[Q] Can't find/install .apk files? - Galaxy S III Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

So I was having some issues with my S3. Boiled down to a factory data reset. Used TiBu to back everything up. For some reason decided to re-backup a game cause I wasn't sure if it had been initially. Used Astro for all of this. Had the new game backup on the internal, moved the whole folder (with just the game files in it) to the SD card and merged it with the similarly named folder on my SD card. Popped the SD card out, did the FDR. And here's where everything went wrong.
Firstly the message "Unfortunately, Messages has stopped working" appears every time I start my phone and the Messages app freezes the phone whenever opened, this has caused me to have to get a replacement phone. But the main issue was when I opened TiBu to restore, and none of my backups were there, nor were they on the card itself anymore.
Somehow they were deleted or corrupted or something when I merged the two folders. So I found a data recovery program which was able to find all of the "com.android" blah blah files from the back up. I restored a few of them to test it out, put them back on my phone, I can see them in Astro, but no app installer will detect them. Wtf?? So close...
I was devastated with this loss, so much data in there. So when this program was able to find it all again, a sparkle of hope appeared. Please tell me I'm just missing some crucial little step here, the files look exactly like the original backup files. Same size, combination of numbers, everything. Non-Market Installation is checked and I'm rooted on stock. Please someone be my savior!!

well..... you can go back completely to square one by flashing a stock firmware you can get them from sammobile.com
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium

Hm, well your response is much appreciated. However, that's pretty much the exact opposite of what I want to do. I'm trying to restore .apk files that I can see in Astro but AppInstaller won't detect, not flash back to stock.
Thanks anyways...

Related

[Q] Lidroid recovery

I had Lidroid 2.4 before and that gave me CWM lidroid version
I reflashed to stock JFD, flashed stock 2.3 JVH from ODIN then flashed Tweaky on top of it
Someone all my 3rd party apps turned grey after I rebooted Tweaky. I installed them, I stayed in android, they are fine but as soon as I restarted the phone, all icons turned grey and say "app not installed" when I tried to launch.
The update.zip in my SD is a clockwork 2.0, if I chose to flash it in CWM lidroid, it does give me pure CWM 2.0 back but it doesn't stay permanent. As soon as I restarted, CWM lidroid is back.
Help! I really need some help.
[SOLVED]I had Lidroid original 2.4 flashed via ODIN.
I nandroid backed up from CWM 3 and update.zip for this lidroid 2.5
CWM could never generate an MD5 checksum file for me but before, it could generate the MD5 myself and it still worked.
This time, the flash didn't go well so I decided to restore before reflashing again later.
All apps are there but no app data, no sms, no contacts appeared. Even my home screens are changed to default arragements, with all default widget, nothing similar to what I had. Games are not executable anymore: some games forced close and some just flashed my screen before getting back to app drawer.
I tried unyaffs my nandroid data.img and I can tell that nandroid did not backup my data/com...telephony/mmssms.db
Why did this happen to me? It's very strange. my friend's captivate works flawlessly!
I'm really confused at the moment and I really need my contacts and sms. games can be re-played but those are not "replayable".
Thanks[SOLVED]
Suggestion, make a back up also on the ext sd card and make a backup copy on your computer, this always prevents events like this. You can open your int sd card and copy the whole thing into a folder on the computer.
As far as why nandroid did not work, not sure never had a failure with it. My guess you did not verify that is worked or had all information you wanted backed up.
At least it is not bricked
good luck getting everything reloaded.
oka1 said:
Suggestion, make a back up also on the ext sd card and make a backup copy on your computer, this always prevents events like this. You can open your int sd card and copy the whole thing into a folder on the computer.
As far as why nandroid did not work, not sure never had a failure with it. My guess you did not verify that is worked or had all information you wanted backed up.
At least it is not bricked
good luck getting everything reloaded.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
there is no ext sd in fact. And normally I use SMS backup and restore, but I thought nandroid can be even better so ...
I know that this is not a normal nandroid behaviour. with my G1, Milestone before, I just nandroid backed up and then restored, everything would be back to normal, even saved game plays.
But this time is really frustrating.
It's not even my phone, that's the problem. If it's an unexpected error, I would just accept it but when it comes to girls ... you know ...
Such a nice start for sunday. Thanks anyway.
I just updated OP and title as the question is now changed.

Trying to salvage some data from a nandroid that wont restore.

