Issue With Android Compatibility Troubleshooting - Jolla General Talk Discussions on JollaTides Community Port

JollaTides

I just thought I'd start a troubleshooting thread because in the last 12hrs I haven't been able to get any android app to load and can't figure out what the problem is.

If I try to load an android app, the multitasking card briefly loads for 5 seconds and then disappears.

I have tried rebooting the phone; turning the phone off removing SD/sim card and rebooting but nothing seems to work.

Has anyone come across this and if so does anyone know of a fix ?

JollaTides

Just tried uninstalling android support and reinstalling - will report back if that fixes this.

JollaTides

Same issue... hmmm. When I go into the 'sd card' folder (reserved for android) now it's completely empty - does that mean I have to completely reinstall all android apps ?

JollaTides

I tried reinstalling one of the android apps and loading that but still doesn't want to load... :-(

Kayakist · Post edited by Kayakist at 2014-01-11 21:52:35

I've experienced something similar lately: some Android apps start to load, but crash after a few seconds. After some attempts the app loads and functions normally. (I haven't all that many Android apps installed and I've left the dev mode to those who know about those things, so my phone's specs probably differ from yours on those points...)

JollaTides

@Kayakist

Thanks for the input. With rgds your issue, I found the same occasionally but worked out that it was often linked to other things.

For an example if you have 9 native apps running in the multitasking screen, android will not load. So you have to first exit a native app so there is at least one space on the homescreen for the android app layer to load.

JollaTides

I've posted my problem to Jolla together here as still not found a fix: https://together.jolla.com/question/13805/android-support-not-working-apps-not-loading/

Someone there suggested removing android support app via terminal. Does anyone know which files would need removing to completely remove android support altogether via terminal?

@knux @andreibechet @technicus @cybette @morpog @simo @jjaone @faz @rated @williepre @Markkyboy @Kaacz @Blitzschlag or anyone else ?

KnuX · Post edited by KnuX at 2014-01-12 20:51:16

Sailfish uses rpm packages, right?
"rpm -ql package"
should list the files from an installed package.
If you're unsure which package it is, maybe try "rpm -qa" to list all.

KnuX

Also "rpm -ql packagename | sudo xargs rm" should nuke the files, but use with extreme care.

JollaTides

@KnuX

Thanks for the tip... :-) there is a long list of rpm packages which I scanned through but didn't see anything obvious for the android support file.

If I can find out the file name for the android support install I was going to run:

pkcon remove "file name"

I don't see why this should be any different from the Jolla store uninstall though?

I'm now thinking that when I reinstalled the Android Support app there are some missing directories. (I had a look at the Alien Dalvik readme and it said if directories were missing you need to add them). I'll try and find the readme again and do a screenshot.

Markkyboy

Not so much a removal,but a way to turn off that side of things; just a thought. I do understand what you actually meant, so not sure if my response is relevant or not!, anyway, try this;

devel-su required;

systemctl stop aliendalvik.service

Just a thought 8-)

JollaTides

@Markkyboy

Thanks for that - I actually tried earlier running:

devel-su

systemctl stop aliendalvik.service

Followed by:

systemctl start aliendalvik.service

To try and manually jumpstart the android runtime... needless to say that didn't work either. :-(

I'm at a complete loss and have searched for an answer over the past 24hrs. The only thing I can think is that when I uninstalled/reinstalled, some of the alien dalvik directories were not added again. Meaning it would be a simple case of adding the missing empty folders/directories with the correct folder names of course.

I really need to know the alien dalvik directory tree to see if I have any missing folders since the reinstall.

JollaTides

Or does anyone know how to access recent error logs for the alien dalvik runtime ?

Markkyboy · Post edited by Markkyboy at 2014-01-12 23:11:28

I can post screenshots showing the directories found by searching 'aliendalvik' in root.
There are 7 screenshots in all, each one showing what's in what.
I tried posting all 7 images in one go, but nothing happened, looks like it will be one at a time, if you want me to post them, that is...?

JollaTides

@Markkyboy

That would be amazing if you don't mind, and in return, there is an unclaimed t-shirt from the last competition available - I'll pm you the details if you would like it (although there isn't much choice tbh!)... :-)

KnuX

Maybe you could ask someone to post the result or running find / under root.
That way you would get a list of all the files and directories on the Sailfish filesystem.

As for the packages, I'm thinking that it might happen that the android support is something complex so maybe it's a special case and doesn't register with the normal rpm package system?

Markkyboy

The coloured dots are to represent which folder to look at for what's inside.
I'm a bit tired, so I hope I'm making sense :)

Markkyboy

That's quite a large image I've posted, I can't view it from this forum, can you, Captain?

JollaTides

Markkyboy said:
That's quite a large image I've posted, I can't view it from this forum, can you, Captain?

That's great thanks it loads in another page full size... :-D

Thanks so much (!) now go and get some rest and I'll go thru this and see if there is anything astray (hopefully it might help someone else if I can solve it!). Cheers, timo

Markkyboy

@Captain
You're welcome, Timo.
I think I have missed some detail from one folder, I will check now.
I won't be sleeping just yet, I'm a bit of a night owl ;)
Wonder why I can't view it then, tried all sorts of ways. Think my browser is playing up, as this site/forum, locks up if I don't type and post quickly!, weird! ;D

JollaTides

@KnuX

Yes agreed I think it's pretty complex as I've seen files (for alien dalvik) dotted around all over... I think this may be a bigger issue than I first thought but can't understand the random nature of how it happened?! :S

Markkyboy · Post edited by Markkyboy at 2014-01-13 00:11:14

I've checked, it's okay. The FOURTH image marked with a light green blob; that folder is empty.
Yes, all a little bit beyond me to be honest, but I enjoy the exploration ;)

JollaTides

Markkyboy said:
I've checked, it's okay. The FOURTH image marked with a light green blob; that folder is empty.
Yes, all a little bit beyond me to be honest, but I enjoy the exploration ;)

Just to report all files/folders searched under "aliendavik" were there, present and correct from my side so the plot thickens and thanks again for the clarification...

