[Fascinate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kirkers:
Fast Boot option may be the culprit

CUT TO THE SOLUTION BELOW -- SEARCH FOR //// :)

Some (not all) of my apps moved to SD (all by Titanium Backup Pro) have begun to disappear and (sometimes) reappear without warning after I began to add and delete large Virtual Machines created in QEMU from my 16GB SanDisc class 10 microSD card on my HTC Droid Incredible running rooted stock Verizon Android Froyo 2.2.3. I know this thread is far from my phone's "home base", but from what I can tell this problem with disappearing apps located on an sdcard is NOT determined by hardware or even Android version.

I also happen to use LauncherPro by Federico Carnales instead of the built-in HTC Sense launcher. I noted elsewhere on XDA that a user had suggested that because at least some (maybe all) launchers start before the SD Card that this may be a problem, especially if changes are made to the sdcard that the launcher did not perform, or was not active during their performance by other apps such as Titanium Backup. That fits my situation, because I unmounted the SD, physically removed it to a PC, and added/deleted large VM files to save (lots) of time. No problems of this sort before I did this, so there must be some connection.

I noted that other users have tried reformatting SD, substituting different brands of SD, using newer/older SD etc. None of these reliably helped. So I skipped these options.

//// :) The (simple!) solution I tried that SEEMS to work (only time will tell!) is buried in the main Android Settings (accessed from the Menu button while in Home screen). Under "Applications" there is a setting "Fast Boot" that I checked long ago and forgot about (it seemed like a good thing to do at the time). The text warns "Turn off to use some Market apps" (that shows the age of my 2-yr old used phone and Android OS -- ohmygosh!-- because it refers to Market rather than Google Play Store!) Anyway, I unchecked the option and rebooted the phone.

Yes, it took a bit longer to boot (maybe a whole minute!), but after waiting about another minute ALL my home screen apps had normal icons and loaded properly. Titanium Backup Pro batch scenarios confirmed there were no apps in a forced uninstalled state (i.e. I had not done the deed, the system somehow had done it or at least rendered the apps "invisible" to Titanium, which decided they needed reinstallation).

The only odd behaviour was that auto brightness was turned off after I unchecked Fast Boot and rebooted. Going into Android Settings > Display and rechecking "auto brightness" took care of that. No other oddities or strange behaviours thus far (but it has only been about an hour).

I will report back here on this thread only (Samsung Fascinate > Fascinate Q&A > What just happend? apps on sdcard) if anything else requires reporting. Silence implies success!

link: https://www.google.com/url?q=http:/...ds-cse&usg=AFQjCNE3D5NrpiSqCRSof-ou1mn6iyeGVg

(I am copying this original post (without edits) to other relevant threads, but will not post anything further elsewhere -- only here. This is a bit arbitrary (although this thread appears to be the most recent active one on this topic), but I hope this approach pleases the XDA sysops/admins) :angel:

EDIT 2012-12-26-a:

Nearly all of the 100+ apps on my HTC DINC (Droid Incredible) continue to behave normally after the "fast boot OFF" fix. (No disappearing act.) However, I did find one that appeared to be installed but really was not: ASTRO File Manager. I used Titanium Backup Pro to reinstall app+data from a backup. It only took a couple of minutes, and after that all went normally.

The only other noticeable issue right after the fix is that nearly all of my installed, functioning apps were listed as "missing" by Titanium Backup in its Batch scenario list (although they were NOT counted in the total number of apps listed with the scenario -- that number was 61, and it should have been nearly 170 based on the number of apps actually in the physical list). After about a day or so of regular usage, a re-check of the "missing apps" Batch scenario found all the functioning apps no longer listed; the 61 missing apps were valid -- they were all from earlier ROMs belonging to the original HTC setup and another phone (MOTO OG Droid). Since I have kept the MOTO as an emergency backup smartphone, I might conceivably want to revive some of these apps.

EDIT 12-26-b:

Some other potentially useful points I have gathered in my survey of this topic across XDA:

1. This problem happens most often when using the "Disk drive" option in the USB Debugger system app. It also happens after physically returning the sdcard to the phone after removing and inserting it into a PC.

2. Those who have wiped the app data cache also report serious problems.

3. Wiping the dalvic cache while in Recovery mode automatically triggers a rebuild of that cache, which may make apps behave oddly or disappear until the rebuild is complete, which reportedly "takes time"

Personally, I did only #1 myself, and the fast boot removal fix seems to work well for that one.

I cannot confirm the others, but they seem to make sense to me, and I doubt the fast boot removal fix would have any influence on them.

4. There are some signs that apps installed to internal phone storage can behave in the same way. This may mean that the fast boot OFF tweak may prove beneficial to any storage area, since they all come on-line after the OS loads from phone memory.