The solution in one sentence: it’s most likely the .android_secure folder in the root of your memory card that’s causing the Market errors, where Android 2.2 and above stores all apps installed to the SD card – deleting it and starting over might solve the issues. A more detailed explanation and other popular solutions below.
You can also try this:
- Go to Settings > Applications > Manage applications on your device and locate the Market in the list of installed applications. Tap on it, and clear both its data and cache from the resulting screen. If the Market won’t show all your installed apps under the Downloads section, this will likely fix that issue as well.
- Put your phone in Airplane mode, turn on the radios again and then try to download apps from the Market.
- Try to download applications over Wi-Fi instead of over 3G, and vice versa.
- Make sure your phone recognizes your SD card. Try turning off your device, taking out the memory card and putting it back in. Then check with a file manager on your phone that the SD card in fact can be accessed properly.
- For some people, going to Settings > Applications > Manage applications, locating the Market in the list of apps and then tapping the button that says Uninstall updates seem to work.
Why the .android_secure folder might be to blame
Two common Android error messages that have managed to drive many increasingly frustrated users loco are “download unsuccessful” and “installation unsuccessful” when trying to download apps from the Market.
These Market issues are even worse than the familiar “phone storage is getting low” message, since there is no obvious way to solve the problem. The Market errors are especially common on phones running Android 2.2 Froyo or above, and for people who use the setInstallLocation 2 trick, or A2SD+ that lets all apps be installed to a partition on the SD card.
That’s because it’s most likely the folder .android_secure in the root of your memory card that is causing the unsuccessful Market downloads and installations. This is the folder where Android 2.2 stores all apps that you’ve installed to the SD card. If the folder is corrupted somehow, or the Market gets confused by it for one reason or another, you won’t be able to download or install apps.
The solution is to delete the .android_secure folder and let Android recreate it. If you have a rooted device and use A2SD+, make sure you move all apps to the internal memory (which with A2SD+ in fact is a partition of the SD card) before deleting the folder. You can do this from Settings > Applications > Manage applications > On SD card. If you don’t use A2SD+, move as many apps that can fit on your internal storage, uninstall the rest and reinstall them after deleting the .android_secure folder.
If you want to do a full-on assault on this problem, a hard-reset is recommended as well. That’s what I did. This method usually solves the Market download/installation unsuccessful issue – hopefully it will do the trick for you as well. Let me know how it goes.
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I had this problem with my HTC Sensation. I cleared the data and cache and it solved the problem for me.
I have an Ivio MD70 Twilight 7 internet tablet running on Android 2.2 Froyo. I have 2 issues.
I used to do a factory reset but can not do it anymore. It hangs on the Telcom Indonesia screen and stays there forever. I now have to press the reset button in order to proceed to the normal boot. I need to get rid of some apps that I no longer need.
I keep getting an installaion unsuccessful error. I am new to Android and may have done something that is preventing it from doing a factory reset.
What is usually the cause of all this and how can I get to reset again. I tried the all the secret codes to no avail.
Martin (in Zimbabwe)
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i love you guys
Thank’s dude,
Step 4 solve’s my problem.
thanks so much. what worked for me is step 5. Just uninstall the updates under market.
I tried all the fixes (except the hard reset) mentioned in this thread, every single one of them, rebooting phone after each attempt. Droid Incredible here. Nothing worked, and I still found myself unable to download the .apk file from The Market I wanted to install for a larger game (Cordy). What finally worked for me is logging onto the web version of The Market and sending the install file to my phone from there, and it downloaded and installed without difficulty. Go figure.
Hi Friends,
I had same problem.
I couldnt access the temp file ‘smdl2tmp1′ (temporary file) residing in .android_secure folder.
Used card reader connected to my PC to read the contents of SD memory card and removed the file manually. It solved the problem.
Cheers.
[...] a few other ones floating around the internet that I’ve never tried or needed (such as deleting the .android_secure folder and deleting thecom.android.providers.settings file using Root Explorer), but [...]
REMOVE & REPLACE FILES FROM .android_secure:
My issue was that on a fresh boot my Moto Droid would not mount any of my App 2 SD apps. They would all appear with grey icons in the manage application listing and none could be found when attempting to launch them. I replaced my .android_secure folder with an empty copy I got from another sd card after a new formatting. I then selectively copied just a few of the com.appname…1.asec files from my original .android_secure folder of my my most critical apps. Perhaps you could simply remove and backup individual files in the original .android_secure folder. All this had to be done on my PC using a micro SDHC card reader because I couldn’t see or change the contents of the .android_secure folder otherwise. I then tried to reboot with the smaller .android_secure folder and when this worked I would add more files attempting to find potential problem files/apps.
I got almost all my apps back with their settings and game progress intact, without having to reinstall any of them. The last dozen or so files I added which were all either icons, live wallpaper, or soundboards caused my issue again so I left them off. I’m still unsure if these files themselves caused the issue or if increasing the size of my .android_secure folder from 510MB to 560MB violates some limit but I can live without those files if all else works. My overall system is now much more stable and installs and updates from the market work reliably again.
How I fixed my Haipad (telechips tcc8902) Andorid Market problems
How I fixed my Haipad (telechips tcc8902) Andorid Market problems
I had the problem with the Android market being stuck in “Downloading” or coming back as “Download unsuccessful”. I had bought two Haipads, one worked the other didn’t. I tried all the cache cleaning and reseting to factory defaults. I would set to factory defaults, it would download apps once and then stop. I was about to give up and flash Android 2.1 into it when I happened on the link explaining how to update the device identifier. This worked for my Haipad MID701 (telechips tcc8902). It is a problem with Chinese tablets in general, not giving unique identifiers to the devices. This prevents the Market from working. Here is the link. I also included the link on how to make the Google USB driver work with the HaiPad. The whole process worked better from my XP virtual machine, as opposed to Windows 7 itself.
http://www.slatedroid.com/wiki/index.php/Fix_Market_For_Slates
Google USB driver Hack:
http://www.pandawillforum.com/viewthread.php?tid=2149&extra=&ordertype=2
thanks for the article and the other posts on your website.
I had problems downloading the “airattack HD lite” game by “art in games” as the file size is big. I tried all the options mentioned in your article except a hard reset. None of the others worked except the “dismounting sd card” via the settings menu mentioned by some one in the comments section of the article above. Thanks to who ever mentioned that. It solved the problem as i couldn’t install the game for two days. This trick solved the problem.
The problem was because the game installs to sd card but there were glitches, so uninstalling the sd card, forced the game to install to internal memory and then i moved it to sd card via the applications settings menu / apps2sd pro app. everything works fine now.
But another phone (both phones are htc desire stock firmware 2.2 android unbranded handsets) which downloaded the same game without a glitch, was suffering from crashes occassionally or freezing during some sectiosn of the game. but the handset which i installed the game to internal memory as described above then moved manually to sd card has no problems with freezing or crashes. looks like some issue with how android automatically moves apps to sd card in my opinion (lay person).