Simple and straight to the point, I'm trying to restore my phone back to a working state. I've rejected the last several updates because I haven't had time to research and find out what I need to do. I'd like some guidance on what I should do to get my phone back to the best possible shape without losing all of my data.
Here's what I have right now:
Team n00bz Mother of all ROMs
Build Number: JZO54K.L710VPBMD4
Android Version: 4.1.2
Baseband Version: L710VPBMD4
Kernel Version: 3.0.31-1130792
Hardware Version: L710.14
PRL Version: 25017
I've read that people are not liking the 4.3 update and that there is no way to root your phone without Sprint knowing that it's rooted due to the newly locked down bootloader. I would like to get my phone updated with the latest modem, PRL, software, etc, retail all data for apps/texts/pictures, and not lose any contacts or anything. How should I proceed?
Thank you!
When you state " I'm trying to restore my phone back to a working state " . Do you mean the device is not working correctly now ? Or is it ? If the device is working correctly. You are Rooted, and do not want to lose Root. It's fairly straight forward. Since you are on MOAR, that is the Rom I will link for you. Only the New TW 4.3 version. I'll enumerate the process for you. Although I will suggest that you submerge yourself in the art of using the search feature. Also I can never stress enough, read, read, read, and read some more. Things are ever changing in the world of Android, and Mobile devices.
Instructions below are only if your device is already working properly.
1.) Make a Nandroid Backup of your current setup
2.) Backup your Micro SD Card to your Laptop / Desktop - Backup your Internal Phone Storage also if you want
3.) Download the Rom to your Laptop / Desktop ( MOAR TW 4.3 ) - Verify the MD5 checksum of the Rom
4.) Download the MK3 Modem - Verify the MD5 checksum
5.) Backup your Apps / App Data with Titanium Backup ( you can also backup your messages / call logs / etc in the Pro version )
6.) Transfer the MK3 Modem file onto your SD card - Boot into Recovery and flash the zip - Reboot
7.) Power down the Device - remove the Micro SD Card, and Format it - THIS STEP IS OPTIONAL - but I recommend doing it
8.) Transfer the New TW 4.3 Rom onto your Micro SD Card - insert it back into the device
9.) Boot into Recovery - Do a FULL Wipe of the Device : System - Data - Caches - Factory Reset - Internal SD Storage ( Highly recommend )
10.) Flash the Rom - Reboot ( First Boot on the TW 4.3 Roms can take a while - so be patient )
Note:
As for restoring App Data, or Data in general. I cannot stress enough that you should try to restore as little as possible. Sure you may have to sign back into some apps. But it's better than chasing issues caused by restoring a bunch of data. Also as a rule thumb, always avoid restoring system data.
Hope that helps
prboy1969 said:
When you state " I'm trying to restore my phone back to a working state " . Do you mean the device is not working correctly now ? Or is it ? If the device is working correctly. You are Rooted, and do not want to lose Root. It's fairly straight forward. Since you are on MOAR, that is the Rom I will link for you. Only the New TW 4.3 version. I'll enumerate the process for you. Although I will suggest that you submerge yourself in the art of using the search feature. Also I can never stress enough, read, read, read, and read some more. Things are ever changing in the world of Android, and Mobile devices.
Instructions below are only if your device is already working properly.
1.) Make a Nandroid Backup of your current setup
2.) Backup your Micro SD Card to your Laptop / Desktop - Backup your Internal Phone Storage also if you want
3.) Download the Rom to your Laptop / Desktop ( MOAR TW 4.3 ) - Verify the MD5 checksum of the Rom
4.) Download the MK3 Modem - Verify the MD5 checksum
5.) Backup your Apps / App Data with Titanium Backup ( you can also backup your messages / call logs / etc in the Pro version )
6.) Transfer the MK3 Modem file onto your SD card - Boot into Recovery and flash the zip - Reboot
7.) Power down the Device - remove the Micro SD Card, and Format it - THIS STEP IS OPTIONAL - but I recommend doing it
8.) Transfer the New TW 4.3 Rom onto your Micro SD Card - insert it back into the device
9.) Boot into Recovery - Do a FULL Wipe of the Device : System - Data - Caches - Factory Reset - Internal SD Storage ( Highly recommend )
10.) Flash the Rom - Reboot ( First Boot on the TW 4.3 Roms can take a while - so be patient )
Note:
As for restoring App Data, or Data in general. I cannot stress enough that you should try to restore as little as possible. Sure you may have to sign back into some apps. But it's better than chasing issues caused by restoring a bunch of data. Also as a rule thumb, always avoid restoring system data.