Ive been spending way to much time researching my problem and my wife is really mad at me. Basically at this point i would be happy to just manually extract data for about 10 apps from a nandroid that wont restore. Can someone point me in the right direction please?
Edit:
Ok, now that I am at computer, heres my story. Prior to flashing the gingerbread leak, I backed up using Titanium Backup and made a Nandroid backup. Somehow, all the files backed up in my PREVIOUS 2 backups on titanium backup where all 0kb-10kb, so they were completely borked for some reason. Some old backups of apps that I have since uninstalled still remained and those seem ok.
Prior to reading about the SD card failures with the gingerbread leak, I backed up my SD card to my computer. Only 1 error came up during the backup about a file with a name that was too long. I clicked on ignore and finished the backup. About 1 hour later my SD card fried.
I used a spare sd card, and transfered my clockwork mod folder and a few other folders to it. I then ODIN a DL09 stock image, flashed the newest Clockword mod 3.xx via odin, flashed UKB 2.0, then flashed PBJ -50 recovery/kernel (which was what I had when I made the backup) and tried to restore it. When I try to restore it hangs somewhere in the data restore portion saying CACHE. I saw it flash cache a few times during the restore, so I am not sure why it hangs on that one in particular. I know that the cache image file is only 16.5kb so I dont know if that has something to do with it.
I then installed the newest IMNUTS recovery since I heard there were problems restoring the the PBJ recovery, and it seems to hang in the same spot.
At this point, I have a few of my old programs back, but most force close.
My main goal here is to just extract some gamesave progress and a few other pieces of data (I can redownload basically all the apps I need), run clean until a better gingerbread leak comes along, then use titanium backup to backup what I have (and verify the backups and make backups of the backups )and install a better gingerbread rom.
So anyway, If i can figure out how to go into the datadata.img files, I guess I can extract the data I need and push it through ADB or ROOT EXPLORER? Should that work?
- nevermind...
There are computer applications that can read and explore image files, or .img files, and the file systems within image files. Your best bet would be software like that, that could open, edit, and explore image files. I dont know the names of any software like that, even though I have come across some before, but im sure you could turn up some results with the query "image file editor," or ".img file editor." From there you're just have to feel your way through.. Try similar queries if those don't turn up what you need, etc. If you got an app that could explore image files, then you could get your .apk files from /data/app folder, and any other data you might need from /data/data, if its just user apps you're wanting to restore.
Sent by way of unspeakably black magic.
ssmaster said:
Ive been spending way to much time researching my problem and my wife is really mad at me. Basically at this point i would be happy to just manually extract data for about 10 apps from a nandroid that wont restore. Can someone point me in the right direction please?
Edit:
Ok, now that I am at computer, heres my story. Prior to flashing the gingerbread leak, I backed up using Titanium Backup and made a Nandroid backup. Somehow, all the files backed up in my PREVIOUS 2 backups on titanium backup where all 0kb-10kb, so they were completely borked for some reason. Some old backups of apps that I have since uninstalled still remained and those seem ok.
Prior to reading about the SD card failures with the gingerbread leak, I backed up my SD card to my computer. Only 1 error came up during the backup about a file with a name that was too long. I clicked on ignore and finished the backup. About 1 hour later my SD card fried.
I used a spare sd card, and transfered my clockwork mod folder and a few other folders to it. I then ODIN a DL09 stock image, flashed the newest Clockword mod 3.xx via odin, flashed UKB 2.0, then flashed PBJ -50 recovery/kernel (which was what I had when I made the backup) and tried to restore it. When I try to restore it hangs somewhere in the data restore portion saying CACHE. I saw it flash cache a few times during the restore, so I am not sure why it hangs on that one in particular. I know that the cache image file is only 16.5kb so I dont know if that has something to do with it.
I then installed the newest IMNUTS recovery since I heard there were problems restoring the the PBJ recovery, and it seems to hang in the same spot.
At this point, I have a few of my old programs back, but most force close.
My main goal here is to just extract some gamesave progress and a few other pieces of data (I can redownload basically all the apps I need), run clean until a better gingerbread leak comes along, then use titanium backup to backup what I have (and verify the backups and make backups of the backups )and install a better gingerbread rom.
So anyway, If i can figure out how to go into the datadata.img files, I guess I can extract the data I need and push it through ADB or ROOT EXPLORER? Should that work?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
unfortunately, you won't likely receive much sympathy posting a question in the development section. Please post your question in the Q & A section and you'll get some help. Just a friendly heads up.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA Premium App
Well I'll go ahead and point you to the right direction, or what I'd imagine should work for your needs. You'll need unyaffs, I'm assuming you're on windows so this here would be the right one for you http://www.box.net/shared/1eighqsh4s. Now take the data.img from your clockwork backup on your sdcard, drag and drop it onto the unyaffs.exe, it should unpack right there into a crapload of files. Navigate to the /data folder and find the ones you want to keep (they should be listed by the package name for the apps, "com.blah.asfkje.etc" rather than the name of the app so keep that in mind when looking for what you want), then adb push (root explorer would be fine too) the folders into your phone where they should be.
Headcase8911 said:
unfortunately, you won't likely receive much sympathy posting a question in the development section. Please post your question in the Q & A section and you'll get some help. Just a friendly heads up.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry I posted this in the wrong forum, I was waiting for the train when I posted and wasn't thinking too straight. How can I move it?
ssmaster said:
Sorry I posted this in the wrong forum, I was waiting for the train when I posted and wasn't thinking too straight. How can I move it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The mods will move it once they notice.
Another Fascinating post by my XDA app...
Just curious because of my personal interest...
Did you happen to try the nandroid Advanced Restore option, and select Data only? If not, it might be worth a shot. If it gets far enough, you might try wiping after the restore, and before booting up.
I always wipe my cache/Dalvik before I backup, to try to avoid conflicts with possible future ROMs. Something to think about, anyway.
Sorry about the trouble.
ssmaster said:
Sorry I posted this in the wrong forum, I was waiting for the train when I posted and wasn't thinking too straight. How can I move it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Report your post stating that it should be moved, and the mods will notice right away.
Robtao said:
Just curious because of my personal interest...
Did you happen to try the nandroid Advanced Restore option, and select Data only? If not, it might be worth a shot. If it gets far enough, you might try wiping after the restore, and before booting up.
I always wipe my cache/Dalvik before I backup, to try to avoid conflicts with possible future ROMs. Something to think about, anyway.
Sorry about the trouble.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i did try the nandroid advanced data only option and it hung at what seemed to be the exact same point.

