Hi,
I finally decided to root my phone and flash Cyanogenmod (1/10/2013 nightly) on my S3 today, and I've run into a couple problems. First, the phone won't connect to 4G lte -- it only connects to 3g. When I try and change the network preferences, the changes don't stay, and changing the APN doesn't make any difference either.
This brings me to my second problem -- Since I couldn't get the phone to connect to lte, I decided to restore my phone to the backup I set up through clockworkmod before I installed Cyanogenmod. However, when I tried to restore, clockworkmod said that it couldn't find any backup files. I checked in the clockworkmod/backup folder, and the backup was there, but it was dated as 2/5/70! Did something go wrong with the backup?
Can anyone help me with these issues?
So I found out the problem; apparently it was somewhat widespread. the 4.2 update created new user profiles which changed the location of the backup files. I ended up using the file manager to move the backup file to sdcard0/ from sdcard0/0/. I was able to restore from the backup, but it seemed to be taking a long time to boot, so I pulled the battery as I thought it was stuck in a bootloop. I tried flashing a the rooted stock firmware from one of the Galaxy S3 root guides (because it was already on my computer) to see if that would make a difference, and the phone eventually was able to boot up. It turned out the backup restore had worked, as my previous apps were on the phone. However, almost none of them work, because the sdcard0/0 directory still exists, and this previous version of Android doesn't recognize the location (at least I think this is the problem).
Anyway, does anyone know if I can just get my phone back to the way it was before I installed the custom recovery and ROM? Is there any way to install firmware that gets rid of this sdcard0/0/ directory so I can restore from backup properly? I'm in way over my head here (I shouldn't have even attempted this in the first place) and would really appreciate some help.
Hi all,
I recently got a HK N7105 and because it lacked the possibility to use a french keyboard I upgraded to a stock unbranded ROM from Sweden (XXDLL1) and succesfully rooted with the relevant CF_autoroot through Odin. Also installed TWRP 2.3.3.1.
Then, I connected the Note 2 to my corporate exchange server which enforced a full encryption policy (device and external SD card) so I had to type in a password at each boot time (with a "nice" swedish prompt that took ma while to decypher), plus a password to unlock the screen. All was well as the root survived the process.
Next I upgraded to a later stock ROM from France (XXDLL4 from SFR) to try and get rid of the swedish prompt. That worked fine (and root was loast in the process, as expected) but I hated the branded stuff so much I reverted to XXDLL1 until a proper unbranded "english" or "french" ROM is available.
At this point I decided to root again. I was running XXDLL1 like the first time and used the same autoroot tar from Chainfire. Except my Note 2 was still encrypted and after that it would not accept my boot password (a four digit PIN) anymore so I was guted and had to factory reset and root then reinstall everything before reconnecting to the exchange server.
Question 1: Does anyone know of a safe, proven way to root a fully encrypted Samsung device so I can go another upgrade without having to wipe the device first?
Why reinstall everything? Why not backup everything first so you can restore after the wipe? Well, it so happens that no recovery (at least neither CWM or TWRP) can read any encrypted media on the Note 2 at the moment. And no Recovery can actually fully backup the device as well.
Question 2: Does anyone know of a proper way to handle this situation with minimum hassle?
So far, the best I can think of is doing a Titanium backup and FTP the files to my NAS so I can retrieve them later. But (Question 3) will this be enough to restore my phone to the expected state after a stock firmware upgrade?
Thanks in advance,
François
frankieGom said:
Hi all,
I recently got a HK N7105 and because it lacked the possibility to use a french keyboard I upgraded to a stock unbranded ROM from Sweden (XXDLL1) and succesfully rooted with the relevant CF_autoroot through Odin. Also installed TWRP 2.3.3.1.
Then, I connected the Note 2 to my corporate exchange server which enforced a full encryption policy (device and external SD card) so I had to type in a password at each boot time (with a "nice" swedish prompt that took ma while to decypher), plus a password to unlock the screen. All was well as the root survived the process.
Next I upgraded to a later stock ROM from France (XXDLL4 from SFR) to try and get rid of the swedish prompt. That worked fine (and root was loast in the process, as expected) but I hated the branded stuff so much I reverted to XXDLL1 until a proper unbranded "english" or "french" ROM is available.
