Develop Bugs

[Q] Can't download Handcent SMS or XDA Forums app

I was told I can download handcent sms to fix a timestamp issue im having (because it automatically displays texts in the order they're received instead of using timestamps). However, I had the program and deleted it once before, but after reading up on it I still have a file somewhere on my phone called com.handcent.newsms, and having that somewhere on there is preventing me from installing handcent. I checked in titanium backup and its one of the files with a line through it (aka-its been deleted supposedly), and my phone has been searching my files using ES File Explorer since about 7 hours ago with 0 progress. Any ideas on where this file might be?
Same problem with the XDA Forums app. Had it, deleted it, but after searching Titanium Backup theres still a file being displayed called com.quoord.tapatalkxda.activity and i'm assuming thats the reason I can download but not install the app. And idea where to find this one?

back everything up, boot into recovery and wipe data/cache. then reinstall everything

ive wiped several times when installing new roms (before i knew i even had this issue).

are you restoring the same rom after wiping? if you wipe then install a new rom there should be nothing leftover to give you issues

nope, ive installed a new one every time (to be more specific- miui, cm6, evozone.pure, evozone.riptide). and ive tried searching for the file on my file explorer and it just stays at 0% (on hour 8 now). It shows the files (the handcent one and the xda one) at the very bottom of Titanium Backup with a line through it.

when you touch that line does it not give you the option to delete it? if it is just a line that means that you have a backup for an app that is not currently installed

nope, and it says that theres no backup for it. it has the yellow sign with an exclamation mark in it next to it, which after i looked means theres "nothing"? this is doing a fantastic job of irritating the piss out of me.

in titanium backup, hit menu then clean dalvik, then reload app list, if still there then with a file explorer go into the titaniumbackup folder and delete the files associated with those entries

cleaned dalvik, still there. and thats the problem, i cant find any files associated with them.

ewingt22 said:
cleaned dalvik, still there. and thats the problem, i cant find any files associated with them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you ever copied your SD card to your PC? If so - you can go into the TitaniumBackup folder on your SD from previous manual backups and just reinstal the apk from there... I do that all the time. When I flash a ROM, First I make a NAND backup of said ROM, restore all apps and info (Texts,Contacts,Emails etc) then I do a TB back up and a MyBackUpPro Backup and then I copy all the files from my SD (which will contain all the backups you just made)to safely keep all the back ups you just made safe on your PC...If you dont alredy do that kind of thing, maybe its a good idea to start for these types of problems
hope that helps, if not - I do have the Apks for both apps your looking for - I can email them to you if you want

make a backup of your sd card on your computer, then format it and put only a rom .zip file, wipe everything multiple times, install the rom from sd card
check if handcent or xda will install, if yes, replace the files on your sdcard that you copied before format.
if no you have successfully gotten somebody else as frustrated with your phone as you are

Worked, thanks a ton for the help
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

