Develop Bugs

Flashing ROMs and backing up apps...

Question, how does backing up Apps with programs like Astro and TI or whatever work? Does it just keep you from having to re-download them from the market when you do a full wipe and flash a ROM? If so, does it restore their market link so that they are updateable? Or do they just do app data?
Sorry, I'm confused. I don't normally have much app data, so I just re-download all my apps each time, and was wondering if I was 'doing it wrong'.
And which program is recommended for backups?

I recommend Titanium Backup, but with the caveat that you should do some research to see how it works. It will back up apps, user settings, and even system settings - but that doesn't mean you can just restore them willy-nilly. For instance, if you backup your apps and app settings, then flash a new ROM, then restore those apps and settings, there may be conflicts between the new ROM and the old programs. It's really more of a just-in-case way to back things up. People have also reported that MyBackup works well. I use TI myself.
In fact, please read this article by flipz (he developed the Fresh ROMs).
All it does is basically takes a snapshot of your system. It copies app files and settings databases. Later, you can restore the apps and data (and even things like account settings and scenes if you know what you're looking for) and be back where you were, as long as things work correctly. There are batch operations, but it all still takes a while to be safe and know that you're not restoring things that will break your system.
It's good, but I recommend a complete nandroid backup (ClockworkMod or Amon RA) if you're not jumping around between ROMs. That's really a better "everything" backup method.
Hope that helps.

[Q] Problems with backups, how to restore missing apps

Dear All
Having a rooted Desire with Froyo and Apps2SD+, i needed to migrate to a bigger 16 GB card. In that (failed) effort I decided to remove all apps and then restore them.
I backed them up via MybAckup Pro and Titanium Backup. Then, after reboot, no backups were detected by TB. I even wrote to the support but no answer. I had to revert to MyBackup Pro which apparently had a mind of its own regarding which apps to restore. Now Google Maps is missing on my phone and neither will it install. Also, com.gapps are closing on me every minute.
I have decided to do a factory reset but it'd be nice if a few questions are answered first:
1) I understand that NANDROID is the best way to back up; however, it doesn't provide me a way to restore apps one by one or in batches. Any solutions?
2) When I do a factory reset, will I end up with a clean phone with root and my current custom ROM, or the phone as it came from Orange?
3) Is there a way to install Google Maps and to remove the gapps errors without factory reset?
4) If I restore from NANDROID after factory reset, will all the errors/instability come back as well?
Thanks

1) Nandroid does an image of your custom phone, like for example Norton Ghost would do. Its like saving the setup/state of the phone at the time you do the backup.
2) A factory reset deletes all user data. You end with your current ROM as it was a clean install, it will not change the ROM you're using. If you're using a custom ROM you will still be with that custom ROM.
3) Can't Google Maps be downloaded from Market? Also you can try to extract the .apk from a ROM and copy it to yours via adb for example. As for the errors I dont really know if they're because data corruption and a reset will fix them or its the apk that isnt working as intended.
4) As I said earlier, doing a Nandroid is doing an image of the current state of the phone. If you do a Nandroid of a phone that has errors and you restore it, the errors wont disapear.
If you want to have a backup of the list of apps you already have you can use AppBrain. Its a little app that syncs your list of apps from the phone into a google account so when you do a full wipe you have only to install that app again and sync with the saved google list of apps. It wont save the data of the aplications but it will save the list of the ones you've installed.

Azureus: That is a most helpful reply, I sincerely appreciate it.
Google maps is not appearing in the market. I tried to sideload it and it still doesn't install. Thanks for the GREAT AppBrain trick.
I would appreciate if you could answer:
1) Which is the best, most stable custom ROM to use with official Froyo+Sense, Apps2SD+ ? I have doubts about stability of current ROM.
2) Which app can enable me to back up apps and then restore them one by one, given that Titanium Backup is not working for me somehow?

1) I personally use OpenDesire and its a non Sense UI ROM, so I dont really know what Sense UI ROM is the best. I've tryed several Sense UI ROMs and two that gave me a good feeling where LeeDrOiD Mod and the official Sense ROM of OpenDesire Team.
2) I've tryed several apps for data backups and the one that I liked most was Titanium Backup... May I ask why isnt working for you? I've tested both the free and donate version and they seem to work pretty well...

Thanks. Will try Leedroid now.
As for titanium, or backs up everything all right but when I try to restore it shows nothing. Don't know why is that

Titanium Backup saves the backups by default in a folder as the same name as the app in your SD. Have you tried deleting all the folder and doing backups again to see if the restore works? You can also go to settings and change the default folder in which it saves the backup to see if its a problem with de folder/SD or its the app.