At this point I decided to root again. I was running XXDLL1 like the first time and used the same autoroot tar from Chainfire. Except my Note 2 was still encrypted and after that it would not accept my boot password (a four digit PIN) anymore so I was guted and had to factory reset and root then reinstall everything before reconnecting to the exchange server.
Question 1: Does anyone know of a safe, proven way to root a fully encrypted Samsung device so I can go another upgrade without having to wipe the device first?
Why reinstall everything? Why not backup everything first so you can restore after the wipe? Well, it so happens that no recovery (at least neither CWM or TWRP) can read any encrypted media on the Note 2 at the moment. And no Recovery can actually fully backup the device as well.
Question 2: Does anyone know of a proper way to handle this situation with minimum hassle?
So far, the best I can think of is doing a Titanium backup and FTP the files to my NAS so I can retrieve them later. But (Question 3) will this be enough to restore my phone to the expected state after a stock firmware upgrade?
Thanks in advance,
François
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think using Exynos Abuse apk will do the work
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2050297
Thanks for the heads up, I'll look into it. But to be clear, that answers question 1, correct?
Sent from my GT-N7105 using xda app-developers app
frankieGom said:
Thanks for the heads up, I'll look into it. But to be clear, that answers question 1, correct?
Sent from my GT-N7105 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes that's a way to root the device.
Regarding encryption, very few people on xda seem to use it. So for that reason you'll have trouble finding out what works... I do use it though through choice so I can help you a bit.
When you encrypt the device, just consider /data to be off limits to anything not booted fully. That's why it asks you for your key in swedish - it can't see what language is in use until you unlock /data.
You will have issues using recovery with the device, since they can't read /data. You can use an external sd to perhaps load data to the device though.
I believe that TWRP might soon support the Samsung encryption on the device, meaning you could use it as recovery. Once you have a recovery that supports Samsung encryption, you should be able to consider it a fairly normal device.
Just be more cautious to backup your data as it is hard to recover if something goes wrong...
If your using stock rom 4.1.2, exynos abuse method of root will not work. It's been patched
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda app-developers app
pulser_g2 said:
Yes that's a way to root the device.
Regarding encryption, very few people on xda seem to use it. So for that reason you'll have trouble finding out what works... I do use it though through choice so I can help you a bit.
When you encrypt the device, just consider /data to be off limits to anything not booted fully. That's why it asks you for your key in swedish - it can't see what language is in use until you unlock /data.
You will have issues using recovery with the device, since they can't read /data. You can use an external sd to perhaps load data to the device though.
I believe that TWRP might soon support the Samsung encryption on the device, meaning you could use it as recovery. Once you have a recovery that supports Samsung encryption, you should be able to consider it a fairly normal device.
Just be more cautious to backup your data as it is hard to recover if something goes wrong...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Fine, I understand. As long as I have a way to recover my data if I need to wipe I'm okay... I just have to hope Titanium backup gives me that until TWRP can manage encruption on the Note 2.
I'm really waiting for a stock rom that boots in English or French now.
Sent from my GT-N7105 using xda app-developers app
vash_h said:
If your using stock rom 4.1.2, exynos abuse method of root will not work. It's been patched
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not the case with xxdll1. When was it patched, xxdll4 or xxdll7?
Sent from my GT-N7105 using xda app-developers app
frankieGom said:
Not the case with xxdll1. When was it patched, xxdll4 or xxdll7?
Sent from my GT-N7105 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am on Stock 4.1.2 and Exynos Abuse did work on my device, it's successfully rooted using the Exynos AbuseAPK on 4.1.2 :good:
OK, now I have been experimenting a bit with backups and upgrade and have trouble restoring my device fully. Let me explain...
I got hold of a TWRP build that seems to handle Samsung encryption fine through one of the TWRP devs (thanks!), so I decided to go back and try to update my device.
Current ROM: N7105XXDLL1_N7105TLADLL1_N7105XXDLK7_HOME.tar (obtained from Samsung Updates)
New ROM: N7105XXDLL7_N7105OLBDLL2_N7105DXDLL1_HOME.tar (obtained from Samsung Updates)
First I performed a complete Titanium Backup on the device and pulled the files to my laptop using ADB.
Then I restarted into TWRP 2.4.0.0 (got a prompt for my password), performed a full backup and pulled the files to the laptop using ADB.
(for some reason, I could not install the new ROM from TWRP (unable to open ZIP), but the ZIP looked OK, as well as after a second download which TWRP since did not like, so I had to use Odin instead).