Application Installation Unsuccessful Problem - Solution Found !!!

The reason why this happens is because you most likely went and removed one of the system apps on your phone.
NOTE: DON'T STUFF ABOUT WITH YOUR SYSTEM APPS, THERE IS A REASON WHY THEY ARE SYSTEM APPS, SO THAT YOU CANNOT TOUCH THEM, LEAVE THEM ALONE...!!!
You now sit with a phone with an un-installed app that you are trying to put back, but every time you try to install it, you get the error Application Installation Unsuccessful.
There are solutions mentioned like deleting the .Android_Secure director on your SD-card or clearing your Market Cache or taking your SD Card out. These options will NOT work because the removed application has most likely no entries in the .Android_Secure directory and the problem has nothing to do with the market place. It looks more like a permissions problem, maybe one of the DEVS can shed more ;light on this.
Here is what I did to get the app back on to my phone.
I used an App Manager from the Market place that gives you the ability to REMOVE SYSTEM APPS, it also has the ability to back up apps before you un-install them, although I have not figured out yet how to do that.
Normal backup programs usually create a folder on your SD Card as a destination. From previous experience with Application backups, they usually put the original APK file in the folder and when you want to restore it, it just re-installs the APK from that folder.
The App Manager in question also created a folder on the SD Card but obviously as I haven't done any backups yet, it was empty. With the above mentioned idea in mind, I put the original APK file that I got from the original ROM that I previously flashed to my phone, into the folder. I then ran the Application Manager and tried a restore. It picked up the APK file in the directory and it successfully restore/re-installed the app back onto the phone.
One thing that I did notice is that this specific Application Manager has an option to switch on Busy-Box, I do not know if this is a requirement but I had it switched on, you may have to install Busy-Box if your phone does not have it on already.
Hope this helped all you noobs in your conquest to re-install your apps and learn from your mistake.
Enjoy…!!!

