Develop Bugs

[Q] SDCard almost full due to backups

So I have done a few updates to OS, form stock ROM to CM6.1 RC3, RC4 Stable, and Pershoot's kernel. All of these have I have done a Nand Back up which stores to my SDCard. Well my 8GB card is sitting not to pretty at 714MB right now. I don't have much in there, and pretty much removed all my music.
So the question are:
* What is the best way to manage these backups so that I can save them, but not clutter up the sdcard?
* I saw a folder in my sdcard that had some backups, but they did not account to 2GB each or any where near that. Where should I look?
Really looking forward to a solution to this, otherwise my sdcard is basically rendered useless due to system upgrades/updates.
Thanks in advance for your help

You can save the backup files to your computer and then delete them from your SD card.
If you ever want to take a stroll down memory lane, then simply make some room on your SD card and transfer the backup to the card and restore via recovery or ROM manager.
As far as the missing memory goes, do you have a lot of camera pictures or video?

gee one said:
You can save the backup files to your computer and then delete them from your SD card.
If you ever want to take a stroll down memory lane, then simply make some room on your SD card and transfer the backup to the card and restore via recovery or ROM manager.
As far as the missing memory goes, do you have a lot of camera pictures or video?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Gee one...no, not many pic s or videos. Before making any backups I was somewhere around 7.4GB or so. I did have alot of music which I removed once I started making backups due to lack of space.
Edit: I found the location of the backups and saved them to my pc. Thanks! I thought it was a bit more involved than that!

these backup files are stored in the /clockworkmod/ directory on your SDcard, not the backup one.
I only keep a few backups on my device - one that I made as soon as I'd rooted - it's stock, and then the one that I made before I make any changes to my phone (flash updates, etc)
IMO, there's no need to keep multiple backups of the same ROM

the orange bandit said:
these backup files are stored in the /clockworkmod/ directory on your SDcard, not the backup one.
I only keep a few backups on my device - one that I made as soon as I'd rooted - it's stock, and then the one that I made before I make any changes to my phone (flash updates, etc)
IMO, there's no need to keep multiple backups of the same ROM
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, that's what I did.
I found them under /sdcard/clockworkmod/backup/ and I kept only the original from stock and the final one, but I also made a backup of the stock rom one.
I now have 4.1GB available on my card, up from 714MB.

[Q] Clockworkmod Blobs?

Hi,
I just noticed a folder named "Blobs" in my Clockworkmod folder that is eating up some space. What is this for? Anyway I can move it to my external sd card at all? After some research I know it's from previous backups. What if I deleted those backups? What I do is when I make a nandroid backup, I usually move it to my computer, and if I need it at all, I put it back into my clockworkmod folder, and restore. Will this still work?
Edit: It's taking up about 2Gb of space on my sdcard, and I only have one backup on there.

Papaniz said:
Hi,
I just noticed a folder named "Blobs" in my Clockworkmod folder that is eating up some space. What is this for? Anyway I can move it to my external sd card at all? After some research I know it's from previous backups. What if I deleted those backups? What I do is when I make a nandroid backup, I usually move it to my computer, and if I need it at all, I put it back into my clockworkmod folder, and restore. Will this still work?
Edit: It's taking up about 2Gb of space on my sdcard, and I only have one backup on there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats your acual backup of your rom from what I understand. Whenever you backup again it keeps certain information and deletes the rest. I usually erase the blob folder whenever I am starting over with an absolutly new rom for the most storage. Last time I did that the blobs folder was over 6gigs.
Now I do use Rom Manager and in settings it does give you the option to use external memory but mine is greyed out. Anybody know how to activate it?

SimmIsengard said:
Thats your acual backup of your rom from what I understand. Whenever you backup again it keeps certain information and deletes the rest. I usually erase the blob folder whenever I am starting over with an absolutly new rom for the most storage. Last time I did that the blobs folder was over 6gigs.
Now I do use Rom Manager and in settings it does give you the option to use external memory but mine is greyed out. Anybody know how to activate it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I probably wouldn't delete it, one of the purposes of the Blobs is to reduce the backup file size, and from what I know, it deletes the useless files in the blob folder when you make a new backup. Does anyone know if this is right? This is what I understand to my knowledge at the moment.

