Root Losing root after every boot

[desperado]

When I shutdown and restart my wife's rooted droid incredible it loses root.
I still have s-off and recovery is installed so I simply put the device in recovery mode and re-install super user zip. However on next boot I lose root again.

Any ideas on why this is happening ?

Another strange symptom is that the /emmc internal storage is resetting as well.
I have a folder /emmc/MP4 with all her music on this dinc. She deletes several songs and I verify they are gone in root explorer. Then after boot they are back.

 

[sdrawkcab25]

When I shutdown and restart my wife's rooted droid incredible it loses root.
I still have s-off and recovery is installed so I simply put the device in recovery mode and re-install super user zip. However on next boot I lose root again.

Any ideas on why this is happening ?

Another strange symptom is that the /emmc internal storage is resetting as well.
I have a folder /emmc/MP4 with all her music on this dinc. She deletes several songs and I verify they are gone in root explorer. Then after boot they are back.

Seems like your memory is becoming corrupted. It may be all downhill from here.

However, you can try a couple things to band aid it. The simplest being, a complete wipe and install of a new rom. You may have better luck with an AOSP rom, because the system files may not write to the same exact location, which might preserve root.

Another option would be to run an RUU, to try and fix the partitions.
Try any found here ( except the "latest OTA", it's not a complete image):
Stock Images | PvilleComp's

 

[desperado]

I just did some tests.
I took a photo which stores in /emmc/DCIM....
After restart photo lost. (Fixed my switching camera to SDCARD)

I think the flash memory is not flashing any more.
I think it has become ROM it does seem to update while the phone is live but it restores on restart. Very strange but quite interesting.

Antoher test I also moved all the music in the MP3 folder to the sdcard.
Then I deleted the entire MP3 folder in /emmc
After restart it's back.

Third test. Installed an app from Play Store. After restart app gone. I guess this means updates are not sticking etc. What a pain ?

Do you think a wipe and reinstall of new ROM will work?
Seem you are suggesting a different ROM, I use the stock rom with bloat removed after installing. If I understand your suggestion you feel a new ROM might place different files in the bad sectors of the phones memory. Seems like this is a crap shoot because it might place even more important files there making the phone not work in other ways.

For now I think she can live with this phone and she is eligable for new phone so maybe just stick with it until it fails outright.

BTW: What is an "ASOP" ROM?

Seems like the second option of fixing he bad partitions might be better option but I don't understand why installing the latest RUU would fix any partitions? I Forget what RUU stands for but aren't these just the original over the are updates? Do they scan for bad sectors when installing? Not clear on what running these ruu .exe files does and the link doesn't really explain much (To be fair I didn't scan the entire linked site yet).

The only reason I was trying to get root is so root explorer would start working again. It is working now without root (it was crashing before) so basicly she is OK with the phone the way it is now. Music moved to SD, Camera set to place images on SD. Should be all good at this point.

I am also wondering if her phone was hacked. She complained about issues with the music returning after deleting certain files. When I checked I found the SD card was failing and needed to be reformated, this meant my nandroid backup was gone, so I redid the nandroid backup but this was after the corruption so no sure if it's any good. etc.

Like you said might be downhill from here

Thanks for the info. It's been a while since I rooted so I need to start researching again to understand the latest state of things.

 

[scotty85]

i think it would be well worth the effort to run an ruu in attempt to fix the issue. since youre s-off,you can run any one that youd like.

Shipped ROMs is the newest one that i am aware of... but you can run any and let the phone OTA to current if you wish. there are a few more at Shipped ROMs

 

[sdrawkcab25]

Installing a new ROM would be a crap shoot, but could help.

Sorry forgot to mention what an AOSP ROM is. Its basically a custom built ROM compiled from googles source code. Cyangogen Mod and MIUI are the two most popular for the incredible. Again it's a long shot but might help.

The RUU (ROM update utility) completely reinstalls the OS from scratch, so there is a chance it would repair the bad sectors (or mark them as bad). Although in my experience it doesn't touch the EMMC partition, so it wouldn't fix the disappearing music.

However, you should know the few phones we have seen on here with similar problems, never became recoverable and eventually became unbootable. I'd get all important data off ASAP and start looking for new phones. The HTC DNA has an unlockable boot loader(not quite the same as s-off) and is getting pretty stellar reviews.