CM13-CM14.1 update-downgrade misery - Moto G Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hi folks,
I fear i lost some of my data forever. Is there any way to get it back?
I recently updated my falcon device from CM13 to CM14.1 via the CM updater by accident, and it broke several of the phone's functionalities. Then I tried to revert back to CM13 (latest snapshot), and made the mistake of dirty flashing over CM14.1. Naturally, some base features like telephone were not working because of my dumbness, and panicking that I'll lose my data I dirty flashed again, back to 14.1, then came the idea to take a nandroid backup. Problem is, settings weren't accessible anymore. So i did a factory reset, clean flashed back to CM13 snapshot, then tried to restore my apps through NANDROID Manager app from google play. The apps were restored fine, but when I restored the app data as well, every app FC'd forever. Clean flashed 14.1, tried the same process, with the same results. Data restored, FC. Now I'm stuck here, afraid of having lost all my data due to my foolishness...
Is there any way to recover it?
Thanks in advance.

Copy the backup folder to your PC, inside there should be some files with .tar.a extension. Rename them to just .tar and then open the files using 7zip. All the files of your phone are there (system files, app files, photos, porn, etc.), just search and extact what you need.
Good luck.

Related

[Q] Preserving my data through multiple ROM flashes

1) I used DROID RAZR HD Utility 1.20 [Windows/Mac/Linux] to upgrade my phone to 4.1.2. The utility said i would lose my data and I did. No problem.
2) I flashed a ROM named XenonHD. I found that it would not fully boot until I wiped the data. I lost my data so fine I recover but this was a PITA.
3) I backup XenonHD using TWRP and when XenonHD decided to not allow a data connection any more I decided to go back to 4.1.2.
4) I use TWRP to restore the most recent 4.1.2 backup and I find that none of my data is present.
Question: Is there a way to serially flash multiple ROMs and keep my data through the process? I flashed my ROM with my HTC ThunderBolt and never had this issue.
Thanks.
jhimebau
Yup Titanium backup. I recommend the paid version for quicker restore.
There are a few other apps that do this also.
It's in the toolbox of every good crackflasher.
TiBu and "data"
When I say data in the above post I mean files like .pdb file for iSilo and midi files that I use to determine the tune for a hymn.
These are the "data" that I find being removed. I place these files in a folder under sdcard.
I can restore the .pdb files but they are all managed content and I have to put an access code for all 30 some .pdb files to re-enable their use with iSilo.
Thanks.
jhimebau

Moving to a new ROM

I've been using RobbieL811 Uber rom for quite a while but now development seems to have come to a halt. A couple of posters say move to a new ROM so I tried Resurrection Remix. I don't have time to move my data (Inc save games that don't cloud save) individually, so I Googled the best way to do this. I got a load of 2013 posts about restoring the data partition from the nandroid backup. After installing RR and restoring the backup of the data I just get boot freeze. Is there something I'm missing?
Gingepie49 said:
I've been using RobbieL811 Uber rom for quite a while but now development seems to have come to a halt. A couple of posters say move to a new ROM so I tried Resurrection Remix. I don't have time to move my data (Inc save games that don't cloud save) individually, so I Googled the best way to do this. I got a load of 2013 posts about restoring the data partition from the nandroid backup. After installing RR and restoring the backup of the data I just get boot freeze. Is there something I'm missing?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know who said to restore a data backup from a nandroid, that's wrong, it's a huge no-no. The data backup includes all data from the ROM, not just apps, so it's attempting to restore incompatible system settings and stuff like that. You can just use Titanium Backup to make backups of your apps and then restore them after you've flashed your new ROM.
Yep titanium is what u need
Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk
Got 99 problems
Thanks for your assist guys, tried what you suggested and it worked! Until I rebooted. Now it just boots for ages. And nothing else. I've unselected any system apps.
Gingepie49 said:
Thanks for your assist guys, tried what you suggested and it worked! Until I rebooted. Now it just boots for ages. And nothing else. I've unselected any system apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly what did you do? You need to provide a detailed account of everything that lead to this point. What did you restore with Titanium?
I did two over the course of the night, the first I restored everything, including system apps like dialler, Gmail etc. But this broke it. So I wiped, installed, and restored only missing apps and data. Still broken on reboot.
Gingepie49 said:
I did two over the course of the night, the first I restored everything, including system apps like dialler, Gmail etc. But this broke it. So I wiped, installed, and restored only missing apps and data. Still broken on reboot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can't restore system apps/data, that's why it was borked the first time. It's also possible that you restored system/app data the second time too. Only ever restore user apps.
Heisenberg said:
You can't restore system apps/data, that's why it was borked the first time. It's also possible that you restored system/app data the second time too. Only ever restore user apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After using titanium to restore user apps and data, some apps just force closed on opening unless I removed the data then it worked. Decided to restore from backup and give it up until 6.0 rom appears.
Make sure you start with a clean slate. Factory reset and flash new Rom before restoring any backup. Are you good up to that point?
I don't know what you're doing wrong man, I change ROMS every now and then, and I just backup my games and apps with Titanium Backup, install new ROM, and restore my apps, always works unless you mess up real bad
titanium backup pro (worth it for flashaholics) or zipme
---------- Post added at 08:19 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:18 PM ----------
Gingepie49 said:
After using titanium to restore user apps and data, some apps just force closed on opening unless I removed the data then it worked. Decided to restore from backup and give it up until 6.0 rom appears.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i have never had that issues on 5 different phones and multiple different roms... try rom toolbox or zipme
Finally gave it one last ditch attempt (well two, actually).
Tried flashing Sultan Cm12 rom, but it unroots the device so bailed on it.
Put latest Resurrection Remix on, restored user apps but was more careful about when I restored. Mostly Google apps and some xposed apps, some Robbie rom stuff that wasn't needed and voila! Posting this from a working rom! Had to reinstall xposed framework and Waze from scratch but that's fine.
Thanks for the support guys!