[Q] nandroid backup doubts

can someone help me?
the wonder is my first android and I wanted to learn while before hacking on it ...
last night I did the root and installed ClockworkMod 6.0.1.2 to make a nandroid before flashing a ICS rom.
but I have come some doubts:
1) the nandroid with clockworkmod is done either on internal mem on external sd right? I tried with the internal memory and I did a backup of 17MB ... I have copied to the PC the folder ClockworkMod always 17MB: they seemed to me just a few for a nandroid backup... I did it again ... the same ...
2) then I added the external sd and I deleted the two previous backups from internal mem and redid the backup to external sd ... the process took about twenty minutes (slower then before), and in fact has made ​​a backup of 790mb
3) I try to copy the backup on the PC with the phone attached but it don't work .... I removed the SD card and copied the folder on pc with win7: I did not copy some files because they are "too long" (???)... then I tried to copy it on a pc with ubuntu and makes the copy but when the transfer is finished tells me that the number of files copied is right but instead of 790mb is only 725mb: I need to trust this backup? ?? better to delete and redo everything? I do not want to flash something and do not have a working nandroid...
another question: when I flash a rom and do ALL wipe the sd external is reset? no I think, right? and to put on the contacts and messages and the settings I use those saved using kies or do I need to do a better titanium backup or save contacts synced to gmail?
sorry for the many questions but as I'm a true noob and before I do damage I want to have in mind what I was doing
I'm waiting your reply before flash a rom... thanks

bennymax said:
can someone help me?
the wonder is my first android and I wanted to learn while before hacking on it ...
last night I did the root and installed ClockworkMod 6.0.1.2 to make a nandroid before flashing a ICS rom.
but I have come some doubts:
1) the nandroid with clockworkmod is done either on internal mem on external sd right? I tried with the internal memory and I did a backup of 17MB ... I have copied to the PC the folder ClockworkMod always 17MB: they seemed to me just a few for a nandroid backup... I did it again ... the same ...
2) then I added the external sd and I deleted the two previous backups from internal mem and redid the backup to external sd ... the process took about twenty minutes (slower then before), and in fact has made ​​a backup of 790mb
3) I try to copy the backup on the PC with the phone attached but it don't work .... I removed the SD card and copied the folder on pc with win7: I did not copy some files because they are "too long" (???)... then I tried to copy it on a pc with ubuntu and makes the copy but when the transfer is finished tells me that the number of files copied is right but instead of 790mb is only 725mb: I need to trust this backup? ?? better to delete and redo everything? I do not want to flash something and do not have a working nandroid...
another question: when I flash a rom and do ALL wipe the sd external is reset? no I think, right? and to put on the contacts and messages and the settings I use those saved using kies or do I need to do a better titanium backup or save contacts synced to gmail?
sorry for the many questions but as I'm a true noob and before I do damage I want to have in mind what I was doing
I'm waiting your reply before flash a rom... thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First thing: Why do you need to copy the backup to your PC? I can certainly assure you that the backup is working fine. Just leave your SD card within your device upon backing up. And just leave it there. If you ever really wanted to copy the backup to your pc, well don't get the file size(s) wrong. They will certainly be different since the systems you are trying to copy the files to uses a different file system. So it's normal for them to have different file sizes. To add to that, the CWM uses generated MD5 to confirm that the backup (it's related files) are correct before it will restore a certain backup. If something is wrong or the backup got corrupted, CWM will not continue in restoring it.
Second: when you flash, your personal files in your sd card will remain intact. Flashing (may) be only wiping an SD-EXT if you created such partition in your card since apps uses this. So don't worry.
For most customized ROM, I'm afraid components regarding the communication of your device and Kies won't be integrated since devs prefer your system to be our of bloats as possible. So upon flashing a custom ROM, you might not be able to use Kies anymore. In flashing, internal data such as contacts, messages, APN, wifi(s), etc. will be erased as the system will be erased. So;
For your contacts: Sync it with Google or export them to our SD for later import.
For your APN and messages: There's an app in the Play Store that allows you to backup and restore them.
The titanium backup is a very good tool too. Use it.

Thread moved
The [Q] in your thread title should have been reason enough to post it in Q&A .
Please don't post Questions in General Section in the future.

