Problem installing ICS Beta AIO package (APP partition too big, CAC too small)

[Garandor]

I ran into a brick wall flashing the AIO package, and finally came around to solving it with help from RaYmAn in #adamroot.

The problem: nvflash failed on me with error "bad data" trying to create the APP partition. Switching the cable didn't help.

The cause: On my device (PQi3G adam from the preorder 2 batch) the size of the APP partition set in the android_fastboot_full.cfg exceeded the size of my adam's NAND.

The solution: Changing the following line in android_fastboot_full.cfg from

[partition]
name=APP
id=10
type=data
allocation_policy=sequential
filesystem_type=yaffs2
size=536870912

to

[partition]
name=APP
id=10
type=data
allocation_policy=sequential
filesystem_type=yaffs2
size=320000000

solved it for me.

The background: In my first try i set size=470000000 and nvflash finished, but on boot, after "upgrading applications" when it said "starting applications" it returned to the boot animation and looped. (Most likely because the CAC partition was too small there). Since the system.img is the only file on the APP partition, is 239MB small and APP is read-only in usermode as RaYmAn enlightened me to, I opted for 320MB size, leaving enough for the cache, and voilá, no bootloop.

The question: Why does APP get nearly double its needed size allocated in the config, leaving too little for the cache? And why do I seem to be the only one with this problem? Did Preorder 2 adams come with smaller NAND flashes?

[ksihota]

Thanks soooooo much for this post. I have been trying to update my Adam for a couple of days but could never get beyond the ICS Alpha because of the nvFlash failure trying to flash CM9.
because of the error message I figured it had to do with a problem with the APP size and was just going to go ahead and gamble with a different size when I came across this post.
Using your size the CM9 flashed properly and I have now been able to upgrade to JellyBean.

I believe my Adam was also from preorder 2. It would be nice to have this information on the CM9 and CM10 upgrade posts, along with the other problem solving methods.

Thanks again.
KIm

I ran into a brick wall flashing the AIO package, and finally came around to solving it with help from RaYmAn in #adamroot.

The problem: nvflash failed on me with error "bad data" trying to create the APP partition. Switching the cable didn't help.

The cause: On my device (PQi3G adam from the preorder 2 batch) the size of the APP partition set in the android_fastboot_full.cfg exceeded the size of my adam's NAND.

The solution: Changing the following line in android_fastboot_full.cfg from

[partition]
name=APP
id=10
type=data
allocation_policy=sequential
filesystem_type=yaffs2
size=536870912

to

[partition]
name=APP
id=10
type=data
allocation_policy=sequential
filesystem_type=yaffs2
size=320000000

solved it for me.

The background: In my first try i set size=470000000 and nvflash finished, but on boot, after "upgrading applications" when it said "starting applications" it returned to the boot animation and looped. (Most likely because the CAC partition was too small there). Since the system.img is the only file on the APP partition, is 239MB small and APP is read-only in usermode as RaYmAn enlightened me to, I opted for 320MB size, leaving enough for the cache, and voilá, no bootloop.

The question: Why does APP get nearly double its needed size allocated in the config, leaving too little for the cache? And why do I seem to be the only one with this problem? Did Preorder 2 adams come with smaller NAND flashes?

[mikus]

It might be interesting to enter 'cat /proc/partitions' (via ADB, or on a command line in terminal on the Adam).

Basically, the five "system" partitions with a major of '31' get allocated onto the SLC chip in the Adam (it's supposed to give faster access than the eMMC chips). The SLC chip is supposed to be 1GB. The partiton SIZES (listed by the above command) are supposed to add up to no more than the size of the actual SLC chip. On my JB system I have a 1GB SLC chip, and those partition sizes are 16384 (shared memory during boot), 16384 (recovery partition), 16384 (boot partition), 524288 (/system filesystem), and 461952 (cache - I think it gets what's left).