Develop Bugs

[Q] I have a question about flashing roms

I've never had a phone that doesnt have an SD card. So I flashed roms left and right and didnt have to worry about a lot of data like music and pictures and stuff on my phone.
Does the clockwork for the nexus avoid wiping certain folders to preserve some of that data or am I going to have to deal with losing everything every single time i want to do a data wipe for a new rom or something? I thought I read it did something like this for the nexus s. Is it functioning the same for the galaxy nexus?
Thanks!

Yes. When using CWM, it avoids wiping anything in the //sd card/ folder. Although when unlocking the bootloader for the first time this will wipe EVERYTHING so make sure to backup!

New to Nexus Modding

Hey guys
Just a quick question. I took a quick looking at the "modding for beginners" threads but didn't find a direct answer to my question.
I'm coming from a Droid charge which was a phone with a MicroSD card which all my files were on. If I were to put a ROM on my phone, everything on my phone would be deleted however all my files and everything would stay intact because they were all on the MicroSD card. If I were to flash one of the ROMs available, would I have to transfer all my stuff to an external storage device (such as my computer) and then transfer it back after I'm done flashing, or do my own files stay and just the system files are modified?
Thanks guys and sorry if this was posted somewhere else.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

Everything on the storage of the Galaxy Nexus will be wiped when you unlock the bootloader but once that has been accomplished and you move all your files back & then flash a rom nothing will be deleted unless you do a full wipe from recovery but most roms do not require a wipe at all.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

so essentially what you're saying is everything on my phone will be wiped once, but then after that no matter how many times I switch ROMs, all my info will still be there? Info being media, apps, etc. I could care less about contacts because I have it all synced through google.

My nightmarish ordeal with Jellybean

All I wanted to do was upgrade my stock Takju phone to Jellybean. I don't get to.
It started with the preview. I flashed it. Everything seemed to be okay, except that none of the apps could find any files on my /sdcard. I then realized that programs like Root Explorer and Airdroid saw a completely different /sdcard than what my PC or any phone apps did. I asked around, fixed permissions from as many apps as offered, tried wiping every partition I could think of, but nothing fixed the problem.
So I waited for the "official" build to come out. I figured this time I'd try a "dirty" install, so that the permissions would be where they need to be. The phone refused to boot. It got stuck on the boot animation.
So, I used GNex Toolkit to wipe the phone to factory specs. It was like I just got it. I ran the phone once, Rooted, installed TWRP, wiped everything twice for good measure, installed the JB ROM, and held my breath.
It looked good at first, but it STILL had the same /sdcard issue, but this time had the added fun of the USB port breaking after 30 seconds, making me unable to copy any files over to the fake partition anyway.
So now I'm copying files back to the phone which was restored once again to 4.0.4 (USB port works fine now). I've spent 14 hours on this so far only to end up right back where I started. The thing I find baffling is that, based on what I've read here, I am the ONLY person in the entire world having this problem, despite working with what is, for all practical purposes, a factory fresh phone.

You are not the only person with the SD sdcard0 issue. Perhaps the only person with transfer of file and recognition issues. When the full jelly bean image comes out I am going to flash that hoping it clears up the double SD issue.
butter and jelly please...

I had a similar problem, I had to completely erase the SD card ("fastboot erase userdata" does not work, had to reflash a new image for the sd).
One of the causes is that the /sdcard "partition" points to /data/media in ICS but it goes to /storage/sdcard0 on JB (thanks to XBIRDIE98 for that info). I think the Play Store GNex not wiping borks the filesystem when both of them point to the /sdcard partition. Some apps see /data/media while others see /storage/sdcard0

Yep, I have this **** too. Only negative to 4.1.1 I've found
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

I finally got it back to where I started. I had to trick CWM into finding the file because it was in a different folder than where it should be, But, the USB port once again works, so clearly it had something to do with how sdcard0 is setup. I might try it again once a complete image comes out and I can push it with GNex Toolkit.
Why can't there be a "complete" backup that also gets the SD Card/

Glad to hear you got that sorted. Try flashing direct to takju 4.1.1 and skip 4.1

It's nice to hear that someone else had usb problems too. I thought it was some sort of mechanical problem. Maybe I still have hope after all.