[XT1032] CM 12 - Flashing TWRP v2.8.6.0 has caused bootloop

Hello,
XT1032 CM 12 latest nightly (I think)
I flashed TWRP v2.8.6.0 using their manager app. I entered recovery mode and everything seemed to work fine. I made a NANDroid backup then rebooted. Unfortunately the device was then stuck at the bootlogo and kept looping. I can still access recovery and fastboot but for some reason adb doesn't see the device, nor can my device's data be access under Windows 7. I don't recall if I had USB debugging on or not. I would like to try to backup a few files to my computer (the backup for instance) but I am unable to since I can't use adb as the device is not recognized. MTP through TWRP doesn't seem to work either. I do have the Universal drive pack installed already on Windows.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time.
To start with, let's make sure the files you want still exist.
1. Boot into TWRP recovery
2. Go to "Mount" and check that your "Data" partition is selected
3. Go back and then go to "Advanced" and then to "File Manager"
4. Navigate around (maybe /sdcard/ ? Depends what you're looking for) and find the files you need
If you can't find your file, you'll need some more help. Let's say you do see your file. Do you have a USB-OTG cable? You could plug a USB drive into your phone and mount that. Then you could copy your file to that drive. If you don't have the cable you do have some other options, but let us know how far you get.
EDIT: I know I haven't addressed the problem of the bootloop at all. Many of those solutions involve wiping so we need to make sure you've backed up all the files you need first.
First of all thanks for the help. :good:
I've been trying to find a solution and in fact flashing CWM worked. I was able to adb pull all the files and make a backup.
I backed up the content of the sdcard. I tried restoring the CWM nandroid with data only so it did reinstall the apps but unfortunately all their data and settings are gone. Making a full restore just goes back to bricking. So I have the nandroid and the data manually backed up to a computer but no idea how to restore it.
I've tried pushing the nandroid back to /mnt/shell/emulated/clockworkmod/backup after an unsuccessful restore but now it doesn't even work. (protocol failure, the push command fails)
honestly at this point I think the best solution is just to make a clean install. In fact it would be a good idea to just reset the whole phone and start with a clean slate with CM13 including wiping system files and maybe manually restore some key files and configuration (I've got all the .com files of relevant apps)
Do you know how to do that? :laugh:
frustratedwhiteman said:
First of all thanks for the help. :good:
I've been trying to find a solution and in fact flashing CWM worked. I was able to adb pull all the files and make a backup.
I backed up the content of the sdcard. I tried restoring the CWM nandroid with data only so it did reinstall the apps but unfortunately all their data and settings are gone. Making a full restore just goes back to bricking. So I have the nandroid and the data manually backed up to a computer but no idea how to restore it.
I've tried pushing the nandroid back to /mnt/shell/emulated/clockworkmod/backup after an unsuccessful restore but now it doesn't even work. (protocol failure, the push command fails)
honestly at this point I think the best solution is just to make a clean install. In fact it would be a good idea to just reset the whole phone and start with a clean slate with CM13 including wiping system files and maybe manually restore some key files and configuration (I've got all the .com files of relevant apps)
Do you know how to do that? :laugh:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not really a Nandroid expert, but I can take a few shots in the dark. When you did your backup you got a TAR file for System and one for Data, etc., right? Then you convert those to IMGs? If you upgraded and then restored the system backup I can see why that would result in a boot loop. Restoring the data image shouldn't cause such problems though. Is this what you've tried so far? You're right, though. The safest method is to manually restore the data of just the apps where you need that data, and do it one at a time. This would allow you to pinpoint what is causing the issue. Of course, I may have no idea what I'm talking about. I've never actually needed to restore a Nandroid backup! Hopefully someone with more experience there will chime in.
I thought to hell with it I went and solved the issue by installing CM13
Thanks for taking the time to help and see you next time

