Database Info

Best way to backup contacts?

First, I did use the search feature, but couldn't find anything specific to the Inspire. If this already exists, please feel free to link to it/close this thread. Thanks!
So, I can't seem to effectively back up my contacts. Titanium Backup doesn't do it, and I thought they were synced via Google. Not to mention I've had the same SIM card for YEARS and all my contacts have always been on there. Now, since I rooted my phone and started flashing custom ROMS, they have disappeared. Now I am without my 400+ contacts database, which I need.. So my question is, what is the best way to back up contacts, and is there any way to recover the ones I had?
Thanks in advance!

As long as you didn't choose not to sync with Google before you flashed, they are backed up. Most likely the problem you are having is getting them to import. Try going to Settings>Accounts and Sync> and manually sync your Google account.

stonewallmike said:
As long as you didn't choose not to sync with Google before you flashed, they are backed up. Most likely the problem you are having is getting them to import. Try going to Settings>Accounts and Sync> and manually sync your Google account.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I rip my employer a little I guess and store ALL my contacts to MS Exchange for several years now with nary a hiccup...that said since I've been on Android, Google does a fine job too. ... I think my free Sugar Sync account probably has them too...with this phone I have given up storing any contacts at all on the SIM card...because I have gone through what you are when simply switching phones or have phones stolen/lost in the past...but yeah make sure at least Google is backing them up...

It all depends on where you have chosen to save your contacts. If to phone then they may be lost forever. If to sim then simply import them back to your phone. If to Google account then as said above just re-sync.
When thinking about flashing rom's the first thing that you should do is make sure all contacts are backed up. Best choice is with Google. That way everytime you wipe data you can boot up your phone sync with Google and BOOM! They are there. Works a treat. Cheers.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

Thanks guys. I've had them backed up to Google before, and even restored them before, but it doesn't seem to be working. I just flashed the VU ROM after having been using the RCMix3D ROM for my Inspire, so I'll post the question on their page and see if it's a known issue with the ROM or anything.

Good luck.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

elijahpr said:
Thanks guys. I've had them backed up to Google before, and even restored them before, but it doesn't seem to be working. I just flashed the VU ROM after having been using the RCMix3D ROM for my Inspire, so I'll post the question on their page and see if it's a known issue with the ROM or anything.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have been on a captivate and now the inspire. Flashed upteen different roms and never had an issue with google restoring my contacts. Everytime I put the gmail addy in it pulls it all over.
Doesn't the htc sync account do that as well? Try doing that. If all else fails and you have them in say outlook or still on google then you can export them as a comma separated value (CSV) file and then put that on your sd card then import them via the people app. You can then save to sim via the people app.
I am on VU now and it restored flawlessly from gmail.
This is one app on the market that you can look at.
https://market.android.com/details?id=no.uia.android.backupcontacts&feature=search_result

I would recommend using my backup pro from the android market

Yahoo Mail causes major battery drain!

Okay, I think I discovered Yahoo Mail as a major cause of battery drain on my Charge. First some background. At one point early on with the Charge I had great results of 20+ hours. That was shortly after setting up Humble and ImNuts Kernal, calibrating the battery, and installing basic apps.
As many of us do, I kept on tweaking from there. I tried various combinations of Imoseyon's kernal, EP1Q modem, and V6 supercharger and related scripts. At some point in the process I lost the battery life. I started getting 6-8 hours max! Of course at the same time I kept working on getting the "perfect" app setup. All this tweaking meant I couldn't tell what started the problem.
Anyway, I've since undone V6, gone back to PBJ kernal, and restored EE4's modem. I thought I noticed some improvement, but really it was no more than a couple hours more than before. Maybe 8-10 hours total.
So, I started thinking about how Data usage kills my battery at work. I get a very weak signal and it absolutely kills the battery. But still, I was able to get up to 20 hours before, even leaving data turned on. So, I wondered if anything was causing it to work extra hard to send/receive vs before.
Long story shortened (a little). I considered the Yahoo Mail app with it's "push only" setup. This is something I didn't have setup right away. I'd used the built in email. So, after disabling "Notifications" in my account and re-enabling the built-in mail notifications, I've recovered my battery life! Today I've been going 15 hours and I've still got 31%. And that was with fairly heavy use and leaving data on all day!
I stress that the Yahoo Mail setting is the only thing I've changed since last week. I've been very patient to make one change at a time so I could track this down properly.
So, anyone with primarily weak signals care to test this theory as well? I really feel this did it, but could use some confirmation considering all the previous variables. I'll do some further testing myself this week. Maybe a day with and a day without. It's difficult not to just jump to GummyCharged 2.0, but I really want to confirm this issue first.
Some confirmation can be found by googling the issue: "yahoo mail android battery drain". Hope this may help someone else.

