i need help please, i f**ked my phone up... - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I have a oneplus 5 with android 7.1.1
i deleted the files ''gatekeeper.password.db'' and ''lock.settings.db'' if i remember well. funny thing is that i didn't want to delete those files, it was an accident. but anyways... The problem is that not i only deleted these files that were located in the system folder, i also deleted ''gatekeeper.password.db'' files from my user folder, named ''0''.
and i f**ked it up doing this. now whenever i unlock my phone, (which btw does not have any pin or pass after deleting those files), it goes completely black. i can't setup a new password, i can't see any apps. nothing. i tried to, at least, recover the data, but even allowing android on windows and using fonedog, it does not work at all.
last thing i tried is making a cache wipe through TWRP. this only worsened the situation as now when i unlock, not only goes black, it also makes the upper tab dissapear, leaving me without more options than rebooting or shutting off.
i really, really need to extract all my data from the internal storage. i don't mind doing a factory reset after it.

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[Q] Questions About: Encryption + Backups

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...

[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!

Tablet stuck on restart loop; can't backup because it's restarting in Recovery Mode

Hello, my Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 Wifi tablet is stuck on a restart loop. While I've encountered restart loops in the past, and found that resetting to factory settings usually fixes it, this issue in particular has left me speechless.
Firstly, the tablet boots up to the lock screen. I can get through the lockscreen and either sit around on the homescreen or fiddle around with apps - but only for a minute or so, or longer (it's quite unpredictable) because after some arbitrary period of time, the tablet will automatically restart itself. Basically, it automatically restarts itself after booting up to the lock/homescreen.
What I've noticed, as a result of these restarts, is that the tablet doesn't save any settings I've modified prior to the automatic restart. Like, say if I were to remove a widget off my homescreen; after the restart, the widget is still there, having reverted itself back onto my screen. Additionally, things like Wifi and Bluetooth revert themselves back to their original on/off positions after every restart.
Secondly, I can enter recovery mode just fine. HOWEVER ... attempting to backup my device with CWM Recovery causes the tablet to restart itself, cancelling the backup and just flat out screwing me over. The tablet manages to do the following, telling me this: backing up boot image, back up recovery image, back up system, free space, done freeing space. Then after that, it starts backing up other things, but after that, it restarts unpredictably while it's doing so. I haven't tried 'backup to Micro SD ' yet (mostly because I don't have any empty Micro SD Cards) but I'll try that later today - though I doubt that'll work.
Lastly, I've tried just plugging in my tablet to my computer, and dragging and dropping my files onto my desktop, but the tablet doesn't seem to respond to anything. Attempting to copy and paste anything results in an 'Unspecified Error' message on my PC, and the copying process aborts itself.
So with all this said: how the hell do I backup my tablet? I think a factory reset can fix this, but I can't even BACK UP my files because Recovery Mode is seemingly susceptible to this omnipotent restart loop.
Are there any fixes to this, other than a factory reset? I'm on the verge of just saying 'f it' and wipe my tablet anyways, but if my files ... which includes my notes for my classes (-.-) can be saved, I'll try it.
Okay, so I managed to get CWM Recovery to backup my stuff on my external Micro SD Card ....
... but when I try to Wipe Data/Factory Reset it doesn't work ... it doesn't wipe anything. When I reboot, Cyanogenmod is still there, my lockscreen settings are still active, my homescreens are still there - the reset didn't do anything.
How do I wipe my device, now if CWM won't do it? Arrrghhh .... somebody help ;_;
Since I can't move my documents, pictures, music, etc from my internal memory to my PC, I would rather not wipe the device fully.
I think the only way would be to reflash using ODIN. But this will likely lose all data.
Also, I think you need to be in this forum: http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-tab-2/help

OptimisingAppsFixer made something not fixed

Hello there!
Alright, let me walk you through my problem.
(there's a summary at the bottom)
I own a rooted Asus zenfone go (Z00VD). In the past, I kept on waiting on boots cuz of the optimizing apps thingy that android does sometimes becomes of dalvik. After some research, a guy suggested to download the app(title), so I did and it worked. And it had a obvious warning that I did not follow which is "if you wish to uninstall this app, press unfix".
Alright so here comes the real problem, I decided to install a custom rom (resurrection remix), which made me wipe everything then it always ran into bootloader because it can't delete the dalvik cache (permissions error I think). So, in a great genius manner, I renamed the arm folder to parm(from arm) which allowed the Android rom to make a new dalvik cache.
So now in internal storage, I have a parm folder that is 2.5 gb big and is absolutely undeletable, even with recovery. The folder is owned by root, and it's group is 01028 sdcard_r. I cannot change it's permissions, or move it to external. I was able to move it to DCIM, but am unable to move it back to dalvik folder to u fix. So now, I can only change it's name to profane languages. I have tried using pc(through mounting) , but it still stays(the pc shows deleting it, the phone shows another story).
TL;DR: folder undeletable due to it being grouped in 01028-sdcard_r (I think). Cannot change its place nor its permissions even with recovery.
I'm sorry if I made this a bit too long, but I wanted to show you the story of how I ended up here. You can ask me any info about anything. Thank you for the help

Restoring data after flashing a rom

Hi,
yesterday my note 8 fell down and my display broke. Only a small part is still visible, but I accidentally deactivated the OEM lock and had a FRP lock on restart. After I read that it is enough to flash a stock rom and the data would not be deleted, I did that too. Unfortunately my data is not visible, important notes, pictures and other files are no longer visible in the android system.
Now I am looking for a possibility to restore the data. I have already installed twrp on the note and adb on the pc, get it connected too, but don't know how to create a dump of the partiton now.
As an alternative I tried the minitool, unfortunately without result...

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