Next, I flashed DLL7 with Odin. It worked, asked for the password at boot, but the device was unrooted at this point (I expected that).
Then, I flashed CF-Auto-Root-t0lte-t0ltexx-gtn7105.tar from Odin, but the boot up password would not be accepted anymore as I already knew.
Tried to flash DLL7 again from Odin, same thing
Flashed TWRP back on recovery partition, but on startup it would not ask for password anymore and the external sdcard looked empty to it.
I then copied my backup to a different, non encrypted sdcard and could restore from TWRP but the password would still not work after reboot.
I did a factory reset, restored backup, same result.
At this point I decided to factory reset, wipe Dalvik and format /data. The format did the trick and after TWRP restore of my original back up the device booted up, did not ask for password and all my data was there. Except the Exchange account I use for Corporate email wants me to restore encryption in order to work (I expected that too).
Back at DLL1, so I flashed DLL7 again with Odin (OK), rooted the phone, triangled away the flash counter and reflashed TWRP to recovery.
I was where I wanted to be except for one thing: I need to restore Corporate access. But when I let it encryp the phone it does nothing. I let it through the night and nothing). And if I reboot the phone no password is needed at boot time, yet the phone seems to behave as if it thought the device was still encrypted...
I reflashed my original, full, backup (i.e DLL1) succesfully but Exchange still wants to encrypt my device. Isn't restore supposed to restore the encrypted /data I backed up?
At this point I'm left with possibly tryinjg to go back to full factory settings, not use the backup at all, encrypt the device then restore my data from the Titanium backup I made.
Is there a better option?
[edited jan 18 - TWRP/TB behaviour]
My comments apply to encrypted devices only! I am not trying to talk down TWRP or TB here, as they provide splendid performance on non encrypted devices. I have come upon hard time trying to upgrade/restore an encrypted device using thoise tools, that's all
For those considering upgrading & re-rooting encrypted devices, don't!
I am finding the hard way that this is a one way street. At this point, my TWRP made full backup does not restore the device to the expected status. Each time I apply it, subsequent bootup takes several minutes and I end up going through the initial setup procedure. It seems the device for some reasoin goes through a complete reset procedure.
[edit]
Clarification: The TWRP build I use, 2.4.0.0 is an alpha build and I was not current when I restored my backup. I so happens that it was overwriting the encryption header on the partition, which messed things up bad, and had issues writing back the data partition, ending up in a factory reset status!
Using the latest drop as of today (jan 27) I was able to restore my original backup and am now back to my original state. All is well.
[/edit]
Titanium Backup is none better. It keeps telling me that my Android ID has changed, a host of system applications start to fail when I try to restore and generally speaking I have now spent between a good 20 hours trying to simply restore my data.
[edit]
this behaviour is probably linked to encryption. I know for a fact that TB works very well on non encrypted phones. The 20h figure is overall, not just with TB.
[/edit]
The end story is: root before you encrypt, and either don't upgrade or don't re-root if you do! If you do, be prepared for some rough times...
Unless someone has a cleat idea of how to do this properly without losing all your data, that is.
François
frankieGom said:
For those considering upgrading & re-rooting encrypted devices, don't!
I am finding the hard way that this is a one way street. At this point, my TWRP made full backup does not restore the device to the expected status. Each time I apply it, subsequent bootup takes several minutes and I end up going through the initial setup procedure. It seems the device for some reasoin goes through a complete reset procedure.
Titanium Backup is none better. It keeps telling me that my Android ID has changed, a host of system applications start to fail when I try to restore and generally speaking I have now spent between a good 20 hours trying to simply restore my data.
The end story is: root before you encrypt, and either don't upgrade or don't re-root if you do!
Unless someone has a cleat idea of how to do this properly without losing all your data, that is.
François
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have had no issues despite doing upgrades, with and without wipes.
Titanium is fine, just stop restoring system app data. Seriously, what data do you have in a system app that you want to restore.
Restore your user apps, their data, and the xml based call, sms, Wifi backups. It will work fine.
Device ID isn't a problem - it's just trying to help you.
pulser_g2 said:
I have had no issues despite doing upgrades, with and without wipes.
Titanium is fine, just stop restoring system app data. Seriously, what data do you have in a system app that you want to restore.
Restore your user apps, their data, and the xml based call, sms, Wifi backups. It will work fine.
