[Completed] How to recover an SMS.DB from a crashed phone. Messages from a deceased person... - XDA Assist

Hello Android gurus,
I would be VERY gratefull if someone can help me with this:
Short version: A week ago a very good girlfriend send me a couple of SMS messages. I only could read some of them and then... my phone started to bug, install all kinds of cr*p etc. To try to solve the problem I reinitialized the phone, (after making a backup on an SDcard) , tried a hard reset, but nothing. Brought it to a shop but they said "nop, we cannot restore it properly". Finally I bought a new phone. So that's not the problem. Unfortunately, a couple of hours after she send me her last messages this girlfriend died from cancer, and I would have liked to read what she wrote to me. So I have this SDcard where I found a file sms.db which (I suppose) contains these messages. Is there any way to recover what's in there? I don't need it on my new phone. Any format would be fine. A text file or whatever.
Long version:
2 years ago I bought an Huawei G740. And because it had a lot of bloatware on it I rooted it with SuperSU. Don't ask me how, because this was 2 years ago and I don't remember how I did it. I have some reasonable IT skills , but I'm far from an Android guru. Anyway, phone worked fine for 2 years without any problems. Then, as described above, just after I received these messages from her (and I didn't have time to read), my phone was powered off. Don't know why because I never power it off. When I started it again, it started to install all kinds of cr*p. Useless apps, links to porn sites, popup windows with adds etc. And worse, the whole phone became unusable. It kept switching from one application to the other, showing all kinds of ads etc. So I decided to do a reset from the parameter menu (backup on SD card and reinitialise). That didn't solve the problem. So I did a hard rest (Power+volume up) and wiped everything. Same problem. As soon as I start it, all cr*p comes back. So I brought it to a "professional phone repair shop". Next day the verdict was "No, we cannot do anything because of this SuperSU app". And I bought a new phone (a Samsung Galaxy). So my phone problem is solved, but now remains the question : how do I recover the sms messages that are on this SD card???
I would be EXTREMELY grateful if someone can recover what's in there. I can send the sms.db (or any other file that you may require) to whoever thinks he can recover it.
Thank you very much.

Thank you very much!
I had a look at the link but that's complete wizardry for me.
I don't have a rooted phone and I don't want to restore all my apps, data, pics etc. I don't want to restore anything on my new phone. Just recover what's in the SMS database into a file (txt or excel or whatever).
Is it enough if I send you the SMS.db? If so how to send it to you?
Thank you

Hi !
I`m afraid that isn`t possible to just use that file on a different device and read the messages , this is not how it works with the android providers files, you can use it only on the same device and OS that it was created before
There are third-party applications which can backup the specific files suck sms/mms/calls and the created file can be used only by that application
The only possible solution for you may be to fully restore a nandroid backup with that file inside and to have a working system
For more info just google it " sms.db "
Good luck !

Related

Replaced SIM Card -- Now Can't Log In!

I really hope someone can help me with this, because I'm going crazy.
This will require a little history, so bear with me. A couple of weeks ago, I lost my Fuze. Last week, I bought a cheap (prepaid) AT&T GoPhone and called AT&T to have my number transferred to it. I used that phone successfully for several days, until this morning, when my lost phone showed up!
I was ecstatic, thinking that now I'd finally be able to sleep again p), but my excitement changed to disappointment after spending 30 or 40 minutes on the phone with AT&T, explaining my situation over and over to get them to understand what I needed, then following their instructions, and finding that my phone wouldn't work.
They informed me that my old SIM card had been disabled and was therefore useless, and suggested that I put the card from my GoPhone in my Fuze. I did so, but when I then turned the phone on, I got this message:
*****
Owner: Keith Russell
(xxx) xxx-xxxx
Enter your password and tap "Unlock". You can also enter an emergency phone number.
*****
My phone has been passworded in the past, but not recently, because I was trying to resolve some problems and was doing a lot of soft resets and didn't want to have to deal with the logon security. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure the message I was seeing was one I had never seen before. Nevertheless, I tried all the passwords I could think of that I had used on the phone in the past, but none of them worked. Every time, I got this message:
The password you typed is incorrect.
I called AT&T again, and this time spent over an hour on the phone with an AT&T rep and later, an HTC rep. We tried several default passwords, which also didn't work, and the HTC rep finally had me do a hard reset.
I installed my registered version of Sprite Backup 6.5 and restored my most recent good backup. The restore was successful and the application did a soft reset when it was done. Things seemed to be working fine and I spent a couple of hours cleaning up duplicate or large notes to free up memory. I also emptied the recycle bin in Resco Explorer. I then did a soft reset, thinking that might help with the cleanup.
Believe it or not, when the soft reset completed, I got the unlock prompt again!
So I'm stuck. I'm hesitant to do yet another hard reset and restore, because I expect that the same thing would happen again, eventually. I'm also not very excited about calling AT&T Support, because they didn't seem to know any more than I did about this problem.
I have no idea where this unlock prompt is coming from: whether it's hardware, firmware, OS, or application specific. I do have Pocket Secure installed and it's possible that that's what causing it; I just don't know.
Can anyone tell me what's causing this and how I can get around it?
Thanks very, very much for any suggestions you can provide.
u cant do a full restore with sprite as what ever it has that makes the prompt will come back, do custom dont add anything but your contacts and messages.

