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[GUIDE] Living with CM9 ICS alpha - Tips & tricks / Troubleshooting

I have been using CM9 ICS on my Note for 4 days on and off. And needless to say, it has been a great experience. So I thought I would start this thread for everyone else who is using CM9 and would like to share their tips/tricks.
- I would like to start off with this particularly useful tip I discovered. The music player crashes a LOT and when you boot back up you notice several copies of you tracks. This happens to me the most with the stock music player. Hence I have switched to winamp which seems to be a lot more stable. The fix for the duplicated files after a crash (force close) is very simple. You either need to perform a factory wipe from clockworkmod (messy) or go to Settings>Apps>ALL>Media Storage>Clear Data and REBOOT. Once you have a fresh start, you need to backup the "[PLAYLISTS] Media Storage" data with Titanium Backup. Next time you have a crash, fire up Titanium Backup and restore the DATA ONLY from the Media Storage backup you made earlier. Reboot. Your library should be free from duplicates now. I also recommend switching to winamp. Winamp too crashes sometimes but you can use the same fix for it. If you happen to load more tracks, launch winamp and make sure the library has updated fine and perform another backup of Media storage from Titanium Backup. BTW, winamp also has an option for lock screen integration.
-I use ES explorer for general messin around with the filesystem. How you set it up is also simple. Get ES explorer, go to settings and enable Root Explorer, superuser will ask for permission, say yes. Now scroll up a bit and you will see the Home Directory option. Set it to "/". Yes, that is just slash. Now when you hit 'up' in the explorer window you can leave the sdcard location and explorer the system files. Now you internal sdcard's(storage) location is "/sdcard" or "/mnt/sdcard". The external (microsd) path is "/mnt/extsdcard". I haven't tried OTG USB mounting but the path for that would be "/mnt/usbdisk".
-There are SEVERAL ways of getting files on you sd, internal or external. The easiest way is to reboot>recovery>mounts & storage>mount USB storage. But that gives you access only to the internal sd. You can use ES explorer for sharing files wirelessly with your windows machine using the SMB protocol which is very robust. I suggest you google for instructions. You can also use QtADB, which gives you access to you external card too. And then there is dropbox. Dropbox now uses a temp system location for downloading files. The path to the temp folder is "/sdcard/Android/data/com.dropbox.android/files/scratch". You can use ES explorer to go to that path and 'retrieve' your downloaded files. Works especially well with .zip's.
-Now, the default boot animation is cropped on the sides and is kinda lame. So I thought I would try and fix it. I couldn't fix it with resizing the jpegs. So I just snagged some bootanimations from the web. I liked the one I attached below the most. It's called Machina and runs full screen on the Note. No cropping Now once you download that zip, you need to get it on your sd. Do it any way you like. Set up root on ES explorer and also enable Write Mode. DON'T FLASH THE ZIP WITH CLOCKWORKMOD. Locate the file on ES explorer, copy it, navigate to "/system/media" and paste it. You'll notice there is a bootanimation.zip there. That is the default one and you should back it up on your sd. Once backed up, delete the default one and rename the download zip to "bootanimation.zip". Reboot. BTW, I take no credit for the boot animation.
Please hit the thanks button if any of this helped you. I will be adding more info as I come across it.

Click HERE to see a quick youtube video of the boot animation.

Camera doesn't work, I'll pass

I got the nexus bootanimation to be fullscreen. I 'borrowed' hdr jpgs from a tablet build. HERE is a short youtube clip. You will find the zip attached below. Again, DO NOT FLASH WITH CLOCKWORKMOD.
stefan.buddle said:
Camera doesn't work, I'll pass
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not everyone cares about the camera lol

Thank you for the thread and the animations!
Another tip for file transfer (which has been mentioned earlier, in the CM9 thread) is to use Airdroid. I use that method as it feels more convenient to be able to keep the phone on.

