Android help: Can’t access apps on my SD card

Factual Questions
1

I am very much out of my element on an Android, so barely know what to search for troubleshooting-wise, let alone what steps to take to help myself or diagnose.

I have a Samsung Galaxy S3 Tab (GT-P5210; Android 4.4.2; Kernal 3.4.34-2435918).

All apps that appear to have been on my SD card are now inaccessible. On the desktop and in my Apps list they appear as a translucent, generic icon with a solid “SD” card image in the lower right corner.

Symptoms:
[ul]
[li]If I tap on an app I get a message “Application not installed.” [/li][li]If I go to Application Manager, the apps are listed (both in the ‘downloaded’ tab and on the ‘SD Card’ tab). Some have a 0.00B size, some have varying amount of storage. I’m not sure of the pattern, but it looks like those with storage are those with save data (game or otherwise) info. [/li][li]When I select an app within Application Manager and tap ‘move to device’, I get an “Unable to move app. App doesn’t exist” error. If I try to clear data, I get an “Unable to delete data for app.” error message. [/li][li]If I open the Amazon App store and look at My Apps/Device, I can see the apps and their full icon (i.e. it’s not that ghosty-looking icon on the desktop). But when I click the ‘open’ button, nothing happens (no error message or device activity).[/li][/ul]

What little I’ve tried:
[ul]
[li]Rebooting does nothing (either by selecting restart and fully powering down first). [/li][li]Booting into safe mode does nothing. [/li][li]I unmounted, removed, restarted, and remounted the SD card. [/li][li]Staring at the screen angrily has done nothing.[/li][/ul]

Here’s what may or may not be relevant:

AppMgr Pro III
I have/had AppMgr Pro III installed. That’s how most of the apps were moved to the SD card. When this issue arose, I could no longer access the app. I reinstalled it, but there has been no change to the other apps.

Tun.ko Installer
I don’t know how coincidental this is, but the problem started immediately after installing and running Tun.ko Installer. I had been having unrelated issues getting Private Internet Access VPN to work. When chatting with their tech support on my desktop, they had me try several things (different ports, DNS servers). They also had me download Tun.ko Installer from Google Play. It looked like it successfully installed, but when running it I got the message “Tun module is NOT loaded,” and when I tapped ‘install’ I got a message that said “Cannot find a compatible tun module for your device.” After the chat ended (still couldn’t get the VPN to work), I uninstalled both Tun.ko and the VPN. That is the first time I noticed the problem.

Any details I’m missing? Any thoughts?

2

You’re on Android 4.4.2 and previously ran apps from your external SDcard? Are you rooted? Because Kit Kat doesn’t allow apps to be installed on external memory. If you are rooted, you can try this app.

3

Tablet is definitely not rooted. I’ve been blithely assuming the apps were running from the SD card because I had run AppMgr III to free up space. Plus, when browsing the SD card I can see app-related filenames, so I thought that’s where they were running from.

4

I think I see what happened. When you moved app-related files to the SD card with AppMgr, it broke links to the app directory which are still on your internal memory and the app fails to launch or can’t be recognized. You should delete and reinstall any app you have problems with and it will reinstall missing files to the correct directory.

This issue has become a pain with Kit Kat but Google changed this behaviour for security reasons, (so they say). If you absolutely need/want to move your apps to external, you’ll have to root and get the right ROM, or use the app I mentioned in my previous post.

5

This is where the weird world of coincidences comes into play.

I’ve had AppMgr running for a long time, and have not had a problem.

I installed/ran Tun.ko, and the problem arose.

I’m going to try to email AppMgr support to see if they can help point me in a good direction.

Do you have any insight as to what ‘tun’ files are? I find lots of threads and comments on finding the right ones for people’s devices, but none saying what they are.

6

I don’t know what to say except that AppMgr could/should not have been able to move your apps to the SD card unless you were rooted if your OS is KitKat. Perhaps you moved you apps when you were on ICS?

And although I don’t use Tun.ko, I know that you need to be rooted to use that as well. That’s why you couldn’t install the module.

Good luck with support.