[Q] HTC phone wiped out - please help

Hi all -
I bought an HTC Touch pro Sprint phone, brand new, original and from the store and have had it for 3.5 years. Today, it froze and was running low on battery. I did a soft re-set with the stylus, something I've done many times over the years and I set the phone to recharge. It instead re-booted and wiped out all my data - contacts, text messages, voice mails, note files, pictures, apps and software I had downloaded. The phone restarted from scratch. It runs windows 6.1. How may I retrieve this data?
I am extremely upset as this information is essential and irreplaceable. I spoke to a computer data retrieving specialist who said it is possible to retrieve this information and not to use my phone till I get help. My phone is also my source of internet access at this moment. I am stranded and writing from a store. I know of this brilliant site - your site - from before, though I've not posted here before. If you can help me, I'd be so, so, so grateful. Thank you!
First of all don't put any data on your phone it will only write over the maybe recoverable space of your deleted files.
I dont know very much about your phone but if your able too connect it on USB as mass storage there is a chance you could recover it with:
Recuva
As i am a newby to these forums i can't post any links so just google recuva and than click the first link you'l get ..
Good luck..

[Q] error with ACORE Droid Proccess

This is my first post. I am not a programer, well not for 30 years and not since my backups were on a tape, but am fairly good at fixing my own issues with the help of this site, which much of is way over my head. I have don't everything in every thread that I can find here and have some more information that might help everyone figure out this issue.
Phone is a non-rooted EVO 4G lte. Screen captures below should give you all the specifics that you need. If you need more info, please email me!
I get a break from error after I delete contact info/cache from both Contact Storage and People (contacts) apps.
I started having the problem a few days ago and the last three things I installed were:
Adobe Flash (got it from this site and have now disabled and would like to totally remove if any of you know how to do that. There is not option in the settings/apps/adobe to uninstall, just disable.
Skype which I have removed.
2012/3 Live Wall Paper, also removed
I have reset the phone, unmounted and remounted the SD card, moved programs that use contacts from SD card back to phone storage and as I said removed all contacts, disabled Smooth sync for the cloud and the JB workaround and still after all most of the contacts are resynced form Google, the error starts to appear. It doesn't lock up my phone, but occasionally crashes app that I am working in. ROYAL PAIN.
So in short, 1. How can I totally get rid of Flash?
2. Is there someway to do a repair on my contact database without rooting phone
3. There is java mentioned in the error message, I didn't think Droid used java (see how little I really know, so be nice) is there a way to update that service?
4. Other than a hard reset AGAIN, what can I do! (Or after all this would that work this time? I hate going to all that effort and still have same issues) Is there a way to force a reinstall of JB?
I realize that I know just enough to be dangerous, but can follow detailed direction to fix this. I go through way too many phone to root my current phone and take the chance that Sprint wouldn't replace it. I never have a phone last more than a year! And the last quarter of of 2012 I went through 5 phones. Galaxy Nexus didn't like me!
Thanks for the great site and in advance for taking the time to read all of this.
More Info
I have also been deactivating Facebook and that wasn't helping, but many people were saying that was an issue.
Those of us that just started having this issue think it might be a date issue. Is here anything that could do this if someone's b'day is the 29th of February?
I have one of those people and that seems like a strange issue, but heck, humans programs this stuff so I guess anything is possible! It makes sense that a value in a contact field is causing the issue, but a date that only exists every 4 years?
I have not had the error since i fixed this, BUT only about 500 of my 2,500 contacts are installed and I have yet to re enable facebook.
Thanks again!
Pat

The Elephant In The Room...

