[Q] First time evo rooter w/ a few Q's - EVO 4G Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I am pretty new to rooting and ROMs and all that stuff, and today I rooted my htc evo for the first time, and also installed the CM6 ROM. I have a few questions though.
First off, while I was installing the ROM I (thought) I backed up my contacts and other info. Now that I installed the ROM, how do I access my backed up contacts etc?
Also, I noticed there is no android market, how can I fix this?
Thanks guys! This is my first post and the forums have been real helpful.

cody1212 said:
I am pretty new to rooting and ROMs and all that stuff, and today I rooted my htc evo for the first time, and also installed the CM6 ROM. I have a few questions though.
First off, while I was installing the ROM I (thought) I backed up my contacts and other info. Now that I installed the ROM, how do I access my backed up contacts etc?
Also, I noticed there is no android market, how can I fix this?
Thanks guys! This is my first post and the forums have been real helpful.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To get your contacts back go into people press menu and import your contacts, as for the market not being there you need to flash gapps, I'd provide you with a link but I am currently on my phone typing this. Good luck.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

Systemfraud said:
To get your contacts back go into people press menu and import your contacts, as for the market not being there you need to flash gapps, I'd provide you with a link but I am currently on my phone typing this. Good luck.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried to import my contacts from SD card, and it scans and then says "Scanning SD card failed (Reason: No vCard file found on the SD card) I don't know why its saying that. Shouldn't my contacts have been saved when I backed up before installing the ROM?

Need more info on what you used to backup your contacts, etc.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

cody1212 said:
I tried to import my contacts from SD card, and it scans and then says "Scanning SD card failed (Reason: No vCard file found on the SD card) I don't know why its saying that. Shouldn't my contacts have been saved when I backed up before installing the ROM?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What you can try doing is going into settings and the sync and accounts and try to sync your google account. This should work if you set up the sync. It worked for me int he past.

Systemfraud said:
Need more info on what you used to backup your contacts, etc.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used the backup feature on the phone when you hold the power and down buttons.

cody1212 said:
I used the backup feature on the phone when you hold the power and down buttons.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think you are out of luck with the way you are trying to restore your contacts. I don't think you can just pull the contacts out of a nand b/u to restore.
I don't think your completed SOL, you can flash your nand b/u back to your phone, I would think that would restore your contacts. Then you will want to either sync your contacts with Google or export them using the contacts export function.
I can not help you with restoring a nand b/u yet, it's something I haven't done yet.
Hope that helps a little, I'm still new to rooting too...

n00bhackin took the reply right out of my post! what he says sounds like your best bet
restore your backup then export your contacts (or sync them with your gmail account on the phone - I have not done this with mine - and if you had your addresses ported from an older phone then I don't believe this would have been done either unless you synced later)
when you are in your contacts/people hit the menu button - then you should see the option to Import/Export (which I believe you have seen this as your post states you are using this method to try and import them) - however you need to do exactly the same thing and export them from the contacts list you want before you can import them (which this contact/people info would be in your backup)
that will create a vCard file (which I believe is actually a *.vcf file) - also to note when you choose to export it should give you 2 options - to either export "Phone" (I believe this would be your people/contacts) or to export "Google" (which I'm pretty sure is your gmail account) - I just exported both
made as much backup as I could before I have rooted (which hopefully will be soon)
hope that was clear enough

After you get your contacts back up and running, go download Titanium Backup or MyBackup for root users. This will allow to you backup your contacts, calendar, apps + data, etc. Then you can restore them from the Titanimum or MyBackup into the new rom.
I have found this helpful in my limited flashing experience.

I agree, these two programs are must haves...Always backup contacts to google and not phone.

I'm not sure you even have google apps installed. That's how you get the market app and you should have all yurt contacts backed up through google. That way when you sign in on a new rom, it will sync your contacts back to your phone.
Swyped from my gingerbreaded EVO son

you can get gapps from here:
http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/index.php?title=Latest_Version#Google_Apps
it is at the bottom of the page use the HDPI one for EVO

