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

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

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

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

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

[Q] Safely Remove Backup Assistant?

I'm fairly new to the whole root/S-OFF/custom ROM world.
After flashing cmlusco's Touch of Blue ROM, I realized that it did not include Verizon's Backup Assistant. Makes complete sense to not include it, however, I found myself in a situation where I briefly needed it. No problem - I just flashed the Backup Assistant apk through recovery and was able to successfully use it.
Now I want to get rid of it. What is the recommended method for completely removing Backup Assistant? What is the safest method for removing it?
I appreciate any assistance/advice

Use a program like "Titanium Backup" to uninstall the Verizon app. It's free in the play store. Once downloaded, press:
1) Menu button
2) select Filter
3) then check "All apps" under filter status
4) check "User" under filter type
5) click Apply then find and uninstall the Verizon app.
Titanium Backup is very useful if you want to uninstall System apps or regular apps since it is a root app. Just be careful what you uninstall cuz you can uninstall virtually anything (widgets, apps, apk's) using this app.

Or you can just use a root file explorer to navigate to /system/app and delete or rename the VzWBAClient.apk, VzWBAService.apk, VzwLBSPerm.apk, and VZWInstaller.apk. Then reboot and it will be gone.

cmlusco said:
Or you can just use a root file explorer to navigate to /system/app and delete or rename the VzWBAClient.apk, VzWBAService.apk, VzwLBSPerm.apk, and VZWInstaller.apk. Then reboot and it will be gone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's much faster/easier to just uninstall it with TB

cmlusco said:
Or you can just use a root file explorer to navigate to /system/app and delete or rename the VzWBAClient.apk, VzWBAService.apk, VzwLBSPerm.apk, and VZWInstaller.apk. Then reboot and it will be gone.
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This is what I ended up doing - thanks for the info.
I was originally going to use Titanium to accomplish this, but it gave a warning that important system files could also be deleted. Given that I've backed everything up, I assume that there wouldn't be any real issues even if Titanium did delete something critical.
Which brings up another question: is Titanium doing the same thing as manually deleting the 4 files listed above? I suppose I could test this by reinstalling Backup Assistant, using Titanium to uninstall, and looking to see what is left...

S2theSea said:
This is what I ended up doing - thanks for the info.
I was originally going to use Titanium to accomplish this, but it gave a warning that important system files could also be deleted. Given that I've backed everything up, I assume that there wouldn't be any real issues even if Titanium did delete something critical.
Which brings up another question: is Titanium doing the same thing as manually deleting the 4 files listed above? I suppose I could test this by reinstalling Backup Assistant, using Titanium to uninstall, and looking to see what is left...
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Basicly yes its doing the same thing just automating it for you. If you delete with titanium the files get deleted, if you freeze with titanium the files are either renamed or moved.

cmlusco said:
Basicly yes its doing the same thing just automating it for you. If you delete with titanium the files get deleted, if you freeze with titanium the files are either renamed or moved.
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More good info - thanks again. I appreciate the patience and willingness of the community to help educate newbs like myself.
BTW, excellent work on the Touch of Blue ROM - it's been running nearly perfect for me after ~2 weeks.

S2theSea said:
More good info - thanks again. I appreciate the patience and willingness of the community to help educate newbs like myself.
BTW, excellent work on the Touch of Blue ROM - it's been running nearly perfect for me after ~2 weeks.
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Thank you, glad you like it.

[Q] "Unfortunately, Mobile data has stopped" Error. How to fix it?