Yes I have notice this too. I live in a non 4g fringe 3 g area and my battery drains fast as well. Yes I have yahoo mail and have since uninstalled it and have the stock email app pull my mail from yahoo. Also any app like yahoo messenger also runs in the back ground and no matter how much u do a force off, it restart a few mins later. Here is a list of app that run in the background.
A. Yahoo mail
B. Yahoo messenger
C. Live holdem poker.
D. Maps
E. Gallery
F. Gmail
G. Stock email app
H. Music
I. Search
And of all the rest of the stock functions. I wish that most of these apps would only run when you launch them and when you close it, they would stay shut off untill needed. Freezing the apps work but you cant use them until u unfreeze them. I know that this is done for a reason, so that there would be no lag. So I guess these are some of the things we have to live with.
One of the big mistakes samsung did with the charge is not install enuff onboard memory. So when you have all these programs running it does cause a lag and massive battery drain on our phone. As far as the data connection, I can not complain about the phone cause this is a problem that BIG RED is causing an additional drain on the battery. The mighty no connection and searching for service LOL..
END RANT..
Sent from my SCH-I800 using XDA App

Glad to see it's not just me. You'd think a "push" service would use less battery, but in the case of yahoo mail it seems the opposite.
I'm not as worried about ram usage as network usage though. With a custom rom it seems fairly responsive. It's the network use that I wish we had more fine control over at the system level. If I could just make some of the offending apps act less aggressively that would be great.
In fact, I wish the OS had a smart signal monitoring feature that could tell apps to throttle back until a strong signal was available.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA App

I noticed this too. It was causing a huge drain! The only reason I got the yahoo mail app was because the stock mail app wouldn't let me sign in to my yahoo account. Does anybody know the reason for this? It worked less than a week ago...
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA App

The stock mail app is working fine for me. Never had trouble logging in. Maybe try from a computer to see if it needs to verify your account or something?
So far today I am using 5% per hour with yahoo's app disabled and very heavy usage of phone and screen. During one hour with little use it only used 2%. Very acceptable. I'll try turning yahoo on for the afternoon and see the difference.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA App

Danzanzio said:
I noticed this too. It was causing a huge drain! The only reason I got the yahoo mail app was because the stock mail app wouldn't let me sign in to my yahoo account. Does anybody know the reason for this? It worked less than a week ago...
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What i did is uninstall the yahoo mail app and load the stock email app, you can do all the same stuff with the stock email app as you can with yahoo mail. Also I found that the email app that comes preloaded with the gc 2.0 has issue with yahoo, and other email accounts ( Iam sure other people did not have this problem but i was one of few that did. So please dont flame me and say that iam the only one with this problem). What i did is pull the stock app off my tablet and installed this one on my phone, all problems are gone, i can receive and now repley, create and send my emails. I can now easily setup all of my email accounts, aol-yahoo-comcast, etc. If you can pull the stock email app that was preloaded on the phone before you modded or install any custom rom/themes. Also if you have yahoo messenger installed, get rid of it. I found that between the yahoo mail and messenger app my battery life was almost cut in half.

Ya I'm running gc 2.0 with the same problem. Any way you could post a link of the stock app?
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA App

Danzanzio said:
Ya I'm running gc 2.0 with the same problem. Any way you could post a link of the stock app?
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's in gummytoolbox
Sent from my GT-P1000 using xda premium

Update
So, I finished my testing:
Yahoo Mail app notifications turned off:
Used 35% battery in first 6 hours of day with heavy use of phone
Yahoo Mail app notifications turned on:
Used 55% battery in next 6 hours of day with very light use of phone
So, simply enabling the Yahoo Mail app notifications increased my battery use more than 50% per hour. This is even though I went from heavy usage before the change to practically no usage after the change.
Needless to say, I'll be leaving Yahoo Mail notifications off and let the built in e-mail app notify me. Which it does a very fine job of by the way. It's still "push" even.
So, I'm wondering how to find other offending apps. I'd have thought Spare Parts would tell me, but apparently Yahoo Mail was hiding its network usage behind some other title. Perhaps it's lumped under Dialer or one of the mysterious user ID's that show up (1043, I think?).
Anyone know of another network usage watchdog type app for our phones that might shed more light?

