Hi,
I own a rooted Lenovo P780 that was bought as a gift. The phone was pre-rooted (the bootscreen mentions lenovo-forums.ru, I think it's a worldwide ROM that's installed). It's been fine for a year, but in the last few days, the internal storage has maxed out, causing problems with updates.
Yesterday, I tried something as an experiment without really thinking through the full consequences.
I had busybox and terminal emulator installed so I made a copy of the /data/dalvik-cache in the built-in SD card (since it's always present and I have an external one for all my regular data), renamed the existing dalvik-cache directory to dalvik-cache-bak (as a precaution before outright deleting, lol) and created a symlink to the new location. Everything was fine, until I restarted...
I'm not sure if the permissions are invalid or the internal SD card is not mounted early enough in the boot sequence but now the phone is basically crippled. It's not outright bricked; it does progress so far into booting, then opens many requesters about all the stock applications failing. It basically gets stuck trying to restart them.
I've not really used ADB before, but I assume that it should be possible to mount the /data partition, remove the symlink and rename the dalvk-cache-bak to dalvik-cache and at least get the thing working before resorting to some sort of factory reset.
I feel completely nubular for having to ask, but the question is, what exactly do I need to do to get into the device?
kdkc said:
Hi,
I own a rooted Lenovo P780 that was bought as a gift. The phone was pre-rooted (the bootscreen mentions lenovo-forums.ru, I think it's a worldwide ROM that's installed). It's been fine for a year, but in the last few days, the internal storage has maxed out, causing problems with updates.
Yesterday, I tried something as an experiment without really thinking through the full consequences.
I had busybox and terminal emulator installed so I made a copy of the /data/dalvik-cache in the built-in SD card (since it's always present and I have an external one for all my regular data), renamed the existing dalvik-cache directory to dalvik-cache-bak (as a precaution before outright deleting, lol) and created a symlink to the new location. Everything was fine, until I restarted...
I'm not sure if the permissions are invalid or the internal SD card is not mounted early enough in the boot sequence but now the phone is basically crippled. It's not outright bricked; it does progress so far into booting, then opens many requesters about all the stock applications failing. It basically gets stuck trying to restart them.
I've not really used ADB before, but I assume that it should be possible to mount the /data partition, remove the symlink and rename the dalvk-cache-bak to dalvik-cache and at least get the thing working before resorting to some sort of factory reset.
I feel completely nubular for having to ask, but the question is, what exactly do I need to do to get into the device?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi. Try this: reflash stock 124 ROW firmware, then upgrade to KK.
Look in my posts for Stock 124 Firmware and how to root.
4GB: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B2ORIgaV4iacaVNmUWEzcDh2Nzg&usp=sharing
8GB:https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B2ORIgaV4iacbmZrcWN1WEZDYlU&usp=sharing
Good luck.
Sent from my Lenovo P780 using XDA Free mobile app
Thanks for the post. However, I really don't wan't to reflash the phone just yet as there is data (contacts etc) on there that aren't synced yet and I don't want to lose. Also, reflashing the phone to fix a basic filesystem issue seems like using a nuke to crack an egg.
I need to be able to boot the phone into recovery mode, but I can't seem to find any option for that. The only key combination that does anything different than a regular boot is holding power & volume down which boots into "meta mode", which doesn't seem to be useful.
Is there some special trick for this model to get into recovery mode?
kdkc said:
Thanks for the post. However, I really don't wan't to reflash the phone just yet as there is data (contacts etc) on there that aren't synced yet and I don't want to lose. Also, reflashing the phone to fix a basic filesystem issue seems like using a nuke to crack an egg.
I need to be able to boot the phone into recovery mode, but I can't seem to find any option for that. The only key combination that does anything different than a regular boot is holding power & volume down which boots into "meta mode", which doesn't seem to be useful.
Is there some special trick for this model to get into recovery mode?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you tried key combination like: power + vol up and down pressed together?
Sent from my Lenovo P780 with TWRP 2.7.1.1
Related
I have a problem. After finally talkling myself into rooting my phone I was able to pull it off sucessfully, almost. See I havent had service on my phone for 3 months. In that time I have enjoyed using it for wifi, e-mail etc. The phone always kept saying not provisioned a bunch of times but always kept functioning.
I installed cyanogen 7.0.3 (Ithink) last night and after it booted up I said "great I didnt break it" but right in the beginng when I tried to sign into my gmail (at the time already logged into my dads wifi) It wouldnt recognize that I am signed into a wifi. it just kept asking about a data plan. I dont get it.
1 year old Aria
Try going to Settings > Wireless & network settings > Mobile networks, and unchecking "Data enabled".