bbmadzky said:
First thing: Why do you need to copy the backup to your PC? I can certainly assure you that the backup is working fine. Just leave your SD card within your device upon backing up. And just leave it there. If you ever really wanted to copy the backup to your pc, well don't get the file size(s) wrong. They will certainly be different since the systems you are trying to copy the files to uses a different file system. So it's normal for them to have different file sizes. To add to that, the CWM uses generated MD5 to confirm that the backup (it's related files) are correct before it will restore a certain backup. If something is wrong or the backup got corrupted, CWM will not continue in restoring it.
Second: when you flash, your personal files in your sd card will remain intact. Flashing (may) be only wiping an SD-EXT if you created such partition in your card since apps uses this. So don't worry.
For most customized ROM, I'm afraid components regarding the communication of your device and Kies won't be integrated since devs prefer your system to be our of bloats as possible. So upon flashing a custom ROM, you might not be able to use Kies anymore. In flashing, internal data such as contacts, messages, APN, wifi(s), etc. will be erased as the system will be erased. So;
For your contacts: Sync it with Google or export them to our SD for later import.
For your APN and messages: There's an app in the Play Store that allows you to backup and restore them.
The titanium backup is a very good tool too. Use it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks a lot bbmadzky, I understand what you say
I wanna copy backup in my pc to have a secure place where put the first nandroid of my wonder with stock rom as I have bougth it external sd can be corrupted or deleted and have a genuine nandroid of my phone I think is better
just do another backup to ha the certainty to have a good backup and now can I try to flash my first costomized rom
thanks a lot dude
ciao

It's been a pleasure in helping you with your doubt. Happy flashing and don't ever forget to do a nandroid backup.
Sent from my GT-I8150 using Tapatalk 2

This reply may be too late in coming...but I'll post it anyway. First, the size of your created nandroid....17mb.....WAY too small....the size of the backup I made was +/-800mb.
Second....if you REALLY have to copy it to a PC, zip it with minimal compression first....I found from personal experience that it copies MUCH more easily and safely....
Finally, keeping personal data (contacts, SMS, lists of installed apps [not including app data]) safe. You can install apps that will make data files of your texts and installed apps that can be accessed after flashing a custom ROM to enable recovery and re installation, and for your contacts (if you store them on the phone instead of the sim card) you go to your contacts, press the menu button and select import/export, then export to SD card. If you use these apps (appbak and SMS backup and restore) and the export to SD card function on your phone, you will find that data files have been created by using them.....these data files MUST be moved to your EXTERNAL SD card BEFORE flashing your custom ROM. They will be perfectly safe there as long as you haven't played around with the storage configurations on your phone....which I don't believe is possible with a stock ROM anyway....
Good luck and happy flashing
Hope this has helped....if it has, click thanks
Sent from my GT-I8150 using xda app-developers app

not so late dude
the problem is... I don't have a working backup still now!
I just flased cm9 and RemICS 1.5 rom and every time I tried to make a backup before flashing...
the first time I have the above doubt (as you can read above)
the second time I've tried to install CWM 6.0.1.0 instead 6.0.1.2 and the backup process is finish well (or it was what I belive ) then when I try to comeback to stock version an error has occurred in restore and I must re-do a flash with stock firmware because the SGW was freezed.
I don't know if there are problems with installation of CWM, the release of CWM (now I try with a CWM 5.5.0.4), with the type of backup files (n CWM6 you can choose the type of format file do you have from the backup process) but now before to flash another rom I want to have a WORKING nandroid!
thanks for your reply and your suggests too... maybe make I something wrong but I follow the tools on web and these are simple... maybe is only bad luck... I retry

Dude...if you read my thread here.......
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1846449
And specifically the replies posted by IvanKurnia, you'll find the links (and installation method) for the version of CWM that I'm using.....with success. When you make your nandroid backup, you need to make sure you have enough space for it to complete as you don't get any warning about lack of memory....the backup process will simply stop....and unless you know what to look for, you may not realise.
I'm not totally sure if flashing different versions of CWM on top of each other will cause instability or not....maybe somebody else can answer that one.....
I'd advise getting as much info as you can about EVERYTHING! before you make any more modifications to your phone.....read as many threads and ask as many questions as it takes.....most members of this community will be happy to help (though there are one or two who have a superiority complex...lol)....it's better to ask a hundred questions and get it right, than to ask none and turn your phone into an expensive paperweight.......
CM9...I don't HAVE to.....I just.....can..

first of all: I wanted to write mate not dude sorry for my bad english...
thanks keithross
I read your thread and all the replies in it...
yes the metheod for flashing the CWM is the same I knew. I prefer to flash it whit odin.
I don't think I have problems flashing other versione because I must do a replace of stock firmware before: I set the cell in the status as new... then I reflash on it the CWM.
the only thing I don't have made is to set on USB debugging ON... uhmmm maybe is this the problem?
I try now to flash, make a nandroid, try recovery by nandroid to understand if nandroid works! If not... I try to instal CWM witn the method has showed by ivankurnia
for free space I have enough space in my SD ext card (3gb ca.) and not so many app installed... and yes I use often forum and I think these are the greatest resource on the web xda for android is "the bible" I think so!
p.s. your thread has so many informations I need...

