Hello everyone
So after hours and hours of searching on the net, I decided to make a thread here in case someone had a similar experience at some point (yes I used the search function!!).
TL;DR version below.
Long story short:
I'm from Mexico, smartphones are very expensive over here if bought through carriers, a few weeks ago decided to buy an unlocked phone from a site similar to eBay; phone arrived (Galaxy Nexus obviously) and all seemed ok. Used my current carrier's SIM and managed to make phone calls and send/recieve SMS. Used Wi Fi to update the phone and install apps, yet I never got 3G connection. After days of messing around with the phone, realize I have no 3G or EDGE signal ever, started to search around the web, took it to my carriers help center, tried many solutions but nothing.
Decided to give the whole flashing/unlocking/rooting a go see if it fixes the radio band or whatever is broken with the device this morning, went the "safest" route and downloaded Nexus Root Toolkit v1.6.1 because I saw some tutorial on how to backup your stuff without much hassle. I did all what NRT asked to get the device running with their booting techniques successfully. First thing I ever did was backup my stuff, did 2 separate files, one regular back up and one with APPS + DATA. It never occurred to me to make an actual manual backup of my stuff in the SD Card, like photos, videos, etc. (stuff I transfered from my old phone), and now I see how this is a mistake.
After messing around with the flashing of different stock/radio versions and re-locking and unlocking the phone, the 3G signal continues to be non existent so I have come to the conclussion that the phone is faulty or something, no big deal I can contact the seller and hope for a replacement.
My real problem is that now, everytime I restore my backup with all my APPs and Data, everything is corrupted. The process itself is successful, but when I check my pictures and videos, everything is black. It won't let me copy or move any files via USB or even play/use them, yet they are still there. I'm using the option "Restore backup android file".
TL;DR
- I backed up all my APPs and DATA using Nexus Root Toolkit v1.6.1
- I can restore all that fine, process is successful
- Upon checking the files, everything's there but not working. Can't copy to PC or anything.
I have tried looking for ways to extract the stuff from the .ab file, but I can't find anything.
Please help
*Irrelevant thread*
@Omnitrix4m3
Call Project Fi. Talk to them. They'll probably send a replacement (no waiting for repair). You can always talk to them and then after hearing what they say decide no.
Omnitrix4m3 said:
Wow. I spend so much time on Reddit ignoring these threads until today.
Allow me to set the scene, I'm a student who loves to tinker and modify, and the idea of unlocking my bootloader, rooting, and running custom ROMs on my device seemed fascinating at first. Becoming an avid user of this after fashing my device countless times and performing backups, I began to find a system thatworked for my device and was stable. Having not flashed anything for months on my phone, I had no reason to take a backup of my phone. Until today.
Realizing I had too many garbage apps on my phone, too much RAM being used, and my SOT being garbage, I decided on deleting some of the 222 apps I keep for fun on my phone. With that, I used my phone's built in free space client which cleared unused apps and saved photos. However, it also included my downloads folder where I consciously chose my downloaded ROM and vendor images to save space (Remember, my build was stable at the time and I wanted space to do an eventual nandroid backup). After deleting those flashable files I continued about my day as usual. However, until the end of the day I realized my phone was logged out of my school's wifi, so I logged back in. My phone then began to lag, and a combination of the phone and me using the powerbutton allowed it to reboot. Then it began to bootloop. Normally as a flasher bootloops are easy to get rid of, or may ensue for minutes after flashing a file, however this was consistent and I had no ROM to flash over it, muchless boot to TWRP to do it. I couldn't boot to anything but the system's own recovery mode. I gave the phone some time alone and tried to research how to fix the problem without opening the phone up and soldering. When I attempted again to boot the phone I realized I got boot into TWRP. However, that was shortlived as, when I tried to make a backup the phone froze and rebooted. Going home with my head in my hands, I later tried booting an hour and a half later making my whole boot animation until the very end when the name is shown and the lock screen should load, that's when it began to loop again. I spoke to my father who bought the phone through Project Fi, who recommended me to talk to support. However I just realized: A) If I send it, I lose my data or have it tampered with in a repair. B) If they attempt to boot it, they will see its void of warranty due to the bootloader unlock and rooting and might not honor my warranty (although people have done it after warranty, NOT BECAUSE IT WAS DEVOID BY UNLOCKING BOOTLOADER/ROOTING). C) I bought it on sale for like $250 for 32 GB so money I get back won't cover a Pixel or another phone I can tinker with again with AOSP roms (and I'm not trying to wait two years for Android O, the only other phone I would consider is a OnePlus 5 which launches in the summer and would be around $450).
