Recovering data from a phone stuck in recovery mode - Galaxy S III Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

So about 4 days ago my S3, on which i installed 4.4.4 kitkat last summer, started rebooting, then the home app crashes a couple of times, i see a lot of crash popups which are either for the home app or androind system, then it reboots again, and usually after some reboots it works normally until i go into an app, then if i press the home button the home app would crash again and it would beigin rebooting(though once every app was crashing left and right). Yesterday however it didn't even make it to the home app part, it was stuck in the screen with the CM logo loading(bootloop?).
My question is if it's possible to fix it while also recovering all the data such as photos, music and app data. I have Clockworkmod recovery 6.0.4.6. So far i've tried pulling everything from adb, which either didn't work or worked but pulled folders and files i don't really need(tried pulling /storage/, all i got was an almost empty sdcard1 folder). I also tried this method [i can't post the link, google How to Recover data Using ADB recovery on Android techglen] but when i get to this line
mkdir emmc
my console gives me
~ # mkdir emmc
mkdir: can't create directory 'emmc': File exists

Try flashing twrp and mounting the data partition from twrp.

Yes, thanks, that worked and i was able to get most of the data i wanted, though not all, and did a factory reset. I also did a backup on an USB but when i tried to recover the data from there the progress bar was stuck at 0%.
My phone managed to boot normally, started downloading apps and then i got the android system crash again, along with the home app(trebutchet). So far it hasn't restarted by itself. I can still go to the app store and launch some of the apps from there. I managed to get 3 of the android system crash logs on pastebin: (again i can't post links) pastebin dot com /axBsYXfV, /6e3AiEyB /nwHxym9Y; should i make a new thread about this altogether?
Edit:Another crash log from when i tried to enter Apps from settings: tRbUX5h1

So crashes happen with stock and custom ROMs?

Related

[Q] INT2EXT+ problems. Can anyone lend me a hand?

So I just finished formatting my SD card using CWM. After that, I did a factory reset, etc, then flashed HASA MIUI. After that, I flashed INT2EXT+. And then the Dalvik Cache Wipe Tool on that thread too. After booting up the phone and installing some apps (QuickPic, MX Player, Greenify), I tried rebooting the phone. While it was booting up again, it showed me "Optimizing applications." along with the number of aplications in my phone. When I reached the home screen, none of the apps I installed are there only the system apps remain. I tried restarting again and this time, it didn't show me the "Optimizing applications.". Instead it booted right away to the home screen. Now my apps are back there.
However, whenever I install a new app and then restart my phone, it keeps doing the "Optimizing applications." once and then again all my installed apps are missing on the home screen. Restarting a second time brings them back. Is this the way the script is supposed to function?
Also, after some fiddling around, my installed apps are suddenly having problems, either force closing or not responding or simply not opening at all. Even after clearing data and cache, the problematic apps still don't get resolved. What fixes it is to uninstall it then redownload it from the Play Store again.
This is the first time I tried using scripts so I'd really appreciate if someone can tell me why these things are happening.
My phone is an Xperia ST17i (Active) with the Kappa 1.6 kernel and the recovery installed is CWM 6.0.3.1K.

[Q] HELP! Installed a currupt theme, now can't remove it!