Hope that helps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is very helpful, thank you. I did a fair bit of reading but ran into a few walls where I figured it would be best that I just ask whilst I continue reading and researching. My Chrome browser has about 12 XDA tabs open right now. I'm usually able to keep up with the ever changing Android environment but this KNOX bootloader security has thrown a wrench into the mix. A couple questions if I may:
1) Will updating to MK3/4.3 void the warranty via the Knox bootloader? Or have the devs at this point found a work around? I read deep into the Knox FAQ thread started by @CNexus but I don't know if he ever came out with a solution around it.
2) Is the modem the only thing that I need to separately update in order to make sure my phone has all of the latest updates besides the 4.3 ROM? My signal has been very, very dicey lately so I figured I was missing a modem update or two.
To answer your question, my phone has been functional but running just as you would expect a device to run going 8 months+ without updates - very unreliable connection, apps closing left and right, and very laggy.
Thanks again.
Hello,
I've done ROM flashes where instructed to perform full wipes through the recovery menu, or while in the OS. But when selling/getting rid of old Android phones (today, specifically speaking of the Note II i317 AT&T) will it make my personal data unrecoverable by methods I've used in the past to recover accidentally deleted photos/documents?
Basically, I don't want to sell my phone and Joe Blow to be able to recover all (or any) of the private pics/sensitive data of said phone (ie steal/sell my identity). How can I go about securely formatting my phone to make that data unrecoverable, yet without bricking the device?
kintamanate said:
Hello,
I've done ROM flashes where instructed to perform full wipes through the recovery menu, or while in the OS. But when selling/getting rid of old Android phones (today, specifically speaking of the Note II i317 AT&T) will it make my personal data unrecoverable by methods I've used in the past to recover accidentally deleted photos/documents?
Basically, I don't want to sell my phone and Joe Blow to be able to recover all (or any) of the private pics/sensitive data of said phone (ie steal/sell my identity). How can I go about securely formatting my phone to make that data unrecoverable, yet without bricking the device?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, consider a harddrive. It is possible to recover a lot of files after being wiped, and the wipe from the internal recovery doesn't at all (to my knowledge) remove any internal media (files). If of course the recovery doesn't have a added feature to delete partitions i suppose.
And of course, external third part software can recover the files you once deleted, like this: Enter Youtube > search for recover deleted files android. You will find lots of result of how to recover images as a example.
You would need to find a way to unrecoverably delete the files you don't want to share when you sold it, or you could take advantage of the statistics of the fact that quite many people don't know how to recover files.
http://lifehacker.com/5808280/what-should-i-do-with-my-phone-before-i-sell-it
http://www.webroot.com/us/en/home/r...ation/how-to-wipe-your-device-before-donating
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-wipe-history-on-android/
Three good sites above..
One good tip was encrypt phone before wiping...
Hey guys here,
I've got a problem with my OnePlus 5T a while now. I used to make weekly nandroid backup (ye im rooted), but about 3 weeks ago the backup of the data partition via TWRP stopped working. Every other partition works, but data dont. Now i want to test a custom rom and wanna be able to switch back to oos without losing data.
I got the error
Code:
createTarFork() process ended with ERROR: 255
in twrp, so I pulled the recovery log via adb and i got this:
pastebin (dot) com/7Vvfx7sM
Sorry for the link, the ****ty outside link detection system found some links in my log
If I should provide more data tell me, I hope you can help me!
Greetings,
tooxo
This might be because of Parallel apps. See below links for more info.
krumbman0wnz said:
you need to turn off parallel apps, then go into a root explorer and delete
data/system/999
data/system_ce/999
data/misc/999
data/misc_ce/999
data/user/999
data/user_ce/999
This will allow you to do a backup, but you'll get "extractTarFork() process ended with ERROR=255' when trying to restore. So it feels kind useless, unless someone can figure this out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Check the below links for more info.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/oneplus-5/help/error-255-twrp-t3739468
https://forum.xda-developers.com/oneplus-5/help/createtarfork-process-error255-t3727673
going to test out
I could resolve my nandroid /data backup error on my EMUI 8.0 Mediapad M5 device with those following steps:
1 - Use a correct TWRP implementation
TWRP need to access the uncyphered partition /data.
There no possibility to backup it, if TWRP does not implement deciphering user data partition.
2 - Remove all users except user 0 (the administrator)
You can verify that there is no unwanted users, looking at directory /data/user : the only subdirectory should be "0".