That was one of the first things I check. I got no idea why it won’t let me jump on internet or market even though I will see on my phone that I am connected to a strong wifi source. Then I'll use rom manager to restore back to 2.1 and my wifi will suddenly work again. It’s driving me nuts because I am having fun with cyanogen mod but the I’ll revert back to 2.1 because I have no internet
Try bypassing ROM Manager. In general there are all sorts of issues that can occur if you use ROM Manager to get to Clockworkmod on S-ON devices like the Aria. I'm not saying this is the actual cause of your problem, but it's one thing you can try.
Shut the phone off completely then do volume down + power button to get into Clockworkmod and try installing CM7 again.
Also, make sure you are doing a full wipe when you upgrade to CM7.0.3. You can't retain any settings from previous versions.
1) Boot into Clockworkmod
2) Wipe data/factory reset
3) Wipe cache partition
4) Advanced > Wipe dalvik cache
5) Partitions menu > format system
6) Install Cyanogenmod zip from sdcard
7) Install Google Apps zip from sdcard
8) Reboot
Parden my newb status for asking I'm learning quick. but after I go ahead with wiping all my data etc. do I keep super user status or do I have to download various boot drivers and root my phone again?
I also just noticed that as my phone was booting up from clockwork recovery it said at the end
"no sd-ext found. skipping backup of sd-ext" Maybe that could have been the prob?
Last question is I just bought a 8 GB sd a couple days ago, should I partition it while I am doing all this? Thanks alot for the help
BeanTown_HTC said:
Parden my newb status for asking I'm learning quick. but after I go ahead with wiping all my data etc. do I keep super user status or do I have to download various boot drivers and root my phone again?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes you will still be rooted. Clockworkmod will still be installed on your phone (which is what you use to install ROMs), and the ROMs that are available on this site (including CM7.0.3) are already pre-rooted. You shouldn't ever have to use Unrevoked again.
I also just noticed that as my phone was booting up from clockwork recovery it said at the end
"no sd-ext found. skipping backup of sd-ext" Maybe that could have been the prob?
Last question is I just bought a 8 GB sd a couple days ago, should I partition it while I am doing all this? Thanks alot for the help
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That just means you don't have an ext partition on the SD card. It's normal.
If you partition your SD card and dedicate a portion of it to an ext partition, you can use it for additional app installation space. The Aria's internal memory is somewhat limited so this can be helpful if you like to use a lot of different apps. You don't have to partition the SD card before installing the ROM, although doing it before installing a clean ROM might save you some trouble of having to back up anything from the SD card.
You don't HAVE to partition the card if you don't want to. It's only if you want some extra app space or not.
Great it worked. My WIFI agnolidges me. That was wierd.
Thanks alot for the help.
If one enables full device encryption in Ice Cream Sandwich, am I correct in assuming that that the internal SD of that device is now not going to be available in the CWM recovery mode? And even if it was, the root fs would not be available? If so, this pretty much would make CWM flashing your device near impossible?
Does CWM even work if you use FDE? Or is it planned/
The question I guess is, when do you input your encryption password? Is it some pre-boot step?
I really want to enable device encryption but I can't find enugh details on how it works.
I did read this post on it., but it doesn't really answer my questions. And it is unclear if it encrypts the internal SD, or just the root FS?
http://source.android.com/tech/encryption/android_crypto_implementation.html
No one knows anything about this?
I got a Gnex today from Verizon in the US and I encrypted my phone after I unlocked the bootloader but before rooting. As a result I don't think I will be able to root because it doesn't seem that the modified boot.img that the instructions tell me to use can mount the encrypted system (it sat at the Google logo w/ the unlocked icon for 10 minutes before I pulled the battery and let it boot the stock boot.img) which came up fine.
It seems the only way to decrypt the phone is by doing a factory reset.
That's all I know. That being said, while a custom recovery may work for wiping partitions (such as cache), it would probably be mostly useless until the custom recovery is updated to support the encrypted file systems. I'm a *NIX user and an engineer, but don't have a lot of experience with Android's internals, so take all that with the appropriate sized grain of salt.
Regards,
Chris
Bump.
Anyone experimented with full device encryption / ROM flashing / SD Card? I'm curious about this as well, but not curious enough to experiment.
I dident try it myself, so i dont exactly know, how this works. But i think device encryption shouldent completly block clockworkmod recovery.
I think it could be a problem to make a backup while your device is encrypted. But i think it shouldent be a problem to recover a old system over an encrypted one. Encryption keeps people without the key away from reading data. This dosent mean you cant wright something over it and replace the locked data with some new one. But then you defenitly loose the old data. I dont think you can flash a new ROM or a recovery without a full wipe. You probably gona loose all the data you had on the old system.
But i general i think this is anyway a good think to do when you flash a new ROM.
I think you could give it a try, without briking your phone. But i dident try it, so i cant take any responsibility.
