Exploring files - Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

So I'm new to android and the tb but managed to root mine and have some fun, but how do I go about finding all files associated with a particular program? Specifically I uninstalled what I thought was Visual voice mail, but to my surprise it remains. Any help?
Thanks
Dave

You can try different file managers, astro pro or root explorer.

Use root explorer or astro, as stated above. Apps that came pre-installed on your phone are located in the /system/app folder, while apps that you installed yourself are in /data/app. If you are trying to uninstall something from the /system/app folder, I would recommend just renaming the apk from "appname.apk" to "appname.apk.bak" (This essentially uninstalls the app, while backing it up).
Some apps in the system folder can cause problems if they are renamed. If you do have any problems from a renamed app you can just use adb from recovery to remove the ".bak" extension and you are back to square one! If you are worried about space, you can go ahead and delete the file completely as long as you have successfully rebooted with no issues after renaming the file(s). Hope this helps!

Thanks a lot, I'm as far from a programmer/developer as you can get but I'm excited to learn now that I finally have a phone worth voiding the warranty on!

Related

AstroFileManager ?'s

rooted
bamf 1.6.3
ok i know this isn't an astro fourm but any advice would be appreciated.
in astro file manager Ver 2.5.2, navigating to /data returns (directory is empty) there are other directories which i expect to have files or sub directs that return the same result. is this a free Vs. pro issue. am i missing something?
i like the app but don't want to upgrade if this is glitch of the app.
additionally there is "busy" icon rotating around in the lower portion of the window whenever i open astro and continues to rotates as busy continuously
thanks
mark
would another app with similar functionality be recommended?
Buy Root Explorer
Sent from my T-Bolt
second root explorer. its well worth the $2 or whatever it costs. astro doesn't show anything because it cant access the rooted portion of your phone, only the sd card
I'm pretty sure I've gotten Astro into the Root of my phone... Maybe I'm imagining things.
BAMF includes an adblock. The free Astro usually has ads on the bottom. You see the busy icon because the ad is never downloaded.
Astro also shows my /data directory as empty. Root Explorer sees everything just fine.
ERIFNOMI said:
I'm pretty sure I've gotten Astro into the Root of my phone... Maybe I'm imagining things.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use root explorer but once when I flashed a Rom it wouldn't install from titanium backup or the market so I had to use Astro and it worked just fine replacing files in the system, I changed the boot animation and the Adobe file to get Hulu to work on my X.
ERIFNOMI said:
I'm pretty sure I've gotten Astro into the Root of my phone... Maybe I'm imagining things.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if you could share how thatd be great. farthest ive gotten it is to show / which should be root... but only three folders. two are empty and one is sd card
You need root explorer. Astro rocks for the simple things. Moving files around, creating new folders and emptying your ever full "download" folder into things you want to keep, and deleting things you don't. It will allow you to view pictures, and video directly inside it. And has a nicer look and feel than root explorer. However, it won't get you into that data or system folder like RE will. I use astro for mundane tasks, and RE for it's extraction abilities, and data folder. Both are nice to have.
astro is cool for simply moving files around and exploring files. But if you wanna see whats on your phone, buy root explorer. Its pretty amazing.
But...pair astro and root explorer...then its ok. But you would have to mount r/w with root explorer before using astro...which is a drag.