What would you guys suggest I do?
1. DIY solder and fix
2. Continue tampering to find way to copy off data (I need suggestions)
3. Send it back completely wiped or in way it is to fix
4. Have it replaced with money (and then what phone would I buy?)
And finally do I go to Google Store, Project Fi, or LG to have this issue resolved while ommitting the fact it has been modified?
P.S.: While writing this, this actually booted up for 5 minutes and worked until it crashed and entered the loop again.
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Click to collapse
If you can get into recovery again, do a factory reset and see if it'll boot. If so, take the opportunity to back up your files then flash the factory images to go back to stock so you can get a replacement. Good luck
So i followed the instructions to flash TWRP. this is the first time i have used a phone with the A and B type boot and when it was supposed to reboot to TWRP after flashing TWRP to A (my default boot.img was B) it instead loaded the OS. Confused i tried the process again and was relived to boot into TWRP. However i then discovered that TWRP had been flashed to both A and B. I am on the Three UK Razer phone and i can only access TWRP. I did a backup but I think it either didn't work or was wiped while i was trying to fix the issue. I would appreciate any suggestions or help anyone can offer. Thanks in advance.
Same here
And used also the backup files that was uploaded by one of members in here but so far not work
I purchased mine from amazon us
Anyway to fix our phones
Please
hi there, i got the same problem i flashed twrp exactly like you , i can only boot in twrp not in os . with boot.img from another guys here i managed get the bootanimation with the green circle but i can't boot or past that screen. i leave it for 4 hours ,drains the battery and shut itself off. after i read somewhere on this forum that if the boot partition(kernel) is matched with your system and won't boot in another phone ,i got the backup tried to restore none work. my phone is dead on the drawer , meanwhile i bought oneplus 5t sandstone white 128GB and i got like 12 roms on the Data partition and i don't know witch one to flash , so the difference for support for this two device is major . i will never buy a non popular phone
i will wait for them to release the factory image, (at the end of this year) i will flash it and i will sell it with 300 pounds less because razer
Just for you to know , they just released the robin phone factory image after that phone is obsolete
i also got a ****y phone from china witch is AndroidOne (xiaomi mi a1) witch meens is nexus /pixel like witch i got android 8.1 and in two weeks i got 4 updates streight from google .i was just amaze what support got this cheap phone . the point is next time when you buy a phone check if is popular on XDA forum
The razer phone got good spics and potential
But I wonder why it's unlike op5t in terms of support.
Let's skip the factory part but my main point on the developers in here , why we can't find help in here and support.
The reason there is fewer developers on this phone is cause there aren't factory images yet. Developers don't want to get there phone in a state that can't be reset and right now, that's razer phone. Razer has said that they are coming but I suspect like others, they haven't released them yet cause they are trying to get everything tweaked right before they release them. There really is no point having images for a phone that reintroduces issues they have already fixed with updates. I don't expect it will be much longer though.
OP and the like already have an established following that's why there are so many options. Also remember the 5t is still based on the 5 which already had a development community. Razer on the other hand is a new company and this is there first go at it. Once we see images released alot more developers will be more willing to jump on board. You see this with almost all new phone manufacturers.. You don't think htc and the like had developers lined up out the gate do you?
This phone wasnt released as a developer phone like the nexus line was. Razer has been quite good so far in terms of software updates and being in touch with the community as a whole.
I totally agree with you , my main point is to find solve for our corrupted phones and not only me having that issue.
Wouldn't it be cool to just download the monthly updates and then flash it without a computer and follow that by flashing root instantly? I miss the good ol' TWRP day. We should all pitch in for a TWRP bounty. What do you folks think about that?
mkhcb said:
Wouldn't it be cool to just download the monthly updates and then flash it without a computer and follow that by flashing root instantly? I miss the good ol' TWRP day. We should all pitch in for a TWRP bounty. What do you folks think about that?
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Click to collapse
Honestly I don't even remember the days of using twrp anymore as it's been so rare on devices the past couple years. I have to admit I do miss the interface/functionality without relying on a computer. I'd be willing to throw in a few bucks.
scott.hart.bti said:
Honestly I don't even remember the days of using twrp anymore as it's been so rare on devices the past couple years. I have to admit I do miss the interface/functionality without relying on a computer. I'd be willing to throw in a few bucks.