Help please! Images not working

Hello,
Ive recently been having a really annoying flaw with my system, i'm still unable to identify if my phone has caught some form of a virus or if theres something thats changed and not allowing my phone to function correctly.
Please be patient as i have a bit to explain in order to give you guys the full picture of my problem so that it can hopefully be fixed.
Ok so initially everything was working fine and there was no problems. I personally believe but i may be wrong the problem started when i downloaded ttorrent pro apk via a google link and inadvertently provided the installed app with much more access to my phone that was required. Having realized that the app was incorrect i immediately removed it from my phone using titanium backup. i also removed all data and cache at the same time.
So i took some photos whilst on my cousins stag in Barcelona a short time ago and the images were taken whilst i was on 4.2.1, but once i came home and collaborated my photo's and videos with a couple from the stag (they were using the s4) the images became corrupt. I had a full backup of these images on my Mac and they are all ok and can be viewed with no difficulty. The problem arises when i put the folder back onto my android device. Since i have tried a few method to fix this issue but to no avail. All virus check on both the phone and the folder of photos on my mac came back all clear.
The photo's are stored on my External SD Card which is brand new and seems to work fine. This Ex SD Card is not the same as the one i used on the stag(it broke and i purchased a new one since). I often found sometimes that the folder names were changing aswell in the External SD Card, for example i would import 7 folders which all contained images. after a short while, 3 of them would corrupt and the folder name would change to eg. ulbum. With the u being the u from utorrent.
The thing is the images are there to be seen in my files on the android but with no thumbnail and the images do not load. But some of the images in the same folder to seem to work. Ive tried using alternative galleries to see if this fixes the issue but it didnt seem to work. It really frustrating as ive tried so many method and got so many people involved.
Please provide me with some further suggestions because i cant seem to find anyone with the exact same problem.
Thank You in advance
Factory reset, format your SD card (with SD tool) and try again - without transferring anything from your PC. If everything works at that point then probably a virus or SD corruption.
If still the same then flash a fresh stock ROM with Odin, don't use the SD initally to prove the hardware isn't faulty.
Also check your phone bill, warez has a habit of dialling premium rate lines in China for days on end. Never install anything to found on google, if you can't find it on XDA then it probably isn't legit.
boomboomer said:
Factory reset, format your SD card (with SD tool) and try again - without transferring anything from your PC. If everything works at that point then probably a virus or SD corruption.
If still the same then flash a fresh stock ROM with Odin, don't use the SD initally to prove the hardware isn't faulty.
Also check your phone bill, warez has a habit of dialling premium rate lines in China for days on end. Never install anything to found on google, if you can't find it on XDA then it probably isn't legit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank You for your quick response. I've done a factory since the problem, flashing back an omega rom on my device. The problem still continued. The photo's can be viewed fine on my Mac...it seems to happen when i move them over to my phone as shown in the pictures in the top post.
I've run a scan on the images on my Mac and it came back all clear. Originally this whole corruption was apparent with one main folder which was of a stag do last month. Since my most recent attempt a further folder is no longer working. This was a album taken over a year ago on my iphone. The videos however from my album last month have started worked :S
This is all abit strange as ive taken a set of photos with the camera app and they dont seem to become corrupt. But ive put the images on a friends SD Card and put that in my phone and it seems to happen to that album aswell. Is there a further internal root which may have become infected and making this happen by targeting certain pic's/albums in my gallery.
My friend is adamant the photo's have become corrupt but they work perfectly on my MAC.
Ive formatted this SD Card on atleast 10 different occassions aswell.
If your phone was rooted then yes, system partition can be changed by virus. Flash a stock ROM with Odin and format the SD.
chetm89 said:
Thank You for your quick response. I've done a factory since the problem, flashing back an omega rom on my device. The problem still continued. The photo's can be viewed fine on my Mac...it seems to happen when i move them over to my phone as shown in the pictures in the top post.
I've run a scan on the images on my Mac and it came back all clear. Originally this whole corruption was apparent with one main folder which was of a stag do last month. Since my most recent attempt a further folder is no longer working. This was a album taken over a year ago on my iphone. The videos however from my album last month have started worked :S
This is all abit strange as ive taken a set of photos with the camera app and they dont seem to become corrupt. But ive put the images on a friends SD Card and put that in my phone and it seems to happen to that album aswell. Is there a further internal root which may have become infected and making this happen by targeting certain pic's/albums in my gallery.
My friend is adamant the photo's have become corrupt but they work perfectly on my MAC.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree with your friend. Your pictures must be corrupted or the filesystem on your external SDCard is corrupted too.
Try to copy all your files into a safe place (your Mac HDD) and verify that all files are done.
After, format this ExtSDCard (with the phone for example) et refill the SDCard. Check if I solve the problem.
boomboomer said:
If your phone was rooted then yes, system partition can be changed by virus. Flash a stock ROM with Odin and format the SD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok i may need to give this i try, once ive flashed the stock rom back on can i then flash back the omega rom that i was using or shall i stick with the stock rom to test it out??