[CWM Scripts] Relatively painless backup/mod/restore scripts

Ok, these are specifically for MIUI, but they can easily be adapted to any other rom by editing the shell scripts. I'll explain how they work and it should be fairly apparent how one would need to modify for their particular rom/needs. Don't know if anyone will actually use these, but I thought I'd share. I also think it's a really good example of how CWM can be used for more than just flashing stuff.
So I've been running MIUI for a while now and I'm really happy. One little issue that popped up was every Friday when the rom was updated, the OTA update app icon gained a little "1" badge, indicating an update was available. While it's nice to be notified of the update, I occasionally didn't have the time or interest in updating so the little badge remained. I put that app in a folder, but then the folder had the little 1 badge. After a while, I started deleting the update app after install since I could always download and install updates through ROM Manager just as easily. Then I started deleting the update app from the downloaded ROM zip, along with several other apps I didn't want (Facebook, Twitter, the MIUI FileExplorer, etc) before flashing it. But this entailed downloading the Friday update on my phone, transferring it to my desktop, opening the zip in 7 Zip, deleting the unwanted files, uploading it back to my phone and then flashing. Quite a PITA.
Another issue I ran into was that the built-in MIUI backup app failed to backup my SMS/MMS messages. Actually, I don't know if it was failing to back them up, or failing to properly restore them, but at the end of the day, it wouldn't keep my text messages. I know I could avoid this by just installing each update over the current ROM, but I've always believed cleanly installing an OS helps avoid issues. I prefer to wipe everything, install clean and then restore my data.
So, the solution(s) I came up with was to mod the downloaded ROM zip file right on the phone, and manually backup and restore my data. While it took a little while to get set up, I find it actually works considerably faster and smoother than using MIUI's backup/restore app. I now have 3 simple shell scripts that are run through Clockwork Recovery just like installing any zip - one to mod the ROM after downloading, and two to backup and restore my data. Here they are:
MIUI-Mod.zip
This contains a shell script and a zip binary to handle the adding and deleting of files to/from the downloaded rom zip. When run through CWM, it copies zip and the script to /tmp and runs the script. Because the ROM zip is named differently every Friday, I figured the easiest solution was just to rename it manually. So, this script assumes the ROM zip is named "miui.zip" and is located in the root of the SD card. It's a simply matter to download the ROM on Friday, move it to /sdcard and rename it miui.zip. Here's what the script does in 2 commands:
/tmp/zip -d /sdcard/miui.zip /data/app/Twitter.apk /data/app/Facebook.apk /system/app/Email.apk /system/app/FileExplorer.apk /system/app/Gmail.apk /system/app/MIUI.us_Forums_1.1.2_AdSupported.apk /system/app/Superuser.apk /system/app/Updater.apk /system/app/MIUIStats.apk /system/media/lockscreen/* /system/media/wallpaper/*
/tmp/zip /sdcard/miui.zip /system/app/Gmail.apk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The first line simply opens the zip and deletes the listed files: Twitter, Facebook, Email, etc. It also removes all the wallpapers for the lock and main screens (I don't use them, so I didn't want them, but it's a good example of the use of wildcards like *).
The second line adds in the Gmail.apk from my current ROM. The latest versions of the Gmail app included in MIUI lock the mail database, which conflicts with a widget I use, so I just replace it with an older version. Every time I run the script, it removes the included Gmail app and adds in my current one. If you didn't want to add anything to the ROM, you could just delete this line entirely.
Data-Backup.zip
This just runs a shell script that creates a tar file in the root of your sdcard containing the listed files and directories. Tar files retain file permissions and owner information, so everything can be restored seamlessly. Here's how it works, it's pretty simple:
tar -c -f sdcard/backup.tar data/app/com.adobe.flashplayer-1.apk data/data/com.adobe.flashplayer data/app/com.speedsoftware.rootexplorer-1.apk data/data/com.speedsoftware.rootexplorer data/app/com.touchtype.swiftkey-1.apk data/data/com.touchtype.swiftkey data/data/com.android.browser data/data/com.android.deskclock data/data/com.android.launcher data/data/com.android.mms data/data/com.android.phone data/data/com.android.providers.contacts data/data/com.android.providers.settings data/data/com.android.providers.telephony data/data/com.android.providers.userdictionary data/data/com.android.thememanager data/data/com.android.vending data/data/com.google.android.gsf data/data/com.miui.camera data/data/com.miui.notes data/data/com.noshufou.android.su data/system data/misc/wifi
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This creates the tar file and includes Adobe's Flash player and it's data, Root Explorer and it's data, and SwiftKey and it's data (I paired it down to just these three for this example). After that, it backs up a bunch of other data directories which include the current Browser settings, alarms, launcher settings and home screen layouts including widgets, phone logs, the current theme settings, any MIUI notes, current Wifi connections and, yes, SMS and MMS messages.
Obviously, you'd want to add in your specific apps and data directories. Sure, it takes a little work to set this up, but as I said, backing up is very quick and easy afterwards.
Data-Restore.zip
This just runs a shell script that restores all the files from the backup.tar on your SD card:
tar -xf /sdcard/backup.tar
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doesn't need much explanation.
So, the process is:
1-Download the Friday update through ROM Manager, move it to the root of my SD card and rename it to miui.zip
2-Reboot into CWM and run Backup-Data.zip to back up my apps and data
3-Run MIUI-Mod.zip to modify the downloaded MIUI rom
4-Wipe everything (cache/data/system)
5-Install the modded MIUI rom
6-Run Data-Restore to restore apps/data
7-Reboot
It's literally about 5 minutes after downloading the ROM and I'm updated and rebooted with a CLEAN os install and all my apps, data and settings intact, my home screen layouts, keyboard, wallpapers, wifi settings and everything retained.
Some notes:
1-Before running these in CWM, you have to make sure you have system, data and sdcard mounted since the scripts will be reading and/or writing to all of these. When you first reboot to CWM, just go to mounts and manually mount each one. The scripts could certainly be set up to mount them automatically, but mount points vary from phone to phone, and it's not difficult to mount through CWM. Also, after flashing a ROM, the ROM install script may unmount some of these, so before you restore your data, you might have to manually remount.
2-If you're adding anything from your current ROM to the zip (like how I add in my current Gmail.apk), make sure you wipe everything *after* running the mod script, otherwise you're deleting everything and then trying to copy file(s) that were just deleted.
3-I would highly recommend using Notepad++ to edit scripts, since it properly saves Unix line breaks.
4-as always, use at your own risk and a full CWM backup is highly recommended before messing with these.
That's pretty much it. Again, it does take a little while to get set up, but once it is, it's really simple. If you install a new app between updates, you just have to edit the backup script, or you can just keep the scripts maintaining a base setup and reinstall various apps through the market each time. This specific process is probably most useful for ROMs that are updated regularly - nightly or weekly, although I'm sure people can find other uses for running scripts through CWM.
Hope someone might find these useful.

