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Help Apps on SD not visible after connecting to CPU as USB drive?...

drexappeal

drexappeal

Extreme Android User
What's up everybody. I wanted to check if anybody had experienced the same issue I've noticed. It's not a huge issue because I'll normally just power my phone on and off and the apps show up again, but I noticed this issue yesterday.

Basically, everytime I connect my phone to the computer with the USB chord, any apps that I had moved to the SD card are no longer visit after disconnecting the phone from the computer.

What's strange is, I also noticed that the "internal" storage is only viewable on the PC, when I catch the pop-up that will open the folder for the internal storage. If I don't, it doesn't see the internal storage. I don't know if this has anything to do with why the apps moved to the SD don't show up, but thought I'd mention that as well, in case anybody was experiencing the same.

All of this isn't a big deal to me, but was just curious if anybody else had experienced it to determine if it's a software or hardware issue.

TIA,
Drex
 
Huh. I have not experienced that before. I had a problem with some widgets not loading properly after connecting the phone to my laptop as a USB drive if they had any settings (themes, etc) saved to the SD/media area, but that seemed to be very app-specific and not phone-wide.

Have you tried other PCs? Other USB chords?
 
Citizen Coyote said:
Huh. I have not experienced that before. I had a problem with some widgets not loading properly after connecting the phone to my laptop as a USB drive if they had any settings (themes, etc) saved to the SD/media area, but that seemed to be very app-specific and not phone-wide.

Have you tried other PCs? Other USB chords?
Click to expand...

Yeah, I remember your having the issue with the widgets. When I get a chance, I'll take some screen shots so you can see what I'm talking about. It's really, really strange. Early on, I had thought I was losing apps for some reason, so I just kept going to appbrain and re-installing. Then, I realized that the apps I moved to my SD card were the ones that would all of a sudden disappear, as if they didn't exist on the phone at all.

Normally, for apps that I use widgets for, I keep on the phone, but there's one app (Pandora) that I actually use Widgetsoid instead and have moved the app to the SD card, so when I change the phone back to charge only (after doing whatever I needed to do with the drive), all of a sudden the app isn't recognized.

I also have ASTRO moved to the SD card (for those that aren't familiar, moving apps to the SD actually goes to the internal storage, not the ext. SD), so when I went to verify that the files transferred over it wasn't there. Only solution thus far is to power down and power back up and all the apps are restored.

I'm going to look through the Motorola forums too, just to see if it's an issue anybody else had noticed.

For those that are willing to see if they experience the same thing, this is normally the pattern I follow when connecting to a PC:

1) Connect to PC w/ USB chord
2) Change toggle from Charge Only to USB Drive
3) Move whatever files I need to move (e.g. work, videos, mp3's)
4) Change toggle from USB Drive to Charge Only
5) Disconnect phone from PC
6) After Step #5, when I go to check my phone, that's when I notice that all of the apps moved to SD card are not showing up. I'm curious if this is connected to Launcher Pro Plus or if it's regardless of the UI being used.

Again, not a huge issue, but something that I'd like to bring up to the folks at Motorola if it's a widespread issue.
 
Ive noticed the same thing and in some instances the apps that are on my SD card (and on my home screen) disappear. So I have to move them back to the home screen. Since moving some of the trouble apps back on the phone from the SD card this has went away. I also noticed that when my phone is connected to my computer the notification sound is different (texts, alerts, etc), but it goes back to what it was when I disconnect.
 
as4k said:
Ive noticed the same thing and in some instances the apps that are on my SD card (and on my home screen) disappear. So I have to move them back to the home screen. Since moving some of the trouble apps back on the phone from the SD card this has went away. I also noticed that when my phone is connected to my computer the notification sound is different (texts, alerts, etc), but it goes back to what it was when I disconnect.
Click to expand...

The notification part of it I understand, especially when connecting as a drive (because the phone can't access the drive files for notifications or ringtones while it's identified as a drive). It's the apps part that seems odd to me, especially after I switch back to charge only. The apps should reload at some point.
 
Thanks for the explanation about the notification sound, I was unaware of that. I use a good SD card so I was a bit baffled as to why my apps were disappearing. One huge noob thing I did early on was not change my setting from "usb mode" or whatever to "charge only" and I had just moved about 500 songs over to my phone. Needless to say I lost all of the files since I didnt properly "stop" the device on my computer :) oops.
 
Wanted to bump up this thread to see if anybody else had noticed apps (installed to the SD) all of a sudden aren't on the phone when connecting the phone to a PC as a USB drive.

I haven't had to connect as a USB drive since I posted this thread, but was curious if anybody had tested this out to see if the same situation was happening for them. I may bring this into Sprint, in case it's a problem they're not aware of.
 
I'm bumping up my old thread because I've noticed something again. I'm pretty sure, it's connected to the apps that are moved to the SD, but I've noticed recently that some apps just automatically uninstall after I soft reset (e.g. power off and back on). I soft reset every night because I swap batteries. Nontheless, what's strange is that, since I back up my apps on appbrain, they have this "Timeline" indicator that shows activities that have been happening with my apps. Sure enough, on the timeline, it shows that I had "uninstalled" and then "re-installed" apps, even though I never manually uninstalled.

Has anybody else noticed this happen? I'm trying to figure out if it's a Photon thing or if it's a general Android issue or specific to Motorola. So weird, but wanted to throw it out there for anybody that also uses Appbrain as a backup. TIA for anybody that has a solution or knows of the issue.
 
KOLIO said:
Yeah,the disappearing act is definitely a PITA.Here's the thread link that explains perhaps why this happens.
Hopefully,the upcoming ANDROID 4.0. ICS update will address this issue.

https://forums.motorola.com/posts/218d768bb0
Click to expand...

Although I was in the minority, I thought the partitioning was actually great. I agree with you though. I hope ICS fixes the disappearing act, so that I won't have to double check if apps magically uninstalled...LOL. It's a PITA, but more of a laughing PITA to me, just because I had so many more horror stories with windows mobile...that this seems like a non-issue.
 
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