Device ID isn't a problem - it's just trying to help you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry if I came across dissing Titanium Backup and/or TWRP. This was not the intent... I am sure both tools work real nice in general cases (and I have had success restoring data on a Jetstream before).
My main issue here is _full device encryption_ enforced by my company's corporate IT to allow me on the corporate exchange server. Do you have full device encryption on?
On my device, even after a full wipe and flashing a fresh stock rom Titanium Backup just did not work as I hoped. When I had to confirm individual popups of apps closing unexpectedly while it was proceeding and got nothing back in the end, what was I supposed to think? It could be that I don't understand how TB works... I was neither able to restore missing apps after the flash (missing apps: 0) nor installed apps data (they would close unexpectedly when started after restoring the back up). So I say: until full operation of TB on encrypted devices is documented, I will stay away from it, even though I am a registered user (and I do not plan to seek reimbursment)!
Anyway, I got to a belated happy ending (previous post edited).
frankieGom said:
Sorry if I came across dissing Titanium Backup and/or TWRP. This was not the intent... I am sure both tools work real nice in general cases (and I have had success restoring data on a Jetstream before).
My main issue here is _full device encryption_ enforced by my company's corporate IT to allow me on the corporate exchange server. Do you have full device encryption on?
On my device, even after a full wipe and flashing a fresh stock rom Titanium Backup just did not work as I hoped. When I had to confirm individual popups of apps closing unexpectedly while it was proceeding and got nothing back in the end, what was I supposed to think? It could be that I don't understand how TB works... I was neither able to restore missing apps after the flash (missing apps: 0) nor installed apps data (they would close unexpectedly when started after restoring the back up). So I say: until full operation of TB on encrypted devices is documented, I will stay away from it, even though I am a registered user (and I do not plan to seek reimbursment)!
Anyway, I got to a belated happy ending (previous post edited).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup I use device encryption Enabled manually, but it's the same encryption.
You should find that titanium shouldn't even be aware of it - the encryption is transparent!
I wonder... I'm sure lenny had that issue on a recent 4.1.2 "stock" ROM... And he doesn't use encryption...
I personally have had no issues with titanium on an encrypted device anyway
I notice you were using the newest rom - that's the one lenny had issues on.
pulser_g2 said:
Yup I use device encryption Enabled manually, but it's the same encryption.
You should find that titanium shouldn't even be aware of it - the encryption is transparent!
I wonder... I'm sure lenny had that issue on a recent 4.1.2 "stock" ROM... And he doesn't use encryption...
I personally have had no issues with titanium on an encrypted device anyway
I notice you were using the newest rom - that's the one lenny had issues on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly like I thought, encryption should be transparent to Titanium Backup since it runs within the OS.
I have had problems restoring into 4.1.2 DLL1 (the build I came from) and DLL7 (the one I was trying to go to)
The point is moot anyway since the DLL7 I tried was actually branded (Singtel stuff all around the launcher) and did not include French, which is why restoring my TWRP backup was a tempting proposition.
Good to know TB runs fine with encryption as well. What ROM are you running?
François
frankieGom said:
Hi all,
I recently got a HK N7105 and because it lacked the possibility to use a french keyboard I upgraded to a stock unbranded ROM from Sweden (XXDLL1) and succesfully rooted with the relevant CF_autoroot through Odin. Also installed TWRP 2.3.3.1.
Then, I connected the Note 2 to my corporate exchange server which enforced a full encryption policy (device and external SD card) so I had to type in a password at each boot time (with a "nice" swedish prompt that took ma while to decypher), plus a password to unlock the screen. All was well as the root survived the process.
Next I upgraded to a later stock ROM from France (XXDLL4 from SFR) to try and get rid of the swedish prompt. That worked fine (and root was loast in the process, as expected) but I hated the branded stuff so much I reverted to XXDLL1 until a proper unbranded "english" or "french" ROM is available.
At this point I decided to root again. I was running XXDLL1 like the first time and used the same autoroot tar from Chainfire. Except my Note 2 was still encrypted and after that it would not accept my boot password (a four digit PIN) anymore so I was guted and had to factory reset and root then reinstall everything before reconnecting to the exchange server.
Question 1: Does anyone know of a safe, proven way to root a fully encrypted Samsung device so I can go another upgrade without having to wipe the device first?
Why reinstall everything? Why not backup everything first so you can restore after the wipe? Well, it so happens that no recovery (at least neither CWM or TWRP) can read any encrypted media on the Note 2 at the moment. And no Recovery can actually fully backup the device as well.