This is really cool. I run Miui and would really like to be able to do a fresh install each week, but hate the hassle of resetting up my phone, even using Titanium backup, it's still a time consuming process. So needless to say, I flash the new rom over top of the old version without wiping just to save time.
So, basically I can open up the data restore zip in 7 zip, add in a few of my apps/data such as Tasker and so forth, close it and flash? If so, that will be great.
Thanks for sharing this!!!

You don't need to touch the Data-Restore.zip, all that does is extract the backup.tar file created with the backup script. What you'd do is open the Data-Backup.zip and edit the backup file (it's just a text file). Add in any of your apps and their corresponding data directories and when you flash the Data-Backup.zip in CWM, it'll back up those files/folders.
To find the files you want to backup, use something like Root Explorer and look in /data/app. There you'll find all the 3rd party apps you've installed. Add each one to the tar command in the backup file just like the ones I included. Then go into /data/data and find each app you want to back up's corresponding data folder. Add them to the tar command too.
Save the file, re-zip it and when you flash it through CWM, it'll back up the new files.

Just what i wanted
I also always install everything from clean system so setting up everything is a pain.
Would this work for Internal storage? I have a Motorola RAZR XT910 and running JBX roms.
Google does install all the apps when i sign in into the new rom but then i always had to move each folder to the correct destination manually using some file explorer. was thinking of making something like this but didnt know how to start. Thanks, I will now try and mod these to suit my phone :good:

Unfortunately messaging has stopped

So I flashed a custom theme here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=1803273 and I flashed it over wicked r5.
I also also installed another zip from there to change the jellybean messaging app to the stock touchwiz.
It worked but randomly I get a Unfortunately messaging has stopped error.

Try clearing your cache or fixing permissions. Also, it might just be a bit too much tweaking.. Hopefully you can get it to work.
Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda premium

Every time ive seen that doing a factory reset has fixed it.
BACK UP YOUR INTERNAL SD FIRST!!!
Good luck!
Edit: try daves suggestion first though!
Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda app-developers app

DocHoliday77 said:
Every time ive seen that doing a factory reset has fixed it.
BACK UP YOUR INTERNAL SD FIRST!!!
Good luck!
Edit: try daves suggestion first though!
Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I spent a whole day trying to fix this, in the end had to do a factory wipe.

Corrupt sms / mms database
This has to do with a corrupt db file. It can either happen if something goes wrong with titanium backup/restore process. Or also if you manually copy these files from another older backup (when an older android was installed).
First backup the existing sms/mms with smsbackup from appstore. It is free.
With an explorer app like ESFile explorer, go to "/data/data/com.android.providers.telephony/databases" (or something similar in your phone where the sms / mss .db files are located).
Make a backup of the files here and then Delete all the files.
Then restore the sms from smsbackup app. Voila ! No crash anymore
No need to do a factory wipe.
If everything works fine, you can delete the backup folder containing the old db files.

FYI: After upgrading to Wicked's v.7 I stopped getting these errors. Been a week so far with no probs.

genardas said:
So I flashed a custom theme here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=1803273 and I flashed it over wicked r5.
I also also installed another zip from there to change the jellybean messaging app to the stock touchwiz.
It worked but randomly I get a Unfortunately messaging has stopped error.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi please see http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=27695693 ..... it may be related to your CSC. Or alternatively (in my case) I had mistakenly frozen the system app "BadgeProvider" using Titanium Backup. Constant "Messaging has stopped" kept coming up until I unfroze BadgeProvider.

shriramrs31 said:
This has to do with a corrupt db file. It can either happen if something goes wrong with titanium backup/restore process. Or also if you manually copy these files from another older backup (when an older android was installed).
First backup the existing sms/mms with smsbackup from appstore. It is free.
With an explorer app like ESFile explorer, go to "/data/data/com.android.providers.telephony/databases" (or something similar in your phone where the sms / mss .db files are located).
Make a backup of the files here and then Delete all the files.
Then restore the sms from smsbackup app. Voila ! No crash anymore
No need to do a factory wipe.
If everything works fine, you can delete the backup folder containing the old db files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks I tried restoring one too many things related to SMS with titanium backup which screwed up the messaging app, I wasn't able to receive or read msgs. Your solution worked, I just had to reboot after deleting.