[Q] installed app. app disapeared. cant reinstall

ok.... I have Samsung Fascinate.
PWGB2.0 beta3 ROM
I found the zip containing on here(XDA) somewhere containing the BuddiesNow app for my phone and installed it. I then found the BuddiesNow for Vibrant tweaked for the Fascinate. I went to /system/app and located my BuddiesNow I had placed in there 1st and renamed it .bak
I then placed the Vibrant BuddiesNow app in the /system/app folder.
It worked great. I discovered I liked the Vibrant BuddiesNow app much better.
*************
ok... now my issue. I picked my phone up ealier this week and went to use my Vibrant BuddiesNow app and it was gone. I then long pressed the blank screen and pressed Widgets from the list that popped up. I scroll thru the list and BuddiesNow does not show up in the list.
I then open my file manager and navigate to /system/app folder and BuddiesNow is not in there. Not even the .bak file version.
I then go to my SDcard and find the copy of the Vibrant BuddiesNow app I had originally stored in a folder there and tried to copy it to the /system/app folder. The error message pops up saying that the file already exist and cant paste the file here.
I then booted into recovery, tried wiping partition cache and dalvik cache.
That did not help any. Got same result when I tried to move the file to /system/app folder again.
I then thought I would be cleaver and rename the Vibrant BuddiesNow in my SDcard folder to [BuddiesNow.apk.grid] and then move it to the /system/app folder. AND THEN AFTER PLACING IN THE /system/app FOLDER, RENAME IT TO .APK
That did not work either! It also diappeared.... now I have BuddiesNow.apk,
BuddiesNow.apk.bak, BuddiesNow.apk.grid, all in the /system/app folder and all invisible.
I had the file manager settings to SHOW HIDDEN FILES from the beginning.
I also have tried the SEARCH function in the file manager but it shows no results. I have tried installing many file manager apps and attempting to see if a different file manager would show the files but none did.....
I tried to write this episode as short as possible.. this is the best I could do to cover al the bases...
what could be a fix????????? PLEASE ADVISE! I LOVE MY BUDDIESNOW!
Come one...anyone? I love my buddiesnow app. Please help me out here
hard to belive
hard to believe someone has not seen this before and has an idea how to fix it...
I love this forum anyways
File exists, How about overwrite the file?
Accidentally sent from my Google Nexus S using XDA Premium
melvinchng said:
File exists, How about overwrite the file?
Accidentally sent from my Google Nexus S using XDA Premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OVERWRITE FILE is not an option to choose... in this particular problem with this
particular apk disappearance, the option to overwrite is not there.
I have had the overwrite option at other times but not now with this issue fo who know what reason.
I am going to factory reset I guess and start over.
hasn't anyone else had the same issue?
Not sure if this would be helpful but when I had a similar issue I just used titanium backup and found the file that "already existed" and removed it. Also, you can use any file manager that allows you to sort by date modified and look for any buddynow files that may be in a folder that you didn't think about looking in
did you maybe moved the app to your sdcard ? sometimes app's widgets wont show if you move them to sdcard.If you did so move it back to the phone's memory
YoungSinema said:
Not sure if this would be helpful but when I had a similar issue I just used titanium backup and found the file that "already existed" and removed it. Also, you can use any file manager that allows you to sort by date modified and look for any buddynow files that may be in a folder that you didn't think about looking in
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used the search function in the various file managers I have tried & even searched the entire phone (and also the /system/app )for he disappeared files and got no results...when I get some time next week I am going to sit down and factory reset my phone and start all over.
if it works I will not try the vibrant version of buddiesnow on my phone again,
I will just use the fascinate version of buddiesnow. (the vibrant version sure was nicer tho)....

