Database Info

[Q] Helium

Folks
I really need some help here.
I backed up my data using Helium, and cannot restore it at all. At this point I am primarily interested in whatsapp because I have a whole lot of messages there. I backed up my data to the internal SD card, copied the carbon folder, wiped my phone and put the carbon folder back. I have tried reading other threads of doing the PC download and copying my data over among other things, nothing works. I really need to get the data back, just for one app. Even tried opening the .ab file based on this: http://android.stackexchange.com/qu...ta-from-a-full-backup-made-through-adb-backup still no go. Tried to restore it from here, still no go. Please help!
What I really dont understand about Helium is if it does not support deleting and recopying the folder back on the phone, why even give an internal SD card option!! Apparently the paid version works great with dropbox et al. Itis just so damn frustrating to see an app that claims it works on internal SD, but the use case doesnt seem that useful unless all you want to do is restore the data without any kind of wipe. A warning would have been nice, clearly stating it atleast once considering the developer has put it on his wiki.
Thanks, sorry about the frustrated rant.

I'm sorry, I don't have an answer to your question.
Just wanted to say, titanium backup is known as the best for a reason. After you hopefully settle your issue....try it.

Unfortunately, I don't have an answer for you either, but I had a very similar experience with that app about a year ago. It was the paid version and Dropbox/Google Drive restores were no more useful than what i had copied locally. Now I just use Titanium and command line adb.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[Q] How to backup sms with emoji?

Hi!
I have been searching for this on Google and in the forums, and I cannot find any answers. I see that the most of the sms/mms backup apps are using .XML files, and I read that they do not support emoji and would corrupt the .xml file if I try to restore it.
I have only had to restore sms one time and that time i used go sms pro since I read that they support emoji backup even though they didnt so my 14000 sms got corrupted when I tried to restore, also tried with Titanium without anyluck or maybe I did something wrong (luckly I had nandroid backup and didnt update ROM), this time i want to make sure that this would not happen again and I want to update rom without loosing my sms. I feel there is a simple solution, but I cannot find it.
Would be nice if someone could help out a newb

Bump

Dns94 said:
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This

I'd like to know toO!

Why do they have to make this so damn hard. Why can't I just drag a file from old android phone and drop it in new android phone? What is the best method to COMPLETELY backup and restore SMS/MMS on non rooted phones?

Try this app (find the latest beta from release folder) : https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/blob/master/README.md#readme
Used for years and did several restore while changing my rom. It push the backup into a Gmail label.
From what I saw, it saves pictures. So I guess it saves also emoji.
Hope it helps.

baudbox said:
Try this app (find the latest beta from release folder) : https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/blob/master/README.md#readme
Used for years and did several restore while changing my rom. It push the backup into a Gmail label.
From what I saw, it saves pictures. So I guess it saves also emoji.
Hope it helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I'll give it a shot. I tired SMS Backup & Restore but for some reason when it restored them (which worked for the most part) it screwed up a bunch of the time stamps.

One year later and no good solution to my problem?

A solution I found
Dns94 said:
One year later and no good solution to my problem?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know this thread was years ago, but I came across it while trying and failing to fix this issue, and after a ridiculous amount of time investigating I have a solution finally. I thought if I posted it here then others with the same problem might come across it too and it could help people.
Assuming you already have "SMS Backup and Restore" (though confusingly there are two apps in the Play Store called that, you want the one with the green icon by SyncTech Pty Ltd).
Select "Back Up Now" and send it to Dropbox (or another place, I found Dropbox the easiest). Most importantly though, click on" Advanced Options" and turn the "Emojis & special characters" slider OFF. xml doesn't understand emojis, and it will corrupt the file and cause "XML Parsing Error" when you try to open it.
There's an extra optional step to make the file easier to read (puts it in a nice table without bare code everywhere) but this website won't let me post the code because it contains two links (and because I'm a very new member, signed up just to write this). This step involves adding a file called "sms.xsl" and adding a line of code to the xml file to make it talk to the xsl file, but I can't find anywhere to download it with a quick Google search.
Let me know if anyone wants any more details.
This all worked for me very well at least, I hope it does for others.

[Completed] $100 bounty. DESPERATE!!!!!!