Hi, this is my first post here, after many years as a lurker. I have recently encountered an issue for which there doesn't seem to be a solution.
I have lost data (mainly photos and videos) after I accidentally deleted them, when I set up my cloud account, a long story that I won't bore you with..
In every single instance of similar issues over the years with all my android phones, [starting with the mighty HTC G1, and through many HTCs and now finally to the Huawei p20 pro],I have come up against a data loss that is genuinely non-recoverable.
All other android phones will allow 3rd party sofware access (sometimes with a small quick root install) to the phone.
The huawei is the first phone I have encountered that deliberately inhibits this. In order to get root access, I have to factory reset the phone.
This is a major issue, and one that I think would have put me off purchasing this phone had I known about it.
There simply is no way to retrieve lost data on a phone if you had not rooted it prior to the data loss.
How frustrating it is, to know that due to me being a silly billy and setting my cloud to delete local pics after upload, (then deleting the cloud thinking I had local copies), has cost me dearly.
The pics are still there to be recovered, but i can not ever get access.. to my own data, on my own phone, due to the firmware.
I think its time to finally go Samsung.
Please someone tell me I've missed something obvious, and that there is a way to retrieve these pics?
Tal.
I want to get my bootloader code first

Whatsapp backup restoring

I'm actually in a very serious problem as I have a problem with restoring my whatsapp messages please help me asap I uninstalled my whatsapp on 16th July and last I backed up it on 7th July. Now when I try to restore the messages after reinstalling it shows my google account but it doesn't show the size of backup and also it says no Internet connection please help me. Also my whatsapp images and whatsapp videos folders have disappeared. I really want to get back my chats. Hope someone will really help me as it means alot to me now
Connect to a wifi or a hotspot, or get better signal then H+
Kenora_I said:
Connect to a wifi or a hotspot, or get better signal then H+
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm already using WiFi and I tried using mobile data as well both didn't help and I tried reseting network settings and all still it didn't work out
ruinaaaa said:
I'm already using WiFi and I tried using mobile data as well both didn't help and I tried reseting network settings and all still it didn't work out
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you check your google account the backup.
It could be app problem, try resetting and other stuff.
Kenora_I said:
Did you check your google account the backup.
It could be app problem, try resetting and other stuff.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey yes I checked it as well in google drive it shows the backup I can't restore it locally because I deleted the whatsapp databases like or two months ago will it affect this
Try clearing the data and cache of whatsapp or reinstall it.
Kenora_I said:
Try clearing the data and cache of whatsapp or reinstall it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried this too and tried so many things.I watched so many youtube videos and searched a lot in google as well still couldn't find any possible way to recover
Albert83BCN said:
Hi guys!
I have been facing this issue this whole week while trying to move all my chats to a new phone I just bought as with the old one the charging port was dying and I could not bear it anymore. So almost everything restored smoothly from Google Backup and it was like being in my phone again with a few wizard steps but then I Installed WhatsApp (WA) and gone through the typical activation and restoring process and. as many, I got stuck at the 24% sometimes, some others 31% and 39%, and never got past the 39%.
I Tried almost everything: restoring from Google Drive, transfer all WhatsApp directory to internal storage and trying to restore from there, etc. Going back to the old phone to create fresh backups just in case they were corrupted as many people suggests, getting every time more delay to be able to activate WhatsApp again up to 12h for both SMS and call activation... just to mess again and feel back at square one, I guess you all feel the pain.
Well, the good news is that I finally managed to restore all the chat history!!! (well, cannot be certain that 100% was restored but I do not miss anything ATM and I can go back up to 2012 chats so I guess that qualifies as "everything" hehe).
So, I'm posting here because I've been searching a lot on the forums and the reddit and for all the people that is having this issue recently, almost no body came back to report success and I know it feels really discouraging It certainly gives the impression that this issue has no fix at all, and that you should accept losing all the chat history and starting from the start again. But from all the data I've been gathering during this week, at least two or three people reported to eventually being able to restore the chat; they fell in one of these two categories: they either transferred to a different phone where the backup seemed to restore okay, and then exported and restored in the target phone with success (something like a "bridge" restore mode, most of the cases I've read did it this way) or they finally succeeded by sheer brute force by trying again and again and again.