[Q] looking for the apk files that was downloaded from playstore

Hi
I'm getting the new s 3 and I want to install all the same software I currently have on my s 2. Some of the software is no longer available in the play store so I'm trying to find out where the apk files that you download from the play store are downloaded to. So does anybody know the file path... Oh i'm running OS 4 ice cream
If you phone is rooted then you can go into root\data\app and find the apks. And again, if you're rooted then a better way is to just use Titanium Backup. If not rooted then redownload the apps.
Play store will display all the apps you have downloaded, if u r going to use the same Google id. This has helped a lot while changing roms.
Go backup is available in the market, it doesn't require root for backing up apks.
I can't see them in this directory
ninjasstolemytv said:
If you phone is rooted then you can go into root\data\app and find the apks. And again, if you're rooted then a better way is to just use Titanium Backup. If not rooted then redownload the apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't see them in this directory
tommyga said:
I can't see them in this directory
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The folder is actually /data/app. Not root/data/app.
And if you don't have root, I don't think you'll be able to see anything in the folder. (or in the data folder at all, for that matter)
Under /data/app you'll find a few hundred folders, one for each app you have installed. They also may have been moved to the external sdcard if you chose to do so.
The best option, IMO, to have the APK files readily available is to install ES Explorer (free, available at the Play Store), and use to backup all the applications to the external sdcard. This way you can simply get all the ready-to-be-installed APK files from a single location, instead of having to iterate through each of the directories in /data/app (which is a PITA).
I use ES Explorer not only to backup all the APKs to a single location, but also to backup different versions of the same app, because ES Explorer suffixes the name of the APK with its version number.
A lot easier and quite more practical.
BTW, you don't need root to use that feature of ES Explorer.
Simonetti2011 said:
Under /data/app you'll find a few hundred folders, one for each app you have installed. They also may have been moved to the external sdcard if you chose to do so.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There shouldn't be any folders in /data/app
pspec1 said:
Hi
I'm getting the new s 3 and I want to install all the same software I currently have on my s 2. Some of the software is no longer available in the play store so I'm trying to find out where the apk files that you download from the play store are downloaded to. So does anybody know the file path... Oh i'm running OS 4 ice cream
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try this: Install "Wondershare MobileGo" to PC,after you have installed, connect your SGS2 with WiFi or USB cable to PC and export app. to PC. Then Connect SGS3 with WiFi or USB cable to PC and install the same app from PC to your phone...It is easy to do...
Simonetti2011 said:
Under /data/app you'll find a few hundred folders, one for each app you have installed. They also may have been moved to the external sdcard if you chose to do so.
The best option, IMO, to have the APK files readily available is to install ES Explorer (free, available at the Play Store), and use to backup all the applications to the external sdcard. This way you can simply get all the ready-to-be-installed APK files from a single location, instead of having to iterate through each of the directories in /data/app (which is a PITA).
I use ES Explorer not only to backup all the APKs to a single location, but also to backup different versions of the same app, because ES Explorer suffixes the name of the APK with its version number.
A lot easier and quite more practical.
BTW, you don't need root to use that feature of ES Explorer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for all the different methods I ended up use the explorer one.
Didn’t use ES Explorer as I had astro already installed so I used that.
One more function I didn’t know it had
Thanks again

[Q] cant restore seccalendarprovider

I used the 'uninstall' app to remove the seccalendarprovier.apk which moves it to another folder they call the "recycle bin". Anyways I realized I need that because it's the back end of the calendar so I tried to restore it from the recycle bin and it fails. So I used a file manager to mount /system/app and manually copied to .apk, .odex and .conf back. I confirmed the files are there but the calendar app wont work. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?
smalco44 said:
I used the 'uninstall' app to remove the seccalendarprovier.apk which moves it to another folder they call the "recycle bin". Anyways I realized I need that because it's the back end of the calendar so I tried to restore it from the recycle bin and it fails. So I used a file manager to mount /system/app and manually copied to .apk, .odex and .conf back. I confirmed the files are there but the calendar app wont work. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
looks like it needs to be in /system/priv-app instead of /system/app. Moving it there appears to have fixed it. Apparently "uninstall" app can't handle copying files there...

Weird permissions issue

So I've got a problem and hopefully it's not something stupid that I've done. I got my 6p yesterday and immediately did a nandroid backup and flashed Pure Nexus (and SuperSU 2.67). For some reason I'm totally unable to download, delete, etc, a lot of the files on/to internal memory. If I try to delete a file from the root of /sdcard/ it works, but if I try to delete something in /sdcard/Download/ it doesn't work. I checked permissions for files within /sdcard/Download/ and the permissions are rw-rw----. If I go into Root Explorer and try to add Execute permissions it tells me the change was not successful. Any ideas?
Ok so I figured it out. When I got my new phone I copied files from my old phone to my computer, then copied them back to my new phone. I swear I've done that before without issue but apparently this time it messed up permissions big time. I was able to rename the folders via PC and create new folders via Solid Explorer, but still couldn't move/delete the files. I ended up booting to TWRP and was able to delete the folders using the file explorer there.

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