To remove the others users :
Remove the PrivateSpace if you have one (Settings > Security & Privacy > PrivateSpace, and tap on the garbage can).
Remove all the secondary users (Settings > Users & accounts > users, and tap on each users to delete them). Keep just the main administrator user.
On EMUI, remove all twins applications (Settings > Apps & Notifications > App Twin, and disable all twin apps).
On OxygenOS, remove all parallel apps (Settings > Apps > Parallel Apps, and disable all parallel apps).
On MIUI, remove all dual apps (Settings > Dual Apps, and disable all dual apps)
On others devices ... you must find all parameters that create those unwanted users.
If you are not able to get the correct settings to suppress those users, in last resort you can try this command : "pm remove-user user-no. (For example "pm remove-user 999").
3 - Do not forget to protect your backups by a password
This would be stupid to cipher your /data partition and keep backups of this partition unprotected.
These steps fixed the nandroid backup problem for /data partition on my Huawei Mediapad M5 device.
I post on this forum because I hope that this will be helpful for others devices owners.
Hi together,
just as a disclaimer, I don't really have knowledge in this field (custom roms etc), but I'm willing to learn and understand what is going on.
I have the Moto G5 as my daily phone with the unofficial lineage 17 from the xda-forum. It's not rooted. Now i saw that the g5 got official support for LOS18, so I wanted to upgrade. However, I had some important files on my phone, so I wanted to do a backup (with twrp), which i did on a different sd-card than the one I was using as storage. Or so i thought. The upgrade itself wasn't really a problem, at first i forgot to wipe the phone, but i realized right after the installation, wiped it accordingly to the instructions and did the installation again. The phone booted without a problem and everything seemed fine. I encrypted the phone accidently, i thought it was the lockscreen pin. But it wouldnt recognize the sd i used as storage on the previous version. Because i had pictures, music etc on the card, i wanted to restore my backup to use the phone as before. Well... to my surprise, on the sd i used to back up i couldn't find it, but strangely there were now two versions of a backup i made some months ago, only different in the timestamp (not the date) in their filename. I didn' know if one of them was the one i made, or if i had made two backups back in the days. I was confused, but i chose on of them at random and restored it. It seemed to have worked, it booted to the familiar lockscreen i set up a while ago. But then: it wouldnt accept the pin, even though i knew it was the right one - at least for the system i have used the same morning. I had to delete the lockpin.db (or how it was called) via twrp to acces the phone again. The former uncompatible storage sd now got recognized and worked, the phone showed all the apps i had before, i was still logged in in all of them etc. But: i made a photo, wanted to look at it in my gallery app, and i briefly saw my albums - then they vanished and only the photo i had taken was there. So now all the pictures, music are gone from the sd. Some funky things are different, the swipe directions for the "recent apps" and "back" buttons on the fingerprint sensor are switched and i cannot find the menu to change them. That's the story.
Here are my questions:
The backup i made - why wasn't it called with the proper date and time? Or have i deleted it somehow due to my wiping mistake? but it was on the sd... ?
I now assume i restored the old backup with a different lockscreen pin, and thats why the pin i thought was correct didn't work. But some apps which i hadn't installed at the time i made the backup where there and with all the recent data. Doesn't that mean the sd has some kind of image of the system or rather the apps themselves stored? but why are the pictures and the music gone? Is there any chancce to get it back? Can I upgrade to LOS18 and use the same sd as storage without the need to format it?
I'd like to learn what the mechanisms behind all these happenings are and would be glad if someone could explain it! Thanks in advance!
Twrp backups do no backup personal files - This includes music pictures and documents. These must be backuped up yourself to a pc, external device or the cloud.
TWRP backups do backup the following for example
System - your current rom
Data - apps and their data of your current rom, phone settings
Boot - Kernel
Never restore data on a different rom. The data contains apps and settings for your current rom and restoring this on a different rom will likely lead to a bootloop or an unstable device. This is why you had issues with passwords.
In regards to personal files - if you have formatted data of an encrypted device then it removes encryption and thus formats internal storage. Anything on this will be lost.
If you are changing roms you need to format data and then install everything again via the playstore (or manually via apk)
You can use 3rd party apps that backup apps and data but I advise against this as what it restore may be unstable on a different OS
As with the twrp date I assume twrp assigns the correct date. The file would be lost if you backup up to internal storage and your formatted data. I don't know what happened to it if you backed up to an external device.
