Installed apps disappear - Atrix 4G Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hi, i'm having a problem with my installed apps. Some apps disappear from my app drawer, and in menu installed apps this apps have a system logo and system name, they are still installed but do not work.
I guess it might have something to do when I disconnect phone from PC USB, apparently internal storage is not mounted back correctly and corrupts apps, some time after the apps go back to original working state, and some others break. Did this happen to anyone? Does anyone have a clue about what's happening?
Many thanks in advance.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App

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this happens to me sometimes but after i reboot my phone, everything shows up but ya it does happen time to time

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Are you moving apps to the sd card? I've experienced similar problems when doing so....so I just stopped moving apps to the sd card.

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con_ritmo said:
Are you moving apps to the sd card? I've experienced similar problems when doing so....so I just stopped moving apps to the sd card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Had the same problem and used the same fix

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Had the same problem once, restarting phone or launcher fixes the issue...

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This problem is also for Galaxy S2.
I think that the problem born because you have 2 sd on the phone.
This problemi in my Atrix is very annoying.

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In Titanium Backup, go into Batch>Move/Integrate and make sure that all user apps are on the Internal memory. Chances are your "disappearing" apps are on the external sd.
So if there is any number other than 0 next to "Move user apps to internal memory," run that batch operation, reboot and you shouldn't have the issue. My XDA app installs to external by default, which is stupid, and I have to redo this process for that app after every titanium restore.

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Try going to the android market on a laptop or desktop. If you are loved in it will say if it is compatable with your device.

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This problem happens often with ADW launcher for me. For some reason the launcher doesn't update its app list instantly and restarting the launcher is needed. I haven't researched the problem though.

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It used to happen on my old phone (dell steak) it was not mounting and un mounting properly, even downloads were disapearing no matter what rom. Or computer I tried it still didn't work and it turned out that my SD card was f#$ked
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App

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disappearing apps
I noticed this on my Atrix when running Titanium backup. Rebooting the phone will restore the missing apps. If there are a lot of apps missing it may take 2 reboots, but they will come back along with their icons.

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I just had to restart the launcher, then all is back.

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I had similar problems in the past. My solution = Don't restore apps + data from titanium backup. This also caused 'rogue' apps that prevented my phone from sleeping. Would have to charge my phone at least twice a day. Completely wiped my phone and went back to Wet Dream and haven't used Titanium Backup since. Both issues were fixed.

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I had this same problem once I started using jokersax's CM9 alphas. It turned out that, for whatever reason, a few apps were being installed to the SD card. Rebooting the phone or connecting to my PC (basically any time the SD card was mounted/unmounted) would break those apps.
So I can confirm that if the app has disappeared from the app tray, but you can still find it in Manage APPs (with a system icon and probably it's pacakge name (like "com.appname.something")) then your best bet is to uninstall the app, reinstall it, and double check from Manage APPs that it's installed to the phone (bottom right button will say "Move to SD card" rather than "Move to phone").
[tl;dr - apps don't like being on SD card, install to phone]

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I've been having this problem for a long time now. Searched the web everywhere, xda, lot's of forums. I have not found a solution to this yet, because i have come the conclusion that it's an internal android problem. This happens to everyone that has many apps on their phone, but they don't realise that it's happening until they look for an app they know that is installed but can't find it.
This happened to me with:
Android:
* stock 2.2
* stock 2.3
* blur mod roms
* cyanogenmod
Launchers:
* Launcher pro
* ADW
* SPB Shell
* Go Laucher
* Blur Launcher
Root:
* When rooted
* When not rooted
It seems that the problem is that the internal drive, when mounting does not take the enough time to mount all of the installed apps, that's why if you plug you phone to the USB, after it get's unmounted and mounted back, the status of your apps change (people who had this problem, know what i'm talking about).
The only solution I found so far is with Cyanogenmod, becuase it's the only rom i tried that has the possibility to unmount the internal drive (as you can always do with the external SD card).
If you have this problem that you check the installed apps in the configuration, and you see that some correctly installed apps have the system icon and not the correct one, the unmount the internal drive and mount back, you will see all apps appearing correctly.

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horsage said:
It seems that the problem is that the internal drive, when mounting does not take the enough time to mount all of the installed apps, that's why if you plug you phone to the USB, after it get's unmounted and mounted back, the status of your apps change (people who had this problem, know what i'm talking about).
The only solution I found so far is with Cyanogenmod, becuase it's the only rom i tried that has the possibility to unmount the internal drive (as you can always do with the external SD card).
If you have this problem that you check the installed apps in the configuration, and you see that some correctly installed apps have the system icon and not the correct one, the unmount the internal drive and mount back, you will see all apps appearing correctly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the advice!!!
Greetings.