Hi all,
I have the mentioned error on Nexus 7 LTE version, Stock android(AOSP), rooted. The error pops up every 2 seconds. Here is what I have done so far:
- Clear Contacts
- Clear Contacts storage
- Clear Mobile Data
- Clear Google contacts Sync
- Disable Mobile data from the settings menu
- Rebooted the device several times
Because I was getting the error every 2 secs, it was a bit annoying to do all the above commands in 2 secs intervals. Anyway, non of them solve the issue and finally I rebooted the device with no SIM card and obviously the error is gone.
Could you please help me to fix the error while the SimCard is in the SIM slot? I need to have the Mobile data ability.
Best regards,
Shobeir

Update: I kept getting the error right after rebooting the device after some time (more than 3 days) and I installed a couple of apps in the meanwhile. But there wasn't any error until the device was rebooted.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium HD app

Are you using any startup managers that might have disabled a module from starting automatically?
If you haven't, with you having done all the other things, I'd suggest your next step is to reflash the stock ROM (first wipe cache, system and userdata to be sure). Test things out without installing any apps.

Pandae said:
Are you using any startup managers that might have disabled a module from starting automatically?
If you haven't, with you having done all the other things, I'd suggest your next step is to reflash the stock ROM (first wipe cache, system and userdata to be sure). Test things out without installing any apps.
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I haven't use any startup manager. Recently I installed the Android device manager and Battery Doctor. I uninstalled them based on your suggestion as they may be associated with the mobile data. I am getting same error..
Do you have any idea why this error is being generated?

shobeira said:
I haven't use any startup manager. Recently I installed the Android device manager and Battery Doctor. I uninstalled them based on your suggestion as they may be associated with the mobile data. I am getting same error..
Do you have any idea why this error is being generated?
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Click to collapse
No idea. It's hard to say if Battery Doctor hibernated something and left things mucked up, even if you uninstalled it. At this point I'd look to making backups and reflashing your ROM. You'll save more time than investigating what might have happened.

Pandae said:
No idea. It's hard to say if Battery Doctor hibernated something and left things mucked up, even if you uninstalled it. At this point I'd look to making backups and reflashing your ROM. You'll save more time than investigating what might have happened.
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Thank you for the reply.
Here is what I have done (It may help others):
1. Using Titanuim backup to backup my device and generated an update.zip so I was able to flash the update.zip from CWMR to restore the apps faster that ever
2. Using ADB to transfer ROM files to N7 in order to install it in sideload mode
3. Install the ROM (CM11)
4. Restore apps. It was awesome restoring!
But I wasn't able to install (flash) the image factory from Google. The file comes in ".tgz" format and inside the compressed file, there is ".zip" file, but the ".zip" will be aborted in the installation process!! I have downloaded the ".tgz" file twice to make sure it wasn't because of a broken download file.
Any idea how to install RAZORG KOT49H on Nesux 7 with CWMR?
Cheers,
Shobeir

shobeira said:
Thank you for the reply.
Here is what I have done (It may help others):
1. Using Titanuim backup to backup my device and generated an update.zip so I was able to flash the update.zip from CWMR to restore the apps faster that ever
2. Using ADB to transfer ROM files to N7 in order to install it in sideload mode
3. Install the ROM (CM11)
4. Restore apps. It was awesome restoring!
But I wasn't able to install (flash) the image factory from Google. The file comes in ".tgz" format and inside the compressed file, there is ".zip" file, but the ".zip" will be aborted in the installation process!! I have downloaded the ".tgz" file twice to make sure it wasn't because of a broken download file.
Any idea how to install RAZORG KOT49H on Nesux 7 with CWMR?
Cheers,
Shobeir
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Update: I have found this post useful and it is the solution I was looking for.

I gather you extracted twice, using something like 7-Zip or WinRAR? Inside there's image-razor-kot49h.zip, and another file flash-all.bat to flash it.
If you prefer, you could extract the zip into its individual .img files, then do things like "fastboot flash system system.img" to restore each one. It's much easier to use flash-all.bat, though.
---------- Post added at 09:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:08 PM ----------
Ah good, glad you got it. :good:

Need to uninstall, not just disable, an app - slacker (to replace with diff version)

How would I do this?
Is it possible to clear data and copy paste my apk over the other one?
Have root.
Thanks

If you have root just use titanium backup to uninstall it. Go into tibu preferences and clear dalvik. Then install the new apk. If it's not an installable apk then before you uninstall the old one find out where the app is in a file browser. Then uninstall it and place the new apk where the old one was, fix permissions, and reboot.