Would any of you happen to know how to get to the diagnostic mode?
ryfly65 said:
Would any of you happen to know how to get to the diagnostic mode?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I sonst exactly know hat diagnostic Mode you mean. Depends hat Diagnose you want to run. Do you want to read the logfiles in your phone, wher you can see what ist doing? You could use the app alogcat. An other way would be to run logcat over Eclipse.
Sent from my HTC Desire HD using XDA App
Hilmy said:
I sonst exactly know hat diagnostic Mode you mean. Depends hat Diagnose you want to run. Do you want to read the logfiles in your phone, wher you can see what ist doing? You could use the app alogcat. An other way would be to run logcat over Eclipse.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I need to edit modem information and enable a diag port for QPST, essentially allowing me to flash it to another carrier.
Is there any new information on this? Any help would be very appreciated!
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
I encrypted mine after flashing the stock ICS 4.0.3 image and rooting. CWM still loads, but when I try to use USB mass storage, windows tells me it needs to be formatted before the SD card can be used.
You can use titanium backup to make backups of your stuff, and restore them to a non-encrypted phone. I have found no other way to unencrypt the phone than factory reset either. When you encrypt, then go to settings > security > encryption, it just has a greyed out area saying "Phone is encrypted", which is stupid and needs to be fixed.
nevarDeath said:
I encrypted mine after flashing the stock ICS 4.0.3 image and rooting. CWM still loads, but when I try to use USB mass storage, windows tells me it needs to be formatted before the SD card can be used.
You can use titanium backup to make backups of your stuff, and restore them to a non-encrypted phone. I have found no other way to unencrypt the phone than factory reset either. When you encrypt, then go to settings > security > encryption, it just has a greyed out area saying "Phone is encrypted", which is stupid and needs to be fixed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So if I factory reset the device from CMW I will not loose my pictures or TB in the internal SD?
What about flashing a new ROM?
Thanks!
I have been playing with ICS + FDE for several days doing different things. First off this is:
Nexus S 4G, running Pete's crespo4g OTA ROM
I flashed with CWM which is still on there and runs fine.
However: /data and /sdcard and /system (?) are encrypted and CANNOT be mounted.
To restore you have to 1) make a full backup over USB to a PC of the whole SDcard (or at least the important folders).
2) wipe and reformat everything. This isn't just a factory reset, this kills the sdcard as well.
3) mount (hopefully) the newly reformatted /sdcard and blow your backup from the PC onto the /sdcard
4) use CWM to restore a previous ROM.
That's pretty much it, give or take. Not for the faint of heart. However, if you are concerned enough to want encryption, you don't want to just say reboot recovery and voila all your files are belong to us, right?
---------- Post added at 03:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:34 PM ----------
Also, the backup to PC part is just your sdcard. It doesn't back up the whole system. There might be a way to do that via adb, I don't know.
So i am running rooted runnig miui.us rom. I just tried to encrypt phone.. It ran for 2 and a half hours and I got impatient. thinking maybe i shouldnt have done it... Then after a little bit of panic i said **** it if i lose data i lose data... so i powered off and back on hoping i didnt and the rom booted back up with all my data intact..... •••••• Wish I had more to report but im not doing that again until someone can confirm that it works fine...... I have tried booting into cwm yet.. If i have an issue when i need to boot illl report back but if you dont hear from me here then assume I was able too.
Pete's to CM9 - still encrypted
IT does indeed take a fairly long time to encrypt. If I understand correctly it will build the encrypted partition on a loopback (or something like) before erasing the original (by overwriting?).
I've got more to report. I followed my plan (couple posts back) for unencrypting and reflashing my phone. (Nexus S 4g).
The first bits of this worked fine. I was able to flash CM9 onto my phone (works like a champ btw). While the phone was in recovery I mounted the SD and copied my backup back onto it.
However...
When CM9 booted I STILL got the "unlock your device" screen, still the same password, and it decrypted and booted. That was surprising, but not as much as when I looked for the SD card, it said it was incorrectly formatted! The only thing to do was reformat and copy with the phone on and unlocked.
So lessons learned: 1) a factory reset from _inside_the_ROM_ doesn't remove the encrypted partition at all and
2) As far as I can tell, the SD card _is_ encrypted along with /data
I'd be very interested to hear other's experiences, especially someone who can remove their SD storage.
Undoing FDE
First off - Lacking a device with removable storage to test with all I can tell you is that the sdcard is not accessible by any normal means after FDE is enabled without booting into the encrypted system.
"Removing" FDE required three steps beyond normal:
-Factory reset from within the ROM
-factory reset/wipe at recovery and/or format /data
-once into a running ROM, reformat the sdcard
Once all that is done (in addition to normal setup for ROM) you should be able to operate normally again.
problem with encryption on sgs2 with android 4.0.3
I really want to enable my device encryption too, but I can't !!!
the phone start encrypting after he ask me for a new secure password, rebooting and asking again for my password and surprise!!!.... the password is not match ?!?!