I have all my contacts stored on my Google acct.
OMFGB EvO

Related

HTC Restore Problem

Hi guys
I recently factory restored my HTC Desire and the built-in backup prompted me to restore my settings, which I did, but for some reason my SMS messages were not restored.
I checked the SD card, and there is a backup there, but of course the files are encrypted. Is there any way to read these files, or to restore my messaging SMS?
Thanks in advance!
Am I right in saying that the backups's hashes are salted with the device serial #? If that's the case then decryption should be quite possible.
I have had the exact same problem today. Had to return my Desire as it was faulty for a straight swap (kept the same SIM and SD card). The SD card has restored all contacts and music, but SMS messages have not transferred over. I've looked at every possible option in the settings but can't seem to see how to do this.
I'd be grateful for any advice or info. Thankyou.
slightly old thread, but relevant to my problem....
have been playing around a lot with my desire over the past week, and managed to delete the wrong nandroid backup and lost all my sms. I have a sense auto backup form a day or so earlier, but cannot for the life of me get the phone to read these - there's no option to restore just backup.
So, tried factory reset from recovery, copied the 'old' backup to the sd, and booted. Nothing was restored. Have tried all sorts of combos to try and get the backup to be read, but no joy at all. Even completely wiping everything, flashing the original rom i was using (modaco 3.1) and restarting, but still sense doesnt see the backup.
I definitley remember it doing it once during all the crazy rom swopping of the last few days, and the sms, wifi key etc all restored, but I can't get it to do it again.
Any ideas about 'forcing' the restore? I know that the backup is handset specific (tied to the serial/imei?) but it should restore on any rom using sense yeh?
all help greatly appreciated
ta.
another small thought, there may be an app idea in here for anyone thats interested - reading the sense backup and applying it by force? i know quite a few people tend to backup their sd card regularly, so it could be useful as a last resort option.
I guess there's not much I can help you but to avoid this problem in the future you might want to use SMS backup (by Cristoph Studer, there are 2 others on the Market with the same name) - backs up your sms's to your Gmail account, works great. I love the Cloud!
I have used sms backup in the past, didn't bother this time as i had the nandroid backup. Kicking myself as I'm usually pretty careful about what files i'm getting rid of, and have got all my sms for about the last ten yrs (minus the 2 months i just lost) for blackmail purposes time to crank the delete button paranoia up a notch again
edit: solved tok everything off the sd card, made sure i had the backup set from the date range i wanted, wiped absolutely everything from recovery, reflashed the rom i was running when the backup was taken & rebooted. the backup was picked up fine, all settings, sms etc back with no problems.
the small trick to getting this to occur seems to be just let the phone sit for a minute when it reboots - i assume that if you go into the setup wizard before the sd card is correctly moutned and read that you bypass the restore. i had done the same procedure to try to get it to restore before and it didn't, the pause to allow the sd card to be read was the only thing i did differently.
I'm having the same issue, I want to restore a back-up from my SD card, but cannot see any way to do it. I've tried a factory reset, but still no luck.
Can a restore be forced? The 2.2 upgrade seems to have removed Settings>Privacy
Same problem here, Froyo won't restore my backup.
I tried to downgrade to Eclair, but the installation failed with "Error 140: wrong bootloader version".
I guess my backup is pretty useless now...
Frojo wont restore settings after hardreset
I asked HTC about this, and here's the answer:
Thanks for your question regarding backup of your device. The former feature backup to SD card is missing in this newer version. This is due to Google, which has developed backup feature in the software, changed the system in 2.2, then back out to their servers instead. This applies to the Google devices, such as NexusOne. When your device is the HTC brand, we have some backup features as before. However, you can take backup in the following way (as with older versions of Android): Contacts: You can save contacts via Outlook when they are created as telephone contacts. For this you need HTC Sync and Outlook on your computer. HTC Sync, see your device's SD card. To open the map, select Mount in the device, your device is displayed on the computer as an external disk drive. Then you find the program through your computer's Windows Explorer, and also integrates it on your computer. You can now sync. You can also download HTC Sync from our website under Support tab. If you use Google contacts they can be retrieved back when you set up your email again. If you have configured an Exchange server, you can also download contacts onto the device again. Calendar appointments: These are transferred in the same manner as contacts. Emails: These can be synchronized over again through your Exchange server, or if you have Google mail. Data files: These can be transmitted via computer Explorer when you select Mount as previously described. You can then transfer your files to a folder on your computer. SMS and MMS: Those you can not backup.
Blueyed1
Way to go HTC.... hurray
The more I learn about Google and HTC's way of handling my data I get more determined to Root my phone to get full access of my phone, and to control what data and in what way that data is transferred to either google or HTC.
When you compare to the way Apple is controlling it's sheep herd, Google is not any better when it comes to data gathering and data sniping.
Blueyed1 said:
SMS and MMS: Those you can not backup.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
WTF????????????????????????????
DRMON said:
WTF????????????????????????????
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Backup not possible with previeus build in backup, that is..

recovery over flashed rom....