Same thing here. No issues with cwm or anything but sdcard0 what I have to
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

Had a similar problem at one point. Had to fastboot all the stock images back.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

Archpope said:
All I wanted to do was upgrade my stock Takju phone to Jellybean. I don't get to.
It started with the preview. I flashed it. Everything seemed to be okay, except that none of the apps could find any files on my /sdcard. I then realized that programs like Root Explorer and Airdroid saw a completely different /sdcard than what my PC or any phone apps did. I asked around, fixed permissions from as many apps as offered, tried wiping every partition I could think of, but nothing fixed the problem.
So I waited for the "official" build to come out. I figured this time I'd try a "dirty" install, so that the permissions would be where they need to be. The phone refused to boot. It got stuck on the boot animation.
So, I used GNex Toolkit to wipe the phone to factory specs. It was like I just got it. I ran the phone once, Rooted, installed TWRP, wiped everything twice for good measure, installed the JB ROM, and held my breath.
It looked good at first, but it STILL had the same /sdcard issue, but this time had the added fun of the USB port breaking after 30 seconds, making me unable to copy any files over to the fake partition anyway.
So now I'm copying files back to the phone which was restored once again to 4.0.4 (USB port works fine now). I've spent 14 hours on this so far only to end up right back where I started. The thing I find baffling is that, based on what I've read here, I am the ONLY person in the entire world having this problem, despite working with what is, for all practical purposes, a factory fresh phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i used ASTRO file manager to make sure the update.zip was in the correct SDCARD folder. Just go to the root folder and you'll find your SDCARD, but it's probably a bit late to be saying this....

Do the AOSP builds of JB (4.1.1) still create this symlink, or whatever, to sdcard0 on fresh installs? Or are the bugs from some weird partitioning a holdover from the GSM ports, which only had 16GB flash memory?
I tried VanirBEAN v3 when it came out and noticed that issue. I was getting random system crashes and sometimes reboots once I decided to nandroid restore my 4.0.4 backup. So after backing up /data/media/ through ADB I did an entire fastboot flash of the stock IMM76K image (here if anyone needs it) to ensure my device was back to 100% stock. I'm currently on 4.0.4 (AOKP M6) and reluctant to go back to JB because of this very issue - I'm just glad to have everything back to normal.

Thegodfather156 said:
Same thing here. No issues with cwm or anything but sdcard0 what I have to
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's supposed to be like that. People are making issues out of things that aren't issues at all.
/sdcard symlinks to /storage/sdcard0
Just as
/mnt/sdcard symlinks to /storage/sdcard0

I think the concern is that pre-JB /storage/sdcard0 doesn't exist. So when you install JB, you get duplicate symlinks to wherever "sdcard" is.
I no longer have /storage/sdcard0, or at least I can't find it anymore. However, I can navigate to /data/media and find the same contents as /sdcard. My main concern is that there might be more partitioning going on behind the scenes that break things on restores between ICS and JB.

I've swapped back and forth at least a dozen times and not had duplicated symmlinks.

binglejellsx2 said:
My main concern is that there might be more partitioning going on behind the scenes that break things on restores between ICS and JB.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This was my concern. I had to reflash the sdcard partition since I had 5GB of storage space missing

harveydent said:
This was my concern. I had to reflash the sdcard partition since I had 5GB of storage space missing
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here. I thought I was just imagining things. After returning everything back to the sdcard, I now had 9gb free instead of something like 2gb.

i had same issue to. used nandroid back up and fresh install worked for me.

