Develop Bugs

Does Nandroid backup cache's also?

If I do a Nandroid backup and then do a full wipe/reset and wipe the cache partition and dalvik-cache, will my Nandroid restore the cache's also?

The dalvik-cache will be rebuilt at next boot based on the applications present, so it shouldn't matter. You could clear dalvik now and reboot, and it would just regenerate for you. Some people do that to "clean up" every once in a while, I believe. I think the regular cache is similar, there shouldn't be anything there that can't be replaced (re-cached) when it's needed again.
Even so, I believe they do get backed up because my first boot after a Nandroid restore recently didn't take as long as it would have if the dalvik cache was being rebooted, but that's only an anecdotal answer.

Wiping before Flashing - some questions

I'm using mero's wiping tool before flashing a new version of Revolution HD.
But I'm wondering if it's really necessary, at least the Easy-Update 1.0 version. What it does is:
Will format(wipe) the following:
* BOOT
* SYSTEM
* CACHE
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The 1.3 full wipe doesn't wipe BOOT anymore because it's completely rewritten anyway. Why is it needed with Easy-Update?
About SYSTEM. When flashing a new ROM it says "formatting partitions". I *guess* that's the system partition, so then wiping it wouldn't be necessary?
And the CACHE partition, does it really need to be wiped? I'd think that the OS manages this partition so that when there are cache files from an app that's now gone due to flashing it will delete them.
So if I don't want to loose my DATA partition do I really need to wipe BOOT/SYSTEM/CACHE?
And now the next part of my question...
I guess when flashing so often it's good to once in a while wipe DATA as well. Though I'm a bit reluctant about this as well since Android was created with people in mind who are uninstalling/installing apps every day so DATA shouldn't litter easily.
Anyway, when I decide to wipe it, I want to keep some of the data. For example games or apps that have considerable customization or save data.
For that I use Titanium Backup. Now I'm wondering if I restore some of my apps incl data, that will partly contradict the wiping. So what's the use wiping DATA then, removing data of apps that are gone due to flashing?

What is the proper way to rom hop?

Greetings,
I want to be able to seamlessly switch from CM7 to MIUI to Sense, etc., keeping all of my settings, apps, etc for each setup. I assumed that I can do this by simply configuring each and doing Nandroid backups. But, when I try to restore my Myn's backup, I get an error.
Anyone know the proper procedure rom-hopping like this?
Thanks!
mike

1. Backup current apps and data in titanium backup
2. In recovery, backup current rom
3. Full wipe [factory/data, cache, dalvik]
4. Flash rom, reboot.
5. When booted into new rom, restore apps and data, NOT system settings.
6.
And if you want to switch back, go to recovery, backup current rom, then restore the backup you want; no need to wipe.
Also you'll get restore errors if you renamed the folder using invalid characters, or its corrupted.

Yes, you can just keep nandroid backups of each ROM you like after you get them set up and running how you want. Then you can restore whatever setup you feel like that day.
You can also back up your apps w/ titanium, that way if you install any new apps, when you restore another ROM, you can use ti to restore any missing apps that you've installed since the backup was made.

To the OP, your post is incomplete without the error message
Your steps seem like the proper way to go between roms. What you need to be aware of is, some apps store their data on the sdcard. Depending what is stored, you may get issues. Beautiful wigets comes to mind. It stores the skins on the sd card.
Are you getting error messages restoring from the backup image itself? What error. Are your image files intact?

Might be your version of recovery. I had a problem going from CM7 to anything else. I switched the recovery version in Rom Manager and fixed it

Sorry, I overlooked that. What error are you getting?
1. What % was your battery at? If it's below 30-40%, it won't restore or backup.
2. Have you renamed the backup? You can only use certain punctuation in the names or it won't work.

teh roxxorz said:
1. Backup current apps and data in titanium backup
2. In recovery, backup current rom
3. Full wipe [factory/data, cache, dalvik]
4. Flash rom, reboot.
5. When booted into new rom, restore apps and data, NOT system settings.
6.
And if you want to switch back, go to recovery, backup current rom, then restore the backup you want; no need to wipe.
Also you'll get restore errors if you renamed the folder using invalid characters, or its corrupted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good advice. One thing I'm curious about though. When you do a rom backup, it saves your apps/data etc. anyway, right? When you "restore" a ROM everything is exactly like you had it. So why is it necessary to do a Titanium Backup of all your apps/data (other than prudent good practice obviously) when your ROM backup will have the same. Is there another reason I'm missing?
Second, when you say backup "apps + data" but NOT system settings, what exactly do you mean? When you do a batch backup w/ Titanium Backup you can choose to do Apps or Apps + all system data. How can you quickly and easily backup apps + app data without all system settings? Manually go in and select certain (green) system data?

