MapFactor Forum

Jochen_K

Hi,

yesterday I installed a CustomROM with Android 6.0.1 on my Galaxy S4, mostly to see the effect of Google's new memory management.

It was a mixed bag - I've got a large number of apps with data on the external card; some of them simply worked, for others I had to tell Android that the app's directory did indeed belong to it, and some simply didn't work with the external card (TomTom Go started / Black screen / "has to close").

I've no idea where Navigator stands: When I ran it for the first time it worked without any problem - except that it claimed there were no maps (and none of my POIs); I decided to download the smallest of the maps I regularly use (Ireland); Navigator dowloaded the World map and Ireland - and worked.

I've since gone back to Lollipop 5.1.1, where everything works - and where the security updates still keep coming.

However, sooner or later I will have to switch - maybe to Marshmallow, maybe to "N", who knows.

In that case I would like to get Navigator to work as before.

I've just asked SearchEverywhere to look for Ireland_osm; it found two copies: one in the sdcard1/Navigator directory, the other deep inside sdcard1/Android/data.

Will moving all Navigator files to that place make Navigator work normally - with all my POIs?
...and if so, will doing this right now, with 5.1.1 proactively work as well?

Regards,
Jochen

tomas

first backup your POIs, possibly the whole SD card - favourites.xml in folder android/data/com.mapfactor.navigator/files/navigator/

you may also want to backup other .xml files in that folder

then you can move Navigator to SD and see what the effect is

Roldorf

On Android 6 Navigator installs on the SD card in SD card\Android\data\com.mapfactor.navigator\files\navigator
the maps install in a folder in that directory called data.
If you have set up your SD card as adopted storage you can move Navigator to the SD card. If it doesn't move the maps you will have to do it manually by copying your data to the directory above.
Be warned make a copy of your SD card's data before you adopt it as internal storage as it reformats the card.
Preferably make a copy of the card before you install Android 6 as some people have had problems reading the card after the upgrade.

Jochen_K

I'm having second - and third, and fourth - thoughts about moving data to that directory.

BEGIN RANT
The more I read about it, the more I think that whoever dreamed up this whole thing at Google was a complete and utter idiot.

Whatever Google claim they want to achieve with this new kind of memory management, the only thing they definitely will achieve is make lots of people lose valuable data, if - for whatever reason - they spontaneously uninstall an app (I have been doing so for years when an app suddenly acted up, and quite often uninstall/reinstall was enough to make it behave again.)

Now Google in their rather less than infinite wisdom have decided that users are too dumb or too lazy to delete data when they don't need them any more, and will do it for them - delete the app, and poof, everything in that directory will be deleted as well.
END RANT

So, in conclusion: IS there a way to make Navigator work with maps and POIs that are stored in a safe place on the external card?

After all, when I tried out a 6.0.1 ROM for a few hours, a number of apps (like, for example, Lesser Pad and Jota+) COULD still work with their respective directories that were NOT in /storage/sdcard1/Android...

hvdwolf

@Jochen_K said: "Now Google in their rather less than infinite wisdom have decided that users are too dumb or too lazy to delete data when they don't need them any more, and will do it for them - delete the app, and poof, everything in that directory will be deleted as well."

That's nothing new. AFAIK that's always happening with an app as of Android 3.5 unless you have the data on internal memeory in the same folder as the application name.

Anyway: I'm (still) on 4.4.2 and 4.2.2 and 4.0.3 and if I uninstall a program, always all it's data is removed.

Jochen_K

@hvdwolf
Strange - I am on 5.1.1 and just tested it: copied the whole Navigator directory on my external sd card into a second directory, deleted Navigator and reinstalled it via the Play Store.

It first took me through the New User screens, then started.
I tapped My Places and everything is there; looked inside the Navigator directory, and nothing is missing.

hvdwolf

I agree with you but that is something completely different and not what you wrote in first instance.

If you ONLY uninstall, without that copy/backup step you mention now in that last post, all data is gone: already since very early android versions.

Jochen_K

I did not put that very well - the backup was just for safe keeping, in case I had miscalculated.

I have all the data for Navigator in the directory /storage/sdcard1/Navigator
and when I uninstalled the app and subsequently reinstalled it, the directory and all the data were still there.

It would have been entirely different (I tried that a few days ago with Locus Map Pro), if I had put the app where, in MarshMallow, Google forces you to put it, i.e. into
   /storage/sdcard1/Android/data/com.mapfactor.navigator
or, for that matter, into
                      /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.mapfactor.navigator

In that case, uninstalling would have meant deletion of the directory   com.mapfactor.navigator   and all its contents.

hvdwolf

Up till now it was possible to use /Navigator on your internal memory and that one would never be removed or cleaned. It made it possible to switch fast between the several test version and the stable version.

I do not know what Android 6 does in this case.

Jochen_K

The way I understand it, internal is still ok when using Marshmallow; it's external where you are forced to use that blasted /Android/data directory if you have an app that needs t write.

Roldorf

'It is how it is'. Use it or don't but stop bitching it doesn't help.

MapFactor Forum

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories

In this Discussion

Tagged