Hi Bennymax, I found ivankurnias method the easiest to use....I'd tried ODIN without success....but successfully installed CWM on the first try with the terminal emulator/busybox method.....others have successfully used this method too. I do still stand by my concerns about flashing different versions of CWM on top of each other as I've come to believe that the recovery partition is separate to the ROM partition and that changing the ROM partition has no effect on the contents of the recovery partition. I hope I'm wrong about that, and that the issues you are having with nandroid backup and restore are as you say bad luck....but I'm not convinced.....having said that, I'm not a developer, and I could be wrong. I feel that it is something that needs researching just in case the luck you've had is not bad, but good in so far as you haven't bricked your phone yet......
Anyway, good luck however you decide to proceed....
Keith
CM9...I don't HAVE to.....I just.....can..

Issue with TiBu Update.zip

So I made an update.zip before I went from my 4.1 ROM to a 4.2 ROM. However whenever I try to flash my update.zip file it makes my phone not boot. Unfortunately I was stupid and didnt make any other backups. Is there a way to restore individual apps/data from the update.zip file?

Could have something to do with how titanium created the file.
Does the .zip only contain the tibackup app? Or others as well?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

It contains a large list of apps. When I created the zip I went through the long list of stuff and only backed up what I wanted (none of the red system stuff).
All in all its not a huge deal. Was mostly wanting my SMS/Call Logs/Wi-Fi
All the other stuff would be nice but can be redone

File and directory structure has changed in 4.2.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

najaboy said:
File and directory structure has changed in 4.2.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep I dont think thats the cause though as it also happens if I try going back to my 4.1 ROM (JBSourcery).
I went through my update.zip file and removed a bunch more stuff that I likely didnt need and it worked!!! Obviously I backed something up into the zip that was causing the issue. There was also some system apks/files in there that I am positive I didnt choose for the update.zip... not sure if it auto-adds some or if I just spaced out but so far so good!
EDIT: Well it kind of worked... I got some of the apps but some didnt show at all and it didnt restore my SMS messages

Just to update if anyone else runs into this...
As I said above I got it to work by manually editing the .zip file to remove some stuff that I didnt need but it didnt restore my SMS/Call logs or anything like that (Wi-Fi APs as well).
I then went into the .zip and removed all the SMS/Call Log/Wi-Fi lists and then put them in the TitaniumBackup folder on my phone (overwriting my old ones) so it will allow me to restore. I also tried removing all files from my .zip file except the SMS/Call Log/Wi-Fi stuff and will see if reflashing helps
It would be a really great addition to TiBu to have the ability to restore from your .zip file from within TiBu. I dont think it would be super hard to implement but I'm not a dev so thats just speculation.
I will update again later if my workaround does the trick.

Not sure if you've ever heard of it, but grab the app named "App2zip". It will do just that. You select apps that you want installed back on your ROM after flashing a new one. When finished hit the OK button and it will make a flashable zip of all the selected apps. It also keeps all user & system apps on separate pages so you don't accidentally backup a system app that might cause issues. Another good thing is that it works for 4.2! I used it to restore over 150 apps on Mmuzzy's first build after 4.2 dropped and everything restored properly. Just know it zips only the apps, no data. If you want your app data backed up use TiBu and restore data after you flash your ROM & apps zip.

i was able to restore my apps using the update.zip from tibu, it then restored data after i booted the OS. I had to mount /system before i flashed the update.zip because if i didn't mount it first, it wouldn't restore my apps at all. The only problem is my phone lagged like an SOB after restoring the data. I just use tibu to restore apps and data after i boot the phone, keeps the problems off my phone.

RoyJ said:
Not sure if you've ever heard of it, but grab the app named "App2zip". It will do just that. You select apps that you want installed back on your ROM after flashing a new one. When finished hit the OK button and it will make a flashable zip of all the selected apps. It also keeps all user & system apps on separate pages so you don't accidentally backup a system app that might cause issues. Another good thing is that it works for 4.2! I used it to restore over 150 apps on Mmuzzy's first build after 4.2 dropped and everything restored properly. Just know it zips only the apps, no data. If you want your app data backed up use TiBu and restore data after you flash your ROM & apps zip.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep I have used App2Zip. TiBu has basically replicated that functionality.
So as is normally the case the problem here was my own stupidity.
I thought that by choosing the option to make an update.zip and then choosing all the programs I wanted it would make a current version backup of the apps I selected. However I think how it works is that it only makes the .zip file out of an existing backup. So I should have run a full TiBu backup before making my .zip. I verified this by going through the xml file with my text messages and verifying that it was old stuff.
So in the end it was my fault for not understanding how the program worked. I still think the ability to restore directly from the update.zip from within TiBu would be a welcome addition though.

