Why are my apps uninstalling and re-installing themselves?

[koakuma]

Hi,

I've been having troubles with my phone since the beginning of February and I still didn't find what I could do to fix them. (It goes from a problem to another).
Right now, my big problem is that whenever I open my phone, my apps disappear as if they were uninstalled and they don't show on my SD card.
Then, sometimes, waiting a little, they will come back, but for some of them, the saved data was deleted.
Some apps come back faster than others and won't lose their saved data, for some others, it will take time.

While the apps appear as uninstalled, i also can't download anything from the Google Play Store, showing an error 504 message.
Sometimes, one or two apps won't come back if i just wait, I don't know what triggers it, but if i delete Google play store's app data and restart my phone a couple times, they will end up coming back (with saved data deleted).
So they don't actually uninstall themselves, since they come back without me needing to reinstall them, but for some time the phone can't find them, Google Play store doesn't work and their saved data ends up deleted.
And this problem happens every. single. day. (sometimes twice a day, I just have to turn off my phone and There! Gone! Again!)

I also tried the tip of activating and deactivating plane mode, with no different results.
Only 3 of my games never uninstall themselves, which are the only ones on my phone's internal data instead of on the SD card.
So i tried formatting my SD card and reinstalling all the apps to see if that would solve the problem (didn't care about losing my data, since that problem already deleted it =/) and it still happens.

I even tried formatting it with RecoveRx, a program on Transcend's website (I have a Transcend micro-SD card) and it didn't work.
I am now thinking about buying a new SD card, since this problem all started in the beginning of February when my phone said my SD card was corrupted and deleted everything on it, but my phone only said that once, now it doesn't say anymore that it is corrupted, I formatted it 3 times and I can't find any tips on how to find out if an SD card is really corrupted or not. (They talked about the camera not working correctly to take photos but i tested it and i can take photos just fine it seems, no black screen or anything).

There's only one thing that makes me hesitate about it being an SD card problem : Pac-Man Dash!, one of my 3 game apps which are on my phone's internal data (thus which never gets that uninstall/reinstall problem) bugs too.
Sometimes, when I open it, it will bug and won't start at all and the only solution to that (since it still does it even when my phone makes all the other apps appear again) seems to be to reinstall the app completely.
Though it might be different, since the error message is completely different than from the others.
When i try to open an app that my phone doesn't find, it will close and say "Sorry, *Name of the app* stopped working". (And then it will disappear, since they always appear when i open my phone and then disappear after some seconds, so i have the time to open one before it disappears, but it will just close).
But for Pac-Man Dash!, it will instead show a grey screen saying "Starting..." and I'll get an error message in my notifications menu (shown as a triangle with an !) saying the app can't be started.
And when i get that, uninstalling and re-installing the app is the only solution.
So i get errors on an internal storage app too, which makes me think the problem could persist even with a new SD card.
I also got a similar error on Pokémon Duel, an app on my SD card, where the intro would start, but when it got to the main menu it said an error had occurred and the only solution was also to uninstall and re-install the app.
I also got an error on Camp Pokémon which also forced me to uninstall and re-install it.
So that happened on 3 apps in all, and one of them is in internal storage.

So, did this problem ever happen to you?
Do you have any tips on how to solve it?
Do you think I should buy a new SD card?

This is my first cellphone and i only got it in July, this is the first time i got problems on it (which has persisted for a month and a half) and I have no idea what to do anymore.
I couldn't find any answer on the net and i dunno what else to do than ask you.
I hope you can help me with this.

Info about my phone :
It's a Motorolla Gen 3
I'm with Telus
It's an Android phone
(By the way, there has been an update recently, I installed it, but it didn't change a thing. This problem happened before the update and also after the update, so it is surely not related)
I download games on Google play
I have a Transcend micro-SD card, set as internal storage.
I have 18 game apps, 3 on internal storage and 15 on the SD card. The 15 always disappear all at the same time (and when looking in the SD card storage at that time, it says it has no apps installed, but then they come back)
Color Switch is the app which takes the most time coming back, since often the 14 others come back in one shot but this one takes multiple phone restarts.
Also, when color switch comes back, it is as if the data was deleted (it links with my google play account though, so only stars disappear, the rest of my progress is intact with that one.
If i remember correctly, the 2 other apps on my internal storage (you know, other than Pac-Man Dash!) work well even when my other ones still didn't reappear.

Also, sorry for that loooong post, I have lots of things to explain and I'm not good at making it short =P

 

[B. Diddy]

Is this a 3rd generation Moto G? You only mentioned "Motorola Gen 3."

