[Q] Contacts and backups - Galaxy S III Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I recently updated to Omega 33.1 and on restart, th marching droid just kept marching. After about 15 mins I held Power to restart and system fired up normally and did the 'updating' thing for all the apps etc. All fine and I re-installed the 5x5 icon mod and a couple of others - Loud Mod and Increasing phone mod and all seemed fine... until I went to my Contacts and found the first one in my list started with E. No A's, B's or C's.
Plus it was back on my SIM contacts and the Phone contacts (which I had been using) were nowhere to be found.
Fine I thought, I have backups. But my Titanium Pro backups don't restore any Contacts. I have Nandroid backups - but I don't get Contacts from them either. I thought Nandroids backed up everything.
Anyone got any ideas where my Contacts should be? In the process of trying to restore them I've noticed my most recent alterations are also gone, including some folk I need t contact.

have you made sure that you didn't set the contacts filter to show only specific things?
Other than that, you should have access to all your contacts from your nandroid backups. It's supposed to be an image of your phone at the point of backup and nothing should change it.

The only filter I can see is to only show contacts with phones and it is off.
Worse now, I have been out and about and I have just checked and I no longer seem to have my SIM contacts. WTF??? I didn't do ANYTHING while out except a little bit of Sudoku while waiting.

Aren't your contacts backed up on your google account?

No, they weren't. After seeing several different debacles with online info and who owns it, I decided not to trust online places with my info.
However, the good news is I seem to have got them back. In ROM Toolbox there is an option for Advanced Restore and I chose a Nandroid from 14/11 and this time clicked off system, cache and boot and left ticked data AND SD Ext - I didn't know what SD Ext was before (and still don't) so I'd unticked it. I got my Contacts back! And no, SD Ext doesn't seem to mean the ext SD card - that has been fine all through this.
If anyone knows what that setting is in ROM Toolbox I'd love to know...
Oh - the Nandroid was originally Backed up in ROM Manager.

Related

[Q] How to migrate from another Android phone?

I am about to upgrade from HTC Hero to SGS2 and I wonder what is the best way to migrate my apps (I've got more than 100 installed)?
TA123 said:
I am about to upgrade from HTC Hero to SGS2 and I wonder what is the best way to migrate my apps (I've got more than 100 installed)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
must you really bring everything across? I look on new phone as a chance to clear out the crap...
Titanium backup perhaps, if you must bring it all over...
pulser_g2 said:
must you really bring everything across? I look on new phone as a chance to clear out the crap...
Titanium backup perhaps, if you must bring it all over...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's exactly what I did, although I had to copy all the files from my sd card onto the internal memory for TB to realise there were backups to restore.
@Pulser ... how dare you call my **** crap ;-)
My method when I want to start fresh is backup stuff like astrid to the sd and then backup the sd to save the various data. I use myappslist off the market, it will generate a list of all the apps you have which you can email to yourself. I like to put the barcodes in there so I can just go directly to the app on the market. You can also use plain text or html or a combination. On the new phone I go to the market and download barcode scanner, open up the email I sent myself and start installing the apps onto the phone. If you're like me a couple will be ones I never used but forget to unistall so I skip them. Then I open up my backed up sd and move over the data, ringtones etc. I usually hang onto the backup for a week or so until I'm sure I have all the data moved across and then I delete it and make a backup of the new setup.
I always do this when switching to a new rom or switching to a new phone. In between I use ti.
I am guessing you have a Google account to download apps from market, when you log in to the your new phone with your google account and choose to sync your phone with Google your apps should automatically transfer to your new phone.
You can view and load apps via https://market.android.com/ instead of scrolling through your phone its much easier and when you click 'Install' on the website it will send the app to your phone and install automatically. https://market.android.com/account will show you all your apps.
Thanks a lot, guys!
If you log in with your Google Account on install it will start downloading all your apps from the Market anyway. Just make sure you are on wifi when you do it!
If you want saved game states (Angry Birds), you will need to use Titanium on the old phone to backup the settings and then use it on the new one to restore. (Requires root on both).
Upgraded from a Hero myself, and all my paid-apps were there waiting there in the marketplace. It was however only the paid apps, the free apps I had to install again. I did have a minor hitch getting the phone contacts and SMS off the Hero as there wasnt a batch backup function available, but luckily there are plenty of market apps that can backup and restore your contats and SMS.