Black screen after restoring nandroid backup

So yesterday I flashed Lineage OS on my X1541 from the stock rooted and TWRPed Lollipop and got it working just fine.
For some unknown reason, TB didn't save some of the apps I had there, and I'm missing some stuff I'd like to get back.
So I flashed back my Lollipop nandroid backup to get that data and get back to N, but the phone now shows just a lit black screen after the Motorola spinning worlds animations at boot.
I'd really like to get that data back. Can I get back my Lollipop or I am now stuck with Nougat?
I guess my backups are corrupt. All the Lollipop ones were made with Online Nandroid Backup, and all of them softbrick the Phone and give errors about being unable to locate and-sec and modem partitions. The LineageOS backup was made from TWRP and works fine.
I also tried to flash the stock rom and then flash system and data partitions from the backup, but no luck.
You can use TiBu to extract latest copies of your apps and data from the nandroid, just make sure you keep the backup in internal storage-
/storage/emulated/0/TWRP/backups/{serial}/
Go to Titanium backup>Menu>Extract from nandroid backup.
With a bit of luck, it should work. Best of luck.
Broadcasted from Zeta Reticuli
Made some progress, but it is still very far from where I want to go.
It seems that the culprit is the Xposed framework.
If I flash Xposed after restoring the nandroid backup, the phone goes past the bootloop and starts normally. It even optimizes the apps (building the Dalvik cache, I think), but I never get the prompt for the SIM card pin and the status bar says that no card is inserted.
I just get com.android.phone, gapps, launcher, etc crashed messages, but I can start the flashlight and see the recent apps list.
Disabling Xposed and modules makes the phone bootloop.
I wish I could know what is happening. adb logcat says that nothing is found.
BTW, can TiBu recover stuff from compressed nandroids?
If you are referring to the .win files of TWRP nandroid, yes TiBu can extract from that. The backup folder needs to be in the internal storage.
Broadcasted from Zeta Reticuli
BTW, LineageOS needs Marshmallow radios, it won't work with Lollipop radios, that is why you had no service on Lineage. You could have just flashed the radio pieces from the latest firmware ZIP for your device and been good to go.
And if Xposed is the problem, get the device working first, make a good backup, then dig into why Xposed doesn't work (or just skip it, it's on it's last legs anyway)
Otherwise, sound like @Gravemind2015 has you covered...
Actually, I had (and have) service on Lineage. It is the restored Lollipop which has no service. I never moved to Marshmallow.
BTW, restoring the nandroid backup and then doing rm -r /data/data allows the phone to complete boot without crashes and with everything working OK. Every app except the ones moved to SD is installed and everything is reset to defaults.
But then, restoring app data from TiBu makes the restored app crash, but that same data restored perfectly the apps in Lineage, even widgets.
Weird.
Ok. Got it working exactly as it was.
For the record:
1. Restore nandroid backup.
2. rm -r /data/data
3. Flash Xposed
4. Flash SuperSU
5. Restore app data from TiBu.
Only issues now are: WiFi not turning on, SD card not mounting at startup, chop chop to flashlight not working. Mobile data is working.
Also, TiBu warned me that device ID changed and restored the old one for me.
I still didn't flash Lineage after this so I can't really panic, but how screwed am I?
Edit: Wifi working in Lineage.
Edit 2: After restoring the Lollipop backup, I've got a notification from some Motorola app asking if I wanted to reinstall sensors firmware. I guess that's what changed the device ID and screwed up hardware related stuff. Tomorrow I'll try to flash Lollipop again, restore sensors data from TiBu and see what happens.
Well, I'm done. Back at Lollipop.
The hardware issue was tricky and after a few tries I didn't bother with that backup anymore. I finally restored the stock Lollipop, flashed Xposed and SuperSU and restored apps and data from Titanium Backup.
BTW, having flashed LineageOS and being back at Lollipop, did I actually downgrade?
Might as well try MM for osprey in the near future, but that won't happen in a few days. I want a bit of peace now.

Backup methods, .win versus .img, when to use each type?