[Q] Titanium Backup Failing Since License.

Not sure where this question goes, I figure here but...
Last week I planned on trying out a few ROMS, I've been using Titanium flawlessly but with 48+ apps I decided to buy a license to bypass all the prompts.
And this is where the problems started. I still have not tried without the license file installed, I know I should.
I create a backup, verify the backup, flash a ROM and 1) flash install Titanium or 2) install from the market, start restore and the phone crashes back to the bootanimation, verify the backup now and every backup will have errors.
I posted this on the official Titanium forum and got not response.

Update busybox

I've tried that both before backup and before restore.

when titanium restores it kills the process it is restoring. if you are restoring the whole system instead of just your user apps, what you are saying will occur.

I am not restoring any system files or even system settings.
Only user apps and data.
I removed the lic file. Next flash I'll try a backup/restore and see what happens.
Tha'ts the only difference.

email the dev. he is great at helping and is damn smart.
Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

HTC6800 said:
email the dev. he is great at helping and is damn smart.
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Click to collapse
That was one of the issues. The license was sent from a noreply address and support is direct to a forum.
However I just checked my paypal and sent an email to the address I paypal'd the donation.
I deleted the lic file from the SDcard and even rebooted and Titanium still shows as registered.
I'll hope that's a good email address and wait for an email response.

Sounds like you are having a similar problem that I was having. Are you letting TB auto restore settings from your sd cards? I turned that off... Deleted the files from the sd card... And haven't seen that problem again. I used mostly default settings so id prefer to just have to remember to adjust the few settings I liked whether I did a reinstall. (also.. Now that I'm thinking about it.. I also adopted trying to flash tb and inse instead just install it from the market... ) give both a go.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

Do you have debugging mode on?....

vladthedog said:
Sounds like you are having a similar problem that I was having. Are you letting TB auto restore settings from your sd cards?
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Not sure what you mean by that. It the same settings I've been using.
Again the only difference being the license file.
millerd79 said:
Do you have debugging mode on?....
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Click to collapse
Debugging has always been on since before using Titanium.
Now to make it really interesting.
I've been playing with ROMS the last few days, I'm cooking a ROM from the latest RUU so I'm done now.
I've backed up in Sense, with the lic. I restored in a clean install of Cyanogen.
I also made a backup in Cyanogen and restored to a clean install of Sense.
I had to install each program manually with prompts but no errors and everything worked. No missing SDCard of data not working. I left those problems out.
I have a clean backup made in a Sense ROM and will try to restore to my new Sense ROM.
I previously deleted the backups through Titanium and also deleted the folder on the SDCard.
I once formatted and restored my files to the card while all this was happening.
As of now the restore seems to be going well.
-edit: Restore is finished and everything is working. Not sure what went on unless Titanium just doesn’t like the Snap Kernel.

I had this same TB problem after getting the license file. In trying to figure out the issue, I discovered that I had somehow managed to lose full root (i.e. NAND re-locked, s-on), my radio reverted to like 1.39.x (and reflashing the latest would not stick), and my HBOOT version had changed to .79 (or whatever the original shipped version was -- as opposed to the .76 version from Toast's root part 2).
I seriously doubt that the TB license caused all of those problems (though I can't for the life of me figure out how on earth that happened), but for others experiencing similar problems, double check that you have full root.

Is it hanging on the restore? Go to prefererences and change the restore type to "indirect."

There is an update on market for tb that says it addresses some license problems.

I did not lose root, All root apps still worked and I was able to flash all ROMS, themes, etc.
Although I do belive the ROMS I was restoring to were 3.29 OTA based. My current is 3.29 RUU based.
Nothing was hanging for me, just a crash, not an app FC, and all backups then being corrupt.
It's worked great when I flashed my current ROM. I even went back and forth a couple times playing with Cyanogen.
I don't know what happened.

did you get a response back from email
Same thing happened to me. went from a rooted Stock with s-off to Myn TwoPointTwo and formatted new SD card with A2SD (SD-ext) partition and backups verify as all corrupted. Tried Traditional restore and some could not be parsed. Also the Data for some completely corrupt.
What is odd is that some older backups were fine but newer ones where not. Even tried re-copying from a backups from PC and Dropbox.
Finishing re-install then going to wipe backups and try again. Its a real pain to manual reinstall and setup.

Nandroid backup failure?