[Q] Phone will not scan media on sd card?

Hello, I was hoping someone could help me fix this:
For some time I have had this issue that every time my phone locks up while taking photos or video (I often switch camera apps multiple times when taking photos) my phone reboots and no longer will scan the media card (well, I should be precise and say that a notification briefly pops up that it is scanning but it does not completely scan). It's odd because I have no problem connecting by usb, unmounting and remounting the card (I've tried this over-and-over yet when it is remounted it will still not scan), and I can open a file manager and navigate through my files and even move them but it will not let me open anything for instance music or photos (which made me question if the permissions had been changed but everything is still fully readable/writable). In the past it has fixed it by restoring from a backup (sometimes of which I have had to do several times) but this time I deleted all but one recent backup and it is not fixing the problem this time... I feel I have exhausted my options but would definetely like to avoid a total data wipe (I do have recent Titanium Backups done on all my apps and data but I would also like to avoid having to use the time to restore them and all my settings, etc. back to exactly how I had my phone configured). Also, I would appreciate a solution that does not involve hours and hours of reconfiguration and loading as I am consistently using my camera apps all the time and I am really really getting sick of rebooting, restoring, ect. over and over.
I am running MIUIwiz with ED01, OTB v1.6 and CWM 3.x although I dont think this issue necessarily has anything to do with any of these because I had the same problem on stock froyo anyway.. (if anything might it be a kernel issue?)
Thank you in advance for any input!​
gOofeye​
any ideas?
Almost sound like the SD card is corrupt but you said you can access it and move items.
If it was me, I would back it up and try a restore.

Titanium Backup Drobox Sync Fail

I have the Titanium Backup pro running on my Prime. When I try to do a dropbox sync, it fails about 1/3 way. I've re-tried a few times, with no luck. Anyone get it to work on the Prime? My theory is that since the Dropbox android client can only upload a max file size of around 170 MB, a big backup file is the root of the sync failure. Unfortunately, there seems to be no way to tell on what file the dropbox sync fails.
Given my theory, I followed the Titanium Wiki and tried to use labels. I downloaded "apps organizer" and labelled a bunch of apps. When I go into Titanium and try to modify the Dropbox settings, the only option is to uncheck synch everything. I cannot figure out how to set a label for dropbox sync. Any ideas?
Finally, I wanted to submit some sort of bug report to titanium on this subject, but I have not found a link to do so. Does anyone have a link or email address to submit bugs to Titanium?
Thanks!
I had the same problem but just kept re-syncing. It picked up from where it left off the last time.
I don't know how many times you tried but it took me 5 or 6 to finally get it all.
I did try again a few times and it would get a bit further. But now its stuck on ~1.3 GB left and it seems like it doesn't even attempt to upload as the screen flickers right away and says Dropbox syn failed.
Anyone find out any news on how to tell what failed? I'm having issues uploading to both Dropbox and Box with an upload failing eventually. Happens to both my Transformer Prime and my Evo3D
Didn't work for me either. I tried both Dropbox and Box. Both were taking way too long.
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk
having this problem too. i rub sync with dropbox in titanium but at same point the sync stops and error appe ars. frickin annoying. i'm on shared wlan with familije amd we have crappy upload do i want to backup cca 700 mb but it never finishes the sync. i'm frustrated with this :-(
Same problem here, I just never even get an error message until I force it to stop. Otherwise it will sit there indefinitely at the same percentage.
I've deleted and changed the Dropbox folders for TiBu several times, and it gets stuck in the same place every time. Making current backups and I'll be trying to u/l to Dropbox again (this being a more fresh install), I'll likely also try it out on my phone to see how it works. I never was really interested in it until the Prime and the fact that the internal SD card just has to get formatted by manual updates and factory resets.
I had this issue before too, I found out that the problem is when one of the backup files is bigger than 180ish MB.
the solution I found was to let this file out of the TI Backup I keep on Dropbox.
You can do this by using one of the TI Backup options that let you see the size of your back ups, then just organize it by size and voila, you can easly find the culprit.
Now for the label thing, you could make a label with those files and another label for everything else and that way keep those files away from screwing with Dropbox sync.
The way to actually make these labels is using the label option WITHIN Titanium, not 3rd Apps
Where did you find this option? I cannot find the size of the backups..
I've just setup to go to google drive to see if that will work instead.
Zephyrot said:
I had this issue before too, I found out that the problem is when one of the backup files is bigger than 180ish MB.
the solution I found was to let this file out of the TI Backup I keep on Dropbox.
You can do this by using one of the TI Backup options that let you see the size of your back ups, then just organize it by size and voila, you can easly find the culprit.
Now for the label thing, you could make a label with those files and another label for everything else and that way keep those files away from screwing with Dropbox sync.
The way to actually make these labels is using the label option WITHIN Titanium, not 3rd Apps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have exactly the same problem so I 'solved' it with your lable idea. (I think - this is a very difficult place to mess around with!)
However, when a new app is installed it won't be in the label, right?
So, every new app will not be synchronised with Dropbox!
I wonder whose fault this is:
- Titanium cannot create/manipulate larger files synchronisation
- Dropbox refuses larger files (though it works from my PC!)
- Dropbox has only given Titanium the rights for files up to appr.180Mb
I also had problems with Titanium Backup failing to upload the backup data to the cloud with it's built in cloud backup feature. I scheduled the cloud backup to run once a day, but it fails very often. There was always another error coming up: Low battery (though battery is full charged), network error (my Wifi works flawlessly), internal errors etc. It finished successfully in only about 25 % of the cases. That is not really reliable - reliability beeing very important in respect of backups. So I found a solution, which I want to share with you: I dismissed the Titanium cloud backup schedule and set up the backup schedule with another app. The app is called "FolderSync", available in the playstore and it works superb.
Folder Sync clear winner
I have this problem about 9/10 times. Folder sync has been wonderful to use over the last week, no errors, highly recommend.