Danzanzio said:
Ya I'm running gc 2.0 with the same problem. Any way you could post a link of the stock app?
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will try and have it posted by the end of the day or tomorrow. You can try to install the one under the gummytoolbox and see if that one works. I havent tried that one. let us know if it works.

Ya I tried and it didn't work for me.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA App

Danzanzio said:
Ya I tried and it didn't work for me.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
here is the email app i used, let me know if it works for you. i have about 25 email apps and hope i gave u the right one..

I have tried and tried but cannot get Yahoo mail added to my email. I also tried to download your link but it says my phone does not support this.

chargerchick said:
I have tried and tried but cannot get Yahoo mail added to my email. I also tried to download your link but it says my phone does not support this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think you have to use this one to replace the one in /system/app since it's a preinstalled application.
Sent from my Droid Charge running GummyCharged 2.0

chargerchick said:
I have tried and tried but cannot get Yahoo mail added to my email. I also tried to download your link but it says my phone does not support this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go into your system/app folder and delete the stock email app that you have installed. Of course by deleting this you may/may not lose all of your accounts you have setup. Then download the link and install this one ( also make sure you rename the app to Email.apk ) i dont think you have too, but if you have a problem installing it, try it, you never know). Problem is since you allready have the email app installed, it will not let you install another one. I know this to work, for i have tried several different version that have been floating around these site, and they are all the same version, So i pulled the stock email app that i have on my Gtab and used that one on my Charge and it works great. push/pull-reply-create all works now, as well as being able to create all email accounts that i have without any issues. Just make sure once you have installed that you restart your phone for all to take into effect. Look at the app page on the phone and make sure you have the white envolope w/green @ symbol on it. If you do and you launch the app you should have a page loaded that has all the different email accounts that you can use to automatically setup. Just enter you [email protected] account and the password and then click next and if all setup correctly it will prompt you to pick a nickname and name to use for that account. Finished.. LOL

galaxyuser88 said:
Go into your system/app folder and delete the stock email app that you have installed. Of course by deleting this you may/may not lose all of your accounts you have setup. Then download the link and install this one ( also make sure you rename the app to Email.apk ) i dont think you have too, but if you have a problem installing it, try it, you never know). Problem is since you allready have the email app installed, it will not let you install another one. I know this to work, for i have tried several different version that have been floating around these site, and they are all the same version, So i pulled the stock email app that i have on my Gtab and used that one on my Charge and it works great. push/pull-reply-create all works now, as well as being able to create all email accounts that i have without any issues. Just make sure once you have installed that you restart your phone for all to take into effect. Look at the app page on the phone and make sure you have the white envolope w/green @ symbol on it. If you do and you launch the app you should have a page loaded that has all the different email accounts that you can use to automatically setup. Just enter you [email protected] account and the password and then click next and if all setup correctly it will prompt you to pick a nickname and name to use for that account. Finished.. LOL
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not to sound dumb.....I like the stock email app as well and it does not work on my phone. I DL your file. now I place it on my sd card and flash it, is that how I install it?

No you dont flash it. Once you delete the email app you have in your system folder. Then you just click on the email app to install it. Of course you will have to redo your settings, and then you should be good to go.
putney1477 said:
Not to sound dumb.....I like the stock email app as well and it does not work on my phone. I DL your file. now I place it on my sd card and flash it, is that how I install it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sent from my SCH-I800 using XDA App

chargerchick said:
I have tried and tried but cannot get Yahoo mail added to my email. I also tried to download your link but it says my phone does not support this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you try to add it manually as an IMAP account? Enter your email address and password and then select manual setup or whatever that option is. Google the SSL IMAP yahoo settings for android and you should be able to get it. That is how I got mine working.

galaxyuser88 said:
here is the email app i used, let me know if it works for you. i have about 25 email apps and hope i gave u the right one..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks it works, you safe my life.

Khanusma said:
Did you try to add it manually as an IMAP account? Enter your email address and password and then select manual setup or whatever that option is. Google the SSL IMAP yahoo settings for android and you should be able to get it. That is how I got mine working.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for this! I googled the settings and it worked! Now I can delete the Yahoo app!

[Q] Google wont sync contacts?

I'm having issues syncing my contacts. I have changed roms multiple times, but every time it is the same thing it wont sync. any ideas? could it be the radio?

kyhassen said:
I'm having issues syncing my contacts. I have changed roms multiple times, but every time it is the same thing it wont sync. any ideas? could it be the radio?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Definitely not the radio. What ROM are you using?
Have you tried removing the account and readding it? It could take a while to sync contacts if you are not using wifi.