I like the machanic bootanimation thx

Akerskuuug said:
Thank you for the thread and the animations!
Another tip for file transfer (which has been mentioned earlier, in the CM9 thread) is to use Airdroid. I use that method as it feels more convenient to be able to keep the phone on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Airdroid is quite possibly the best/most useful app I have seen on Android until now! Thanks for the tip.

acidburn89 said:
-Now, the default boot animation is cropped on the sides and is kinda lame. So I thought I would try and fix it. I couldn't fix it with resizing the jpegs. So I just snagged some bootanimations from the web. I liked the one I attached below the most. It's called Machina and runs full screen on the Note. No cropping Now once you download that zip, you need to get it on your sd. Do it any way you like. Set up root on ES explorer and also enable Write Mode. DON'T FLASH THE ZIP WITH CLOCKWORKMOD. Locate the file on ES explorer, copy it, navigate to "/system/media" and paste it. You'll notice there is a bootanimation.zip there. That is the default one and you should back it up on your sd. Once backed up, delete the default one and rename the download zip to "bootanimation.zip". Reboot. BTW, I take no credit for the boot animation.
Please hit the thanks button if any of this helped you. I will be adding more info as I come across it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Also you can put the bootanimation.zip to /data/local which makes it permanent if you update the rom(in the future i hope )
Placing the bootanimation in /system/media makes it change in every rom update-flash cause the flash formats the system but leaves /data as it is
And if you have different bootanimations in /system/media and /data/local the /data/local bootanimation wins

afilopou said:
Also you can put the bootanimation.zip to /data/local which makes it permanent if you update the rom(in the future i hope )
Placing the bootanimation in /system/media makes it change in every rom update-flash cause the flash formats the system but leaves /data as it is
And if you have different bootanimations in /system/media and /data/local the /data/local bootanimation wins
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice. I can confirm that it works. Thanks!

acidburn89 said:
-There are SEVERAL ways of getting files on you sd, internal or external. The easiest way is to reboot>recovery>mounts & storage>mount USB storage. But that gives you access only to the internal sd. You can use ES explorer for sharing files wirelessly with your windows machine using the SMB protocol which is very robust. I suggest you google for instructions. You can also use QtADB, which gives you access to you external card too. And then there is dropbox. Dropbox now uses a temp system location for downloading files. The path to the temp folder is "/sdcard/Android/data/com.dropbox.android/files/scratch". You can use ES explorer to go to that path and 'retrieve' your downloaded files. Works especially well with .zip's.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What i also discovered.If you connect phone to the pc with usb cable you can not see the sdcards in windows explorer....BUT i installed some time ago the Android Commander windows application (google it) and i can see both sdcards (ext and int) and i can also copy paste files from/to phone to/from pc

afilopou said:
What i also discovered.If you connect phone to the pc with usb cable you can not see the sdcards in windows explorer....BUT i installed some time ago the Android Commander windows application (google it) and i can see both sdcards (ext and int) and i can also copy paste files from/to phone to/from pc
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe I'm just plain stupid and I have missed something, but I tried installing AC and connecting the phone without result. Did you do anything more than just connect it using USB?

Akerskuuug said:
Maybe I'm just plain stupid and I have missed something, but I tried installing AC and connecting the phone without result. Did you do anything more than just connect it using USB?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope.Do you have usb debugging ticked?i also have google drivers installed in my pc

Adjust Touch Sound volume
Hi,
I recently flashed my SGN to CM9 Nightlies. still in practical mode
Does anybody know how to lower down the touch sound volume? quite noisy typing at night..
Thanks.

[Q] Cannot delete some folders

So I have a few folders which cannot be deleted. ES file explorer just says xxx cannot be deleted. I can rename the folder but not move or delete. I'm guessing there is a problem with one of the files in the folder but there are loads.
I origionally rooted the nexus 7 so I could use sixaxis but found too much lag compared with plugging in the controller so decided to return to a stock image. I did an app+data+sd card backup with nexus tools and it was after doing this I have had this problem. (also most of my games which I backed up lost their saves - wheres my water, dead trigger + others is this normal for these games?)
Any advice much appreciated
(oh since applying the stock image I no longer have root)

Could be a file permissions problem, try rooting your device again then changing permissions on the files to give yourself full read/write access to these files.
If this doesn't work you could try deleting them through the command line, but this would also require you to root your device again.
Hope I helped.