Hi Guys
Been having a problem for the last one week. I'm on CM11 snapshot m7. I installed the One plus one theme, which seemed to run very well until my battery drained completely. Now when I boot my phone, it gives me an error message "unfortunately com.android.systemui has stopped working."
I figured it must be a corrupt theme so I just need to uninstall it. But I can't access settings, as even if I hit "OK" on the error message, the msg keeps reappearing, not allowing me to do anything with my phone.
The last solution I have, of course, is to do a factory reset and flash a working ROM. But then I'll lose all my app data. I tried the following solutions, but in vain. Please let me know if you guys can think of anything else, so as to save my app data! My last Titanium backup was a few months ago!
1. Tried to uninstall the app via adb, but my USB debugging is off, adb doesn't detect my device (and I can't access settings to turn it back on)
2. Tried to boot my phone in safe mode and uninstall the app but even in safe mode it shows the same error message and doesn't allow me to do anything.
3. Tried installing the ROM and Gapps hoping it would replace the filed modified by the theme, and my default theme would be back on.
4. Found an apk for the default (holosense) theme, converted it to .zip and tried flashing it through CWM.
5. Tried flashing the apk via sideload in CWM, but again my USB debugging being off, adb did not detect my phone.
When I had my system ui failure, I was still able to open quick settings drawer and access settings through there even though system ui was constantly crashing...
hawaiisteve said:
When I had my system ui failure, I was still able to open quick settings drawer and access settings through there even though system ui was constantly crashing...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh! I can't even open the notifications panel
omikhandekar13 said:
Hi Guys
Been having a problem for the last one week. I'm on CM11 snapshot m7. I installed the One plus one theme, which seemed to run very well until my battery drained completely. Now when I boot my phone, it gives me an error message "unfortunately com.android.systemui has stopped working."
I figured it must be a corrupt theme so I just need to uninstall it. But I can't access settings, as even if I hit "OK" on the error message, the msg keeps reappearing, not allowing me to do anything with my phone.
The last solution I have, of course, is to do a factory reset and flash a working ROM. But then I'll lose all my app data. I tried the following solutions, but in vain. Please let me know if you guys can think of anything else, so as to save my app data! My last Titanium backup was a few months ago!
1. Tried to uninstall the app via adb, but my USB debugging is off, adb doesn't detect my device (and I can't access settings to turn it back on)
2. Tried to boot my phone in safe mode and uninstall the app but even in safe mode it shows the same error message and doesn't allow me to do anything.
3. Tried installing the ROM and Gapps hoping it would replace the filed modified by the theme, and my default theme would be back on.
4. Found an apk for the default (holosense) theme, converted it to .zip and tried flashing it through CWM.
5. Tried flashing the apk via sideload in CWM, but again my USB debugging being off, adb did not detect my phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
try formatting cache and dalvik and try rebooting
if it doesnt work do a clean wipe and flash your rom it should do the trick
possibly no other go
for preserving your data
do a nandroid backup first and then do a clean wipe
this way you can extract app+data from nandroid via titanium backup later
hope it helps mate