flashing a rom on my evo was very successful. My issue was restoring my contacts and apps so i thought i had to recover them. FAIL! So i guess it put the stock rom on top of the flashed rom. Yes, FAIL again, i know. So the phone was running slow as ****. I backed up alllll my apps again on titanium and my contacts. My question is, how do i get my contacts and apps again? I know this is probably easy but im stressed and cant think right now. Worked 13 hours and thought i damaged my phone.
I have always just let Google sync my contacts so if I change devices I can just log into my Google account and they get transferred automatically. As for backing up apps I don't. I don't trust it. I like to start fresh everytime and install manually that way there is less of a chance of conflicts. If u have paid apps they always show back in the market.
yea all im worried about are the contacts....i have no prob downloading those few apps over...
For contacts using google sync, for app I just back up list of them using app list backup.
wow. so only 1 contact is showing up. does this mean i have to recover all my old stuff just to get the contacts
Were your contacts saved in your Gmail?
Also did u make a nandroid before changing roms and losing everything?
yes they were synched with the gmail.....im on the gmail now trying to figure something out but i dont see anything......and yes i backed up everything before i cleared the phone up
Hope you didn't "clean contacts" any other way but while flash rom of because that would sync as well and delete them from gmail. For example: someone believed his contacts are backed up at gmail and he chose to delete them from phone... then phone sync with gmail and "update " this "new phonebook".
If future you can also backup phone using:
1. some apps
2. or simple way by - open your contacts > chose menu > Import / Export > Export to SD card (restore them same way while choosing Import).
Hmm I would do a wipe then restore your nandroid backup you already have. Then make sure all your contacts are synchronized in your Google account. One thing i have always done is export contacts to a file and keep on pc just incase i lose them. After that do all your wipes and flash the rom of your choice.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
Beat me to it
erik077 said:
Hope you didn't "clean contacts" any other way but while flash rom of because that would sync as well and delete them from gmail. For example: someone believed his contacts are backed up at gmail and he chose to delete them from phone... then phone sync with gmail and "update " this "new phonebook".
If future you can also backup phone using:
1. some apps
2. or simple way by - open your contacts > chose menu > Import / Export > Export to SD card (restore them same way while choosing Import).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
erik077 said:
Hope you didn't "clean contacts" any other way but while flash rom of because that would sync as well and delete them from gmail. For example: someone believed his contacts are backed up at gmail and he chose to delete them from phone... then phone sync with gmail and "update " this "new phonebook".
If future you can also backup phone using:
1. some apps
2. or simple way by - open your contacts > chose menu > Import / Export > Export to SD card (restore them same way while choosing Import).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
for some reason its only synching 1 contact....i tried it like 3 times...
92bubble said:
for some reason its only synching 1 contact....i tried it like 3 times...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Forget Sync now, looks like they are gone . Did you manually delete any of them while "cleaning" your phone?
I would suggest booting into recovery flashing CALKULINS_FORMAT_ALL.zip & reflashing your rom. Contacts should be synced with google otherwise try mybackup pro. For apps I always suggest Titanium Backup. With the amount if rom flashing I do I find the donated version worthwhile. Good luck!

[Q] How to Backup Contacts that are Stored on the Phone

Hi All, and thanks for the nub help.
My wife decided to store all of her contacts on her phone instead of using her google account. Now I'd like to flash a new rom, but I cannot think of a way to backup those contacts. I'd gladly go through each one and convert it to a google-stored contact, but there seems to be no obvious way to do that.
Is there a way to backup and restore these contacts? Or to move them go google?
Thanks!
oatkiller said:
Hi All, and thanks for the nub help.
My wife decided to store all of her contacts on her phone instead of using her google account. Now I'd like to flash a new rom, but I cannot think of a way to backup those contacts. I'd gladly go through each one and convert it to a google-stored contact, but there seems to be no obvious way to do that.
Is there a way to backup and restore these contacts? Or to move them go google?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Theres an option when you are viewing your contacts screen to import/export to SD card. When in the contacts list just hit menu I think and youll see the option. It will create a file on your SD card and after you flash your new rom you will be able to import them back into the phone. Hope this helps. If you have any questions dont hesitate!
You should be able to do it. Open the dialer, then tab over to contacts, push menu, and then push "export to SD card." That will move them. Now you can flash your rom, and once you get it set, go back to the dialer, contact, then import from SD card, and you should be all set.
you could download Lookout from the market and it will back up ALL your contacts just make an account i love this app it allows you to locate your phone if you lost it and it scans your apps for viruses
Thanks all
Thanks for the help everyone. I forgot to mention that the Export to SD Card feature was crashing with a software error. That being said, I managed to use My Backup to backup the contacts.
Thanks!
No prob, and glad you got them backed up.