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I came from the OnePlus realm and owned the OPO + OP5T. My parents had the OPO and currently have the 7 Pro. I have been beyond spoiled with TWRP.
Needing a computer to flash and update + keep flash is a pain in the butt... Plus the uninstall Magisk, update, then flash method has never worked for me and 2x I lost all my data + pictures.
mkhcb said:
I came from the OnePlus realm and owned the OPO + OP5T. My parents had the OPO and currently have the 7 Pro. I have been beyond spoiled with TWRP.
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Haha I hear ya. I know there were a few devs over in the OnePlus forums that were fantastic with bringing twrp functionality to those devices. I'm wondering if anyone on the OnePlus 10 is working on it yet. Can't be that much different once someone gets it working and posts the source code (obviously the device source would be different), but beyond that should be similar. I've really been getting the itch to start playing around with things again lately. Need to find a decent rig to setup with Ubuntu before that can happen.
scott.hart.bti said:
Haha I hear ya. I know there were a few devs over in the OnePlus forums that were fantastic with bringing twrp functionality to those devices. I'm wondering if anyone on the OnePlus 10 is working on it yet. Can't be that much different once someone gets it working and posts the source code (obviously the device source would be different), but beyond that should be similar. I've really been getting the itch to start playing around with things again lately. Need to find a decent rig to setup with Ubuntu before that can happen.
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Well if you want to lose the inactive dev title, I 100% will support that . I know many people would appreciate it!
i'd certainly spend my money for a twrp!
I hate adb and hate having to connect my pixel (or any other phone) to a pc for install whatever i want
TWRP was a thing when phones had SD card slots. It still would be nice, however, just not as handy as it were then. ;-)
scott.hart.bti said:
Haha I hear ya. I know there were a few devs over in the OnePlus forums that were fantastic with bringing twrp functionality to those devices. I'm wondering if anyone on the OnePlus 10 is working on it yet. Can't be that much different once someone gets it working and posts the source code (obviously the device source would be different), but beyond that should be similar. I've really been getting the itch to start playing around with things again lately. Need to find a decent rig to setup with Ubuntu before that can happen.
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Click to collapse
I'm coming straight from S5 and can say even with Source Code available it's really hard to see functional updates.
Aroma Installer support was lost for about 5 years. Then an interested developer finally came up and fixed it but didn't want to maintain it, but still it became official ipdate for device tree not unofficial. However the next two updates after it (as far as I know there haven't been more) by an official maintainer skipped all the fixes he did (Aroma Installer support is just the most important). So TWRP for S5 is back to be bugged like for last 5 years and I don't expect it to get fixed ever again.
So no: even if source is available, you can't expect to have good TWRP support.
I'm quite shocked about the S20 development: It's a flagship phone only 2 years old but Stock based development is down to one ROM and one kernel actively maintained, Vanilla Android (based) ROM is not there only LOS based (okay this is Vanilla based in the end, but itself modified and all the ROMs start from this one) and as this one is still not bug free, all depending ROMs are not bug free.
Back in the active days of S5 you had 3-5 Stock ROMs active, AOSP, AOKP and than Cyanogen (based) ROMs available, quite a lot. And Samsung was always hated for their undocumented changes that gave developers quite the headache and reverse engineering was needed a lot. I think GSI should make development easier compared to S5 or has Custom Android development gone down at all?
scott.hart.bti said:
Honestly I don't even remember the days of using twrp anymore as it's been so rare on devices the past couple years. I have to admit I do miss the interface/functionality without relying on a computer. I'd be willing to throw in a few bucks.
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Click to collapse
Huh? My Samsungs and Oneplus had TWRP, it's not rare just not on Pixel
Question: Has any Android 12 device had TWRP made for it yet? Last I had heard, several months back, anyway - none had. Anyone wanting to tackle TWRP for any specific Android 12 device would first have to tackle getting it to work on any Android 12 device in general.
But maybe by now, someone has made it for Android 12 in general and I just haven't heard about it, who knows. I used it some on my Pixel 1, but I really haven't missed it.