What I have:
Both phones are stock. The g4 is using the system.rooted.H81110h.img
Galaxy S4 T-Mobile running 4.4.4. Original phone
Purchased T-mobile G4 running lollipop (didn't upgrade it yet)
Just want my messages of my deceased family.
I've gone as far as I could on my own. I need help and am willing to pay for it. Whatever solution that comes up will be (hopefully) useful to others. No one should have to go through what I have. I will lay out the steps I've taken and while I was unsucessful it doesn't mean I did everything right. I have been all over the internet and haven't been able to find much in the way of solutions so I pieced together a whole bunch of stuff.
First of all I want to punch the people at android in the face. No...seriously .I do.
Why in GOD'S NAME is it so HARD to do a SIMPLE thing like restoring your messages? Like I'm SHOCKED at the fact that they seemingly don't want this to ever happen.
They have gone to great lengths to ensure it doesn't happen and I'm seriously confused as to why. At every turn I've literally run into roadblocks that apparently are there for "my protection" like wtf people? I have messages of people who are now deceased and would it be that *&$&*#$& hard to put them into a new phone? I'm sorry, I'm upset, pissed off, and bewildered at how hard this is to do. Like. Literally. STUPID HARD.
I'm on the verge of tears and I have literally spend 3 weeks trying to import my MMS / SMS. I've purchased software, I've tried bribery, I've rooted my phone, extracted the mmssms.db file of the old and new. And I literally spend the last 3 days pasting all this crap into the new database. I've exported it to CSV where needed
Here is what I have tried:
1. sms backup and restore. By far the simplist. After literally 4 days of importing it finally was done. However, all of my picture mail was at the bottom of the thread. And some messages...actually a LOT of messages....were showing up at the time it imported. NOT the time it was sent. Like wtf? I opened up messanger....opened each thread....waited......some were fixed by what I found online to be a solution.
2. Purchased some software. This software (backuptrans). after 5 days. Yes FIVE days..it actually did a good job. All of them were on the right date...however....they don't support group messages....Yes. You heard me right. They thought a "solution" would be to convert every group message threat into individual ones.
Example:
group message with 10 people.
Every message you sent to the group is now shown as a sent message 10 times. One time to each person in the individual thread.
Those people's replies will show up in the corresponding individual thread.
your replies show up in all ten.
So what you have is a conversation that literally is useless. Try having a side conversation or multiple group messages with similar people at the same time...and you will quickly see why I was quite upset after 5 days of watching my new phone (which I only got because my S4 has the infamous "You removed your sim card! Let's restart!" bullcrap
Added backuptrans people to the people I want to punch in the face
3. Rooted. Copied MMSMS over and this ended up with com.phone.android has stopped. Was worth a try. I'm on kitkat...this new G4 is on lollipop. They changed the structure from what I read online.
4. No big deal right? I'll take a copy of the new database and the old one. Reimport?
Downloaded razorSQL, exported each table into SQL. Reimported when it accepted the SQL until it hit tables where they didn't match up. IE column names were wrong or one had a column the other did not.
So then I exported to CSV for both new and old. Opened the old, matched the columns up, and pasted into the new format CSV and reimported that.
Did this for all tables that matched up until I got to threads. Threads wouldn't import because it gave me a _INSERT_THREAD wasn't a function. After some reasearch it was some trigger that was there...so I'm like.. well.. can't do much with that. I ended up removing the trigger which I THINK...because I honestly don't have a clue... only helps with the indexing?
CREATE TRIGGER callback_on_insert_threads AFTER INSERT ON threads BEGIN SELECT _INSERT_THREAD(new._id); END
deleted that. Imported the CSV. And created the trigger again.
Between importing, exporting, etc. This took me about 3 days.
I had a hunch that there HAS TO be a database upgrade script. I found this page:
https://android.googlesource.com/pl...providers/telephony/MmsSmsDatabaseHelper.java
I think this might help someone but I again am not a programmer and have no clue what that all means.
There has been lolipop upgrades for other carriers...but not t-mobile....
Could we perhaps take an upgrade script from them that would convert 4.4.4 to lollipop?
Do I dare as if we can do the same from lollipop to marshmellow? The G4 will eventually
What complicates things further is that each manufacture uses different database structures. I'm not sure of the reasoning, however, this seems quite crazy and again android should step in and standardize things.
4. For whatever reason on my S4 I can't export into XML. Crashes on titanium backup. So that's why I used sms backup and restore.
5. Tried to import xml file from sms backup and restore into titanium backup and it crashes.
Hopefully someone can help

Update. Was able to make some headway. Had to give radio:radio permissions to the mmssms.db file and also the app_parts folder / files in there.
Lot's of missing messages. I'm not going to cross check the ones that DO show up and the ones that DON'T show up to see if I can find out why.
http://blog.namran.net/2010/09/25/how-to-recover-previous-smsmms-on-nexusone-backup-archive/
That was helpful.
if the “Messages” is having “force close ” problem.. after restoring backup database.
you may need to run “Fix Permission” once. and reboot the phone.
or possibly can be fixed with just the following
adb shell 'chmod 775 /data/com.providers.telephony/mmssms.db'
adb shell 'chmod 775 /data/com.providers.telephony/app_parts/*'
chown radio.radio /data/com.android.providers.telephony/databases/mmssms.db
chown radio.radio -R /data/com.android.providers.telephony/app_parts

Recover deleted photos

Hi everyone,
Two days ago, accidentally I managed to delete all the photos of my camera album on my S6 Edge (SM-G925F).
I long tapped the album in gallery, just as i would have done with a photo then clicked delete.
It seemed to take too long, so I clicked cancel. But it was too late. All was gone.
I have well, most of them backed up but still missing quite a few.
So far I tried to recover using the following apps:
Dr. Fone (both on the device itself and from computer).
UltData for Android (from laptop),
Dumpster Recover (on the phone),
DiskDigger (on phone)
But all they show me is photos that are still available on the device, or are in some app cache. ( Profile pics of people on Facebook, etc...)
Note: I tried all these methods both before and after rooting the device. (I read somewhere that rooting might help, but I simply get more crap...)
The device is running Android 7.0 (the latest update from Samsung.)
Has anyone managed to recover lost photos from an S6 so far?
What apps would you recommend?
Why can I not see those pics anywhere?
Does samsung have some special way to erase your storage if u delete your photos?
I cannot seem to find many search results about it, probably not many people use this device anymore
Thanks in advance for any help,
Agoston