I repetead these steps for 3 times but the same result...the password does not match!!! ?
Please, if someone found a trick to repair this inconvenient, tell us in this post steps to be followed.
Regards!
SGS2, Android Icecream 4.0.3
leech2082 said:
So i am running rooted runnig miui.us rom. I just tried to encrypt phone.. It ran for 2 and a half hours and I got impatient. thinking maybe i shouldnt have done it... Then after a little bit of panic i said **** it if i lose data i lose data... so i powered off and back on hoping i didnt and the rom booted back up with all my data intact..... •••••• Wish I had more to report but im not doing that again until someone can confirm that it works fine...... I have tried booting into cwm yet.. If i have an issue when i need to boot illl report back but if you dont hear from me here then assume I was able too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did exactly what you did, and so far everything seems to be intact Thanks!
Hello people. I have a 32 GB Wi-Fi only Tab, running seraphimserapis' CM9 preview kang.
I'll dive right into things here. Earlier today, I flashed the above ROM, everything went perfectly, booted up just fine, and got all my apps back up and running. I was using my tab fine for the entire day with no problems to speak of. Later in the day, I began transferring some misc. files (documents, music, etc) to my internal SD card via MTP USB transfer. After the transfer was complete, I unplugged my tab, and went on my merry way. The next time I booted up, everything began FCing on me, and nearly every app I tried to open immediately FCed. Thinking it was a temporary bug, I rebooted my tab, but the same problem persisted, multiple different processes fced upon boot, and almost all my apps would fc as soon as I opened them. After trying a few more times, I gave up, and booted back into CWM (which I can do perfectly fine), cleared cahce and delvik cache, and did a factory reset. This however,seemed to only augment the problem. Upon booting up (after doing that initial tab setup), trebuchet FCes (in a "FC loop", as it continually tries to open), and the tablet is completely unusable. I have tried wiping cache, reformatting and rebooting several times, each time with the same result
I am able to get into settings however, by plugging in the tab, and clicking USB debugging (for whatever reason, settings does not FC), and am able to connect to my internal memory via MTP. When the tab pops up in my computer, it says I have 25 GB out of 28 available GB, but when I click on the folder, it is completely empty. If i try to move files over to my tab, or even create a new folder, I get an error message saying "the device has stopped responding or has been removed". (Pictures below)
http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/9855/75464072.jpg
http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/3395/61277691.jpg
I do not believe this is a problem with the rom for two reasons. (1) no one else has had this problem (to my knowledge), and (2) it was working fine the whole day, until i did that file transfer (that being said, this is my own amateur opinion, which you may choose to completely disregard it in your diagnosis). I am 99% sure I didn't unplug the tab while files were still transferring, but I did not unmount the storage or eject it or anything fancy of that nature before I unplugged it.
My question is, is there any way I can somehow reformat the internal memory of my tab? Otherwise, is there some other possible fix you experts may possibly have? Or am I screwed?
I apologize in advance if you ask me to try something and I cant respond promptly. Its 3AM here and i need to wake up early tomorrow. Thank you in advance
Edit:
I am quite convinced there is some kind of internal memory corruption problem here, but I really am not an expert enough to know for certain. The tablet still boots up fine, but is completely unusable as trebuchet fc loops 90% of the time i reboot the tab. Obviously, the entire thing isnt trashed as it appears to boot and get into the system fine, but I it's still completely unusable from that point on.
I have tried formatting the /data and /cache partitions of the internal memory to no avail. I would try formatting /system, but from my understanding, thats only advisable if you are able to flash a new rom after formatting, but if i cannot write into my internal memory, then there's no way i can flash a new rom. Conveniently enough, I deleted the .zip file for the rom off my internal sd, and i cannot access my clockworkmod recovery from CWM (gives an error, I don't think that would have worked anyway) since the internal sd is (i believe) corrupted. I also tried mounting as USB from CWM, and that also gives an error...
I am clean out of ideas. I'm not sure if this is a completely unfixable problem, or if self repairing is well within the realm of possibility. If someone can shed some light on me that would REALLY be appreciated. Otherwise i might have to send it back to sammy (still under warranty), which i dont mind doing, but if they boot it to find an ICS rom, they probably wont be so keen to repair it...perhaps there's a way to brick it further so they can't tell?
UPDATE 2:
Problem fixed! I still don't have a clue as to what the problem was, but thankfully I managed to escape out of this one. I tried pushing a new ROM via adb, and it worked (apparently), but this just forced me into a boot loop (never hit the homescreen).
As a last ditch effort I pushed the stock ROM, and completely removed root, and it worked. I can now boot up past the spash screen without all all my processes crashing. Really a strange issue, I have my theories, but they're probably blatanly wrong so I'll just keep them to myself. Im just glad I don't have to send it back to sammy... I plan to re-root shortly. I am confident I will get no further issues.