Hi thanks for your suggestion. I completely forgot I posted this. Anyway I rooted my device using the toolkit and all worked well. But I still cannot delete many folders and files and also some apps don't seem to be able to save properly.
Does anyone have any ideas on what could be wrong? Apart from this the system is stable and I would rather not do a fresh install because of all the games I have (long downloads and I have had problems backing up and restoring saves in the past) is there a way to just set all the files and folders on my phone to read / write (es file explorer reports these files have the required permissions but maybe setting them might do something)
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

Downloaded files not appearing in folder...

Hi, I have a stock S4 LTE running 4.3
Im having a frustrating problem where when I download large jpgs (13mb or so), I can open them from download manager (which loads the gallery app) but the files dont appear in the gallery itself, nor in root explorer or es file explorer etc. I can see other downloads in there, just seems to be the large jpgs (at least all I noticed is missing).
Searching online seems to always get a response of clearing the gallery/download cache and rebooting, but it doesnt seem to work for me. I even wondered if it was a Knox thing, but I dont think so (?).
Any help appreciated! Its not that I desperately need the files, more that I have no way of deleting and im sure they are eating space.
R
Sent from my GT-I9505 using xda app-developers app

mrjester said:
Hi, I have a stock S4 LTE running 4.3
Im having a frustrating problem where when I download large jpgs (13mb or so), I can open them from download manager (which loads the gallery app) but the files dont appear in the gallery itself, nor in root explorer or es file explorer etc. I can see other downloads in there, just seems to be the large jpgs (at least all I noticed is missing).
Searching online seems to always get a response of clearing the gallery/download cache and rebooting, but it doesnt seem to work for me. I even wondered if it was a Knox thing, but I dont think so (?).
Any help appreciated! Its not that I desperately need the files, more that I have no way of deleting and im sure they are eating space.
R
Sent from my GT-I9505 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go to Store, install Ghost Commander (most likely some other explorers can do the job, but I don't know them).
then, go to the root of the internal sdcard, press the menu button -> location -> search, input *.jpg. Optional, you can set the "bigger than" parameter or the "after, before| values. Repeat for *.jpeg pattern. If nothing will show up, use the asterisks as *.* and bigger than value as 12MB, smaller than SOMETHING.
If nothing will be found - repeat for the external SD.

Thanks!! Feel a bit stupid actually. The app had its own folder called 'download' so the files were hiding there, not in the root download.
Thanks again
Sent from my GT-I9505 using xda app-developers app

Files disappearing?

I did a search, but it yielded no results, so I'll ask it here... I use file Explorer and every now and again it will tell me in the status bar that I'm using this much space on the internal memory and ask to delete recently downloaded files or something to that effect. I tell it no and go on with my day. Today I realised that 7gb have mysteriously gone missing from my download folder inside file Explorer. I have no idea what happened to them. I'm currently running PureNexus with elimentalX kernel. Has anybody else experienced this? I'm wondering if this could be rom, file Explorer, or download manager related. Thanks in advance...

I am having the exact same damn problem as you. and I cannot copy it out of my phone, because it cannot be found in my phone. lol wtf
PS I am on Android N, and this has happened to me multiple times in the past.

Same thing with me. Stock ROM, rooted.
It's weird, the files can be found on the phone but not while trying to transfer files to PC.