If you rooted your phone, anyone, and you deleted or renamed some system apps to stop them loading then you could face problems with the SMS Messaging app.
Just make sure the system app "WebViewGoogle" is left intact (in the folder data/system/app)
If you deleted it then put it back in, if you renamed it (e.g. from "WebViewGoogle.apk" to "WebViewGoogle.apk.old") then name it back to "WebViewGoogle.apk"
This app must be intact for the Messaging app to work. properly.

Can't get any backups to work

Hello,
I having been having some major problems the last 2 weeks with any and all backups i create of my phone. I have tried to make backups of various Roms using both Rom Manager and also directly by flashing into recovery (CWM touch). Each time the backup is successfully made, but then when i try to flash the backup i get errors saying "file not found". I lost my stock rooted backup, a backup of CM10, a backup of Liquid Smooth, and a backup of JellyBam. Does anyone have any idea why my backups don't seem to work? This is incredibly frustrating as I lose all of data and have no security blanket should something go wrong. Every time i flash a new Rom i wipe Dalvik, Cache, and factory reset/wipe.
Anyone have any idea what's going on with the backups?

what versions of android have you been flashing and are you sure your on the latest recovery?

psycho2k9 said:
what versions of android have you been flashing and are you sure your on the latest recovery?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply. believe liquid smooth was version 4.2 and the jellbam was 4.1.2. My stock was either 4.1.1 or 4.1.2, whichever the last update went to. As far as CWM, I am on 6.0.2.3.

westmenu Marquette
Not sure if this is relevant in all this, but my Titanium Backup wasn't working on it's own either when I flashed any new Rom. It would not see any backups and I would have to go into the Preferences and scan for the folder that had backups in it as it did not automatically detect backups in whatever folder it defaults to. This is also a recent development.

Something Creative said:
Hello,
I having been having some major problems the last 2 weeks with any and all backups i create of my phone. I have tried to make backups of various Roms using both Rom Manager and also directly by flashing into recovery (CWM touch). Each time the backup is successfully made, but then when i try to flash the backup i get errors saying "file not found". I lost my stock rooted backup, a backup of CM10, a backup of Liquid Smooth, and a backup of JellyBam. Does anyone have any idea why my backups don't seem to work? This is incredibly frustrating as I lose all of data and have no security blanket should something go wrong. Every time i flash a new Rom i wipe Dalvik, Cache, and factory reset/wipe.
Anyone have any idea what's going on with the backups?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I started several threads on this very issue....my backups also are not working - "file not found" You aren't alone, once more people start experiencing this I'm sure we will see an answer

jackryan57 said:
I started several threads on this very issue....my backups also are not working - "file not found" You aren't alone, once more people start experiencing this I'm sure we will see an answer
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've tried searching and nothing relevant came up. Do you also have several folders that appear the same when you reboot into recovery? For example, I have a folder titled "0" that popped up around when the issue started. I have a CWM folder as a subfolder under "0" that appears to be identical to the CWM folder that is not in a subfolder. That's why i brought up the issue i am having with titanium backup, wondering if that has anything to do with anything.
I've tried flashing the backups from both the subfolder and the non-subfolder, and nothing seems to work. The only thing i can successfully do is do a complete wipe and reset and flash a new Rom from scratch off the zip.

If your flashing anything 4.2 related its highly recommended that you use twrp as your recovery because of how the files get condensed into that "0" folder.. Your probably going to have to hunt down your backups I'm sure they are somewhere in that 0 folder
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda premium

psycho2k9 said:
If your flashing anything 4.2 related its highly recommended that you use twrp as your recovery because of how the files get condensed into that "0" folder.. Your probably going to have to hunt down your backups I'm sure they are somewhere in that 0 folder
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I thought it might have to do with the folder issue, but i have tried flashing from the CWM, backup, and various other folders in both the "0" subfolder and the main folder. In both cases i get an error that say's file not found. That said, do you really think twrp would make a difference? I'm pretty new to android, so i'm not really familiar with it beyond knowing it's a recovery like cwm. I'd be willing to try it out if it wont jack up the little amount of cwm i do actually know and am familiar with. At least now i can flash a new Rom and start over with a titanium backup of files if shizz hits the fan.