Crash loop due to stuck text-to-speech download

Hello,
I'm trying to get an Alcatel Idol X (One Touch 6040D, no custom roms or modifications) out of a crash loop, but have been unsuccessful so far. The trouble started when the phone wanted to download and install text-to-speech voice data ("Female for English"). At some point this download/install crashes, causing the phone to reboot. When rebooting the phone hangs on the Alcatel screen with white background. I have to power it off then on again. Then it boots and starts the download/installation again, causing it to crash seconds after.
I've tried the following to no avail:
Clear cache partition from recovery menu.
Force stopping "Download Manager" and clearing cache & data. I have to be very quick to do this, otherwise the phone reboots. Unfortunately clicking the clear buttons has no effect. The used disk space stays the same (80.00KB data, 12.00KB cache). The phone will not reboot at this point, but many apps (Google Play, Settings,...) and processes are crashing repeatedly (android.process.acore, android.process.media and com.google.process.gapps). Eventually, so much has stopped working that the phone reboots.
There's a thread, I found almost a month ago on Androidcentral, about this very same problem. But what worked for the thread starter and other people, i.e. the clearing of cache and data of the "Download Manager" doesn't work for me. Probably because the cache/data clearing is not actually executed. So that might be something to look into further. See point two above. My replies in that thread haven't been responded too, unfortunately.
I'm aware that the cleanest solution is probably a factory reset from the recovery menu. However that would mean data loss of photos and app data, that haven't been backed up. My main goal is to get the phone into a state that a recovery/syncing of that data can be done. After, I don't mind doing a factory reset.
Any help is greatly appreciated!
Kind regards,
eXistenZ_69
P.S.: post copied from here as per recommendation of XDA Assistant
Hello,
this problem still could not be resolved unfortunately Does anybody have any idea why the "clean cache" doesn't appear to have any effect?
Cheers,
eXistenZ_69
Not too familiar with Alcatel as they aren't popular around where I live... I would think that there's an option to wipe cache in recovery however. If that doesn't help, I would try to quickly toggle airplane mode to stop the download process so you can backup what you need.
Hello es0tericcha0s,
thanks for your reply. The problem seems not to be related to Alcatel specifically. See Google Text-to-Speech Won't Stop Downloading for other brands of Android smartphones that had the same issue. Unfortunately, what helped others, i.e. clearing the cache, does absolutely nothing in my case I also already tried clearing the cache partition in the recovery menu. Disabling wifi is another thing I tried to no avail. The download manager still starts installing or trying to download the voice data and crashes. Any other suggestions?
Cheers,
eXistenZ_69
Are you rooted by any chance? What's going on with the Download Manager shouldn't affect your ability to backup your photos at least when you plug it into a computer. If you aren't rooted, you might look into trying to do an adb backup if your phone supports it. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2091047&highlight=4+4
No, the phone is not rooted. Never did any modifications of that sort.
I tried connecting to the pc before, but it's not possible to browse the phone content. The crashing services I mentioned in my first post are probably interfering. I will try it again on another pc... Will an adb backup work in that case? Or is it possible to do an adb backup without booting android fully?
Cheers,
eXistenZ_69
So I tried again plugging the phone into a computer. The computer plays the connection sound and shows the phone when clicking on the "Safely disconnect USB device" in the task bar, but unfortunately it's not possible to browse the phone contents using the file explorer :crying: There is a slowly moving progress bar shown in the file explorer location bar and eventually it just stops and nothing happens.
I couldn't try the ADB backup tool in the thread you suggested cause the site is down. It most likely won't work anyway given the fact that the USB connection cannot be established successfully.
*sigh* I'm starting to think I'm out of options. It's just so frustrating to know that the images and contact data are present on the device, but there is no practical way to get to them. I could do a reset to factory settings and hope to recover any images using a tool like Recuva, but that would definitely endanger them.
eXistenZ_69
Only other thing I could think of would be to root and hopefully you could freeze/disable the Download Manager in time before the crash to be able to recover stuff.
Adb still might work even though MTP isn't. Just have to hurry through the settings to enable it. If you don't have adb on your computer search : Minimal ADB and Fastboot here on xda.
Hello es0tericcha0s,
Today I had a major breakthrough. Using ADB I successfully copied over the /sdcard directory contents on the phone. This means all pictures have been recovered!! So happy about that Thank you so much for your help! :highfive: It didn't work right away after installing minimal adb & fastboot though, my phone was not listed when doing "adb devices". I then installed some software from Alcatel called "One Touch Center", which is used for managing phonebook, sms, ringtones, etc... that was not able to connect to the phone either. However I think it installed some driver, because after ADB was able to connect to the phone :good:
I'm currently trying to figure out how to root the phone so I can delete the download manager cache/data. From what I've read by now is that those should be present somewhere under /data/data/ . Those directories require root privileges unfortunately. I tried Kingo Root which lists the phone as supported, but that failed to acquire root.
Would be great to succeed in fixing the crash loop too, so I can sync contacts and other data too.
Thanks again!
Cheers,
eXistenZ_69