I have been having issues with the sdcard since flashing the preview too and through several roms
Initially it didnt see any of my pics...a few hours later they were there.
Turns out on boot Android Media Server is running at about 40-50% for about an hour.
Once this is done then my pics show up in gallery and the phone runs great.
I dont have that many pics so if you have more I could see this taking hours.
(I use Watchdog light to see what hogging the CPU)
I've tried several things to fix including renaming the DCIM folder and creating a new one...putting a .nomedia file at the root of the SDCARD
Nothing seems to work. I watched the logcats looking for some media scanner errors but never see any.
Right now Im running a CM10 Kang.
At this point I will probably reset to factory and start from scratch and then copy my data back.
I wish there was another solution, maybe partition the SDCARD?
Archpope said:
All I wanted to do was upgrade my stock Takju phone to Jellybean. I don't get to.
It started with the preview. I flashed it. Everything seemed to be okay, except that none of the apps could find any files on my /sdcard. I then realized that programs like Root Explorer and Airdroid saw a completely different /sdcard than what my PC or any phone apps did. I asked around, fixed permissions from as many apps as offered, tried wiping every partition I could think of, but nothing fixed the problem.
So I waited for the "official" build to come out. I figured this time I'd try a "dirty" install, so that the permissions would be where they need to be. The phone refused to boot. It got stuck on the boot animation.
So, I used GNex Toolkit to wipe the phone to factory specs. It was like I just got it. I ran the phone once, Rooted, installed TWRP, wiped everything twice for good measure, installed the JB ROM, and held my breath.
It looked good at first, but it STILL had the same /sdcard issue, but this time had the added fun of the USB port breaking after 30 seconds, making me unable to copy any files over to the fake partition anyway.
So now I'm copying files back to the phone which was restored once again to 4.0.4 (USB port works fine now). I've spent 14 hours on this so far only to end up right back where I started. The thing I find baffling is that, based on what I've read here, I am the ONLY person in the entire world having this problem, despite working with what is, for all practical purposes, a factory fresh phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

[Q] Help problem with rooting with cm10 and need to restore important files lost.

I need help I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 from at&t 1317. Right know it changed since I rooted with cm-10.1-20130219-NIGHTLY-t0lte to model number GT-N7105 kernel 3.0.31. The thing is I rooted first with chainfire auto root and it went all well and I was happy, but I saw the themes and changes the other more advanced (in my opinion) and decided to root with the cm10. I followed the instructions and made a backup with clockwork mode touch recovery and all. When the backup was finished I copied it to my laptop just in case. I used rom manager to install the cm10 and all went smoothly or so I thought. The phone turned on and showed the Samsung name and the it showed the custom boot animation of the android pissing on the apple. But it got stuck on that for more than 15 minutes. I panicked and tried to turn off the phone but to no help. I removed the battery and put it in recovery mode and tried to use the backup but said it wasn’t functioning I tried using the Samsung toolkit or odin to flash it but nothing. The toolkit said waiting for adb and did nothing. I still have the backup. I in my panick did a factory reset thinking that would put the stock rom but to my disaster it erased everything. I then rooted on top of it to see if it would get rid of cm10 I did it with the auto root from chainfire but cyanogenmod doesn’t want to leave my phone. At first I didn’t even have google play store but just now thanks to something clockwork did I have it again. Please I just want my phone to get restored with the backup I did im not asking for more I have important files I cant ever replace if they are lost forever. The contacts, app data, documents on the internal storage is what most needs help. The other things on the external tips would be appreciated too.

Don't panic. You did a factory reset and may have wiped all. Was this a cwm factory reset or twrp factory reset? It sounds like cwm. Which is, like you said, a full wipe. Your best bet is to use data restore apps. Disk digger in the store can restore all kinds of photos. But you may have to use a different one. Unfortunately the phone attached via MTP so computer software has a hard time seeing it as a drive.
You should read and re-read before flashing
You have not rooted with cm10 you flashed cm10 which happens to be rooted.
Rooting is simply allowing advanced administration privileges for the phone. Nothing more. Flashing a ROM is your whole operating system.
What kind of files are you trying to restore?
Also on cm10 when you flash cm10 in recovery you should flash gapps with it. That's how you get play store. You may have burned yourself due to a lack of understanding.
Go to file manager. Go to settings and enable root mode.
Then grant permission. On the pop up.
Then go to the highest folder /
Then go to /data
Then /data/media
What do you see in here? All your files? Or just like 2 folders. One named 0 and one named legacy (I believe.)
Anyone if the files aren't in /data/media then you erased them. And your vest bet is a file restoring app. And this may be difficult. Don't use your phone for anything. The longer you wait. The more likely these files will be written over.
Sent from my GN2 using XDA app.

