near future?

T.I.A.

 

[AeolianReflex]

Sounds to me that your S4 is having a problem reading / writing with your external SD card. There could be lint or something in the SD slot that is causing the problem or it could be that the SD card itself has problems.

You could try removing the card and using compressed air to blow out the slot and check the connection strips on the card to see if they are dirty or damaged. If you have another SD card you could try it and see if the problem persists - if it works OK then it's likely that your original SD card is bad and needs to be replaced.

BTW: When you are having problems with an app there may be corrupted data that stays when you re-install the app especially with an app moved to the SD card. So before re-installing, move the app back to internal memory and then uninstall the app before re-downloading it.

 

[bobolinko]

Where are these "Ghost" apps being installed to?

If you have been using anything to allow you to install to the EXTERNAL sd card, I do believe that is your problem. Make sure any app you install is installed to the internal and not moved to the external sd card after installing.

Also,
do you have any app that Kills stuff to preserve memory? Delete it for now and watch if the "Ghosting" re-occurs.

Screen Captures:
go to settings>My Device>Motions and Gestures
be SURE that Palm Motion is ON and if you want the call screen to be controlled, enable Motion too.

Good Luck and Aloha!

 

[ShelaghDB]

Thanks, both of you.

Now I did take out the card and blow it out but besides likely needing to do it anyway, it didnt solve the problem.

It turns out to be along the lines of what bobolinko was saying, sort of...

I tried what you said, with the KILL button but it didnt help.

I have now reinstalled them all BUT as I was doing that before, I was transferring all the apps to my SD card.
Since the phone only comes with 16 gigs, I thought i had to put as much as I could on the memory card, no?

But I see as long as i leave these ones on the phone, its ok....but I thought i would run out of gigs of space with all my apps

So why can't I move them to the SD card, or that i did but all of a sudden they didnt like it....most are still on the card I think?

 

[ShelaghDB]

Curious to know why I can't put some apps on my 32 gig card? Why some have been on it for ages without any problems but all of a sudden, they rebelled?

The S4 only comes with 16 gigs of internal memory, hence, I thought I had to install apps there.........?

So is it meant ONLY for photos, music, videos, etc?

 

[AeolianReflex]

I have several apps moved to my SD card with no problems. I am guessing that there may be some bad sectors on your SD card. There are several free apps for testing SD cards in the play store. It couldn't hurt to try one to see what it finds.
You could also copy all of the SD card contents to your PC and then do a full format on the card and copy them back to your SD card and see if that takes care of the problem.

 

[ShelaghDB]

Interesting. Now that makes sense. I did believe i could use apps on that card so the idea of bad sectors sounds like thats the ticket.

I will say, that this is the second 32 gig SD card I have purchased in less than a year. They don't seem to hold up to much and i don't abuse my phone but the first one just didn't work at all and now this.

In any event, I shall go and try what you have mentioned and thank you. From here on in I can now take care of it myself but I thought from what had been said earlier that perhaps I had missed the memo that told us all that apps were never allowed to be put on SD cards