Even though no one helped me directly, it was thanks to the plethora of information available on this forum that I was able to resolve my issue...and for some reason, making a thread where I'm just talking to myself helps a bit too...maybe im just weird. Anyway if anyone's reading this, thanks again xda
.......HOW??
brennanyama said:
UPDATE 2:
Problem fixed! I still don't have a clue as to what the problem was, but thankfully I managed to escape out of this one. I tried pushing a new ROM via adb, and it worked (apparently), but this just forced me into a boot loop (never hit the homescreen).
As a last ditch effort I pushed the stock ROM, and completely removed root, and it worked. I can now boot up past the spash screen without all all my processes crashing. Really a strange issue, I have my theories, but they're probably blatanly wrong so I'll just keep them to myself. Im just glad I don't have to send it back to sammy... I plan to re-root shortly. I am confident I will get no further issues.
Even though no one helped me directly, it was thanks to the plethora of information available on this forum that I was able to resolve my issue...and for some reason, making a thread where I'm just talking to myself helps a bit too...maybe im just weird. Anyway if anyone's reading this, thanks again xda
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm hoping you see this reply as its been quite a while since you've had the issue. I'm working with a Galaxy S2 Skyrocket with the same intenal memory corruption/ files system corruption you were facing. I followed what you did regarding push a rom thru adb and that worked for me, but my question is, how did you get the roms to successfully write if you couldnt write to internal memory? My system is mounted as read only apparently and locked itself with whatever I had on there on August 28th. No matter how many times I format, erase, or wipe it, it returns to the same state as if its a deep lock on it.
This error is still not answered on the forums so im starting a new thread.
i get the error as the title.
sd card space is not the problem.
i tried formatting the sd card.
i have less than 50 apps installed.
wiped dalvik cache, and all other sorts people say on other posts.
(my phone is LG P936 so "fix permission" screws up the phone. all text disappears)
have latest cwm recovery.
and still get the error.
any answers please?
and please dont reply if you are going to write an opinion.
only answers please.
sorry for my rude behaviour but I'm sick and tired of reading posts full of opinions and "maybe"s.
Not sure if you ever got this fixed but I 'm suffering from the same error. I tried pretty much everything you tried (even fix permissions) and I have about 20GB free on my SD card so space shouldn't be an issue. I have not yet tried formatting the SD card since it has always worked and CWM is able to write to it because the following files are created:
- boot.img
- data.ext3.tar
- recovery.img
- system.ext3.tar
The files that are missing are (based on older backups):
- .android_secure.vfat.tar
- cache.ext3.tar (probably because I wiped it first?)
- nandroid.md5
I have attached the log from CWM in the hopes that someone can tell me what is wrong. The error occurs at the end of the progress bar of 'backing up /data'.
hey just use TWRP Recovery. It's way better than CWM. normal backup on cwm took me like an hour but twrp was never longer than 10minutes.
Today I have formatted the SD card and tried again, but as expected it did not change anything.
ceoleaders said:
hey just use TWRP Recovery. It's way better than CWM. normal backup on cwm took me like an hour but twrp was never longer than 10minutes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess I will give this a try. Can I just install it over CWM or can they run side by side?
different reciveries cannot be run side by side as they are installed on a different partition. so it will always be installed over your current one.
ceoleaders said:
different reciveries cannot be run side by side as they are installed on a different partition. so it will always be installed over your current one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I tried TWRP and it also fails at backing up my data partition. The log is a bit more clear though and it seems to get stuck on "/data/data/com.android.vending/cache/images" which is the last line before it gives an error. I checked the "images" folder and it seems empty but I cannot delete it. Tried ES File Explorer and Terminal Emulator but no way to get rid of it. The folder appears to be related to Google Play, so I cleared all data and cache from Google Play, even uninstalled the updates but there 's simply no way to get rid of it. I 'm not sure if this is the reason why the backup fails, but I CAN copy the folder and even rename it.
Pff looks like I 'm going to have to do a clean install after all .
Hello, I too have this problem and unfortunately TWRP is not available for my phone.
I used to be able to do CWM backups fine on my old phone, and they work great on my tablet. But they consistently fail at "/data" on my Galaxy Ace II x. Might it be because I'm using Link2SD? I don't see why that would cause a problem, but maybe it's having trouble with the symlinks?
Hmm. Seems the issue was that, despite having only 1.28 GB total available storage space on stock, the backups wanted more than 4 GB. Cleared some room on my microSD card and suddenly backups worked fine! Of course, shortly after I installed CyanogenMod, which has much smaller backups...