So I'm not entirely sure where to start with this one. I'm running myn's roms... was on RLS3 and went to update to RLS4 the other day. Did a nandroid backup via clockwork/ROM manager. The install of the new ROM took forever (over 30 minutes) and when it finished, for whatever reason clockwork didn't restart automatically like it usually does. When I did reboot the unit, it hung forever (I actually left it plugged in and booting while I took an hour nap)... so I finally rebooted it into recovery and restored my backup.
When the backup loaded I reset the phone, and the image was very broken. Actually to be fair, the image seemed fine... except for whatever system android uses to keep track of installed apps was corrupted. Most of my apps were missing, including core google ones. The marketplace, all of my file browsing apps (astro and root explorer) and even things like live wallpapers and maps were missing.
Next, I tried several things, including doing a fresh wipe and install of a working ROM (tried both myn 2 and 3) and then tried restoring my backup again... no matter what the backup took me to this point (and yes I understand why that is... I was just hoping that the restore wasn't actually restoring some file that the ROM would put back... as unlikely as that was).
So at this point I'm over losing all my stuff to reinstall ... but I really want to keep my text messages and call history. I can't get anything installed to back them up though... since the market is missing, as well as anything like astro, etc. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for extracting the SMS/MMS and call history stuff out of the backup I have... or getting them backed up somehow when I'm loaded into my botched recovery. I still have full internet, call and SMS access... so if there were some web-based backup I could even run that (although I don't think there is). I'm at a bit of a loss... I'd really like to get the data I want backed up before I start new. At the moment I'm still using the phone as I can still get core functionality.
Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Please let me know. Thanks!

install AMON recovery to do your NAND's, install SMS backup and that will save your texts, and titanium backup any apps you want saved with data. thats how i do it, oh and install app brain as well to keep track of your installed apps

xlGmanlx said:
install AMON recovery to do your NAND's, install SMS backup and that will save your texts, and titanium backup any apps you want saved with data. thats how i do it, oh and install app brain as well to keep track of your installed apps
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+1
It sucked when romanger and clock work broke for me. Never again.
Clock doesn't wipe correctly. Search it.

Thanks... appreciate the reply... although still hoping someone can point me in the right direction to get what I currently have backed up considering the half-broken state my phone is currently in... either getting it out of the backup file somehow or somehow getting stuff installed on my phone without a market or a file manager.

If you flash the rom overtop of itself you want lose anything, so try that
agent0014 said:
Thanks... appreciate the reply... although still hoping someone can point me in the right direction to get what I currently have backed up considering the half-broken state my phone is currently in... either getting it out of the backup file somehow or somehow getting stuff installed on my phone without a market or a file manager.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

So oddly enough that didn't work in of itself... but it did start me in the right direction. Most of my apps were still missing, but for whatever reason reflashing the rom made Astro re-appear in my app drawer. From there I browsed to the system/app folder and was able to install MyBackup Pro over itself somehow. I ran that to backup all my user data and wiped clean. My texts and other data are restoring right now on the fresh image.
So clockwork is definitely the culprit? What's a good alternative? I got used to using that for so long, I'm not even sure what else is out there anymore.
Thanks for your help G'man!

Go to clockwork and down at the bottom click install alternate recovery, viola
agent0014 said:
So oddly enough that didn't work in of itself... but it did start me in the right direction. Most of my apps were still missing, but for whatever reason reflashing the rom made Astro re-appear in my app drawer. From there I browsed to the system/app folder and was able to install MyBackup Pro over itself somehow. I ran that to backup all my user data and wiped clean. My texts and other data are restoring right now on the fresh image.
So clockwork is definitely the culprit? What's a good alternative? I got used to using that for so long, I'm not even sure what else is out there anymore.
Thanks for your help G'man!
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Titanium Backup

Hey,
I have a question about Titanium Backup. If I understand it properly I have to lose all my apps and data to install or update a new ROM - full wipe - if necessary. Of course I may use Titanium backup but that is quite long process to restore all apps and data again, right? Do I need to tap on restoring every single app to install it etc.? AND may I restore system data as well or it makes no sense when the ROM needs a full wipe?
I really do not understand this properely. I am quite confused and I appreciate if anybody can explain me.
Thanks.

If you use the free version you will need to confirm every app restore. If you have the paid version it will restore them all. It's pretty quick too.
You can restore system data sometimes. Never if you're switching from one type of ROM to another though. Someone will have to give you more info on that part.

thanks! and one more thing. I tried some time ago restore my apps and data and There appeared a problem. I use Darktremor App2Sd and when I was restoring my apps via TB system told me I have not enough space. Probably TB haven't restored them to a correct place (internal/external). Any idea how to solve this? Thanks.