The SD card could be corrupt, defective, or counterfeit. Install SD Insight to see if the card is genuine or counterfeit. Counterfeit cards are programmed to report more storage than they actually have, and if you try saving more than the card can actually hold, then files can start getting corrupt.

If it's a valid card, then go to Settings>Storage, Unmount the card, remove it, and insert it into your computer. Can the computer read these files? Backup as much as you can right now, then run chkdsk to look for bad sectors: http://forums.androidcentral.com/am...guide-using-chkdsk-fix-corrupted-sd-card.html.

If the card checks out fine, then try wiping the cache partition, which won't erase any personal data. Assuming you have a 3rd gen Moto G, here are the steps: https://motorola-mobility-en-in.cus...prod_answer_detail/a_id/105656/p/30,6720,9390

 

[koakuma]

Yes my phone is a 3rd generation Moto G (I checked in my "About phone" menu)
I installed this SD Insight app on my phone and it doesn't say it is counterfeit though I was surprised by which manufacturer it said it was. It says my SD card's manufacturer is Jiaelec Corp. (can't find anything about this manufacturer on the net, though the link seem to be related to Transcend?) and my MMC card's manufacturer would be Micron (Though what is a MMC card? Is it the other card in the phone that makes it work? The one with internal storage and all that?)
It says the model of my SD card is SD32G and the size is 31GB, which corresponds with what is written on the card, so that doesn't seem to be problem, my card seems legit.

Now I tried this unmount thing (was searching for an unmount option but my phone says eject) so i ejected it and put it in my micro-SD card adapter to put it in my computer.
This is where I can't get any further though.
Like I said, I formatted my SD card as internal storage for my phone, and it says it will thus make it only readable on my phone and nothing else.
Thus, when I enter my SD card in my computer, my computer says it can't open it or see anything that's on it, due to this.
It then asks me to format it and says that formatting it will remove all of my data, which I try to avoid.
Thus, I didn't do that step.

Though, I put my SD card back inside my phone and connected my phone to my computer via an USB cable, then selected the "Transfer files (MTP)" option on my phone. My computer then sees my phone and I go to Computer > MotoG3 > Internal storage.
I was wondering why it was saying Internal storage instead of Transcend SD card, so I right-clicked on it and it said there was 4Go of storage taken and maybe 400-something Mo available.
That's... my phone's storage =/
So I went in my phone's options, in the SD card's storage menu and clicked on "Migrate data" so that my internal data that could be moved would be moved to my SD card.
Now my computer still sees it as "Internal storage" (maybe because I selected it as internal storage for my phone?) and it shows my SD card storage correctly (2,7Go taken, 26Go available, that's more like it).
That's actually something that had confused me for some time, since i was normally seeing 12 folders in there and before i migrated the data it was seeing, like, 3.

Though that's simply that I forgot to migrate the data after formatting my SD card with RecoveRx; my app disappearance problem was already happening before i formatted it and after i formatted it, so i don't think that could've been the problem.
Also, before formatting it with RecoveRx, I DID migrate the data. It's just this one time that I forgot.
Though, after formatting it with RecoveRx, i did see a difference : My apps don't disappear each day. Maybe after 2 or 3 days, but not each time i open my phone.
That's improvement? Maybe? Or just a coincidence, that's possible too.

Sooooo, now that my computer actually sees my SD card's storage correctly, i did a backup on my computer. (Though, I dunno if looking at it via an USB cable actually shows ALL data on the SD card, or if, to see it completely, I would need to insert it directly with the SD card adaptor).
Would that backup be enough?
Also, I didn't try your chkdsk solution, since it seems to need for the SD card to be directly in my computer with the card adaptor (since it needs the card's letter like C, D, E, etc.) and i don't know if it would work if I inserted it without formatting it, since my computer wouldn't see the files.
To do that step, would I need to lose my files? Would the backup suffice?

Sooo, would I need to format my SD card as portable in my phone? (Would that delete the data?)
Would I need to format it on my computer (That surely deletes the data, right?)
Or would i need to ignore that chkdsk step and just go and do that cache partition step? (I didn't try it since i was wondering if i was supposed to do that after the chkdsk thing or if it didn't matter).

Sorry again for that long text.
I hope what i say isn't too confusing or repetitive, I try not to omit anything so that you have all the info needed to help me out.
Thanks for helping though =)

 

[B. Diddy]

Sorry, I must have missed the line where you mentioned having formatted the card as Internal Storage when I first read through the post. You're right, a card formatted as Internal Storage can't be read by other devices, since it's encrypted by the device that formatted it.