I fall in this 2nd category. In the most recent attempt I was doing what I've been doing again and again and again with just minor variations in the workflow and finally succeeded. TL; DR; I think in reality in many cases attempts could succeed by just letting the phone restore the backup endlessly, by not giving up and assuming the restore process went wrong when it has been stuck forever at either 24, 31 or 39% and force closing..
But I know in the midst of desperation OCD kicks in and you want step-by-step success case scenario reproduction so I will tell you all the steps that I followed that I can remember that got me to finally have the backup to end successfully:
0. First of all, in the winning attempt I had already uninstalled WA from the new phone and removed totally the WA folder in the internal storage / sdcard storage. Not sure this is mandatory but just to tell this was the case.
1. Since I got WA working perfectly on the old phone at every moment, I backed up locally for the Nth f%!?&ยท( time. This left me with the latest local backup plus a few others in the databases folder as a result of keep messing up.
2. I copied the full WhatsApp directory from the internal storage of the old phone to a safe place. This could be the PC or whatever, but PC transfer via USB seems too sloppy. You maybe could do it via ADB, whatever, I went by the route of coping it to the external SD with some random explorer utility like ES File Explorer. It does not matter, the point is to be able to backup the full WhatsApp folder in order to restore it as similar as possible as the original. What we are more interested right now is in the database folder but having all images, videos etc in place will help in getting it like before the easiest way. (Disclaimer: Ok guys sorry if some steps are too obvious to XDA users which usually are highly educated in the matter, but I was thinking of sharing/linking this text on the reddit and others, so please bear with it).
3. I installed latest WA in the new phone, opened the app (I intended to not open but I somewhat forgot) and got to the welcome screen, immediately closed the app at that step.
3. I restored the full folder to the new phone internal storage, pure copy/paste style (as said, in my case via the SD since both phones have SD slot and was very convenient, but via USB, cloud, etc. can be done).
4. I went to the databases folder and only kept the msgstore.db.crypt12 file and the latest backup with a date (ie: msgstore-2019-11-21.db.crypt12), deleted the rest. Honestly I do not think this is crucial but I somewhat wanted to make it easier for WA to know which one to target, I thought about keeping only the msgstore.db.crypt12 but some random dude pointed that the one with the date was needed. I was under the assumption that file structure is identical in both but just wanted to get done with this and keep both, just in case.
5. Before opening again the WA to try to activate and restore with this full local copy, I opened the Android settings app and went to applications > whatasapp > storage, as suggested by user redweaver, thanks for the tip! by keeping looking at the storage usage of the app during the restore process we could get insight about if it was really doing something or the app was really stuck. Keep open for now. In my case, I saw also on the old phone that my data used for the app was 780+ MB, so I had an idea of what should be on the new phone by the time it finished (if it did!).
5b. I don't think this is really necessary but I did it just in case. I was planning to go to work and let the thing running as long as it would need, and I would make sure that the process would get maximum uptime and nothing would get in the way. So I went to Applications > WhatsApp > Battery usage (or something like it) and disabled the battery optimizations for this app. I also went to the developer mode settings and enabled do not lock the phone while it is charging and everything that looked like it might be relevant. Again, most likely this has nothing to do, but reproducible steps, right?
6. Now open WA and activate it as usual, but when it seems that the activation step ended and you go to the next screen, immediately put the phone in air plane mode or disable data/WiFi, whatever. The goal is that it cannot reach Google Drive to look for the online backup. Honestly maybe in the end is not the culprit of GDrive but many people states that the GD backup is broken at this time and suggests going the local route, so we will do it like this.
7. WA should tell you that looking for the backup is going too slow and to skip this step (sorry to not have exact message, I have it in Spanish, but something in these lines, BTW excuse my somewhat limited English ). The point here is to click on the link that says skip the step and when you are prompted with a popup, click also on Skip.
8. WA will display the typical restore / transfer-like screen where the process starts. At this point you have to enable again data plan / WiFi at least or exit air plane mode, don't know really but even if restoring from local it complains about not having internet connection, maybe needs it to encrypt with the key or something? don't know.