Note - I am not responsible for bricked devices
About TeamWin Recovery Project
TWRP is an open source, community project. TWRP development is done by roughly 4 people at this point. We also have a large support community with many people who are willing to answer questions and help people with their devices either through our Zulip channel or on forums like xda-developers.
Team Win was originally formed to work on porting WiMAX to CM7 for the HTC EVO 4G. After our work on the EVO 4G we wanted to work on a project that would work on more devices than just the EVO 4G and we settled on working on a recovery. Today TWRP is the leading custom recovery for Android phones.
A custom recovery is used for installing custom software on your device. This custom software can include smaller modifications like rooting your device or even replacing the firmware of the device with a completely custom "ROM" like OmniROM
You can find the source code for TWRP at github.com/teamwin/android_bootable_recovery/
Installation procedure
1 . Download the latest TWRP img file from the downloads page
2. Boot to fastboot, and use a PC to boot into TWRP using the command: fastboot boot (TWRP filename).img
3. Head to TWRP's advanced section
4. Press "Flash Current TWRP"
Note: the installed TWRP will be lost if you flash another ROM or update your ROM, and the process has to be repeated then.
Find the Nokia 6.1 Plus (OPEN SOURCE!) Community here
XDA DevDB Information
TWRP for the Nokia 6.1 Plus / X6
Device Tree
Version Information
Status: Stable
Current Stable Version: 3.6.0
Like my work? Consider donating!
https://ko-fi.com/Sid127
UPI users - [email protected]
Great job !
Official builds are now up for download, please refrain from downloading any version other than v3.6.0
Will it work for Android 12? Thanks for the good work...
goodlife1870 said:
Will it work for Android 12? Thanks for the good work...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yessir, you can flash any ROM that our device supports with this TWRP
Sid127 said:
yessir, you can flash any ROM that our device supports with this TWRP
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks so much Sir Sid127... I appreciate...
How awesome is that - thank you for your hard work, @Sid127.
TWRP's new Advanced -> "Flash Current TWRP" feature has the same effect as its predecessor "Install Recovery Ramdisk", with the advantage of not having to manually select the twrp.img file and then flash it - very convenient! So more appropriately it should be labeled "Flash (or Install) Current TWRP as Recovery Ramdisk". Both features enable booting into TWRP rather than the ROM's built-in recovery when choosing to boot into Recovery.
So here's my report:
(Almost) all ¹ is working mighty fine on my new Nokia 6.1 with the official LineageOS 18.1 (Android 11) ROM, except three things (+ one feature missing):
1) After (while booted into LOS) formatting my SD card as internal and having LOS move all data from phone internal to SD, making the SD card the only/ exclusive Internal, TWRP does't or can't access the SD card anymore.
As supposed, I have a PIN set in LOS. Once TWRP has booted, I enter the PIN as requested by TWRP, but after doing so, only see (as before with the SD as mobile storage) that DATA gets decrypted successfully, but no mention of or even an attempt to also decrypt the content of the SD card.
In TWRP storage picker, I do see my SD card with full size (appr. 128 GB), + Internal Storage (19 of the nominal 32GB). But regardless if I choose Internal Storage or MicroSD, TWRP does not see my previous backups (which are now on the encrypted "internal" SD).
Same in TWRP File Manager: the content of the SD formatted as and then dedicated as sole internal and thus encrypted by LOS does not show up anywhere (SDCARD/ SDCARD1/ Storage/ mnt etc.).
Still, after choosing "Internal Storage" as backup location, TWRP does backup. Afterwards I can choose that backup via "Restore", and also see it in File Manager in /sdcard/TWRP. But when I boot LOS, I do not see the new backup in /sdcard/TWRP, only the older ones. The new backup is nowhere to be found, not even via FX File Manger with root privs, querying the entire file System. Obviously TWRP created the backup into the phone's real internal, but LOS has blinded that out after migrating Internal -> SD, most likely by means of a virtual symlink internal /sdcard -> external /sdcard1, and TWRP does not honor that.
Therefore backup options right now are:
- backup to USB via OTG (only partially working, see 3) below)
- backup to internal phone storage, then (while still in TWRP) move (copy then delete) the backup via MTP from internal to a storage on one's computer
All that said, the following (non-exclusionary) questions arise:
1. Are you aware of that?
2. Can you or somebody else reproduce this?
3. Is this fixable somehow, either in TWRP or in LOS?
4. Is this a shortcoming of TWRP in general, failing to also decrypt an SD card if a) it's formatted as internal and b) serves as the phones *only* internal?