Thanks
Skwerl23 said:
Don't panic. You did a factory reset and may have wiped all. Was this a cwm factory reset or twrp factory reset? It sounds like cwm. Which is, like you said, a full wipe. Your best bet is to use data restore apps. Disk digger in the store can restore all kinds of photos. But you may have to use a different one. Unfortunately the phone attached via MTP so computer software has a hard time seeing it as a drive.
You should read and re-read before flashing
You have not rooted with cm10 you flashed cm10 which happens to be rooted.
Rooting is simply allowing advanced administration privileges for the phone. Nothing more. Flashing a ROM is your whole operating system.
What kind of files are you trying to restore?
Also on cm10 when you flash cm10 in recovery you should flash gapps with it. That's how you get play store. You may have burned yourself due to a lack of understanding.
Go to file manager. Go to settings and enable root mode.
Then grant permission. On the pop up.
Then go to the highest folder /
Then go to /data
Then /data/media
What do you see in here? All your files? Or just like 2 folders. One named 0 and one named legacy (I believe.)
Anyone if the files aren't in /data/media then you erased them. And your vest bet is a file restoring app. And this may be difficult. Don't use your phone for anything. The longer you wait. The more likely these files will be written over.
Sent from my GN2 using XDA app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First of all thank you for answering. The files Im trying to recover are some photos of my girlfriend and documents of my university. The photos were hiding by the app hide it pro that looks like an audio manager but in reality its an hide app. I had it their because im kind off jealous and dont like people seeing her from photos. The first step took it the one off the file manager. Thanks now how do i restore the phone because in all reality this experience has turned me off cyanogen I want the old root because in the future plan to root but with other when im more able to do it.

Franky15 said:
First of all thank you for answering. The files Im trying to recover are some photos of my girlfriend and documents of my university. The photos were hiding by the app hide it pro that looks like an audio manager but in reality its an hide app. I had it their because im kind off jealous and dont like people seeing her from photos. The first step took it the one off the file manager. Thanks now how do i restore the phone because in all reality this experience has turned me off cyanogen I want the old root because in the future plan to root but with other when im more able to do it.[/QUOT
The pics are no longer the problem, it was in the external sd, the thing now is the contacts and app data that was on the internal storage. If someone can be of help I'd appreciate it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

I don't wanna come off as mean, but you need to read up alot more on rooting and what it does. You installed a rom, not a different root. When you install any rom, you have to factory reset your phone and that wipes apps and their data. Before you wipe anything you should backup aps and their data with something like titanium backup. I'm guessing you didn't do that so as far as I know your app data is gone. It is a learning experience, now you know what not to do next time. Just read up a little more
Sent from my GT-N7105 using xda app-developers app

Kreateablaze said:
I don't wanna come off as mean, but you need to read up alot more on rooting and what it does. You installed a rom, not a different root. When you install any rom, you have to factory reset your phone and that wipes apps and their data. Before you wipe anything you should backup aps and their data with something like titanium backup. I'm guessing you didn't do that so as far as I know your app data is gone. It is a learning experience, now you know what not to do next time. Just read up a little more
Sent from my GT-N7105 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didnt use titanium but I used clockwork. The problem was I didnt know how to use it. The root thing I know Im no expert (sadly). But right know I managed to use but only part of the phone has backed up. Question when the back up is used do i delete it then from my files because of the storage? As you said yourself I dont know much but with help from people like you I hope that I can change that if at least a little

Solved it
My phone is back to the other rom it had just needed to move the backup file to the folder of clockwork. Im gonna change rom in the near future but how do I prevent loosing again the data and keeping the new rom I instal?