I do it in case I download any new apps while on one ROM that may not be included in my nand backup.
I don't restore app data, but theoretically you could restore the newer app data as well.

Alpine- said:
Good advice. One thing I'm curious about though. When you do a rom backup, it saves your apps/data etc. anyway, right? When you "restore" a ROM everything is exactly like you had it. So why is it necessary to do a Titanium Backup of all your apps/data (other than prudent good practice obviously) when your ROM backup will have the same. Is there another reason I'm missing?
Second, when you say backup "apps + data" but NOT system settings, what exactly do you mean? When you do a batch backup w/ Titanium Backup you can choose to do Apps or Apps + all system data. How can you quickly and easily backup apps + app data without all system settings? Manually go in and select certain (green) system data?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The reason for backing up your apps and data is because when you install a new rom, like going from CM7 > MIUI, you should always do a full wipe, which will erase your user apps; erases all phone content. When you boot into the new rom, the titanium backup data is on the sdcard, and can be restored from there; that's why. And doing a full wipe when flashing a new rom kills off a lot of problems, like random fcs, ect.
No, you do the batch operation for backup user apps + system data, just to be safe that you get the data for the apps. That makes it easiest. When you RESTORE, you go into batch, there's an option for restore only user apps and data, right above apps + system data.

[Q] best way to keep up to date with nightlies?

I'm currently running Synergy, and have been flashing nightlies every so often to keep up wit hthe changes and small errors that I encounter, hoping there's a fix in them, However reflashing a nightly every few days can be a pain as I keep having to reset all of my phone settings (ringtone, notifications, display, accounts, sms, etc...)
What is everyone's opinion of the best way to reliably backup your phone settings to easily restore them to a new rom after a flash?
I use Titanium Backup, but honestly I'm not sure what all the system settings are saved as, or even if that's a good idea as the way settings are setup might have changed from the las tbackup, and don't want to screw things up.
Ideas?

All you have to do is reboot into recovery, wipe cache and dalvik, and then create a nandroid backup of only the data. If you have an ext3 partition and your third party apps are stored there, then also select to backup the sd-ext and your android.secure (if you have paid apps). Now all you have to do after a clean install of Synergy or its nightly builds is to boot to your homescreen, bypass the sign-in stuff, and then remove all of the default homescreen widgets. After that, reboot into recovery, wipe cache & dalvik and then restore the aforementioned backup. When you reboot, all of your settings, data, apps and homescreens will be as they were on your previous installs.
posting & replying via my EVO 4G

dougjamal said:
All you have to do is reboot into recovery, wipe cache and dalvik, and then create a nandroid backup of only the data. If you have an ext3 partition and your third party apps are stored there, then also select to backup the sd-ext and your android.secure (if you have paid apps). Now all you have to do after a clean install of Synergy or its nightly builds is to boot to your homescreen, bypass the sign-in stuff, and then remove all of the default homescreen widgets. After that, reboot into recovery, wipe cache & dalvik and then restore the aforementioned backup. When you reboot, all of your settings, data, apps and homescreens will be as they were on your previous installs.
posting & replying via my EVO 4G
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the reply. just to be sure I understand you completely, using my current rom, would this be the proper order?
reboot into recovery (I use Amon Ra)
wipe CACHE, & DALVIK-CACHE
backup the following items: [ ]boot, [ ]system, [x]data, [ ]cache, [ ]recovery, [ ]wimax, [ ]sd-ext, [x].android_secure
wipe ALL userdata/factory reset
flash latest rom
boot to homescreen
remove all widgets/icons
reboot into recovery
restore nandroid backup created above
reboot normally
Also, as a side note, when wiping before flashing rom, I usually wipe ALL, CACHE, & DALVIK-CACHE, which are covered above. With the new Amon Ra, should I be wiping any of these as well before I flash? - DATA, SDCARD:.android_secure, BOOT, SYSTEM, SDCARD, SDEXT, DATA:battery stats, DATA:rotate settings?
Thanks for all the info! I appreciate it!