Edit: There are several TWRP-related threads in this section, and here's some news I shared a month after I got my Pixel 6 Pro:
[General] TWRP 3.6.0 major parts rewritten from scratch to support Google's Android 11 changes, so they are hopeful for a much quicker Android 12 release
So it took them quite a while to get Android 11 support in general.
cpufrost said:
TWRP was a thing when phones had SD card slots. It still would be nice, however, just not as handy as it were then. ;-)
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Use a USB C to USB A dongle. Works like a charm and also works in TWRP.
TWRP is still being worked on from what I just checked, but they have no ETA when it'll be finished. There's a status page on Zulip with more info, but I'm not signing up for it.
TWRP 3.6.1 Released
TWRP 3.6.1 is out now for most currently supported devices.
twrp.me
mkhcb said:
Use a USB C to USB A dongle. Works like a charm and also works in TWRP.
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True, I forgot about those. I even have a 128GB tiny Sandisk USB drive that is USB C native that does work so there's that.
roirraW edor ehT said:
Question: Has any Android 12 device had TWRP made for it yet? Last I had heard, several months back, anyway - none had. Anyone wanting to tackle TWRP for any specific Android 12 device would first have to tackle getting it to work on any Android 12 device in general.
But maybe by now, someone has made it for Android 12 in general and I just haven't heard about it, who knows. I used it some on my Pixel 1, but I really haven't missed it.
Edit: There are several TWRP-related threads in this section, and here's some news I shared a month after I got my Pixel 6 Pro:
[General] TWRP 3.6.0 major parts rewritten from scratch to support Google's Android 11 changes, so they are hopeful for a much quicker Android 12 release
So it took them quite a while to get Android 11 support in general.
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Click to collapse
yes
namely the fold 3 - however with samsung devices, encryption needs to be disabled for TWRP to work and be able to access the data partition and thus make and store nand backups of userdata etc.
Firstly it transpred that disabling encryption broke a whole range of samsung and google things such as samsung Dex mode and even downloading attachments from gmail.
Then it transpired that data backups were not being sucecssful (although system partition backups were still possible)
In the end it wasn't worth it and the Dev moved over to pixel 6 pro lol
roirraW edor ehT said:
Question: Has any Android 12 device had TWRP made for it yet? Last I had heard, several months back, anyway - none had. Anyone wanting to tackle TWRP for any specific Android 12 device would first have to tackle getting it to work on any Android 12 device in general.
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Click to collapse
It was only officially ported to Android 11 in November 2021, so I doubt there's any official A12 builds yet.
I think reliance on TWRP has dwindled over the past few years due to slow releases, dev's releasing ROM's that are flashable with fastboot, kernels being flashable while online, and most root mods moving towards systemless Magisk modules.
I mainly used TWRP to do an image backup of my phone before doing anything "dangerous". I really hate having to before each monthly update in the hopes something doesn't go wrong that will cause me to have to wipe my phone. With TWRP, I could do an image backup, screw something up, and be back up and running right where I was in a matter of minutes.
Am I missing something here? Is there another way to do a full image backup and restore it quickly? I have Titanium Backup but using that to backup each individual app and it's data, transfer that backup off the phone, then if I have to wipe the phone, I have to copy everything back, then do a restore of each app, will take literally hours!
What's the quickest way to do an image backup if not TWRP?
Thanks,
Dave
Dataman100 said:
Am I missing something here? Is there another way to do a full image backup and restore it quickly?
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There has "always" (very, very long time) been a way to do image backups manually using ADB, however, it's unreliable - the only reason TWRP or other recoveries were slightly more reliable was that they could "verify" the backup and ensure that what it sees in the partition is indeed what is backed up.
With the ADB commands, you might not find out your backup isn't good until you restore it, and that's no help.
I still found TWRP backups to be hit and miss, at least six years ago when I was still using it.
Dataman100 said:
I have Titanium Backup but using that to backup each individual app and it's data, transfer that backup off the phone, then if I have to wipe the phone, I have to copy everything back, then do a restore of each app, will take literally hours!
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I switched to Swift Backup and I don't even backup locally as most of my 512 GB of space is filled with music. I have it backup to my Google Drive directly. It's slower to restore stuff from the cloud, but at least they aren't taking up precious space, and I know wiping the phone won't cause me to lose my backups.