Probably no longer recoverable after DrFone.
Pay the fee and get what it can recover.
It encrypts its results (using up more drive space) and presumably makes the original data inaccessible to other recovery apps.
Recovered jpegs files will be disassociated from their exif files though; no timestamps, original #, shooting or location data.
The only way to reliably prevent data loss is to redundantly back it up before it happens, unfortunately.

I did pay the fee, but it cannot find them either...
In the main window it showed 1090 photos, on the side it showed it found 10 000, but at recovery it got stuck at around 5000....

dagoston93 said:
I did pay the fee, but it cannot find them either...
In the main window it showed 1090 photos, on the side it showed it found 10 000, but at recovery it got stuck at around 5000....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
None were backed up anywhere?
It may take a long time to retrieve them and not actually be hanging... be careful!!!
Make sure it has all needed permissions.
No clue how to use that app. Try their support and Google search to try to find out what's going on.
Don't mess with that app or anything on the phone or you may lose what it found completely.
Normally I say clear app data and the system cache but NOT in this case!

blackhawk said:
None were backed up anywhere?
It may take a long time to retrieve them and not actually be hanging... be careful!!!
Make sure it has all needed permissions.
No clue how to use that app. Try their support and Google search to try to find out what's going on.
Don't mess with that app or anything on the phone or you may lose what it found completely.
Normally I say clear app data and the system cache but NOT in this case!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most of them is backed up just the ones in the last few months aren't.
It turned out during a chat with their support not long ago, that my phone is not supported by their app, and i will get a refund from them.
But the question stands...Is there any app out there that supports the recovery from an SM-G925F?
I didnt seem to find any, but I hope someone knows one

Question Worth rooting phone to attempt photo recovery?

First of all I know I'm really stupid for doing this, I blame sleep deprivation.
2 days ago I imported all the photos from my z flip 3 to my ipad. After completing the import I used the option at the end of the import to delete off the phone. Found out tonight that the imported photos were only at ~400x400px.
Now I can't find the photos anywhere on the phone.
I have checked the recycle bin/trash in the photos and files apps but there is nothing in there. I have also tried Tensorshare Ultdata recovery, but no luck with that either. https://www.tenorshare.com/products/android-data-recovery.html
Would it be worth rooting the device to allow for a deeper scan of the file system, the phone is completely stock currently. If not is there anything else I can try or should I take it to a data recovery company?
Thank you taking the time to read and for any assistance you can share.

ghostgundam742 said:
First of all I know I'm really stupid for doing this, I blame sleep deprivation.
2 days ago I imported all the photos from my z flip 3 to my ipad. After completing the import I used the option at the end of the import to delete off the phone. Found out tonight that the imported photos were only at ~400x400px.
Now I can't find the photos anywhere on the phone.
I have checked the recycle bin/trash in the photos and files apps but there is nothing in there. I have also tried Tensorshare Ultdata recovery, but no luck with that either. https://www.tenorshare.com/products/android-data-recovery.html
Would it be worth rooting the device to allow for a deeper scan of the file system, the phone is completely stock currently. If not is there anything else I can try or should I take it to a data recovery company?
Thank you taking the time to read and for any assistance you can share.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
rooting it would format data, which in turn would generate new encryption key when you boot next time so you would be in even more of a mess sadly, if you didnt have online backup taking it to data recovery company might be your best choice

Thank you very much for the reply and advice, I dived a bit deeper and it turned out that the import was successful, there was a duplicate thumbnail image that was showing first.

Sounds like you solved it, but having gone through some fun data loss in the past, I wanted to leave this here for posterity.
If you need to recover data, do not root. Do not reboot. Do not delete or add anything unnecessary. The best results come from doing the least. When an image is deleted, it is similar to tearing up a physical photo and throwing it in the trash. The data still exists, but can be fragmented. The more you do, the more likely some or all of that data will be overwritten and become unrecoverable.
After searching through about 100 different recovery programs, I had the best results with https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.defianttech.diskdigger
It is the equivalent of the recovery programs for a computer, so it will show you thumbnails from that Facebook account of the ex you stalked 6 months ago in the results. It will also find almost anything that was deleted through normal means. Last time I used it personally was a couple years ago, but the reviews seem to imply it is still pretty effective.
Similar to what you described, you will also end up with a lot of thumbnails and previews. The easiest way to handle that is to run all of it through https://dupeguru.voltaicideas.net/ with the Picture option and the setting to "Match pictures of different dimensions" enabled. This will group all of the thumbnails and the originals to let you get rid of the junk.
Disclaimer: This is only personal preferences. I am a professional, but both apps listed in this post were downloaded free and used without any premium or paid features. This is not a sponsored suggestion.