Fix for Market apps not downloading or installing (image warning)

Jerry Hildenbrand · 10-19-2010, 03:51 PM

This is starting to become a big issue, so it's high time we whipped up a how-to about the permanent fix for the problem of the Market hanging during download or installation of apps.

I'm sure that there are other reasons this could happen, but the following should fix it for most users. It's not nearly as hard as it looks, and I'll try to toss some images in to help keep things clear.

What's happening
Since Froyo came along, we now have an encrypted folder on the SD card for application installation. I'm not 100% sure why or how, but the folder seems to be fouling up for a lot of folks. When certain apps are coded to be installed to the SD card by default (Angry Birds anyone), if your folder is wonky, it won't work. There's two fixes -- an easy, temporary fix, and a more involved semi-permanent fix.

The Easy Fix
When you try to install an app from the Market that won;t download or hangs at the installation, cancel the install. Then, on your phone, press menu--> settings --> SD & Phone storage. You'll see this:

Select the Unmount SD card option, then install your application. After it's installed, you can go back and Mount the SD card, or reboot.

The more permanent fix
While it's not too hard, if you're like me you get tired of doing things more than once. Here's a semi-permanent fix (semi because the folder can get all wonky again).

Open the Manage Applications screen (menu --> settings --> Applications --> Manage Applications) and select the far right tab that says "On SD card"

One by one, select each application and move it back to your phone's storage using the "Move to Phone" button.

Yes, it's tedious, but it's worth it in the end.

Once you have all your applications moved off the SD card and onto the phone's internal storage, open up your file manager (Astro is a good one if you don't already have a favorite, I'm using the open source file manager built into CyanogenMod in the example -- but they should all look very similar) and look for a folder named .android_secure.

This is the encrypted folder where all your applications used to be. Delete it. As long as you have moved all your apps back to the phone storage, nothing in that folder is needed for anything.

Reboot your phone. After it restarts, go back and place your applications back on the SD card. You should now be able to download and install apps that need to use the SD card again.

igotsanevo4g · 10-19-2010, 08:05 PM

Sweet. Gracias as always.

**ragnarokx** · 08:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gbhil

What's happening
Since Froyo came along, we now have an encrypted folder on the SD card for application installation. I'm not 100% sure why or how, but the folder seems to be fouling up for a lot of folks. When certain apps are coded to be installed to the SD card by default (Angry Birds anyone), if your folder is wonky, it won't work. There's two fixes -- an easy, temporary fix, and a more involved semi-permanent fix.

So this doesn't apply to any other OS versions? I'm on Eclair and I have this problem sometimes.

Edit: I'm guessing not since Eclair doesn't have App2SD

TreyDaPrince · 10-19-2010, 08:11 PM

Sounds good but I don't have any apps installed on my SD card and I still Gabriel this problem.

icebike · 10-19-2010, 08:22 PM

The "more permanent" fix presumes you actually have enough room on your phone to move them back to the phone.

Those phones with enough room wouldn't need to be moving to SD in the first place. So its a catch 22.

You can just as well uninstall these apps in the SD folder, as most apps store settings and working data somewhere else, and you can often re-install them after deleting the .android-secure folder and with virutally no re-configuring. They pick up where they left off.

Wicket · 10-19-2010, 08:44 PM

I've had this problem a lot lately along with low disk space warnings and yesterday morning all my apps on my SD card decided to disappear along with any app updates I had done.. I wonder if deleting this folder would have been a fix vs a full factory reset?..

dousenator · 06:39 AM

What if Astro says "error deleting file"?

Droid 2, not rooted.

tasi · 10-19-2010, 09:21 PM

Open a terminal app on your phone and enter the following commands

Code:

su
rm /mnt/secure/asec/smdl2tmp1.asec

Found this fix on XDA-Developers.com, that site is a God send!

gadzooks64 · 10-19-2010, 09:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dousenator

What if Astro says "error deleting file"?

I'm getting that with OI File Manager as well.

roccom33 · 10-19-2010, 09:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tasi

Open a terminal app on your phone and enter the following commands

Code:

su
rm /mnt/secure/asec/smdl2tmp1.asec

Found this fix on XDA-Developers.com, that site is a God send!

Registered just to back this up. Found this a couple days ago elsewhere. Simple and just took a minute.

I assume you have to be rooted to do this (I am) with the "su" command, but if you aren't you can just mount to USB and navigate on your computer to that folder to delete the file. It will not show up in a file explorer on the phone for some reason.