Pre ICS upgrade question...

Is there anyway to backup everything (all settings, all apps, all data, home screens, shortcuts, BT pairings etc.) on GB and have it perfectly restored after a new OS version upgrade (ICS) ? I have been researching this on various sites but can't find a clear answer. I know if I root my Note I can create a NANDROID backup image. But when restored it restores the OS as well. Correct? Or is there a way to restore a NANDROID backup with out restoring the OS? Or will using Titanium or My Backup Pro accomplish what I'm asking for? THANX!
You are correct on nandroid, no way to do it without the OS. You will have to re set up all of your settings and bt pairings afaik. Titanium will restore all of your installed apps, but not how you had everything set up. As for texts, there are some SMS backup apps on the market. Some launchers also provide the ability to backup how you had them set up, but I'm not sure which ones, and if you're not using it currently it wouldn't do much good anyways. Also, if you're doing the update through kies, it will wrote everything off your phone, so be sure to transfer your photos to your computer before you do. Also, if you use titanium, you would have to transfer that file to your computer before using kies.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using Tapatalk 2
Maybe I'm repeating this... Titanium does not keep the settings? I dont particularly like Titanium because I want to select my important apps and do a batch backup to my SD card. I want it to keep the settings and logins too. Then, when I get a new rom, I can load the app, settings, log ins and everything.
Is this not possible?
I use 128 bit passwords that are about 30 characters long, so I end up texting myself my AndroidMarket password and using the online market to push the apps to the phone over wifi. Then I use USB to copy over a KeePass database and load KeePass Droid to start setting all my logins for VOIP, emails, media apps, etc. since it has a notification bar user/pswd dropdown to copy. It is more time consuming than I prefer, it makes it impossible to really try new roms that often, keepass makes it at least bearable.
Would you care to tell me how people manage to use nightly builds and things of that nature while not spending hours plugging in all the settings?
Titanium restores app data.
The first batch of each sub section is what i use.
Backup:
Backup all user apps
Restore:
Restore missing apps with data
Theoretically you could backup all system data that appears with green txt I'm the list of programs in tibu, which would include things such as Wi-Fi password and bt pairings i believe.
but if you were to have issues by restoring that, because restoring system data can be funky sometimes, you'd have to factory reset and start over, so that part is up to you.
I don't do anything other than the batches i mentioned above.
If you are upgrading ICS from a stock GB then you won't lose your app, its data and contact.
But settings, home keys and shortcuts will be initiated.
I don't know how to back it up but I usually screen shot those and then just redo when I have a new rom installed.