I've seen quite a few posts about glitches with SD cards formatted as Internal Storage on Moto devices, so I suspect they messed up the implementation of this feature in some way. If there's no crucial data on the card, I'd recommend formatting it as Portable Storage instead, and use it only for storage of media files and other documents. Of course, this will mean that the phone will be more limited in terms of how many apps you can install.

 

[koakuma]

That's... disappointing.
So, to keep all my apps, I'd need to change phone. Wonderful.
Then that means that the problem is probably from my phone itself and buying a new SD card wouldn't change a thing?
And, does formatting a SD card to portable mean that i can't install apps on it?
Because these apps is all I use my phone for, I never send any SMS or take any photos or videos (I do call people sometimes, but rarely, so i don't even pay for unlimited calls, I only pay 100$ a year for the calls and i get far from the limit.)

If i have only my phone storage to keep my apps on, then i'll only be able to keep 3 apps (maybe max 5) and i'll have a useless SD card (really, that's all it was for).
I am wondering though, can it really be my phone's fault?
I got it in July and had absolutely no problems with it until the beginning of February, where it said my card was corrupted.
Wouldn't that problem with an SD card set as internal storage trigger much sooner than after 6 months if that was it?

What actually is the difference between setting an SD card as internal storage vs as a portable device?

 

[B. Diddy]

This is only a suspicion on my part, since we see a number of issues relating to Adoptable Storage on Moto devices. One of the more common issues is that the phone says there's no more room because the phone's native Internal Storage is full, even thought the adopted SD card has plenty of space. But it's probably still just a sporadic issue, and the majority of users may be doing fine with it. You certainly could try a new SD card, and I hope that fixes the problem -- but I'd still be cautious, and make sure you back up your important data regularly to your computer or to the cloud.

You're correct, formatting the SD as Portable Storage means that you can't install apps directly onto the card. The card would act like it has traditionally been used for, as storage for media files and documents. You might be able to use the old Move to SD feature in Settings>Apps, but this only moves a portion of the app's data to the SD card, not the whole thing.

Formatting the card as Internal incorporates the card's storage into the phone's Internal Storage, so that you can install entire apps directly to it. The card gets encrypted in the process, so you can only use the card on that phone, and if you reset the phone, the card loses the encryption key, and the data on there becomes irretrievable.

 

[koakuma]

Thanks for the help =)
(Some people wouldn't even have tried to read my walls of text xD)
Your explanation can probably explain my recent problems with my SD card.
Like I said, right now, my apps do not disappear as often as they used to before the last formatting I did, but my apps on my SD card are taking less space (due to most not having any data (I didn't want to restart most games just yet, since I didn't want to lose it again, I was waiting to find a way to fix that before)), they take like 1Go instead of 2Go, so it might start bugging when I get to 2Go because that wouldn't fit on my phone's internal storage.

Though, I am pretty sure that before February, my SD card's storage was higher than what I have right now, without a problem, this is what makes me think the problem could be caused by the SD card.
Really, I just can't forget that "SD card corrupted" message my phone showed up, even though it stopped showing it.
Is there an app that can find out if an SD card is corrupted or malfunctioning?
Could my computer find it out even if I end up emptying it? (So that my computer could read it)
Do you think if I bring back my SD card with a receipt to the store i bought it at (if I find that receipt...) that they would accept to give me back my money or another SD card even though I'm not sure if it is what causes the problem? (Even if you say no, I might still try if i end up finding that receipt, since i have no idea where it is now xD)

Since I pretty much tried everything else, I think buying a new SD card is my next step.
Until i find that receipt, I may continue playing only one of my apps (Fire Emblem Heroes) since it is linked to my Nintendo account and thus my saved game cannot be erased, ever. (And i love that app~)
Thanks again, and when I'll buy a new phone (in a long time, probably), I might ask on this site which phone brand would be recommended for me, to avoid any sort of common problem with a certain phone brand.

 

[B. Diddy]

The best way I know of to test for corruption is with chkdsk, but we've already discussed that. I'm really not sure if a PC could use chkdsk on a card that's encrypted and formatted as Internal Storage.

How new is the card? Your success in returning it would depend on the store return policy. If you don't meet their criteria, then you'd have to see what kind of warranty Transcend has.