Include the sd-ext in the backup if you have an ext3 partition with apps on it. Other than that, you got it right. As for what to wipe before flashing, if I'm just flashing nightlies, I sometimes only wipe cache & dalvik, but I'm big on wiping EVERYTHING in amonRA's wipe menu EXCEPT the SD card before I flash a rom.
posting & replying via my EVO 4G

okay. thanks.
this is actually a follow up question, but the sd-ext, is that a special partition that I can setup that will expand the base storage of my EVO onto the SD card so I stop getting complaints about running out of space? And can that be setup through Amon Ra?

What do you recommand as backup strategy when playing with custom ROM?

Hi,
I begin timidly to try flashing some custom ROMs. Each time it is quite time consuming to restore system settings. So far each time I flash a new ROM, I re-enter all the system settings, then re-install Titanium Backup and restore user apps (that I backed up previously). I didn't try the batch job "Backup all user apps + system data" Titanium Backup. Because I am concerned that restoring the system data from one ROM over another ROM may freeze the device.
Question: What are the best practices to backup & restore user apps + system settings ?
Thanks in advance for any help.

when changing roms:
best practice of all: don't restore anything
good practice: restore user apps
normal practice: restore user apps+data
bad practice: restore system apps
really bad practice: restore system apps+data

bk201doesntexist said:
when changing roms:
best practice of all: don't restore anything
good practice: restore user apps
normal practice: restore user apps+data
bad practice: restore system apps
really bad practice: restore system apps+data
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh Wow, best = dont restore anything?!? That sounds quite time consuming. Can you elaborate on the technical reasons which makes restore a risky operation?

2LoT said:
Oh Wow, best = dont restore anything?!? That sounds quite time consuming. Can you elaborate on the technical reasons which makes restore a risky operation?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
restoring user apps if just as fine as not restoring anything, unless you are the roms you are changing between have different ui's or android os's like going from ics to jelly bean. But for the most part its fine. The reason you shouldn't restoring certain things is risky is because one rom may have a certain data structure with some features built-in as apps, which are incompatible with another rom without that structure. Its just a matter of the way the developers code their roms

restoring the app also restores its cache i believe, which may cause issues because caches are hash signed by each rom flash, thus switching to a new rom and restoring may cause the app to fail (it expects a different hash sig, from the previous rom), until you clear dalvik cache/cache. not risky, just makes you loose time as well, since you'll have to boot again to recovery and wipe cache again after restoring.
anyways, restoring user apps is a good practice, and apps shouldn't have anything to do with system ui. system apps and definitions is another thing.
i often fresh-start flash. i only use 4 or 5 apps, so.. not that big of a deal. i used to install any junk on my pc's, a long time ago. furthermore, i rather have a clean rom with few apps than a rom full of apps which makes it way harder for me to control whats going on.

Oh cool thanks for the explanation. I "Wipe data/factory reset" + "Wipe cache partition" before flashing the ROM. I hope that it should be safe enough to restore the user apps + data. Just did that yesterday and so far it seems like it's working OK.

2LoT said:
Oh cool thanks for the explanation. I "Wipe data/factory reset" + "Wipe cache partition" before flashing the ROM. I hope that it should be safe enough to restore the user apps + data. Just did that yesterday and so far it seems like it's working OK.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't forget to wipe dalvik cache as well.
Allons-y

Great question and useful information for those new to this. I for one would say you CAN successfully restore SOME system data if you do so carefully. I for one always backup and restore Phone / Messaging Storage via Titanium Backup as this will copy over my SMS and MMS archive, as well as APN settings. Note this is only recommended when switching between Jelly Bean roms.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

This is what I personally do when I play around with custom ROMs...
Backup:
-Backup user app using App2zip (Zips all user apk), you can also backup system apk, but not recommended
-Backup user app+some system data (includes data usage, sms history, etc..) using Titanium Backup
Restore:7
-After flashing ROM and mods, flash the zip file made by App2zip
-Restore ONLY the data of user apps and system apps
-Reboot to recovery, and clear cache and dalvik
-Reboot
Successful all the time for me

kyokeun1234 said:
This is what I personally do when I play around with custom ROMs...
Backup:
-Backup user app using App2zip (Zips all user apk), you can also backup system apk, but not recommended
-Backup user app+some system data (includes data usage, sms history, etc..) using Titanium Backup
Restore:7
-After flashing ROM and mods, flash the zip file made by App2zip
-Restore ONLY the data of user apps and system apps
-Reboot to recovery, and clear cache and dalvik
-Reboot
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for suggesting App2Zip, can you please clarify:
Q1. What is the difference between "App2zip" and "Titanium Backup"? I suppose App2Zip doesn't save at all the user data?
Q2. How do you use Titanium Backup to backup data only? The closest I see is the backup batch job named "backup all user apps + system data". Is it overkill b/c I just want "All user data + SOME system data".
Q3. Where in Titanium can I select "some system data" and what does "some" exactly mean in this context? Providing a wrong system data restore would bring troubles. Can you please give an exact list of the system data which is safe to restore? I am interested in Wireless pwd, and settings related to Sound, Display, Language Input, Lock screen. So far I have no idea how to backup these settings.

