How can I fix my N900 without reflashing it?
 

Ok, so I have a weird problem with my N900 and I am not really sure how to fix it. Here's the story:

My firmware version is PR1.3 (latest). I've had about 1.8 GB of disc space left out of the total 32 GB. I've decided to try out and install OpenArena from extras-devel. I downloaded the package through the app manager, used Wifi, it installed. I tried to run it from the menu, but it crashed. I tried two more times, but it didn't work. I checked the thread here and read people have problems running it as well, no proper reason and solution found out yet.

I also had around 5 browser windows open and the battery ran out and the phone shut down.

Here it gets bizzare... I hooked up the charger, the battery charged fully and then I turned on the phone. I wanted to add a new contact/number to My Contacts, but I got a message saying "Not enough memory" or something like that. I thought that was weird. I checked the media player and there wasn't any content showing up, eventhough I have over 200 songs and 200 videos stored on the device. I checked the browser and no saved pages were showing up, not even any bookmarks. I always got a message "not enough memory".

I shut the phone off, turned it on. I went to X-Terminal, checked the memory (df -h) and it was around 86%, not entirely full. I went to the app manager and unistalled OpenArena and two other applications. I then used manual restart via X-Terminal sudo reboot.

That didn't help much. I can now see the content in the media player, but nothing else works. No saved pages, no bookmarks, can't add new contacts. I can't even add bookmarks to the desktop.

What puzzles me is that they all ARE STILL STORED ON THE DEVICE, BUT THE OS CAN'T SEE THEM for some reason.

Is there a way how to fix this problem without reflashing? I have over 20 GB of content which I don't want to lose...

THANKS and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Re: How can I fix my N900 without reflashing it?
 

Reflashing wont remove any of your music, photos videos etc. it just reinstalls the OS. do a backup of your contacts (export from address book) and backup app to backup everything else (calendar etc). reflashing is dead easy and safe and solved almost all problems.

hope that helps.

Re: How can I fix my N900 without reflashing it?
 

Try to clear some space from rootfs. It might help, but then again it might not but it's worth a try first.

Re: How can I fix my N900 without reflashing it?
 

Please provide the output of df -h
You should uninstall openarena.
devel applications may not be stable / optimized enough for regular use.

For instance, I have just tested cutetube from devel but at first video playing the device almost crashed with 100% CPU and swapping a lot.

Re: How can I fix my N900 without reflashing it?
 

Right now in X-Terminal I get this:

OpenArena is uninstalled and extras-devel is disabled.

Re: How can I fix my N900 without reflashing it?
 

I think it has something to do with MyDocs partition becoming read-only problems discussed on this thread:

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=66004&page=2

This problem seems to occur when the phone freezes or restarts while some apps are accessing your MyDocs partition.

Have you tried this:

If it mounts alright, check again from your media app, if it says cannot mount or some application is trying to access this folder, reboot the phone and hopefully your problems gone.

Re: How can I fix my N900 without reflashing it?
 

Quick reply...
71MB of free space on rootfs should be quite enough. I have 12 MB free on rootfs and can add bookmark to desktop.

apt-get update
apt-get clean
apt-get autoremove

After apt-get is finished.
Switch off.
Take out the battery and put it back inside.
Switch on.

If it doesn't help, you should probably re-flash. Read instructions carefully.

It's possible to reflash system files (you lose only contacts, tweaks to system files, and installed applications; photos, videos, everything in MyDocs isn't lost),

and it's possible to reflash EMMC or how it is called (everything in MyDocs is erased).

Don't confuse them...

Re: How can I fix my N900 without reflashing it?
 

No need to flash now!
Do as Duy2anh in post #6 suggests and to shed more light to your partition setup the infos of and In rare circumstances a simple fsck is not sufficient, but it is a cure for most of these misleading 'empty space' errors.

Re: How can I fix my N900 without reflashing it?
 

I have tried that, but when I "apt-get update" it writes:

E: Could not open lock file /var/lib/apt/lists/lock - open (13 Permission denied)
E: Unable to lock the list directory

Re: How can I fix my N900 without reflashing it?
 

I have tried that, but when I type "fsck -af /dev/mmcblk0p1" it writes:

-sh: fsck: not found