[Epic 4G Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ProvPC:
I've seen this problem described elsewhere, but haven't been able to identify any sort of solution. Forgive me if I've overlooked something obvious.

I have an Epic 4G that I rooted with CW quite some time ago. I flashed a few various ROMS before settling on Midnight ROM 5.2 (EC05), which the developer says is based on the Bonsai ROM. My SD card at the time was the stock Class 2 Samsung. I use an app called "Move2SD Enabler," which sets the default installation path to the SD card whenever possible, and a second app called "App2SD Pro" that helped me easily keep track of where things ended up, and prevented me from accidentally installing widgets to the card.

One evening, I played around in the Market and downloaded several various and assorted apps - significantly more than I would usually download. None were likely to affect the actual system in anyway (mostly games and utilities - that sort of thing). A few days later the phone locked up and I pulled the battery. When it restarted, none of the SD card apps were available in the app drawer, and any shortcuts on my home screens were replaced with generic icons that displayed "could not launch the requested activity" when tapped.

All the contents of the SD card were viewable within My Files and when connected to the PC by USB cable or by inserting the card. I tried several things, including running a chkdsk on the card while it was in the PC, but was never able to recover the use of the apps.

Eventually, I replaced the card with a new Class 10 and reflashed, upgrading to Midnight 5.5 BYOR (also Bonsai based). I installed many, many apps (approaching, if not exceeding 100 installed to the card). Within a few day, I rebooted the phone only to have the same problem repeat itself. No crash this time - just no SD apps after a phone reboot.

So I tried it again. This time I ODIN'd back to stock, then rooted with Bonsai Masterkey (as per the developer's recommendation) and flashed the ROM again. And again, within days, I lost access to the applications on the card. The files are all there, but it's as if Android can't enumerate them.

So... again I ODIN's back to stock and rooted with Masterkey. This time I flashed Bonsai 4.1.3. I spent a few days installing apps (rebooting now and again as a test). The number of apps installed to the SD card was 127. The phone froze up, and I pulled the battery. And...

Once again, all the apps are gone. They're there on the card, but not on display in the app drawer.

So... three ROMS, two SD cards, journaling on, journaling off, sometimes after a crash, sometimes after a reboot - all SD based apps simply disappear.

What gives? Is this a known issue with Bonsai-based ROMS? Does the Android O/S limit the number of apps that can be stored on the card? Some mysterious issue with EXT4? With the EC05 kernal?

Is there some way to force the OS to re-examine the SD card? Some way of restoring the missing links?

One last note, in case it may be of use. While the first problem occured with whatever the default partition is on the SD card, the subsequent installs were done after manually partitioning the card using either CW or Masterkey. I set the ext partition to 4096MB, and set the swap size to 256MB. Is that in any way relevant to my problem?

Thanks, in advance, for your input.