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Fast Boot option may be the culprit
This is actually a long-standing problem in Android OS, going back at least two years (donkey's years in this technology!)
Something about the interaction of the OS and an sdcard formated for holding apps creates odd behaviours.
Lots of complicated suggestions have been made, including reformatting sdcard, reinstalling ROMs, changing launchers (the one suggested here) and such.
None of these approaches seems really to solve the problem even in most cases.
Mentioned here is internal phone storage -- I NEVER use it for anything related to apps or downloads (from what I can tell it can be much less reliable than an sdcard and much less portable or capable of being backed up in a timely way). I only use phone memory & sdcard, yet I have the same disappearing app problem everyone else has here. Avoiding apps on sdcard is not an option for me -- my phone memory is too limited for that (and again, I don't trust internal phone storage).
Also, worries about Titanium Backup mentioned here. But other backup apps and ROMS that move apps to sdcard appear to have the same problem. I have had no problems myself with Titanium Backup Pro, but I have experienced disappearing apps after mounting sdcard as a disk when USB cabled to a PC. Others have reported the same. I would bet the problem lies with the mounting process, not backups or ROMs
So ... What seems to be working for me (at least for the last week or so) is the following very simple tweak.
CUT TO THE SOLUTION BELOW -- SEARCH FOR ////
Some (not all) of my apps moved to SD (all by Titanium Backup Pro) have begun to disappear and (sometimes) reappear without warning after I began to add and delete large Virtual Machines created in QEMU from my 16GB SanDisc class 10 microSD card on my HTC Droid Incredible running rooted stock Verizon Android Froyo 2.2.3. I know this thread is far from my phone's "home base", but from what I can tell this problem with disappearing apps located on an sdcard is NOT determined by hardware or even Android version.
I also happen to use LauncherPro by Federico Carnales instead of the built-in HTC Sense launcher. I noted elsewhere on XDA that a user had suggested that because at least some (maybe all) launchers start before the SD Card that this may be a problem, especially if changes are made to the sdcard that the launcher did not perform, or was not active during their performance by other apps such as Titanium Backup. That fits my situation, because I unmounted the SD, physically removed it to a PC, and added/deleted large VM files to save (lots) of time. No problems of this sort before I did this, so there must be some connection.
I noted that other users have tried reformatting SD, substituting different brands of SD, using newer/older SD etc. None of these reliably helped. So I skipped these options.
//// The (simple!) solution I tried that SEEMS to work (only time will tell!) is buried in the main Android Settings (accessed from the Menu button while in Home screen). Under "Applications" there is a setting "Fast Boot" that I checked long ago and forgot about (it seemed like a good thing to do at the time). The text warns "Turn off to use some Market apps" (that shows the age of my 2-yr old used phone and Android OS -- ohmygosh!-- because it refers to Market rather than Google Play Store!) Anyway, I unchecked the option and rebooted the phone.
Yes, it took a bit longer to boot (maybe a whole minute!), but after waiting about another minute ALL my home screen apps had normal icons and loaded properly. Titanium Backup Pro batch scenarios confirmed there were no apps in a forced uninstalled state (i.e. I had not done the deed, the system somehow had done it or at least rendered the apps "invisible" to Titanium, which decided they needed reinstallation).
The only odd behaviour was that auto brightness was turned off after I unchecked Fast Boot and rebooted. Going into Android Settings > Display and rechecking "auto brightness" took care of that. No other oddities or strange behaviours thus far (but it has only been about an hour).
I will report anything further on this thread only (Samsung Fascinate > Fascinate Q&A > What just happend? apps on sdcard) if anything else requires reporting. Silence implies success!
link: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1873670
(I am copying this post to other relevant threads, but will not post anything further elsewhere -- only there. This is a bit arbitrary (especially now that the chosen thread no longer is the most recent active one on this topic), but I hope this approach pleases the XDA sysops/admins) :angel:

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kirkers said:
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have not posted it here but before I forgot. I have found an app that has solved this issue at least the 95% of the time. Also if an app disappears, reboot, when comes back, move to internal and back to sd with this app, always. This app moves apps differently from other app2sd's apps.
It's called link2sd.
Can be found in Google play store and XDA forum.
A great life saver, for an unsolvable problem. Not the super solution, but the best I found so far.
Regards
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