FYI, you can set up cloud backups in Titanium Backup as well, or tell it to do that manually. In TB's case, the cloud backups don't replace the local backups, but I have used them before just in case I have to wipe. I've been away from Titanium Backup long enough that I don't recall if TB restores could be done from the cloud, however (unlike Swift Backup, which can restore directly from the cloud). TB's method is probably closer to your manual copy the files back method, so only slightly an improvement as you can schedule the TB cloud backups to happen automatically.
roirraW edor ehT said:
There has "always" (very, very long time) been a way to do image backups manually using ADB, however, it's unreliable - the only reason TWRP or other recoveries were slightly more reliable was that they could "verify" the backup and ensure that what it sees in the partition is indeed what is backed up.
With the ADB commands, you might not find out your backup isn't good until you restore it, and that's no help.
I still found TWRP backups to be hit and miss, at least six years ago when I was still using it.
I switched to Swift Backup and I don't even backup locally as most of my 512 GB of space is filled with music. I have it backup to my Google Drive directly. It's slower to restore stuff from the cloud, but at least they aren't taking up precious space, and I know wiping the phone won't cause me to lose my backups.
FYI, you can set up cloud backups in Titanium Backup as well, or tell it to do that manually. In TB's case, the cloud backups don't replace the local backups, but I have used them before just in case I have to wipe. I've been away from Titanium Backup long enough that I don't recall if TB restores could be done from the cloud, however (unlike Swift Backup, which can restore directly from the cloud). TB's method is probably closer to your manual copy the files back method, so only slightly an improvement as you can schedule the TB cloud backups to happen automatically.
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Thanks! Yeah, I was aware of all those options. It's still a very manually intensive and time consuming process with either Swift or TB to the cloud.
I came to the P6P from an LG V30s which had TWRP. Right before any major update, (OS, Magisk, etc). I'd do a quick full image backup to the SD card. It took about 20 mins max. Then I'd perform whatever update task, and if it boot looped, or soft bricked, I'd immediately reboot into TWRP and restore. I remember having to do that at least twice on the LG. Each time the backup restored properly and I was up and running again in 20 mins or less. There's no current backup/restore process for the Pixel that even comes close. Titanium even lets you restore individual apps/data from a TWRP backup image. You don't have to restore the entire thing. Which I'd done several times on the LG.
It's a shame. One of the reasons I chose the P6P was because I thought with it's popularity, it wouldn't take long for TWRP to be available. It may not be as valuable or necessary as it was in the past for it's flashing functions, but it certainly would be very useful, (to me anyway) for it's image backup function.
I'd definitely chip in for a TWRP bounty. For the backup alone.
Dataman100 said:
Thanks! Yeah, I was aware of all those options. It's still a very manually intensive and time consuming process with either Swift or TB to the cloud.
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I have Swift backup to the cloud automatically every night at ~2 AM whenever the battery is at 50% or more. I never have to do anything for that manually. That way, if I'm going to do something dangerous, there's that much less I have to worry about.
I think I used to have Titanium Backup sync to the cloud nightly on a schedule also, besides having it do a scheduled new backup beforehand.
I only actually ever restore select app data - I always start with the Google Cloud restore, and then probably just a few apps that don't use Google Cloud backup, so I manually restore the data for those apps as I come across them in normal use. I never do like I used to do in Titanium Backup and do a restore all.
Dataman100 said:
I came to the P6P from an LG V30s which had TWRP. Right before any major update, (OS, Magisk, etc). I'd do a quick full image backup to the SD card. It took about 20 mins max. Then I'd perform whatever update task, and if it boot looped, or soft bricked, I'd immediately reboot into TWRP and restore. I remember having to do that at least twice on the LG. Each time the backup restored properly and I was up and running again in 20 mins or less. There's no current backup/restore process for the Pixel that even comes close. Titanium even lets you restore individual apps/data from a TWRP backup image. You don't have to restore the entire thing. Which I'd done several times on the LG.
It's a shame. One of the reasons I chose the P6P was because I thought with it's popularity, it wouldn't take long for TWRP to be available. It may not be as valuable or necessary as it was in the past for it's flashing functions, but it certainly would be very useful, (to me anyway) for it's image backup function.
I'd definitely chip in for a TWRP bounty. For the backup alone.
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Click to collapse
Nice. It is definitely good to have options.
mkhcb said:
Wouldn't it be cool to just download the monthly updates and then flash it without a computer and follow that by flashing root instantly? I miss the good ol' TWRP day. We should all pitch in for a TWRP bounty. What do you folks think about that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah if the p6pro gets official lineage os would even be cool to have lineage recovery
Just a thought.