5. Or is that an issue that only arises with LOS (18.1) but not with other Android 11 ROMs?
I hope some insights on this issue can be shared and gathered, or even better a fix
2) fastboot reboot recovery doesn't work for me; instead my ROM boots.
Nokia connected to my Mac via USB cable and booted into bootloader. Active slot is the correct one with TWRP and my ROM (LineageOS 18.1, Android 11).
I can however boot TWRP just fine via key combo (Volume Up + Power), and also via Magisk in LineageOS, so it's installed correctly.
3) USB OTG is only working with limitations:
works if TWRP was flashed/ installed as per instructions above, then (with the device powered off and (via USB cable) either connected to your computer or plugged into your charger) boot TWRP via the Power/ Volume Up key combo. (This also works in native install - not recommended because then standard boot will boot into TWRP as default rather than into your ROM)
- NOT working if booted live!
on your connected USB drive, TWRP only sees the 1st partition with a compatible file system (FATxy, ExFAT, ExtFS) incl. the EFI partition! Therefore make sure a) your USB drive does not have an EFI partition as 1st partition; b) the partition you want to backup to is the 1st with one of the compatible file systems!
4) The "Fix Recovery Bootloop" feature option in the "Advanced" section is missing. I was experiencing a boot loop and had to live-boot another TWRP to execute that feaure, which did fix the issue as expected. @Sid127 it would be great if you could re-add that feature.
________________________________________
¹ run live via fastboot w/o flash, flash then boot, decrypt, backup, restore, USB OTG partially
@BladeRunnerA2C @goodlife1870
has any of you inserted an SD card, and if so, have you formatted it as Internal in Android, and then confirmed when Android asked to move all data from Internal Storage to now "internal" SD, making the SD the only internal?
And if so, can TWRP see that?
For the context see my previous post. Trying to narrow things down.
Does fastboot reboot recovery work for anybody? Instead my ROM boots.
Nokia connected to my Mac via USB cable and booted into bootloader. Active slot is the correct one with TWRP and my ROM (LineageOS 18.1, Android 11).
I can however boot TWRP just fine via key combo (Volume Up + Power), and also via Magisk in LineageOS, so it's installed correctly.
When you share if it's working or also not working for you, please let us know your OS + version of fastboot.
twrp-3.6.1_9-0-DRG_sprout.img | ChangeLog
@RootedLee
1 and 3) If I'm not mistaken, SD card as internal is only supported by the ROM, and not by TWRP, and has been a limitation since Marshmallow days. As for USB OTG, most people don't use partitioned USB drives, and hence TWRP returns after finding the first compatible partition.
2) fastboot reboot recovery isn't a valid command on our device, sadly, since the recovery image is embedded in the boot image and not its own partition.
4) I sadly have no control over TWRP features, I can only work on device side things.
hey @Sid127 Friendly Neighborhood Cacodemon, good to hear from you
SD card as internal can't generally be accessed by TWRP if encrypted: OK, bummer - esp. in the light of that you say it's been requested/ suggested since "prehistoric" times. Needless to say it's feasible technically because TWRP can decrypt /Data. Oh well..
TWRP USB OTG:
a) only finding the first compatible partition: as long as only attaching a USB flash drive - OK. But when attaching an external hard disk whose 1st partition usually is the ESP when it's partitioned as GUID, that's inconvenient. At least a function to skip the ESP would make a lot of sense.
b) reliability: does it always work on your Nokia and in any scenario, regardless if you boot into TWRP via key combo after powering on, or from your running ROM?
2) fastboot reboot recovery & 4.) OK, gotcha
BTW did you do the current 3.6.1 port for this Nokia?
@Sid127 I have a (hopefully simple to implement) request: could you add the "Fix Recovery Bootloop" patch into the "Advanced" menu? Because for the Nokia 6.1 (2018) it's necessary.
Would be really awesome if that's not too much out of your way
RootedLee said:
hey @Sid127 Friendly Neighborhood Cacodemon, good to hear from you
SD card as internal can't generally be accessed by TWRP if encrypted: OK, bummer - esp. in the light of that you say it's been requested/ suggested since "prehistoric" times. Needless to say it's feasible technically because TWRP can decrypt /Data. Oh well..
TWRP USB OTG:
a) only finding the first compatible partition: as long as only attaching a USB flash drive - OK. But when attaching an external hard disk whose 1st partition usually is the ESP when it's partitioned as GUID, that's inconvenient. At least a function to skip the ESP would make a lot of sense.
b) reliability: does it always work on your Nokia and in any scenario, regardless if you boot into TWRP via key combo after powering on, or from your running ROM?