 

[koakuma]

That's why i asked if chkdsk could work on an empty SD card, if i format it to portable storage, by example.
Like, if there's absolutely nothing on it, can it find troubles?
And for their return policy, i'll really need to find that receipt, since it is probably written there (i just hope it is a one-year warranty or something like that).
But if it's not or if i can't find that receipt, then i'll just buy a new one.
Dunno what i'll do with my old one though, my phone is my only device needing a micro-SD card.

 

[B. Diddy]

I don't think bad sectors depend on if any files are there. Bad sectors are bad sectors, so chkdsk should be able to find them, as long as the SD card is readable by the computer. So if you formatted it to Portable, I'm guessing that chkdsk would be able to find any bad sectors.

These days, microSD cards should be regarded as disposable, since they're all generally low quality memory (even the well-regarded brands like Sandisk) and relatively inexpensive (at least the ones that smaller than 64 GB).

 

[koakuma]

Hm, then maybe i should try that chkdsk thing (i didn't continue playing any of my games except the one linked online, so nothing to lose.)
I didn't know they were so easy to have problems with.
Maybe I should buy a 64 GB Sandisk micro-SD card then. (Mine is 32GB, i have no problem buying big with these things, i want all the storage i can get =P)

I wonder though, is there a good way to keep your games saves?
Like, if i copy/paste my SD card's data on my computer, then install it all on a new SD card, will it :
1. - Keep my apps?
(I have doubts about that one, but i'm simply wondering if there are ways to keep an app which doesn't exist in the app store anymore but is still playable for those who had already installed it before it was removed from the store; if that is impossible though, moving these apps to phone storage temporarily might be the best way to keep them)
2. - Keep my apps saves?
(This is the one I am really wondering about, does changing SD cards mean you will automatically lose your saved games without any way to retrieve them? Would the backup really make you retrieve it?)

After I'll have tried that chkdsk thing and/or bought a new SD card, I'll tell you here if it worked or not.
I think you and probably some people who would have the same problem as me would like to know if my problem could finally be solved =)

Though, if it looks like it works when i buy a new SD card, i'll still wait a week or so and start playing my games until my data takes 2 or 3Go on my card, just to be sure it really works before shouting victory too soon.
Wish me good luck on that =)

 

[B. Diddy]

I'm not sure about backing up SD data to your computer. It depends on how the games save your progress. If it's to a save game file, then it also depends on if you can simply copy that file to the proper directory of another device with that game installed. Some games will also save your progress to the cloud (like if you log in with Google Play Games or Facebook), which is ideal -- but unfortunately, not all games do this.

 

[koakuma]

Hmmm, since I wanted to keep my app data for a little time, I've not done anything about my phone's SD card for some days.
I thought that I'd try to continue playing as long as no problem would occur (well, i was pretty much only playing Fire Emblem Heroes, which has the save file linked to my Nintendo account, so no problem there) but then I saw that I couldn't open multiple apps at all, so chose it was the time.
I formatted my SD card as portable storage, ejected it, inserted it in my computer and ran the cmd.exe program. (As an administrator)

That... gave me an error saying :
C:\WINDOWS\system32>chkdsk e: /f
The type of the file system is FAT32.
Insufficient memory.
An unspecified error occurred (666174766f6c2e63 d6).

I was gonna ask you about that, but when i right-clicked my SD card's drive, it said it had 15.8 Mo available and some Ko used.
My card is 32GB, that makes no sense.
So I tried to find out if the problem could be caused by the fact I formatted it as portable storage for my phone, so I formatted it again on RecoveRx, and now it's back to 32GB (29.1Go available, to be exact).

I've then re-run the cmd.exe thing and now it gives me :
C:\WINDOWS\system32>chkdsk e: /f
Le type du système de fichiers est FAT32.
Volume Transcend a créé 19/07/03 08:00
Le numéro de série du volume est 9016-4EF8
Windows vérifie les fichiers et les dossiers...
Vérification des fichiers et des dossiers terminée.

Windows a analysé le système de fichiers sans trouver de problème.
Aucune autre action n’est requise.
30*523*360 Ko d’espace disque au total.
32 Ko dans 1 fichiers cachés.
32 Ko dans 1 fichiers.
30*523*264 Ko sont disponibles.

32*768 octets dans chaque unité d’allocation.
953*855 unités d’allocation au total sur le disque.
953*852 unités d’allocation disponibles sur le disque.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>

Ok, that's French, but really, it gives me the same thing as the guy in the forum when he says his SD card is fine.
I could offer you a translation if you want, but I don't think it's necessary.
So, apparently, my SD card is fine.
That doesn't explain the problems i've had with it for 2 months now.
And right now I'm really wondering if buying a new SD card will fix anything, since according to every system I try, everything should be fine with that SD card.
Could it still be corrupted even though everything says it is fine?

