[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] adolthered:
Hello all!

I realize that many many Android users have that issue and don't get any satisfying answer.

Let me introduce you my own experience. This may help and clear things up about Android safe mode.

It started one week ago when I got into a party and the barman threw lots of water at my friends and me. When I went to bed I didn't bother dry myself up, went straight to bed and slept.

When I woke up the next morning (with such a bad headache by the way :P), my phone was acting really weird :

1 : it couldn't recognize my SIM card or any SIM card

2 : the little textbox "Safe Mode" had appeared

3 : My Volume up/Volume Down buttons weren't working anymore.

I rebooted the device several times, wondering why would it do that to me!! I googled that all day to understand what was happening to it.

All of the sudden, after a reboot, the Sim Card was recognized again and this problem was fixed. Yay!

Then, I tried all I could about the buttons (opened the device with youtube tutorial and a Torx screw driver T5) tried to clean the volume flex cable, dry it... Nothing to do.

The volume buttons still not responding, safe mode still here.

There are several reasons for safe mode to show itself :

-Holding a button while booting (depending on the device and manufacturer) : simply reboot the device to get back in normal mode.

-A previously downloaded and installed app is causing issues on the device (Android self protection) : you'll need to find that app and uninstall it to get back in normal mode.

-I ran into a forum where someone was explaing how changing one of his internal components that wasn't working anymore fixed his safe mode problem (mostly non responding buttons like my phone).

So I ordered a brand new volume flex cable for my HTC sensation and I am still wating for it (long delivery...) I'll let you know as soon as I replace the component if that has fixed it.

The problem is : in the meantime I just can't access non system apps (in other words : all origin apps, no others). I bought a smartphone to be able to do many more things on it than just call, text message or email...

So I found a solution about it (I am going to test it tonight and will let you know) :

You need to have a rooted device in order to install all apps that you need to run, even though Android is running under safe mode, into /system/apps location. This will "make believe" those apps are actually system apps and will force your device run them at boot.

How does this work?

You need to get ADB tool in order to push command shell to the device (because terminal emulator or other apps that ease root commands directly on the device can't be loaded... Thanks safe mode!!)

!!!!! Important !!!!!!! I haven't tested this myself yet but will tonight and will let you know on that thread, so watch it before doing anything you wouldn't understand.

from Adb terminal you'll need to get into the system partition and mount it as read and write :

adb shell

su

mount -o remount,rw /dev/null /system

give everyone permissions to write in that folder :

chmod 777 /system/app/

Then, you'll need to store the apks you need into your sdcard (wherever).

Then, copy all apps you need into the folder :

cp -a /sdcard/[pathtoyourapk/theapkyouwanttoinstall] /system/app/

reset the permissions on that folder :

chmod 755 /system/app/

mount -o remount,ro /dev/null /system

sync

Reboot the device :

reboot

You're done.

Don't hesitate correct me if I gave any wrong information, but trust me, I spent enough time on this problem to get self confident and write in here.

Thanks for your attention!

Regards!