[Q] Phone's internal memory system messed up after installing ROM

Hi,
I flashed last night Temasek's CM11 4.4.2 ROM (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2596887), wiping user data, caches, etc (I was on a rooted stock 4.1.2 ROM).
Everything is working great so far, I love this ROM, I just noticed a problem that it's quite annoying: it seems that the internal user data file system (which would be the /sdcard folder in my old ROM) is all messed up and replicated. Here;s what happens:
I created a backup of the current ROM with Online Nandroid backup. If I use a file explorer from my phone (X-plore) and go to the "partition" /storage/emulated/0 I can see the backup created in /storage/emulated/0/clockworkmod/backup/.
However, if I connect the phone to my PC and browse the contents, the partition that I see isn't that same partition, it's an older one with older files (for example it has a clockworkmod folder but the backup isn't there, and some folders are different). What;s worse is that I can't find this "old" partition when browsing my phone with X-plore. These are the palces where I've looked at:
- /storage/emulated/0 (shows the partition where the backup I just created went, I can see the backup there)
- With root privileges:
- /data/media (shows an older second partition with different folders)
- /data/media/0 (shows the "right" partition, where the backup is)
- /sdcard (again, shows the "right" partition)
- /storage/sdcard0 (same here, shows the "right" one)
So to sum up, it looks like I see at least 3 diffent partitions:
1. From my PC, I see an older one that I can't see from X-plore (I tried Cyanogenmod file explorer too)
2. From my phone, I see the one that has the backup I just created
3. From my phone too, I see a second old partition (different from the one I see from my PC)
So what I would like to know is:
1. How can I transfer the backup to my PC if I can't see the partition that holds it from there?
2. Is it safe to just delete all those folders in both old partitions? I'm sure they're taking space unnecessarily
Any help would be much appreciated!

After flashing any CM/AOSP Rom. They actually create a different folder set up. That's because of the ability of different users...
You need to apply the restore SD card after downgrade.
Found HERE:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=36873319
After that^^^^^^^^^ just make sure you copy everything you want.. Then you can delete all those other folders you don't need.
SENT FROM MY SAMMY i317 USING TAPATALK

Bajanman said:
After flashing any CM/AOSP Rom. They actually create a different folder set up. That's because of the ability of different users...
You need to apply the restore SD card after downgrade.
Found HERE:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=36873319
After that^^^^^^^^^ just make sure you copy everything you want.. Then you can delete all those other folders you don't need.
SENT FROM MY SAMMY i317 USING TAPATALK
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply! I'll try this as soon as I get home!

Bajanman said:
After flashing any CM/AOSP Rom. They actually create a different folder set up. That's because of the ability of different users...
You need to apply the restore SD card after downgrade.
Found HERE:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=36873319
After that^^^^^^^^^ just make sure you copy everything you want.. Then you can delete all those other folders you don't need.
SENT FROM MY SAMMY i317 USING TAPATALK
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey! So it seems that did it!!! Now I can see ALL the contents in the /sdcard partition (X-plore shows it as /storage/emulated/0)
So my question is (I'm still pretty noob at all this): all the files/folders shown there shouldn't be critical for the OS to work, right? They should all be stuff saved by apps, that if they get deleted the worst thing that will happen is that those apps will lose that info, right? I ask because I can recognize most of them, but not all of them, so I'm not sure, and I would like to remove as much stuff as possible.
One file that makes me doubt specially is /sdcard/clockworkmod/download/download2.clokworkmod.com/recoveries/recovery-clockwork-touch-6.0.4.3-t0lteatt.img. Is that the actual CWM recovery that I have in my phone? Or just the installation image that can be removed?
Thank you very much for your help!

I ended up deleting everything from the sdcard partition and restoring the stuff that mattered to me, and everything seems fine now. The only weird thing is that when I create a backup with Online Nandroid backup (which gets stored in /sdcard/clockworkmod/backups), I can't see it when connecting my phone to my PC. I can see everything else in the sdcard except the backup. I've tried unplugging and plugin again the phone, rebooting it, rebooting my PC... but nothing. However, if I zip the backup folder with X-plore, leaving the zip file in the same folder as the backup folder, my PC can see it...
Weird thing but oh well!