What is best method to backup and restore?

Almost all my data has been stored by default to my internal storage. Pictures, DL's, I figure I will sync to my laptop and back them up there, but there must be an easier way all you flash addicts are doing it. And TB is still preferred method to back up and restore all apps, msgs and call logs?
Is there a good startup noob guide? Things change so fast around here I never know if the guides are now obsolete.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using Tapatalk 2
Clockworkmod recovery......for a complete backup...
and although TB is a great app, it seems to cause as many problems as it solves..
the app pulls data into a fresh build (on occasion) and causes problems when setting up..
I personally load "all" of my apps from the market again, on a fresh rom install....g
Most would store their downloads and pics on the external sd card. Contacts should be made google contacts that way they sync automatically. And Titanium backup works well. You just have to know what to restore. Issues are usually attributed to user error by not knowing fully what they are doing.
Taking everyone's valuable suggestions one step further, send backups from external sd card to Google Drive or Dropbox.
gregsarg said:
Clockworkmod recovery......for a complete backup...
and although TB is a great app, it seems to cause as many problems as it solves..
the app pulls data into a fresh build (on occasion) and causes problems when setting up..
I personally load "all" of my apps from the market again, on a fresh rom install....g
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
Agoattamer said:
Most would store their downloads and pics on the external sd card. Contacts should be made google contacts that way they sync automatically. And Titanium backup works well. You just have to know what to restore. Issues are usually attributed to user error by not knowing fully what they are doing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
rangercaptain said:
Taking everyone's valuable suggestions one step further, send backups from external sd card to Google Drive or Dropbox.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
Sent using the Greatest Device EVER!
So you change the default settings of where to store dl's and photos every time you flash a new rom?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using Tapatalk 2
When I restore I log in to google and get TiBU.
I make sure it knows my backup folder location.
I restore the apps I backed up. Never select restore system apps.
Then I restore sms and calls. When I restored those apps they get their settins restore so I don't have to do anything.
So the only location I check/change is TiBU.
I used to CWM but now I use TWRP for flashing and creating backups. I also use TB pro and I have to say I haven't had any problems but I do only restore apps and their data and nothing else. I also have become a fan of My Backup. I am able to backup and restore how I have my icons saved on my screen. Makes it real easy and quick to get back up and running.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using xda premium
You can save the launcher and it's data with tibu also, no need for a second app...That's what i do
hell some launchers have a backup option built into them.
Serious? Well face palm myself. I never paid attention that TB did.
Sent from my cm_tenderloin using xda premium
Just so you know, nothing on your internal or external SD is affected by flashing a ROM. Sounds like you think you might lose your pictures and downloads. They will be safe unless you format them.
OK, so I bought the pro version of TiBu, actually had a tough time getting it to sync with the free version and recognize the key on fresh rom install....
But my bigger problem after rom install hand TiBU restore...I am getting 3 errors and it caused the phone to hang so bad, had to do a factory reset and start from scratch with everything.
1. Calendar sync not working properly
2. Messages sync not working properly
3. Android.process.acore not working properly.
I would love to flash roms more often but dont out of fear of having to restore everything I liked back manually (I have to learn how to backup launcher too BC that is a big time factor in setup after a flash)
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using Tapatalk 2
The trick is the System Apps. If they're Green then you can usually backup and restore them without any issue. If they're Red then you shouldn't back them up and restores won't be useful.
For some of the Green items (e.g., messages, bookmarks, call log) there's a Yellow equivalent which indicates XML. For these, you should favor the XML since it'll restore across ROMs better.
For all apps, if you switch between ROMs that are extremely different (for example, if you jump straight from stock GB to CM9(ICS) then there can be problems. You can usually get around these by uninstalling the offending app, installing from Play Store and then restoring just the data.

Categories

Resources