Sent from my GT-S7560M using Tapatalk 4
I forgot to report back here but the only way I found to fix the problem was by doing a clean install. After that, I was able to backup my data partition again. I then restored my apps ' data with TB and was unable to backup the data partition again. I 'm guessing one of my apps had corrupt data, but never got to find out which one it was.
maybe your partition not match with recovery, like something wrong vold.fstab
Just in case anyone still wants to know how to fix this, I managed to solve it by running these commands:
1. run adb shell in recovery.
2. unmount data partition (umount /dev/block/mmcblk0p26). -> this one failed so I skipped it
3. run e2fsck /dev/block/mmcblk0p26
See http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=48659092&postcount=868 for original post.
I got a few HTREE errors and a bunch of duplicate names which I renamed when prompted. Booted the phone and rebooted into TWRP and now I am able to backup my data partition again. :good:
EDIT: Problem reappeared so I tried the above commands again but it said that the filesystem was clean. Ran 'e2fsck -f /dev/block/mmcblk0p26' instead and had to fix a bunch of HTREE errors from Facebook again and duplicate names from Xprivacy but now I 'm able to backup my data partition again.
Dude just selest the backup format as both zip and tar filea
I've recently been getting into more security cautious habits with encryption and what not, due to this whole NSA/Big-brother is watching business... But I have a question (more may pop up as this discussion goes on). Sorry if I seem noob-y, I am still getting a hang of all this encryption business. But here's my first round (regarding just the files being backed up):
If I go ahead and do a full phone encryption with my GN2 where will I stand as far as backups to Dropbox/Copy/Google Drive/etc.?
I currently have photos and such backing up to copy, and I often move backups made through recovery to Dropbox and such. If I were to have photos automatically sync to copy or move system backups to dropbox wouldn't that render them basically useless as I am assuming they move out of the phone encrypted (not being decrypted as they exit).
The photos would be unusable anywhere besides my phone right? So moving them off my phone to share vacation photos for instance would be impossible, and if my phone were to crash they'd be irretrievable? Making the backup process pointless.
Wouldn't the back up be rendered useless as well, exactly when I might need said backup? If my phone were to ever crash or die for some reason, I would lose the encryption key, would even be able to do a full system restore through the recovery? It would seem that the encryption key wouldn't be kept with those back up files, so while it might place everything back in its correct place, it would still be unreadable. Or does it maybe keep the key in system files somewhere so that a full backup would restore the key as well?
And my second round of questions (regarding recoveries and what not):
I am also under the impression that I would not be able to flash through custom recovery either as the internal SD would be inaccessible from the recovery being it doesn't have the encryption key. I am currently running OmniROM and it is in a nightly stage still for my phone. I wouldn't be able to update nightly would I? I am assuming since it basically flashes/overwrites system each time, that I would be losing my encryption key and making everything besides system unusable then right?
And what about downloading ROMs to flash/update directly to my phone? As I download them from in browser or another app and they go to the default /downloads folder they would be encrypted. They wouldn't be accessible from there in recovery, but if I were to try and move them out of internal SD to the external SD they would retain encryption and still be inaccessible? So the only way to download ROMs and updates would be from PC and only move them to the external SD?
Overall, this seems to be crippling a lot of the way I use my phone...
Bump?
Sorry, this is already getting buried and I kinda want to know what's going on before I go ahead and do this...
Zombtastic said:
I've recently been getting into more security cautious habits with encryption and what not, due to this whole NSA/Big-brother is watching business... But I have a question (more may pop up as this discussion goes on). Sorry if I seem noob-y, I am still getting a hang of all this encryption business. But here's my first round (regarding just the files being backed up):
If I go ahead and do a full phone encryption with my GN2 where will I stand as far as backups to Dropbox/Copy/Google Drive/etc.?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not (yet) an expert on this, but when you've encrypted your device, it encrypts the file system on your internal memory and SD card. You have to enter a PIN/password when you turn on your device (and when it times out) to gain access. When the correct PIN is entered at boot time, the file system is available as normal - the underlying data is still encrypted, but the file system can unencrypt it in "real time" for use by apps and the system.
So that means that Dropbox et al all see your files as normal, and any copying you do from your device to something on the net (Drive, Dropbox, a server, etc.) works as normal - the data appears normal to the apps and is copied as normal. So photos would copy across as photos, music as music, etc.
Think of it like this: You can't speak Urdu, only English. There is a book you own that is written in Urdu that you want to tell someone about. You find a translator to read the book and tell you what it says. He reads the first page in Urdu, translates it in his head to English, and tells you what it says. You then tell your friend what it says (in English, of course). Your friend writes down what you told him, in English, then tells you something in reply. You tell your Urdu translator what your friend said (again, in English). Your Urdu translator then translates (in his head) what you said from English to Urdu, and writes it down in the book in Urdu.