I know that /mnt/sdcard is mean't for android app data... my folder is currently completely empty ie. not even some empty folders (eg. "Android" etc) ready for data to go into. I'm wondering whether before an android app can run, this "sdcard" folder needs to be populated with the correct directories ?

Don't worry just now though and thanks so much for all you guys input so far, I'll sleep on it and hopefully get a 'eureka' moment delivered in a dream later! lol

Markkyboy · Post edited by Markkyboy at 2014-01-13 00:32:28

A comment from Rooster13 on TMO;
Quote
"I have tampered with this folder many times already. You need to restart the phone after uninstallation Android support. Then in terminal I have removed the whole /opt/alien folder and re-installed Android support."

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=92116

JollaTides

I uninstalled... reboot... check in file manager and opt/"alien" folder doesn't exist. But maybe a trace is left that still needs removal in terminal... who knows :\

Markkyboy

Yes, to answer your question/offer earlier, a free t-shirt is always good, thank you. Rather than what is left, it maybe easier to say, what is left in a large size? (middle age spread has set in!) :D

I wonder if the last Sailfish O/S update can be installed, by way of refreshing the file system?, maybe I'm thinking too much along the line of Windows!

JollaTides

No probs, I'll be in contact via pm regarding the t-shirt @Markkyboy ;-)

At this stage I'm just trying to avoid going down the path of completely resetting the device. There must be a simple fix to this as I really haven't messed with the file system at all (aside from stopping tohd.service) so can't understand why this would have happened. :-(

rated

I read elsewhere that the recent update to the TOR app (which was uploaded on Openrepos sometime over the weekend) caused all kinds of hell with the phone, one of which involved the loss of access to Android apps (I believe that update of TOR has now been removed from OpenRepos) - not sure if you ran that update at all?

If not then you can probably ignore this....

JollaTides

Thanks for the feedback @Rated

TOR = tethering app ? I've been suspecting one of the openrepos apps to be the culprit though as I had downloaded a few before the problem started. I think you may be on to something... ;-)

JollaTides

@rated

Or you mean TOR = The Open Repos app = Warehouse ?

JollaTides

I've just tried the following:

removing warehouse followed by uninstall/reinstall android support
removing tweetian/webcat followed by uninstall/reinstall android support

Still got the same problems... I'm really not looking forward to resetting the device.

It would be great if I could find a fix as it would then benefit others in future - I'm certain it's a simple fix that's what's frustrating.

JollaTides

UPDATE:

With more help from @Sailor on Jollatogether I found the aliendalvik package.

aliendalvik-0.5.8-4.armv7hl.rpm

Then using @KnuX technique:

rpm -ql aliendalvik-0.5.8-4.armv7hl

I get a list of all of the installed files from the package in terminal.

Most files are in folder /opt/alien and also in /var/lib/aliendalvik

@Sailor mentions there's also a udev rule in: /etc/udev/rules.d/90-binder.rules

So now the question is how best to remove these folders (and their contents) via terminal ? I'm assuming I use the rm -r command ?

JollaTides · Post edited by JollaTides at 2014-01-13 18:09:11

Copy of journalctl log showing aliendalvik errors:

KnuX

Just to answer your previous question, normal Android does not need anything in the sdcard folder, older versions (not sure about now) could even run without sd card -- modern ones just always emulate one, even when the phone doesn't have a physical sd card.

JollaTides

@Knux

I appreciate that yes I that's what I mean't that the sdcard folder under mnt/sdcard is an emulated one just for android. :-)

The actual sd card folder is located somewhere else altogether which we covered in this video:

I've now deleted so many apps trying to see what the cause of the problem was that I've decided I may as well do a factory reset now. It's a shame because I'm sure there's an easy fix somehow somewhere, but I need my Jolla back. :(

JollaTides

Ok after 3 days of troubleshooting, we finally have found a fix with @J4ZZ's script and a lot of help from @Sailor (thanks so much guys!)

The problem stemmed from android support suddenly deciding not to work on Sailfish Version 1.0.2.5 as mentioned in the OP.

@J4ZZ solution (which worked in my case) is posted here and involves running a Shell script to remove some cache files remaining after the Android support uninstall process on the Jolla Store has completed: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=1406350#post1406350

Follow the directions in the link and then reinstall Android support and it should work if you were having the same problems outlined by me in the OP.

KnuX

Glad you solved it. Hopefully Jolla will be able to stop this from happening in future releases.

Sailor · Post edited by Sailor at 2014-01-15 18:18:53

I don't think it was a actual Jolla problem. It could also be caused by a unsupported third-party app from the warehouse. Or by Google Playstore (I don't know if it was installed).

JollaTides

@Sailor

Yes I think it was maybe a beta 3rd party app but it couldn't be google play because I didn't install that. ;-)

Sailor

That's why I wrote this in brackets ;) it was only a guess which could cause such a behaviour.

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