[Q] Corrupt gibberish files refuse to be deleted

Hi, I'm in desperate need of help, please.
I'm using SGS2. Several months ago my device suddenly started acting weird, thumbnails in gallery didn't load, apps didn't refresh (instagram, facebook etc.)... Rebooting would help but only for a certain amount of time, until it suddenly started to happen again. I realised the internal SD card simply becomes read-only randomly, but I didn't know why. I made peace with it since I'm not a big smartphone user.
Anyhow, today I went through my phone files and saw that several cache folders were oddly big, so I deleted a ****load of files, and then(!!) that one folder would not delete... So I clicked it and saw a bunch of gibberish files that do not want to get deleted.
I tried SD Maid app, but the thing is, once I browse to that specific corrupt folder the SD card goes crazy and becomes read-only, so basically at that moment I realised that folder is what's making the phone act like this.
Connecting it to PC and deleting doesn't work either. Renaming the files doesn't work. Copy/paste does work but is useless. Factory reset/installing new ROM/kernel/whatever doesn't work either. The files will still be there, I've tried.
Anything, please?
yellowjellow said:
Hi, I'm in desperate need of help, please.
I'm using SGS2. Several months ago my device suddenly started acting weird, thumbnails in gallery didn't load, apps didn't refresh (instagram, facebook etc.)... Rebooting would help but only for a certain amount of time, until it suddenly started to happen again. I realised the internal SD card simply becomes read-only randomly, but I didn't know why. I made peace with it since I'm not a big smartphone user.
Anyhow, today I went through my phone files and saw that several cache folders were oddly big, so I deleted a ****load of files, and then(!!) that one folder would not delete... So I clicked it and saw a bunch of gibberish files that do not want to get deleted.
I tried SD Maid app, but the thing is, once I browse to that specific corrupt folder the SD card goes crazy and becomes read-only, so basically at that moment I realised that folder is what's making the phone act like this.
Connecting it to PC and deleting doesn't work either. Renaming the files doesn't work. Copy/paste does work but is useless. Factory reset/installing new ROM/kernel/whatever doesn't work either. The files will still be there, I've tried.
Anything, please?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What rom were you using when the errors started happening?
What have you tried as far as flashing roms/kernels/custom recoveries?
I'm using Omega v24 XWLSW (4.1.2). What I did was factory reset and every single format option in that CWM recovery screen. I then flashed that same ROM again but fresh.
I don't think this has anything to do with ROM/kernels etc. This is simply a bunch of corrupt files in Device\sdcard\Android. I've tried googling with no success. I need a way to forcibly delete that folder with all those files inside. Any directions on how format?
yellowjellow said:
I'm using Omega v24 XWLSW (4.1.2). What I did was factory reset and every single format option in that CWM recovery screen. I then flashed that same ROM again but fresh.
I don't think this has anything to do with ROM/kernels etc. This is simply a bunch of corrupt files in Device\sdcard\Android. I've tried googling with no success. I need a way to forcibly delete that folder with all those files inside. Any directions on how format?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The first thing I would try is to reinstall a stock samsung rom. This sometimes is the only way to fully reset your phone back to original condition. Sammobile.com is the website I have used. You would have to root again but....
Also check out this thread -
http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s2/help/qa-friendly-qa-thread-t1648351
There are some similarities with possible corrupt partitions another guy has(the last few pages of thread), that they are trouble-shooting. You might find some answers there.
yellowjellow said:
I'm using Omega v24 XWLSW (4.1.2). What I did was factory reset and every single format option in that CWM recovery screen. I then flashed that same ROM again but fresh.
I don't think this has anything to do with ROM/kernels etc. This is simply a bunch of corrupt files in Device\sdcard\Android. I've tried googling with no success. I need a way to forcibly delete that folder with all those files inside. Any directions on how format?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey mate.
If you haven't fixed the problem i recommend performing a checkdisk.
To perform a checkdisk you need to:
1. Connect your phone through USB via mass storage mode.
2. The computer should prompt you to perform a checkdisk automatically, in that case just accept and let the computer perform it. If it doesn't prompt automatically you need to do it manully by right-clicking the correct partition on the computer, click properties and then on the 'Tools' bar. Now mine is in Swedish, i don't know how it is in english but press the button on the first alternative. (i.e the button with 'Control' and the administrator logo).
After pressing, just let it be (it will take quite a while) and when finished.. tell me if it worked or not.
Good luck!
Hey, I tried chkdsk and defrag just in case, the files are still there, although some of them are now gone. My phone doesn't go crazy anymore though, which is nice. Maybe I'll just let the corrupt files be there in peace, they won the war XD And as long as my phone works properly I don't really care about them.
Thanks everyone!

Categories

Resources