2) fastboot reboot recovery & 4.) OK, gotcha
BTW did you do the current 3.6.1 port for this Nokia?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes indeed, 3.6.1 is also out, and it supposedly fixes adoptable storage, so maybe give that a whirl
RootedLee said:
@Sid127 I have a (hopefully simple to implement) request: could you add the "Fix Recovery Bootloop" patch into the "Advanced" menu? Because for the Nokia 6.1 (2018) it's necessary.
Would be really awesome if that's not too much out of your way
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
as much as I'd love to implement features, there's not much I can do on that front because it's again a source side thing and not a device side thing
You are right - 3.6.1 did fix adoptable storage, thanks for letting me know (that fact slipped my attention somehow).
"Fix Recovery Bootloop" patch: OK, gotcha. With 3.6.1 + the latest LOS boot/ recovery that error seems to be fixed anyway
Keep up your friendly neighborhood commitment !
Correction: support for adoptable storage ("AS") is not fully implemented into TWRP 3.6.1:
- in File Manager it's still only the internal storage which shows up
- in the 'Select Storage' dialogue only 'Internal' can be selected, which is still only the internal but not the merged internal/ SD AS
I simply hadn't migrated any data yet which is why all data still resides on internal.
I'm beyond sick & tried of this (not just in TWRP but all across Android) faultily implemented "AS BS" and will revert back to mobile storage for the SD card!
RootedLee said:
will try. Thanks for the links (I had already come across some of them during my research). Quick question in between (just have a minute right now): could it be of any help to edit the twrp.img and replace contained tar binary with the GNU one?
OT: this whole thread should be moved to the TWRP section where it belongs to in the first place because this is a TWRP not a Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 issue to begin with
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
actually (gnu) gtar is only used by my own linux scripts (to imitate twrp look-a-like backup) and schily (standard) star only used by android-backup-extractor. /sbin/tar -> toybox is a symlink, if you want to replace make sure to unlink /sbin/tar first. but it's not used by twrpTar anyway therefore pointless. your backup looks completely broken, try with another backup first. once you ruled out Error 255 you could try to repair backup
@aIecxs smart and circumspect of you to continue the issue (TWRP restore not producing a functional system from FBE (file-based encryption) Data backup after factory reset: either stuck before reaching login screen, or tar error 255 trying to restore Data) here
Now guess what: I'M BACK UP 'N RUNNING !!!! Even (almost) all apps appear to be working fine apart from a few apps which realize that security settings have changed but performed just fine again after restoring from their own built-in backups, see below ¹ (exceptions also see below ²)
Eventually (after all the steps I had already documented in the other thread), here's the only things I just did:
with LOS installed to slot B unencrypted (no PIN), booted into stock TWRP
because the last backup I made with TWRP from my working and encrypted (PIN > FBE) install was in slot A, changed slot to A
thought, what the heck - just try and see if restore of Data (which so far, if I booted into TWRP with an unecrypted Data present and TWRP not asking for the decrypt PW, had always failed with the notorious tar error 255) works, and indeed, it would suddenly run!!!
decided to at this point to only also restore Boot, but not (yet) System
BOOM - back to Homescreen WITHOUT having to enter any PW thus NOT encrypted - Yeeha !!
the Homescreen launcher (stock LOS Trebuchet) was behaving iffy > restart
launcher now working as supposed; everything else (apart from Signal), too, as it seems, incl. Wi-Fi and making calls.
I am not 100% sure but I think the main do-jobbie indeed was
Code:
./busybox gzip -cd data.ext4.win00# | ./tar --selinux --xattrs -P -vxp
run via adb shell, based on your script, along with the special SELinux tar + busybox (all info see here), + the unencrypted install (currently on the other slot), maybe changing the slot to the inactive one and restore form there - I am honestly not sure.
I am SOOO thrilled about your high-profile help (esp. looking at the numerous threads over at TWRP/Issues where people were not able to resolve this). Let me know if I can buy you a coffee or something.
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¹ Apps also running again after restoring their built-in backups: Signal, Swift Backup, Banking4
² Country-specific apps of mine which required a reset by deleting their data: luca, SBB Mobile, Payback)
In general, since some apps rely on software keystore, it is worth making recurring backups of the data/misc/vold folder which is said to contain the keystore files.
-----------
PS: Once all apps are verified running, I'll apply multiple backup tools, not just TWRP..
donate to Sid127 don't thank me
agreed, friendly neighborhood Cacodemon @Sid127 deserves a donation - done !