When I used payload dumper on the OTA for this device I ended up with 34 .img files. When I used TWRP to backup all the partitions from the OxygenOS I end up with 12 .win files. When I used dd commands to get copies of boot_a & boot_b and persist, I end up with .img files. When I used dd commands to get EFS backup I ended up with modemst1.bin and modemst2.bin.
I have all these back ups now but I'm not sure which type of file to use and when.
I have TWRP and Lineage on my 8T and they're working great. But I'd like to now restore OxygenOS, install the latest OTA, re-install TWRP, then install a newer version of Lineage. There's a good chance I'll slip up and have to recover my phone at some point and I'd like to know first if I'm better off trying to get TWRP booted and then restoring all the .win backups, or if I should just flash all the .img files from the payload dumper.
Can anyone offer some tips or explain the difference?
Look in TWRP thread. It mentions what partitions to backup (and restore) when changing ROMs.
Look in TWRP thread. It mentions what partitions to backup (and restore) when changing ROMs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've read through that thread and made a lot of notes, but I guess I'm just wondering at this point, since we have a fully-functional TWRP is it the case that as long as I have the .win files from the TWRP backup of boot, dtbo, super and data partitions that should be all I need?
Persist.img & Modemst1/2.bin & boot_a/b.img can be discarded? Or would you keep these on hand for other reasons?
FakeGemstone said:
I've read through that thread and made a lot of notes, but I guess I'm just wondering at this point, since we have a fully-functional TWRP is it the case that as long as I have the .win files from the TWRP backup of boot, dtbo, super and data partitions that should be all I need?
Persist.img & Modemst1/2.bin & boot_a/b.img can be discarded? Or would you keep these on hand for other reasons?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Persist and modem images presumably contain IMEI information, so better keep them somewhere safe. Boot_a/b.img can be discarded.
It's starting to make sense. Thank you for your explanation.
My phone had Lineage and TWRP installed and was running great, but I wanted to try out the backup and restore option of TWRP. So I backed up /data then used TWRP to restore the OxygenOS to the version I was using right before I installed Lineage. I restored OxygenOS to both slots and also I formatted /data.
After doing an minimal setup on OxygenOS, taking a quick look around to see if everything looked okay and rebooting to system a couple of times, I used TWRP to install LineageOS again. That seemed to work fine. I did minimal setup, took a look around, rebooted a couple of times, so far; so good.
I then followed the instructions from theincognito on Steps for backing up and restoring data in TWRP to restore the data partition:
It seemed to work fine, except I was never presented with a blank screen (a clue?) and the phone just booted to system normally. My apps and settings appeared to be restored BUT the 3-button system navigation icons (home/back/switchapps) were missing. So whenever I navigated away from the home screen there was no way to get back except to reboot the phone. It didn't matter if I switched to 2-button navigation or gesture navigation, none of it worked. So I guess the navigation options are all apps and those apps malfunctioned when /data was restored. Also, I could not enable Advanced Restart for the Power Menu. That's probably a system app, too. I didn't have a password on the phone at any time, or a SIM card installed. I know the TL;DR instructions in post #3 say that you should just reboot to system again if you have this problem, but doing so didn't fix the problem for me. I must have made a mistake at some point.
I ended up wiping the phone, doing a clean install of Lineage and setting up the apps and preferences the old-fashioned way.
I'd like to try this again to see if I can get it to work. Does anyone have suggestions of what went wrong?
Should I have tried restoring /data a second time before giving up and wiping the phone?
Does the fact I didn't get the expected blank screen after restoring /data have any significance?
Did the problem more likely originate with the backup process or the restore process?
Oh boy, it just dawned on me... Should I have also restored the backup of Boot/dtbo/Super? I assumed those wouldn't change if you were restoring to the exact same version of Lineage so I didn't bother with it.
I stumbled across a trick to get the restored data backup working again. I went to Settings --> Apps & Notifications --> App Info. Then I selected the option "Show System" from the list at the top with the 3 vertical dots. From the list of apps I selected 3-button navigation and then selected "force stop". After that, I rebooted and all the settings that were missing before were magically back in place, and both the Status Bar and the Navigation Bar were functioning and configured just the way I had them when I did the backup. I don't know anything about how system apps work so I can't explain why this helped, but I tested it twice with fresh installations of LineageOS and it worked exactly the same both times.
I should add that between this post and the one above from February 1st, I have re-installed Oxygen OS many times using old and new OTA zips, and installed Lineage OS several times, first on one slot then the other. And each time I've restored various back ups of LineageOS system files and LineageOS data files following the instructions, but always the result was a partial restoration of user configurations and missing status and navigation bars. I wonder that I'm the only person who found that booting twice after a data restore didn't bring back those menus. But hopefully if it happens to someone else they'll find this post and know what to do.

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