3

I am having serious problems with the SoundHound application, from my HTC Desire S unit.

I should be able to remove it in the standard way, by entering "Applications > Manage Applications", finding SoundHound and uninstalling it. But alas, I have no options. All buttons are disabled. If the application is launched, I have the option of "Force stop" and "Clear data" available.

In the Android Market I am only able to "Update (manual)" - and if I do so, I then only have the options of "Open" and "Uninstall updates"

Then I figured it would be possible through adb, using the package-name found through adb shell to be com.melodis.midomiMusicIdentifier.freemium - and then do an uninstall on that.

lobner@:~$ ./adb uninstall com.melodis.midomiMusicIdentifier.freemium
Failure

I think the above attempts may fail, because the .apk file is located in the /system/app folder on my device. And I seem to be unable to mount the folder, which may be due to the unit not being rooted.

lobner@:~$ ./adb shell mount system/app
Usage: mount [-r] [-w] [-o options] [-t type] device directory

And I can not just remove it, it seems

lobner@:~$ ./adb shell rm system/app/SoundHound_Freemium.apk
rm failed for system/app/SoundHound_Freemium.apk, Read-only file system

Does anyone have any ideas, how to (force)remove an app from a non-rooted phone?

lobner
  • 593
  • 1
  • 7
  • 15

1 Answers1

3

I think the above attempts may fail, because the .apk file is located in the /system/app folder on my device.

This means the app is part of your firmware and cannot be removed, short of rooting your phone. Ice Cream Sandwich will support disabling such apps, though not removing them.

CommonsWare
  • 986,068
  • 189
  • 2,389
  • 2,491
  • 1
    But that seems very wierd? It's a Market app, that has no buisness in my firmware. Can an app change this install-path/app-status it self? – lobner Nov 01 '11 at 15:44
  • @lobner: No, they cannot change this. Are you sure the APK is in `/system/app` and not `/data/app`? – CommonsWare Nov 01 '11 at 16:18
  • yes, so `./adb shell pm list packages -f` tells me. Agreed It seems weird. What could have caused it? Or is SoundHound a part of some HTC Sense-stuff? – lobner Nov 01 '11 at 16:43
  • 1
    @lobner: "What could have caused it?" -- [alien space bats](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_space_bats). "Or is SoundHound a part of some HTC Sense-stuff?" -- well, it might have simply been bundled with your device. Device manufacturers do that with a lot of apps, which is one of the reasons for the ICS disabling feature. – CommonsWare Nov 01 '11 at 17:11
  • 1
    Well then, as I gather from the latest post around in the blogosphere, the ICS will most likely also be offered to the Gingerbread-enabled devices. Which means, in a couple of months, it may solve itself :) – lobner Nov 01 '11 at 20:41