...Well...
I think I'll just end up buying one anyway, just in case there's even a little tiny chance it will work.
Maybe.
Really, I'm just out of ideas.
I just hope I won't need to buy a new phone.
Because I don't really have the money to buy many things right now so a new phone is out of the question for the moment.
If the problem is the phone, I'll be pissed and just try to play less games to avoid any problem until i buy a new phone.
That might take a year or two before i buy a new one.
Really, i'm broke.

Sorry if this post is starting to get long, (it's been long for some time now) but i'll give you the results when I buy a new SD card and test it.
Wish me luck!

 

[belodion]

^ Definitely.

 

[koakuma]

So, bought a new SD card yesterday and here's the news : it didn't solve anything.
I actually got worse problems with it (a 64GB micro-SD Lexar card) than my other one (a 32GB micro-SD Kingston card).
Also, I buy them in an electronics store (Staples in English, here it's called "Bureau en Gros" since we're a French province), so they're not supposed to be counterfeit.
First thing when I open my phone after inserting the new SD card : message that says it is corrupted.
An empty, brand new SD card...
By the way, I asked my phone to forget the old SD card, to be sure there's no problem with my phone mixing them up or something.

So, when clicking on that "SD card corrupted" message, it asks me to format it as internal storage.
I do that and a message pops up saying that SD card is particularly slow and could run apps badly because of that.
The SD card's box says that this Lexar SD card is supposed to be particularly faster than others.
So I went and used SD Insight on it, and apparently it really is a 64GB card and doesn't seem counterfeit.
Then, true test : install an app and see if it works.
I installed Fire Emblem Heroes, opened it, then it crashed.
My phone says "SD card missing".
Shut down my phone, remove and reinsert the SD card, reopen my phone, says SD card missing again.
It sometimes sees the SD card, but not long after it says again that it is missing and sometimes my phone resets for no apparent reason.

That is a problem far worse than what I had with my 32GB SD card, since with this new one, it was impossible to play anything.
At least, even though my other SD card had problems too, it was never uninstalling apps when the storage didn't reach something like 4Go, so I could keep all my 9 apps which keep their saved games on the cloud (so i won't lose any data) and play just these ones until i could fix it.
Searched on the Internet, found people with same problem, no solution but something interesting :
They pretty much all had a 3rd Generation Motorola phone, same brand as mine.
So it seems the problem comes from my phone, not the SD cards.

So, first, I will never recommend a 3rd generation Motorola to anyone, ever.
Second, I will start searching for a new phone.
I will probably not buy it just yet, but I will still try to find which brand would be the best to buy for what I use it for (I want a phone that has no problem with installing lots and lots of apps (I wouldn't mind installing 200, the only limit is my storage, so i want a phone which has no problem with that.))
I'd also like to have a phone with a gyroscope, as a little bonus (Not essential, just a cool option).
I use my phone as a game console, I pretty rarely call anyone, but I still want a phone over a tablet because I DO need to call people sometimes, just rarely.

Oh, and I brought back the 64GB SD card to Staples to get a refund.
Told them the problem was probably not the card but my phone instead, so they shouldn't have any problem with it (Told them to test it to be sure before they re-sell it though).
When I change phone though, I might give this one to my brother (he knows the troubles i got with it, i wouldn't hide that from him).
He'd like to play some games on the phone, but only 3 or 4, so even though this phone has problems, having so few apps shouldn't give him any problems with it (And they're all apps that keep data online, so no losing data for him either).

Thank you for answering my questions and trying to find a solution to my problem, I appreciate it.
I will continue using this phone with few apps until I buy a new one, and i can still call people, so the waiting time won't be too bad.
Never though I would get that much problems with my phone, but I will stop focusing on it now that I think the only solution is to change phones, been having these troubles for 2 months, so I was getting pretty annoyed with that (re-started some games like 5 times because I was trying to find out if my possible solutions were actually working, so It was getting pretty annoying to replay the beginning and tutorials of these games xD)
Thanks again =)

 

[belodion]

Have you considered contacting the phone manufacturer's customer support?

 

[koakuma]

Hmmm, never thought about contacting Motorola directly actually.
(Well I just realized yesterday that it was probably my phone's fault and not the SD card's).
I will try that before buying a new phone, just in case they'd actually have a solution about it.

I will tell you here what they answer me and if it works or not.
Let's hope they know how to fix it, otherwise I'll buy a new phone.
Thanks for the suggestion =)