Handle SD card problems more gracefully during boot
asked 2018-03-01 16:28:11 +0200
This might be seen as a duplicate to already solved questions here, but in fact it's not. I'm not asking for a solution for a specific situation, but for a change in the general behaviour of the Sailfish(X?) boot process:
There are a number of questions here that describe how the Sony Xperia X simply will not boot if there are issues with the SD card inserted. One of the reasons seems to be that the file system is unknown to the kernel. Another one seems to be that the file system ist corrupted. (I was bitten by this bug yesterday and eventually found out that a check of my VFAT throws almost more errors than files.)
The current situation (at least on the Xperia) is that the device refuses to boot. White screen, Sony logo, that's it. People who don't read TJC regularly have no reason to assume that it's the SD card that's broken.
In a perfect world, Sailfish would just not mount the card and inform the user about it right after the boot process. (Maybe even before it asks for the PIN.) As a user, you need to know that your music, your videos, your photos aren't accessible and that the camera will probably fall back to internal storage. However, even without a working SD card, you'll want to use your phone, right?
I've never had this problem with any other Sailfish device, so maybe it's more specific to the Sony hardware than to Sailfish as such. But can it be solved on the software side? Can the phone boot by just ignoring the SD card?
+1 , I reported this problem at the previous update and also now again, I thought it has been fixed but it is not... :(
liqquid ( 2018-03-02 17:31:25 +0200 )editI have just tried to format the memory card in Sailfish, I could do when I booted the phone without the memory card and I just plugged it in, but after the format and the reboot it is still the same. Simply doesn't boot up the OS but stuck at the Sony logo... So I can not use this phone with my 8GB micro sd card, I don't understand why, I used this card in my Aqua Fish without any issue. (It works with my old 1GB card...)
liqquid ( 2018-03-06 22:07:02 +0200 )editI experienced the same issue using a Kingston 16GB card whereas a scandisk sd card works fine. I was on 34.3.A.0.228 doing installation of Sailfish X. Wonder if it would work to flash to a higher version test if the issue persists in stock Android and if not try installing Sailfish X on top of the newer firmware.
Louis ( 2018-03-22 21:14:35 +0200 )editI have an SD card formated to ext4 same thing.
SValmont ( 2018-04-09 03:30:26 +0200 )editUsing Xperia X compact, and no issue. Maybe Xc dev figured it out... I have a 16gb card, with 2 partitions (exfat and ext4) that I originally set up to boot Kali Linux, while using stock Sony Android, (booting Linux from the ext4). I flashed Sailfish with a full wipe, leaving sdcard as-is, and no problems on boot. Sdcars shows in storage as 2 different cards, neither one of which is mounted automatically, but can easily be mounted in terminal for use.
Levone1 ( 2018-04-09 12:51:19 +0200 )edit