I would read up alot about flashing custom roms and using an app like titanium backup to backup your apps and data. I would go on YouTube and search on how to use clockwork and what everything does. There are plenty of videos on doing all of that stuff on YouTube. I would stay on what you are on right now until you feel comfortable
Sent from my SGH-I317 using xda app-developers app

Kreateablaze said:
I would read up alot about flashing custom roms and using an app like titanium backup to backup your apps and data. I would go on YouTube and search on how to use clockwork and what everything does. There are plenty of videos on doing all of that stuff on YouTube. I would stay on what you are on right now until you feel comfortable
Sent from my SGH-I317 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks man I'll take your advise to heart.

No problem I like to help if I can. I only started rooting with my last phone and was scared of bricking it and messing stuff up but from reading info and watching videos and just doing things with my phone and messing with it I have learned a lot.
Sent from my SGH-I317 using xda app-developers app

Kreateablaze said:
No problem I like to help if I can. I only started rooting with my last phone and was scared of bricking it and messing stuff up but from reading info and watching videos and just doing things with my phone and messing with it I have learned a lot.
Sent from my SGH-I317 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I recently changed to android from blackberry and its a world I didnt know existed. Its awesome so I was scared stiff lol but like you said with time you learn and by reading and watching. I have read somewhat but havent seen much videos.

Custom roms are fun to play with but can get out in trouble.. sometimes you spend more time fixing the problem you caused then having fun, maybe by wiping or not wiping the right areas, maybe a bad flash or just an all around bad flash... soo agreed, learn more about cwm and teamwin and roms before you attempt anything.. but there are always ppl willing to help...
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app

so true like this time for me but even thought the experience was bad I still loved the custom rom if it didnt cause this much trouble I would have stayed with it.

It is fun putting the different roms on your phone and making it your own. It's an addiction and a nice hobby
Sent from my SGH-I317 using xda app-developers app

nice hobby if you know what you're doing lol

ROM switching on the HTC One?

Couldn't find a thread on this and this may be a COMPLETE noob question...
I've never dealt with a phone that couldn't hold an SD card and I'm hoping to get the HTC One soon. I root/switch roms on all my phones.
I was just wondering, since the HTC One doesn't hold an SD card, what happens when I flash a ROM?
Usually, if I am correct, wiping data removes everything on the phones internal storage, and since the HTC One doesn't have external storage, will everything (songs, pictures, etc) be erased upon ROM switch?
I'm just baffled if it's all erased upon switching. Sorry for noob question, as I stated, I don't deal with phones with no external storage, so thanks XDA.

jakichan77 said:
Couldn't find a thread on this and this may be a COMPLETE noob question...
I've never dealt with a phone that couldn't hold an SD card and I'm hoping to get the HTC One soon. I root/switch roms on all my phones.
I was just wondering, since the HTC One doesn't hold an SD card, what happens when I flash a ROM?
Usually, if I am correct, wiping data removes everything on the phones internal storage, and since the HTC One doesn't have external storage, will everything (songs, pictures, etc) be erased upon ROM switch?
I'm just baffled if it's all erased upon switching. Sorry for noob question, as I stated, I don't deal with phones with no external storage, so thanks XDA.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
IIRC there's a virtual SD card where certain things dont get wiped (I think titanium backup accesses this)

crazyg0od33 said:
IIRC there's a virtual SD card where certain things dont get wiped (I think titanium backup accesses this)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you happen to know of it's accessible via computer or a file manager app? (or custom recoveries?)