There was a known bug since Android I-don't-know where whenever there is a new folder/file created, commonly in the Downloads folder, Java wasn't reloading that folder so it was stuck to the last time the folder was reloaded, long story-short, it stays as it is until you reload the code.
Try clearing Media Storage cache and then reboot. That got mine fixed.

obb folder showing as a file, can't write / change permissions

Hi all,
I can't seem to get my obb folder to behave. After installing anything which makes a file inside it, the folder changes to a file inside any file manager including with root access.
In twrp it shows as a normal folder and can be deleted or edited, but once back in android, it reverts to this weird uneditable file...
Any clues? I can't (or rather won't) format internal storage as I don't have a micro SD and currently have lots of files in my root folder which I need in case of emergency (i.e. my twrp backups and some downloaded . zip files).
Any help would be appreciated! It's not an emergency I'm just trying to get a game working. Oh also, if it helps, when I try to download the game after folder has gone weird, play store gets to 99% then fails with error 0 every time.

darkglobe87 said:
Any help would be appreciated! It's not an emergency I'm just trying to get a game working. Oh also, if it helps, when I try to download the game after folder has gone weird, play store gets to 99% then fails with error 0 every time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You simply need to delete the obb folder from TWRP file manager.
If no success, connect your phone to pc and delete ithe folder from there. (or use some force delete software for your platform)

darkglobe87 said:
Hi all,
I can't seem to get my obb folder to behave. After installing anything which makes a file inside it, the folder changes to a file inside any file manager including with root access.
In twrp it shows as a normal folder and can be deleted or edited, but once back in android, it reverts to this weird uneditable file...
Any clues? I can't (or rather won't) format internal storage as I don't have a micro SD and currently have lots of files in my root folder which I need in case of emergency (i.e. my twrp backups and some downloaded . zip files).
Any help would be appreciated! It's not an emergency I'm just trying to get a game working. Oh also, if it helps, when I try to download the game after folder has gone weird, play store gets to 99% then fails with error 0 every time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
I'm also facing same issue, did you find any solution ?
Please help me too..

Don't know if this means anything but if I go into file manager after a reboot it's fine for a minute or two then goes back to being weird. Can't put my finger on what causes it. I've uninstalled magisk, clean flashed my ROM, only thing left to do is format internal storage but can't do that until I get an SD card for my ROM files and backups to go on.

darkglobe87 said:
Don't know if this means anything but if I go into file manager after a reboot it's fine for a minute or two then goes back to being weird. Can't put my finger on what causes it. I've uninstalled magisk, clean flashed my ROM, only thing left to do is format internal storage but can't do that until I get an SD card for my ROM files and backups to go on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I also had the same issue with pixel experience rom. My Suggestion is to install a nougat based custom rom until someone finds a solution for that.

Prince Jhamat said:
I also had the same issue with pixel experience rom. My Suggestion is to install a nougat based custom rom until someone finds a solution for that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks but that's not really a solution I want when it worked fine on previous builds.

Wow... You'll never guess...the issue is present in nougat ROMs too...
*facepalm*

i also faced the above problem in almost every oreo rom. But in the below rom it is normal.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/g5-plus/development/rom-cosmic-os-v3-1-universe-t3730547. i am using this rom as daily driver.

Hi All,
I deleted obb folder from going into root >> data >> media >> obb
Choose file manager like es file explorer or Aroma file manager.
But this is temporary solution not permanent after some time same issue will occur again.

Kindly follow this thread to solve obb data lost on Oreo custom Rom.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/g5-plus/how-to/guide-how-to-solve-obb-data-lost-t3744711

Thank you so much!! I don't have an SD card at the moment, however, but happy to know a solution. Does anyone know the cause??

Is there a solution for this without SD card??
EDIT: I've noticed something. The issue described in this thread seems only to happen after connecting to WiFi and downloading apps from the play store. It doesn't seem to happen before I will do that. Hope it helps.

darkglobe87 said:
Is there a solution for this without SD card??
EDIT: I've noticed something. The issue described in this thread seems only to happen after connecting to WiFi and downloading apps from the play store. It doesn't seem to happen before I will do that. Hope it helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did u find any solution ?
My theory says obb folder turns into file cause system link from data/media/obb should be revoked but I'm not smart enough to know how to create system links

I noticed that when I install the pubg mobile game manually I do not lose the obb folder, just like the friend mentioned above only occurs when the game is installed directly from the play store

For those who don't have rooted devices use this method until we get a fix