9. Now is the feared moment! Even this time, I got somewhat stuck at 31% again. I left it do its thing, and some time later, it prompted for the popup that has a progress-bar from 0 to 100 (honestly, what is the difference between both?!) which also got stuck at 31%. If you let it be, it starts going back and forth many times, I guess maybe its going chat per chat and the progress-bar represents each one? Dunno. Thing is, even in the prior attempts I got at this point and the backup did not finish successfully. But this time I was decided to let it do its thing as much time as it would take, until the end. In the process the phone might display a pop up saying that WA does not respond. I clicked a few times in the 'keep waiting' option, then I just forgot because I did not have time to mess with it and hoped that it was still working on the background, which bring us to step 10.
10. While we are contemplating the backup process, we can go to the settings app again and look how the internal data is going for the WA. In my case, after some time under the restore process, when I went there I saw WA had occupied 0.91 GB of data space. After going back and forth again between WA and settings, the usage keep growing: 0.96, 1.03, 1.10... I thought it was on the right track, and encouraged me to keep waiting. Maybe in the end the process is too slow for old databases. Note that some people speculates that having messages from very long ago might be the culprit here due to changes in the table structure and that this might be the reason breaking the restore process. And maybe it is the case, but even if it is, in my case I finally succeeded where previously I didn't and without deleting anything, so this does not seem to be a deal-breaker or I would have never succeeded. I say it because some people reported that deleting old conversations and trying again finally made them succeed. Now I suspect the true reason was simply that by making the database smaller the process finished earlier, but YMMV.
11. Cannot be totally sure, but in my case, I noticed that leaving WA on the background and clicking on the WA icon again might stop the process for true and bring a message about not being able to recover the chats, I got this previously, do not try to open the WA normally, only leave it temporally to look to the space usage in the settings to get back to it by swyping between recent apps to keep the same instance open and working, this was a key point in my success trial that did not happen during the previous ones.
12. And finally, while I kept switching between WA and the settings and when I last saw like 1.30GB of space used (almost twice the space compared to the old phone, maybe it leaves a lot of temp data) I don't know if I either messed with the app-switching or it really finished, but then I got prompted to the screen where you enter your name or nickname. And when I completed this step, I finally got to the chats screen and everything was like in the old phone! Where previously I would get to a lot of empty chat rooms with maybe 40 total messages restored according to WA. Hurray!
Notice that in my case it was still reporting 31% on the WA background screen under the progress bar popup when it finished!! so it seems that is not really mandatory to experience the 100% complete to have it work in the end, but YMMV.
OK, maybe not the most elegant "guide" out there but I wrote it in a hurry and my english sucks, I just hope it might help someone to not lose their WA chats forever.
Good luck!
Edit: I almost forgot but, for the sake of completeness. I also tried a certain script that can backup WA from the phone and retrieve the encryption key, it will also leave an unencrypted copy of the chats database that can later be viewed with a WhatsApp viewer like this. The script is called WhatsApp Key/DB Extractor, and it still works as of 2019, just look at the latest posts in the thread. Guys here on XDA most likely know about it but if not, you might give it a try. I tried it because I assumed that maybe I could circumvent the restore issues by going that route and pushing the backup via ADB, but turns out the legacy WA won't prepare the database due to the time out of sync issue, or at least the data seemed to be lost after performing the restore process, and the unencrypted database on the PC cannot be digested by WA latest versions by just putting it into the internal storage directly according to what other users commented. But, if you finally give up trying the restore process, it still could be relieving to know that you keep a local copy in the PC that can be viewed with another PC tool, at least you get a backup and the conversations are there, in a different way though. Maybe in the future there's a process that can restore them again to a different phone, and you could then merge the new chat database with the older backup with tools like Merjeapp.
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Click to collapse
This has the solution
Kenora_I said:
This has the solution
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you but today I read this in the afternoon. This guy has solved it through whatsapp databases but I don't have a way go backup locally as I deleted my whatsapp databases two months ago. All I can do is recovering from google drive but the thing in this guy's scenario his chat was actually being restoring but I can't even do that since it says that I have an Internet connection problem

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