Question 2: Does anyone know of a proper way to handle this situation with minimum hassle?
So far, the best I can think of is doing a Titanium backup and FTP the files to my NAS so I can retrieve them later. But (Question 3) will this be enough to restore my phone to the expected state after a stock firmware upgrade?
Thanks in advance,
François
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
About a backup : have you tried Online Nandroid (Playstore) (or similar, based on Onandroid) ? This makes a CWM or TWRP compatible backup while the device is running (everything should be unencrypted at this moment).
See http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1620255
About rooting : you can try the same trick as above, by using ADB-shell and pushing the needed files to root to the device while it is running.
For my S3 there is a Toolkit that automates all this (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1703488), maybe there is something similar for your device ?
If not, you should still be able to do it using manual ADB-pushing.
I'm sorry I can't give you detailed instructions about the rooting as I'm not familiar with your device. Search here on XDA and you'll find more details.
pat357 said:
About a backup : have you tried Online Nandroid (Playstore) (or similar, based on Onandroid) ? This makes a CWM or TWRP compatible backup while the device is running (everything should be unencrypted at this moment).
See http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1620255
About rooting : you can try the same trick as above, by using ADB-shell and pushing the needed files to root to the device while it is running.
For my S3 there is a Toolkit that automates all this (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1703488), maybe there is something similar for your device ?
If not, you should still be able to do it using manual ADB-pushing.
I'm sorry I can't give you detailed instructions about the rooting as I'm not familiar with your device. Search here on XDA and you'll find more details.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the suggestions, and no I had not tried Online Nandroid as I was not aware of it. Anyway, my main issue is now resolved since TWRP has include support for Samsung TouchWiz based encryption in 2.4 and that works well.
For those interested, the only remaining issues I have with TWRP regarding encryption are that if you want to format /data from TWRP (say, to remove encryption) it will fail unless you _do not_ enter the password at boot, and the TWRP formated /data cannot be re-encrypted (you must use stock recovery to factory reset/wipe the device or else the encryption step will sit deat in the water doing nothing). I suppose the second one is a bug that will be fixed in a later version.
I will check Online Nandroid out anyway, being able to make a backup from a live system sounds good!
François
frankieGom said:
Thanks for the suggestions, and no I had not tried Online Nandroid as I was not aware of it. Anyway, my main issue is now resolved since TWRP has include support for Samsung TouchWiz based encryption in 2.4 and that works well.
For those interested, the only remaining issues I have with TWRP regarding encryption are that if you want to format /data from TWRP (say, to remove encryption) it will fail unless you _do not_ enter the password at boot, and the TWRP formated /data cannot be re-encrypted (you must use stock recovery to factory reset/wipe the device or else the encryption step will sit deat in the water doing nothing). I suppose the second one is a bug that will be fixed in a later version.
I will check Online Nandroid out anyway, being able to make a backup from a live system sounds good!
François
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a similar issue. I had the device encrypted and decided to ROOT (using CF-AutoRoot). Unfortunately I cannot bypass the password screen now, although I know that I'm entering the right password. You are saying that if I flash TWRP everything will be fine?
ludovicianul said:
I have a similar issue. I had the device encrypted and decided to ROOT (using CF-AutoRoot). Unfortunately I cannot bypass the password screen now, although I know that I'm entering the right password. You are saying that if I flash TWRP everything will be fine?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Two separate things:
Root messing up encrypted touchwiz devices and twrp not handling touchwiz encrypted partitions properly.
The 2nd one, as much as I can tell, is fixed since before 2.5 so if youwork with the latest (2.6) you should be fine.
The first one I haven't played with in a while, but my finding is that you don't want to root a device once it's been encrypted. I've tried several different methods including rooting as you flag as is possible with twrp and all end up the same:the password is not recognised anymore!
The only thing that works for me is rooting before encrypting or only flashing pre-rooted ROMs.
frankieGom said:
Two separate things:
Root messing up encrypted touchwiz devices and twrp not handling touchwiz encrypted partitions properly.
The 2nd one, as much as I can tell, is fixed since before 2.5 so if youwork with the latest (2.6) you should be fine.
The first one I haven't played with in a while, but my finding is that you don't want to root a device once it's been encrypted. I've tried several different methods including rooting as you flag as is possible with twrp and all end up the same:the password is not recognised anymore!