The only thing I can think of is to copy and paste the clockworkmod folder from the 0 folder to the root folder and try the restore process from the root folder instead of the 0 sub folder. If that doesn't work I dunno bro
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda premium

psycho2k9 said:
The only thing I can think of is to copy and paste the clockworkmod folder from the 0 folder to the root folder and try the restore process from the root folder instead of the 0 sub folder. If that doesn't work I dunno bro
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll give it a shot even though I've tried loading from the folder directly already.
How would i move it? I've actually tried using file manager and it doesnt let me. It says it can't move the file, or any file actually, from the "0" subfolder.

so i made some serious progress. I used ES file explorer instead of file explorer and it let me move the file for CWM from the "0" subfolder to the main folder. It said that it was going to overwrite everything in the main folder with the subfolder stuff. I accepted and then i dirty flashed a backup of the same Rom (in case the file would not be found again) that had previously not worked.
It actually ended up working. I am afraid to try to flash a backup after completely wiping b/c i dont want to go through the crap of setting everything up again tonight, but i will give it a go tomorrow and report back. So for some reason, backups can't be flashed from CWM from the "0" subfolder, and they can't be flashed from the main folder, unless you move the files from the "0" subfolder to the main folder.
Hope that makes sense to anyone that may have this problem.

If you have the time and are by a computer you can also just move everything out of the 0 folder into the root folder and just get rid of the 0 folder altogether and start from scratch. I think it has something to do with cwm and how they recognize the file system. Like I said you should give twrp a try its very good.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda premium

Is there another way to backup apps and their data?

Okay I'm really in need of a response from who knows the mechanic of backing up
I've two questions
1. I've noticed that u can actually flash apps with a zip file. So if I put my personal apps into the rom folder after extracting them and recompress, is it possible that my apps will also get flashed along w the rom?
2. I've also noticed when u do a factory reset in the recovery, it only deletes cache and data. If I copy the data folder to my sdcard and paste to the orig directory after factory reset, is it possible that the data will get restored?
I'm not just curious. I think if this is possible, it'll be much dependable
Thnx
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app

christianyu said:
Okay I'm really in need of a response from who knows the mechanic of backing up
I've two questions
1. I've noticed that u can actually flash apps with a zip file. So if I put my personal apps into the rom folder after extracting them and recompress, is it possible that my apps will also get flashed along w the rom?
2. I've also noticed when u do a factory reset in the recovery, it only deletes cache and data. If I copy the data folder to my sdcard and paste to the orig directory after factory reset, is it possible that the data will get restored?
I'm not just curious. I think if this is possible, it'll be much dependable
Thnx
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Yes, put the app's APK under /data/app in your zip package (although I do think that you need to modify the updater-script a bit to make it actually flash the apps).
2. Depending on how you do it - you MUST keep ALL the files' and folders' permissions untouched (which is nearly impossible since there are just WAY too many of them), or when you simply copy back, the permissions will be messed up and you'll face continuous FCs. Better use apps like Titanium Backup or, if you're brave enough, try restoring only the /data partition from an existing nandroid backup.
Sent from Samsung Galaxy Nexus @ CM11

1. How do I modify the updater script?
2. Is it possible to restore only part of the nandroid backup?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app

Titanium Backup is the best way. The way you are doing it sounds like a lot of unnecessary work.

look for an app called zipme from author jrummy on the play store

I wrote some code a long while back that allows you to pack/encrypt and unpack/unencrypt your own android backups so that you can do your own partial backups and restores.
See http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1730309
However, for the past 18 months, I have just used BackupPC to back up my android devices. BackupPC is a linux-based backup that allowd for automated backups with all types of options for incrementals & fulls. The backup files are pooled so that you can backup every day while requiring minimal extra space since only new files add to the poo size. It can use several different transport systems for the backup ranging from rsync to rsyncd to tar to ftp etc.
I use rsync (over ssh) since it is fast -- only the deltas need to be transported across the network when files change.
Basically, all you need to do is install ssh + rsync, modify the server side config file and then you get automatic backups at your own pre-determined frequency over wifi whenever your device is connected to the wifi network.
Now BackupPC is probably overkill for just backing up a droid -- since it is typically used to backup whole networks of linux, Mac, Windows, etc. pc's. But since I already use it to backup all my home computers, it was a cinch to modify the config file to also backup my droid devices.
I verified that it worked when my Gnexus broke and I was able to flash the replacement device which restored not just my apps and data but also all my settings.

jsgraphicart said:
Titanium Backup is the best way. The way you are doing it sounds like a lot of unnecessary work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree. The play store has a bunch of other ones too but I would go with Titanium.

hsypsufan said:
I agree. The play store has a bunch of other ones too but I would go with Titanium.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am using EaseBackup and I find it very good. Helium is another option but I found it buggy.