At no time do you understand Urdu, nor does your friend. Your friend doesn't even know the book is written in Urdu and doesn't care. He never sees it or accesses it directly. If anyone ever steals your book, they can't read it unless they can read Urdu. The book is only useful to you and your friends if you have an Urdu translator sitting there in the loop. (the analogy is imperfect and incomplete but you get the idea).
So, getting back to your phone, if you have it encrypted, the underlying file system deals with translating things on the fly if you've given it the correct password at boot and login time. No apps ever know about the encryption - they just see data as normal (unencrypted). So any app that wants to copy a photo to Dropbox just sees a normal photo - it never sees the underlying encrypted data. But if you don't enter the correct password at boot time, the phone can't boot, and anyone trying to access the data on the phone won't be able to read it unless they know the password.
Does that help or confuse?
Zombtastic said:
I currently have photos and such backing up to copy, and I often move backups made through recovery to Dropbox and such. If I were to have photos automatically sync to copy or move system backups to Dropbox wouldn't that render them basically useless as I am assuming they move out of the phone encrypted (not being decrypted as they exit).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm, this does my head in a bit but lets untangle it:
- you boot into Recovery. The Recovery you're using (obviously) understands encrypted file systems (some versions of CWM do, some versions of TWRM don't for instance - see near the end of this post for a bit more on this). So when you boot into Recovery and enter your PIN/password, it can then read your file system. You can then do a Recovery-based backup of your file system (or individual files, though I'm not aware that you can do this). The backup it creates is written to the encrypted file system and thus encrypted with the same encryption keys used for everything else.
- You boot the phone back up as normal and enter your PIN/password, and start up Android. You then use Dropbox to copy the Recovery backup files to the cloud. So the question is, "Are these files encrypted?" and I think the answer is, "No". Why? Read the rest of this post and hopefully you'll work out the same conclusion. But I'm pretty sure that the data that ends up on the Cloud is not encrypted.
One general comment worth pointing out as an aside (sorry, this paragraph isn't really related to the above but I wanted to point this out somewhere and its still useful) is that each time you encrypt your phone, it creates a unique encryption key - even if you give it the same PIN/password to use. So if you're forced to rebuild/reflash/wipe your phone in the future, it won't be able to access any data that is still on there (in internal or SD memory) since it won't know the previous encryption key. So you'll have to wipe all data and start again. And at that point, if you choose to encrypt your fresh, newly initialized phone, it will have a new, unique encryption key that won't work on any encrypted data from previous. So if for instance, you plug in an SD card that was encrypted on your phone in an earlier ROM, it won't be readable even if you know the correct PIN/password, since your phone will be using a different underlying unique key.
Zombtastic said:
The photos would be unusable anywhere besides my phone right? So moving them off my phone to share vacation photos for instance would be impossible, and if my phone were to crash they'd be irretrievable? Making the backup process pointless.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So, if you're following this, you'll now understand that moving your photos off your phone could be done two ways:
- while you're using the phone as normal (ie. you've booted it, entered your PIN/password, and copying your photos to Dropbox via an app while you're logged on. If you do it this way, you're simply copying photos as normal that can be viewed as normal in Dropbox.
- by copying backups generated while in Recovery. But Recovery will be firstly mounting the encrypted file system successfully (if you gave it the right PIN/password and your version of Recovery supports encryption), which means it can read your photos as normal files, then backs them up into its own normal Recovery file/folder structure and writes them to your encrypted file system, so the underlying data is encrypted unbeknownst to Recovery. Then when you boot up your phone and log in successfully to Android, you can access that data as normal (and unencrypted). So when you then copy it to Dropbox, all you're copying is normal Recovery-created backup files. The copied data won't be encrypted (unless Recovery encrypts them itself, independently, which I don't think it does). So you could copy this data to anybody's phone, so long as they were using a compatible Recovery version and probably compatible ROM.
Zombtastic said:
Wouldn't the back up be rendered useless as well, exactly when I might need said backup? If my phone were to ever crash or die for some reason, I would lose the encryption key, would even be able to do a full system restore through the recovery? It would seem that the encryption key wouldn't be kept with those back up files, so while it might place everything back in its correct place, it would still be unreadable. Or does it maybe keep the key in system files somewhere so that a full backup would restore the key as well?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think your logic is correct. The backup would be useless if the phone loses the encryption key, which it would do if you re-initialized your phone and/or did a new encryption. So you can only recover your backed up data if you haven't done either of those things. A solution to this is to use backup software that runs on your phone (Titanium Backup) that gives you the option to encrypt your data. Some caveats to this approach should be obvious:
- you firstly need to decide if you trust your backup software's encryption
- you need to use a strong password and be able to recall it months/years from now when you go to restore your data
- you need to copy your backups off your phone (such as onto your SD card, cloud, dropbox, etc.) in case you lose your phone.