VICODAN said:
Definitely not the radio. What ROM are you using?
Have you tried removing the account and readding it? It could take a while to sync contacts if you are not using wifi.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think my mother is using supreme sense 9.1. but it started on 8.0. i tried removing but didnt do anything.

kyhassen said:
I think my mother is using supreme sense 9.1. but it started on 8.0. i tried removing but didnt do anything.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you have facebook syncing contacts as well? Or any other service syncing with contacts?

VICODAN said:
Do you have facebook syncing contacts as well? Or any other service syncing with contacts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
nope that gets to be annoying quickly lol.

kyhassen said:
nope that gets to be annoying quickly lol.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Check your contacts via Gmail for a corrupted contact. Other than that you're pretty much SOL if you've reflashed roms. Google contacts syncing up was nothing I ever had any issues with. GMail.. well that's another story.

lol gmail was a mistake in my opinion... so to use it with phones well i never liked it.

kyhassen said:
lol gmail was a mistake in my opinion... so to use it with phones well i never liked it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I mean go to www.gmail.com in your web browser on your computer and check your contacts list.

Contact/Calendar Sync WITHOUT needing HTC Software

For those of you who are experimenting with AOSP ROMs on your HTC phone and want to synchronize contacts and calendar items with your desktop, have a look at this application. You can install the Android version via the market, the desktop install is freely available from the developer's website below.
http://global.mobileaction.com/product/product_AM.jsp

Also have a look at MyPhoneExplorer. It is also free from the market and very similiar software. You can view your phone's screen on your monitor and operate your phone with your mouse and keyboard. It is a proven software.

Agoattamer said:
Also have a look at MyPhoneExplorer. It is also free from the market and very similiar software. You can view your phone's screen on your monitor and operate your phone with your mouse and keyboard. It is a proven software.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting. I like the less cluttered look of this desktop version, but what worries me is the non-english support forum. I wonder if using both of these tools, in addition to the HTC sync software, might create some sort of incompatibility.
ETA: I also wonder how these utilities will respond when switching between ROMs or versions. I don't know how they track synchronization sessions. It'd be a disaster if contact items were duplicated or triplicated when updating or experimenting.

I dont know if this goes here but i have been searching around for a answer.. on my inspire I had to reinstall my rom and when i did for some reason i cannot find my phone contacts.. how in world would i get them back I did have titanium but even it says theres nothing there.. i also just two days ago did a fresh backup on titanium.. strange huh.. so far everything has been replaced but my dialer contacts..
any help will be deeply appreciated
thanks

tashsru said:
I dont know if this goes here but i have been searching around for a answer.. on my inspire I had to reinstall my rom and when i did for some reason i cannot find my phone contacts.. how in world would i get them back I did have titanium but even it says theres nothing there.. i also just two days ago did a fresh backup on titanium.. strange huh.. so far everything has been replaced but my dialer contacts..
any help will be deeply appreciated
thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you have them synced with Google? If you did then just resign into your google account and they will be restore. As for TIBU it doesnt back up contacts by default as they are stored in System Data and restoring any system data, like contacts, sms, emails, wifi settings and things like that can cause huge issues when changing roms.

I had them synced but for some reason i cannot no matter what find them.. and they did not resync on the cell when i set it up again

tashsru said:
I had them synced but for some reason i cannot no matter what find them.. and they did not resync on the cell when i set it up again
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Check the sync and account settings to make sure it is selected.

tashsru said:
I had them synced but for some reason i cannot no matter what find them.. and they did not resync on the cell when i set it up again
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
once your sync options are double checked as Zel mentioned, sign in to gmail from the gmail app and get your email, this puts it into a forced sync. Should have all your stuff back.

Thanks for sharing, BillTheCat. I was not familiar with this app. I'l check it out. I've been using Google to sync my stuff.

I use airdroid it syncs contacts pics calender date and file and you can even answer texts on your desktop when your using it
Sent from my Inspire 4g using XDA

th3lawmak3r76 said:
I use airdroid it syncs contacts pics calender date and file and you can even answer texts on your desktop when your using it
Sent from my Inspire 4g using XDA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i never seen this app before, loving it. Thank you!

+1 for Airdroid

[Q] Transferring contacts between OS's?