Unfortunately that doesn't work. It even deletes it from system\app but it still appears in my app drawer and I cannot install the older version.
any ideas?

Are you restarting your phone after? Try going into recovery and clearing cache and dalvik.

Spookymyo said:
Are you restarting your phone after? Try going into recovery and clearing cache and dalvik.
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It's somehow built into the rom. But if anyone has a verizon g4 and wants to see if they can completely remove slacker, let me know.

On Android, you don't need to install apk's as they will install on bootup if you place it in the correct location.
For slacker on the G4, not sure if this is a lollipop thing or a LG thing, you cannot replace the one in /system but rather, what you want to do is out the new version in /data/app since if you mess with the /system version, it will show up as uninstalled on the device.
In /system/priv-app/SlackerRadio directory, you will see:
SlackerRadio.apk,
lib which consists of:
arm folder which has the file librsjni.so
Don't touch any of those and make sure it is stock.
You want to install the new Slacker apk in /data/app/com.slacker.radio-1 folder as base.apk, it will install when you reboot so don't worry about installing it
delete the folder /data/data/com.slacker.radio
delete all the things in /data/dalvik-cache/arm and /data/dalvik-cache/arm64 and reboot.
If you wanted to completely remove Slacker, then all you would do is delete /system/priv-app/SlackerRadio and delete /data/app/com.slacker.radio* with * being anything that can be after it.

I'm not sure why titanium backup isn't working for you. I had slacker and tibu worked perfectly, I'm also on the Verizon g4. It doesn't matter if it's built into the rom. With tibu you can delete any app. But if that doesn't work the steps Almighty1 listed is the long way around but works.
And I see that you're on the Verizon g4, that means you don't have a custom recovery.

I can't back up the rom via twrp

I have a moto g8 xt2045-1 and I intend to install a custom rom, however when I try to make a backup, it always fails. Saying that there is no permission for the operation (operation not permitted), Also because of that, I can't even access my phone's internal memory through recovery. Instead of folders (Android, downloads, etc.) there are only several folders with a lot of mixed letters. So from what it looks like, twrp needs permission, but how can I do that?
Or I could also just install another one, but I can't find another recovery anywhere
AI'm using version 3.5.0-10_0 of twrp .. I hope you can help me

Did you mount all partitions before backing up? maybe a partition is read only ( like system) and that is why no permission.

mrsiri said:
Did you mount all partitions before backing up? maybe a partition is read only ( like system) and that is why no permission.
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Click to collapse
When this problem occurred, I thought it could be that, but unfortunately it is not.... All partitions are mounted as read and write, but still giving the same error.... And not to mention that the recovery is not even able to read the internal memory of the cell phone (in this case, the 'sdcard' folder) it gives that same error that occurs on the redmi note 8, where all the memory is encrypted.

Do you have Magisk Installed? Did you check the "preserve force encryption" checkbox when installing?

I have magisk installed yes, but I do not remember having marked anything during the installation, because there was no option. But can I still check this option?

mrsiri said:
Do you have Magisk Installed? Did you check the "preserve force encryption" checkbox when installing?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
.

Go to magisk manager and look under advanced settings. maybe it was already checked as default when you installed. I guess you'll have to root again with that unchecked.
If you have that ticked, check out this guide and follow it: https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/fixed-how-to-remove-data-encryption-in-twrp.3757595/

mrsiri said:
Go to magisk manager and look under advanced settings. maybe it was already checked as default when you installed. I guess you'll have to root again with that unchecked.
If you have that ticked, check out this guide and follow it: https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/fixed-how-to-remove-data-encryption-in-twrp.3757595/
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Click to collapse
Okay, for now, thank you very much