Zombtastic said:
And my second round of questions (regarding recoveries and what not):
I am also under the impression that I would not be able to flash through custom recovery either as the internal SD would be inaccessible from the recovery being it doesn't have the encryption key. I am currently running OmniROM and it is in a nightly stage still for my phone. I wouldn't be able to update nightly would I? I am assuming since it basically flashes/overwrites system each time, that I would be losing my encryption key and making everything besides system unusable then right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tricky - if you flash/update your phone with a new ROM, you will probably be OK so long as you haven't wiped the part of your phone's storage that holds the encryption information. I don't know where this is. But the nightly updates I do to my phone don't normally touch my data - all my apps are still there and it boots identically to the way it did before I updated it. HOWEVER, its possible that an update may force me to wipe my phone for some reason - the update may fail, it may contain significant changes, or I might screw something up. I probably end up completely wiping my phone at least once every 2 months just because I like to play with the latest and greatest ROMs, or I screw something up. So if that happens, I'm going to lose the encryption information and thus would lose everything on the phone.
Of course, I can always restore my apps and data via Titanium Backup, since I back up my stuff quite often and then copy it to Dropbox.
Zombtastic said:
And what about downloading ROMs to flash/update directly to my phone? As I download them from in browser or another app and they go to the default /downloads folder they would be encrypted. They wouldn't be accessible from there in recovery, but if I were to try and move them out of internal SD to the external SD they would retain encryption and still be inaccessible? So the only way to download ROMs and updates would be from PC and only move them to the external SD?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmmm - good question. A simpler question is, "Is my encrypted file system accessible while in Recovery?" I believe the answer is, "Yes, if you use CWM, No if you use TWRM". But I say that because from what I've been reading, some versions of CWM/TWRM can/can't handle encrypted devices. But you'll already have sorted this out at the time you're trying to encrypt your device anyway since the encryption process involves rebooting your phone into recovery I believe - and if you're not using the correct supported Recovery, this step will fail. But if you are using a supported recovery, this step will work, and therefore logically I'd assume that you can access your encrypted file system while in Recovery in the future. I'd imagine Recovery would prompt you for your PIN/password in order to mount the encrypted file system.
So assuming the above is correct, you would be able to access the newly-downloaded ROMs while in Recovery and thus can flash them. But of course, Caveat Emptor with flashing the new ROM - if it forces you to wipe anything, you may end up unable to access any of the data.
Zombtastic said:
Overall, this seems to be crippling a lot of the way I use my phone...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From what I've been researching, you won't have a problem anyway, because I haven't come across anyone that has successfully encrypted their phone using a custom ROM. Strangely, this ability seems to be unwanted by XDA people. My tinfoil hat tells me that there are people ensuring that this ability continues to not work on custom ROMs until/unless a backdoor capability is found. Hopefully I'm wrong on many counts.
douginoz said:
From what I've been researching, you won't have a problem anyway, because I haven't come across anyone that has successfully encrypted their phone using a custom ROM. Strangely, this ability seems to be unwanted by XDA people. My tinfoil hat tells me that there are people ensuring that this ability continues to not work on custom ROMs until/unless a backdoor capability is found. Hopefully I'm wrong on many counts.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Amazing post by the way! It does seem very helpful.
BUT it's very funny you mention it not working. Because that's exactly what happened. After not getting a response here or in the ROM's forum for a few days, I decided to just take the plunge and do it. I was just planning on testing everything out my self and figuring it out as I went. The first time it seemed fine, the encryption went through it seemed.
Being as I didn't know any of the info you just enlightened me with, I did fear that nothing was truly encrypted though. Everything was transferring to my computer with a drag and drop and working fine, so I was afraid (without evidence) that nothing was truly encrypted. I asked on the ROM's forum again (still waiting for an answer).
That night, my phone was left plugged in charging, yet some how had turned off in the night. I awake to my phone asking for an encryption key. I enter my key in to no avail. Nothing works and my phone is left unable to boot. It was utterly denying my password. I had to reflash. I asked about that in the forums as well, whether that was normal or if encryption was maybe not implemented yet, etc. The dev running the nightlies for my device has responded to the forum multiple times but not to me. Another user mentioned it might be that it is now merged together as a Galaxy Note 2 ROM and not specifically a T-mobile Galaxy Note 2 ROM (might be possible. Idk.).
Now, I have tried to re-encrypt. Multiple times. But I cannot for the life of me get it to even start now. Every time I go to start the encryption process it shows me the fullscreen image of the android unzipped horizontally (at which point it is supposed to reboot and start encrypting) and it hangs/sits there forever. Not rebooting, not anything. If I hit the back button, the image disappears and it goes back to my phone. Working perfectly fine, like it never even started doing anything. I am not doing anything differently. I don't know what could be happening to stop it from even getting as far as it did last time. Unless the devs maybe started working on it and have disabled it for the time being/screwed it up worse, I dunno.
Not you got me crafting a tin-foil hat...