This always happens to me because I remove the memory card while an app is running from the memory card. the app closes, or crashes, and the Games and Apps folders no longer will open, they give the “Operation Failed” message.

I used to reflash every time it happened, and I got tired of reflashing, one time I had Skype installed in my games folder, and set it to auto-start with the phone. when I had the problem, I noticed after restarting my phone skype still auto-ran even though i could not open it manually in the games folder due to the “Operation Failed” message.

The second thing I tried moments ago in desperation, was on a newer w580 I recently got which is CID53 so it’s harder to flash and even harder to unlock. needless to say I did not want to do that again just to fix the app and games folders. So I tried swapping memory cards as one person said, first put in a different memory card than the one you caused the problem with. Let the phone load it in memory so to speak, then pull it out, turn off the phone, wait a moment, turn it back on, then try to open the games of apps folder. It works for me, then after I have it open, I put the old memory card back in, and everything is still there. Hope this helps some people!