Emoji Switcher semi-bricked my phone

Hi, this is more of a warning.
I have a LG G4 H815 and I'm on lineage-14.1-20170516-nightly-h815-signed with opengapps and lineage su, was doing fine.
I previously (CM13 times) used emoji switcher (com.stevenschoen.emojiswitcher) to get the iOS emoji, so I did that again - only this time, I noticed that Threema would crash if I selected an emoji.. which should have been a hint..
..with a reboot it was fine again for a couple of hours, until it crashed again.
After a couple of days with this I though "hm, maybe I should switch to another emoji version, maybe from iOS 10.2 to 10?" , yeah after I did that and rebooted, my phone was in brick-limbo.
Firstly it seemed to have factory reset my phone - everything gone, SD card completely empty - safe for some apps, strangely. But it was also unable to connect to the internet, neither wifi nor mobile data...
The (software) buttons did not work, except for the "back" button.
Also I was unable to enable developer mode again....
I tried rebooting in various ways, tried clearing davlik.. I even looked into the SD folder from TWRP recovery... empty...
So I'm now re-flashing my phone, and I will try to get some old backup data on it - since, as I mentioned, it completely cleaned out my SD card, so no titanium backup either...

[CM12.1] Stange bootloop after several months of trouble free usage

Summary:
So this morning (abiout six hours ago) my beloved S2 running CM12 crashed and could not reliable boot since then, it goes into some kind of weird bootloop.
The issue in detail:
Attempting to boot (long press on power button) will bring up the "Galaxy I9100" as sually and continues with the CM12 bootloader animation. After the typical time required to boot it vibrates slightly as usual, but afterwards the screen dims for about a second and the whole process is repeated.
What I did shortly before the issue:
Google Play wanted to update apps, but I was out of internal memory. So I went to /data/data and searched and deleted all files containing "cache". I've done this about 20-40 times over the last months (I didn't keep count) and never had any issue.
Things I've tried:
It is possible to access the recovery mode, but the options in CM12's recoverey are very limited (unlike TWRP for example). I cleared the cache but it had no effect.
After taking out the battery the "optimizing apps" windows pops up. When it's done, user input (enter sim, unlock pattern, homecreen) is possible, but only for a few seconds. The first time I missed the chance, the second and thired time I immediately restarted into safe mode.
Safe mode works surprisingly well, the first time I used it to let google continue the updates and disabled autostart of Applock and Greenify, the second time I uninstalled both Apps and cleared the dalvic cache (simply by deleting data/dalvic/). Neither attemped solved the issue.
What I'm currently doing:
After booting into safe mode for the 4th time I'm starting to back up all user data. Communication with a PC works only for some time, but reconnecting solves the issue (for now).
So what's next?:
Honestly I've no idea what I'm doing. I've installed CM on 3 devices in the past 4 years, but thats all experience I have. I'm hoping that I'm just missing an important detail and can get around all these problems with a simple fix. If not, I'd try a clean install, but I'd like to avoid that.
So, if you've got ANY IDEA what the issue might be or what to try, I'm open for all suggestions! Chances are that I haven't left the safe mode since posting, so you can also request sceenshots of anything you need. Thanks!
Screenshots or other related documents are in my sync.com folder: https [colum slash slash] cp [dot] sync [dot] com/dl/9b9bc5440#5b27p5ig-jfevicd7-kbnrzgcj-i2giy43b
Current screenshots: installed apps, phone info
I'll update this thread with all step that I take, so that a) you know where I am b) I remember everything and c) people with similar problems might benifit:
• The USB connection was kinda fragile, so I copied all data to the micro SD instead
• sdcard0 could be copied without problems
• phone crashed during coping of other files in root. Folder "sys" has been copied (at least partionally) before crash
• reboot normal, but always with message "Trebuchet was closed"
• seems to work fine now
• exit plane mode (I've enabled it before to charge quicker and reduce heat) and display turns black
• medium long press on power button brings up restart menu, nothing else can be done (checked: double click home button for camera, long click for recent apps)
• turn on airplane mode again and restart and its just fine again
• tried out a different sim card, same issue.
Based on all this, I'd say the issue is a third party app acting (badly) on the ppresence of a mobile connection. Weird. Will investigate the issue further tomorrow, or - more likely - flash the new lineageOS version. I'll report back when I know more.
After making a backup of ALL files I followed the pinned tutorial to install linageOS. Everything - including mobile connection - seems to work fine now! Thanks @djibe89 for such an amazing easy-to-follow tutorial
You can consider this thread closed

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