I just started reading up on rooting about 3 days ago so a lot of this is new to me but i couldn't find anything about this. I'm currently running CM9 ICS on on my infuse 4.0.4 and before i ever did any of this i used titanium backup and backed up all apps + system data while i was on froyo 2.2.1 and transferred it to my pc. I noticed they have a whole new people app on ics and i'm going to assume the old back up data is formatted for froyo, but i think they have the same destination?
data/data/com.android.providers.contacts/database
Something like that, how would i go about transferring them if possible? Apparently google never backed them up either. Any help is appreciated, thanks in advance.

One of the many possible issues when testing unfamiliar roms...lack of homework....
But when you log on to the phone..and setup your google accts it is not...syncing your contacts....?

Well its either they were never synced or it's just not working, i could just wait until the roms complete i guess but for the time being it would be a lot more convenient to have them if possible

Is data working for you...on the phone? Can you log on gmail on your pc and see your contacts there?

Nope just the contacts I've added recently added since switching to ics. i never had any other google accounts. any thing i can do with these?
com.android.providers.contacts-0155e16b1e02ab3e1f83406632029fc7.apk
com.android.providers.contacts-20120409-230535
com.android.providers.contacts-20120409-230535.tar
com.google.android.syncadapters.contacts-4a9248374bf4af8864bea57f2100d9d9.apk
com.google.android.syncadapters.contacts-20120409-230544
com.google.android.syncadapters.contacts-20120409-230544.tar
com.android.contacts-20120409-230533
com.android.contacts-bf86983ea79f37363d8d86c9b701b7b4.apk
com.android.contacts-20120409-230533.tar
Extracted using titanium backup on froyo

Just gonna quickly warn you. Never back and restore system data between roms. It could cause problems to arise. If you're gonna restore, restore missing apps with data. Don't restore system data or anything with system in it
Try a pizza taco sometime, if you don't know what it is, look it up then

Haha yeah i learned that.. i was screwing around with it with pretty much zero knowledge about this and ended screwing up 3 or 4 system processes and had to re flash it. Any suggestions? any way to make the files into vcard data? By the way i have no idea what that really is i just tried importing from sd and it said "Cannot find Vcard data."

Go back to froyo, restore your contacts with TB. Once you have contacts restored click the "menu" soft key. Click the import/export option. Choose export to sdcard or export to memory or something like that...that will create vcard data
Now flash cm9 and restore contacts from sdcard by importing from sdcard
I know, its a lot of work but its the only way I can think of to create the card data
Sent from my SGH-I997 using XDA

Devugly said:
data/data/com.android.providers.contacts/database
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can confirm that's where contacts are located, just used es file explorer and opened up the files as text...however I can not confirm changing the files in that directory with your old ones will work...
However if you do try to replace those files make sure you reboot after replacing
Good luck hope you get your contacts back
Sent from my SGH-I997 using XDA

I was hoping i didnt have to go back to stock, will try just replacing the files let you know how it goes thanks

i honestly think you shouldnt reaplce ICS apks with FroYo apks..
youre gonna screw things up trust me
do the long way and go back to froyo export a Vcard then go back to ICS and import
youll be safer and itll save ya the headache

No luck, contacts were just blank with a small scroll bar as if there was a lot on the page. probably going to re flash tomorrow i have work in 5 hours haha thanks again

SUCCESS. I have all my contacts and numbers thanks to this:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1432962
I did this with no command prompt knowledge, let alone common sense. Thanks again!

Glad you found a simple way to get your contacts
Sent from my SGH-I997 using XDA

Yes, glad it worked out for you...

Wow, I haven't "transferred" contacts in years! A google email account solved all that headache

Jep56 said:
Wow, I haven't "transferred" contacts in years! A google email account solved all that headache
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that was exactly what I was saying...he must have had his contacts sync off or sync off in general...

Yes i always synced contacts from facebook, but this rom doesnt have that feature and market apps such as facebook sync only synced names and pictures. All backed up now though =]

Devugly said:
Yes i always synced contacts from facebook, but this rom doesnt have that feature and market apps such as facebook sync only synced names and pictures. All backed up now though =]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I dont use facebook much less sync with FB,...but ok, at least your up with your contacts.
I loaded the preview of the ICS and my contacts loaded up great when I log into google...?

bigjoe2675 said:
I dont use facebook much less sync with FB,...but ok, at least your up with your contacts.
I loaded the preview of the ICS and my contacts loaded up great when I log into google...?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah same here... I think contacts loaded up faster with ICS compared to GB and FroYo lol
Sent from my SGH-I997 using XDA