2LoT said:
Thanks for suggesting App2Zip, can you please clarify:
Q1. What is the difference between "App2zip" and "Titanium Backup"? I suppose App2Zip doesn't save at all the user data?
Q2. How do you use Titanium Backup to backup data only? The closest I see is the backup batch job named "backup all user apps + system data". Is it overkill b/c I just want "All user data + SOME system data".
Q3. Where in Titanium can I select "some system data" and what does "some" exactly mean in this context? Providing a wrong system data restore would bring troubles. Can you please give an exact list of the system data which is safe to restore? I am interested in Wireless pwd, and settings related to Sound, Display, Language Input, Lock screen. So far I have no idea how to backup these settings.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A1: App2zip takes all the user apk and puts it into a zip file. So after you flash your ROM, you can just flash that zip file too in the recovery. It's faster for me, because I don't need to press "install" everytime
A2: You can't do data only... You can restore only the data after you backed up. Also you get to choose which system data you want to backup.
A3: I don't 100% know either, but here's things that I backup:
-data usage
-accounts
-SMS (For the SMS history, but you can also use SMS backup+)
-clock (For alarms)
-country,language,timezone
-email
-exchange services
-gmail
-phone/messaging storage
-wifi access points

kyokeun1234 said:
A1: App2zip takes all the user apk and puts it into a zip file. So after you flash your ROM, you can just flash that zip file too in the recovery. It's faster for me, because I don't need to press "install" everytime
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah that's true, this Install button in Titanium appearing at each app is really annoying. Does App2Zip also save and restore the user apps data/settings? I hope yes, b/c otherwise I can't really remember exactly what I have changed on each app over time.

2LoT said:
Yeah that's true, this Install button in Titanium appearing at each app is really annoying. Does App2Zip also save and restore the user apps data/settings? I hope yes, b/c otherwise I can't really remember exactly what I have changed on each app over time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sadly no, which is a HUGE bummer for me
But what I do is I backup also using Titanium Backup, and then when I need to restore, I just flash the zip file and restore ONLY the data using Titanium Backup. Works every time for me

kyokeun1234 said:
Sadly no, which is a HUGE bummer for me
But what I do is I backup also using Titanium Backup, and then when I need to restore, I just flash the zip file and restore ONLY the data using Titanium Backup. Works every time for me
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How do you do with Titanium to restore User Apps DATA only? Do you use the Restore Job "Restore missing apps with data"?

2LoT said:
How do you do with Titanium to restore User Apps DATA only? Do you use the Restore Job "Restore missing apps with data"?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, you restore ALL user apps+system apps. But after you press it, you will have a choice between restoring apps+data, data only, and apps only. Select data only

kyokeun1234 said:
No, you restore ALL user apps+system apps. But after you press it, you will have a choice between restoring apps+data, data only, and apps only. Select data only
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Super cool, thank you very much for your help.

2LoT said:
Super cool, thank you very much for your help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no problem

Stop being a cheapskate and pay for titanium backup. Batch restore doesn't prompt with install button on every app

Pirateghost said:
Stop being a cheapskate and pay for titanium backup. Batch restore doesn't prompt with install button on every app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I actually didn't know that. Sorry for being "cheapskate", but doesn't that the same thing as what my backup pro does? I tried that using backup pro, but personally found it take longer time
Swyped on my Galaxy Nexus running AOKP with Trinity Kernel, overclocked to 1.4GHz

Pirateghost said:
Stop being a cheapskate and pay for titanium backup. Batch restore doesn't prompt with install button on every app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's not a problem. I was looking for an advice about backup/restore not for how to save money. When I used Titanium to restore it stops at every app and asking to click on Install and when the app has been restored, it asks for another click on "Done". I am just reporting what I am seeing. Now that you said, I have checked the description of Titanium Backup Pro and may be what you said is the "0-click batch restore" feature which is available in the Pro version. I will give App2Zip a run and will see which one I like better.