The only thing that works for me is rooting before encrypting or only flashing pre-rooted ROMs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes - I had to factory reset the phone and format the SD Card. Never root AFTER encryption :silly:
Hello all, my First post so please bear with me, Been using these forums for quite a while and all answers have been allready given, so no need to post... till now.
I have a Samsung Galaxy s3 i747 running android 4.1.2 OTA update and used CF-Autoroot. No problems there,
installed Rom manager, and cwm recovery touch. no problem
When I restart in recovery mode, also everything seems fine...
When I try to backup the phone however using cwm recovery it starts backing up everything including system but the just as it starts data the phone restarts.
Tried reinstalling cwm over and over different versions.. nada same result..
went into the settings to mount the various options as suggested to another user. same problem nada...
To be completely clear, I am trying to make a backup of my stock / rooted only Galaxy s3 i747 onto it's own storage NOT SDcard.
as I also could not figure that out either.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. -Erdericks1976
Sorry about misleading Subject. This is about making my first backup successfully..
Followup.
Well seems there are/were more problems here than I thought, it has begun randomly? restarting,..
Well. not Ramdomly. Whem specific apps are run it would restart.
I did a titanium backup and it would backup alot of the apps. but them would restart the phone when it got to 1 specific app.
I think I figured out what I did wrong here.
I have a Galaxy Note 2, and I may have flashed something from it by mistake......
so I have restarted my Gs3 From scratch Re-Following all instructions.. waiting to test and see if CWM works to back it up now..
It sure was faster with the Note2 rooted Kernel though. (if that was in fact what happend)
I'll update soon as its done..
Followup 2
Yep. that musta been it. Used the correct stock (rooted) Rom
OTA updated from 4.1.1 to 4.1.2, then used CF auto root to Re-root, then reinstalled SU and CWM and Backing up now.
Just passed the Data section the phone would always restart at...
Erdericks1976 said:
Yep. that musta been it. Used the correct stock (rooted) Rom
OTA updated from 4.1.1 to 4.1.2, then used CF auto root to Re-root, then reinstalled SU and CWM and Backing up now.
Just passed the Data section the phone would always restart at...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
good for you, yu got it solved fast and easier than expected, XDA is your place for Android and root but also every kind of OS there is
anywz am not that old in XDA i joined in April and officially started rooting and modifying my phone since May and it has been great, bricked my phone 1st time but all in all i got the S3 in case for the loss. yu'll get used to this place and ROOT/custom roms
Hello,
I'm in a bit of a pickle. Bought my sister a brand new Nexus 5x about 3-4 months ago, first thing I did was install Pure Nexus (6.0.1) on it (prerooted) and unlocked bootloader, don't know why I did it but I thought it'd be nice for her to use foreign country appstores/other things. Anyways long story short, I installed Nexus tool root kit (latest version 2.1.9) to return the device to stock and relock the bootloader.
First thing I did was do a full backup (around 600mb, she didn't install much stuff).
Backed up other things - SMS/Phone/Contacts/Media (70mb.. weird), also copied and pasted all media to computer as I didn't trust the small file size here.
Next, I did a flash and unroot with stock firmware, selecting the latest firmware 7.0 (bullhead MTC20k) and this wiped the phone. After that finished, enabled debugging and etc and reconnected. At this point I used the toolkit to relock the device and it was wiped once again. Now, the phone was running the latest firmware and was locked and back to stock.
After rushing through the initial setup, (wifi, account etc.) I got back to home screen, went to developer options to re-enable USB Debugging and got the phone's fingerprint access thing approved. Then I went to open the toolkit to run the restoration. Following prompts and accepting to restore (no password set/required), I saw pretty much all the app names pop up and being restored. However after it completes, the computer's log says check device. Looking at the device I see no apps added or anything. I've run this step a few times but it appears no applications are being restored.
I would greatly appreciate some advice on what to do next, as I'm at a loss here. Thank you!
Hey guys,
Reporting back, I have downgraded the firmware to the latest Marshmellow version 6.0.1 MTC20K, and tried the whole process again. I'm glad to say that the restoration now worked and all the apps can be seen (including the ones requiring root, which now, no longer work).
It appears upgrading to a completely new version prevented the apps from showing.
Anyways, glad the ordeals over, once photos and contacts restored I can present the phone back to my dear sister.
Thanks!