jakichan77 said:
Do you happen to know of it's accessible via computer or a file manager app? (or custom recoveries?)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its nothing different from dealing with a standard SD card. When you wipe you're wiping data (not internal storage but app data) cache and possibly dalvik and system. None if which will end up wiping your saved files on SD card unless you select wipe internal storage. Just to note HTC or Verizon blocked us from unlocking bootkoaders right now so no go on that except for a few that did it day one.
Sent from my HTC6500LVW using xda app-developers app

jakichan77 said:
Couldn't find a thread on this and this may be a COMPLETE noob question...
I've never dealt with a phone that couldn't hold an SD card and I'm hoping to get the HTC One soon. I root/switch roms on all my phones.
I was just wondering, since the HTC One doesn't hold an SD card, what happens when I flash a ROM?
Usually, if I am correct, wiping data removes everything on the phones internal storage, and since the HTC One doesn't have external storage, will everything (songs, pictures, etc) be erased upon ROM switch?
I'm just baffled if it's all erased upon switching. Sorry for noob question, as I stated, I don't deal with phones with no external storage, so thanks XDA.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Recoveries differentiate between internal storage and the virtual "/sdcard", so that won't be wiped.
Sent from my HTC6500LVW using Tapatalk 4

just don't accidentally hit erase internal like I did!
you'll be stuck in recovery/bootloader with nothing to flash, no nandroids nothing
took forever to fix my horrible mistake.
been trying like hell to find an easy way to switch the menu order in TWRP. there is no reason why the internal wipe is right above system wipe.
alphabetical or not, it's set up for failure.
Learn from my misfortune!
eventually I was able to adb devices in fastboot to and it read my device, and eventually was able to get the phone mounted in recovery to adb push a rom.zip to flash.
nothing fun!

andybones said:
there is no reason why the internal wipe is right above system wipe.
alphabetical or not, it's set up for failure.
Learn from my misfortune!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I cannot possible count the amount of times i hit that button and was half a swipe away from erasing my internal on my S3... The flow goes against us all.

Thanks guys, swayed my opinion toward the One in the right direction. I'll be sure to watch the HTC one development until an S-OFF method becomes available. I think we remember the Rezounds S-OFF o.0
Where there's a will there's a way. I'll also try not to lose my data on the internal SD card, probably back up my photos every so often. Thanks again.

jakichan77 said:
Thanks guys, swayed my opinion toward the One in the right direction. I'll be sure to watch the HTC one development until an S-OFF method becomes available. I think we remember the Rezounds S-OFF o.0
Where there's a will there's a way. I'll also try not to lose my data on the internal SD card, probably back up my photos every so often. Thanks again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Let's just hope we have the support we had for the Rezound, I truly hope someone will help bring this phone to life and give it the justice it deserves! S-OFF, and the DEV claims his much deserved bounty.

There is one wrinkle with these HTC internal sdcard partitions that people need to be aware of. If you select factory reset in bootloader rather than recovery, the whole thing can become corrupted so that you lose all your data. Everything. I've seen people do this and then panic thinking they've bricked their phones. It's fixable, but you have to reformat externally using your computer.
Wiping in recovery preserves the /sdcard partition. So as a general rule, wipe ONLY in recovery, NEVER in bootloader.

iElvis said:
There is one wrinkle with these HTC internal sdcard partitions that people need to be aware of. If you select factory reset in bootloader rather than recovery, the whole thing can become corrupted so that you lose all your data. Everything. I've seen people do this and then panic thinking they've bricked their phones. It's fixable, but you have to reformat externally using your computer.
Wiping in recovery preserves the /sdcard partition. So as a general rule, wipe ONLY in recovery, NEVER in bootloader.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How would one then completely factory reset their phone like you were allowed to on the Rezound? Just install the default ROM in H-Boot? (Well, not ROM, but I think you get what I'm saying, the P9H-blah.zip).

jakichan77 said:
How would one then completely factory reset their phone like you were allowed to on the Rezound? Just install the default ROM in H-Boot? (Well, not ROM, but I think you get what I'm saying, the P9H-blah.zip).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Factory reset inside Sense will wipe all user data.