finding contacts stored in phone cwm backup

I changed the ROM on my friend's phone (they got my retired Epic when I upgraded to a note), taking a backup before hand, and it turns out that they had a bunch of contacts stored in their phone rather than in Google.
After the verbal admonishment was done about using google to keep contacts for this exact situation, the question came up on how to recover the contacts. As stated, I've got the backup of the prior ROM, but when I tried to restore it (was on people's rom, changed to CM 9.1) the restoration fails when trying to format a partition rfs style.
So the issue is trying to dig the contacts out of the data in the backup directly so that it can be re-entered into the newly minted CM ROM (and google). Where do I look inside the backup to find contact data stored in the phone?
--edit--
I believe I found it in the following file:
data\data\com.android.providers.contacts\databases\contact2.db
But how do I get to the data properly? windows doesn't mention the database format.
tigerknight said:
I changed the ROM on my friend's phone (they got my retired Epic when I upgraded to a note), taking a backup before hand, and it turns out that they had a bunch of contacts stored in their phone rather than in Google.
After the verbal admonishment was done about using google to keep contacts for this exact situation, the question came up on how to recover the contacts. As stated, I've got the backup of the prior ROM, but when I tried to restore it (was on people's rom, changed to CM 9.1) the restoration fails when trying to format a partition rfs style.
So the issue is trying to dig the contacts out of the data in the backup directly so that it can be re-entered into the newly minted CM ROM (and google). Where do I look inside the backup to find contact data stored in the phone?
--edit--
I believe I found it in the following file:
data\data\com.android.providers.contacts\databases\contact2.db
But how do I get to the data properly? windows doesn't mention the database format.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try this... if saved to the phone, it should've stored it somewhere on the sd card (maybe???) Boot the phone, insert the sd card that was in use when saving the contacts... now open up the contacts application, hit the menu button, select import/export and select import from sd card... may work, may not work, idk, but definitely worth a try...
flastnoles11 said:
Try this... if saved to the phone, it should've stored it somewhere on the sd card (maybe???) Boot the phone, insert the sd card that was in use when saving the contacts... now open up the contacts application, hit the menu button, select import/export and select import from sd card... may work, may not work, idk, but definitely worth a try...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tried that already. It's looking for the contacts in vCard format - which this is not. From what I can find it appears to be sqlite - I just need a way to properly load/read the file so I can grab the contents.
Wish I could help you more, but that was the only thing I could think of....
---------- Post added at 10:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:26 PM ----------
Actually, there is a method to restore that bml backup on mtd... it involves renaming the backup in a few spots, let me see if I can't find that post and I will post it here... then you should be able to restore the nandroid and recover the contacts..
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1420584
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1430130
Either one of those methods will work to restore that bml nandroid on your mtd partition...
That happened to me once and I just backed up my current rom then restored that one and exported the contacts to the sd then restored my original rom and imported contacts. Doesn't take too long and may be the simplest way to do it.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using xda app-developers app
lilajrestnom said:
That happened to me once and I just backed up my current rom then restored that one and exported the contacts to the sd then restored my original rom and imported contacts. Doesn't take too long and may be the simplest way to do it.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He already got it...

How to restore contacts, etc.

Hello everyone,
I have been running the 4.3 stock ATT ROM, rooted, for the last few years, and I recently decided to try out a custom ROM. I ran CyanogenMod on my last Android phone (Aria) and as pretty happy with it, so I decided to try it first. I synced everything with Kies, backed up my OS with CM, and used the CyanogenMod installer to install CyanogenMod 11.0. Everything went well, but when I tried to connect to Kies to restore my contacts, I discovered that it's not compatible with CyanogenMod. Not too surprising, but annoying nonetheless. I also discovered that my backup disappeared; apparently CM was set to backup to internal memory and I failed to move the backup off before installing CyanogenMod. I'm wondering if anyone knows any way to get my data, especially my contacts, back. I'm sure I could flash back to a stock ROM and sync with Kies, but then I'm unsure how to best export the data and import it into CyanogenMod. What I'd really prefer is some way to extract the data from Kies and import it to CyanogenMod without having to go back to stock ROM. Any suggestions or solutions?
Thanks
I've never tried this tool (or kies at all for that matter), but it sounds promising for your situation. http://www.mobile-phone-transfer.com/extract-data-from-kies-backup-sbu-file.html
Thanks for the suggestion. I downloaded the program and tried the free trial version. It found multiple backup files with text messages and call logs in them, but said there were no contacts in any of them. I guess I'm going to flash stock rom to see if the contacts are really in the backups or not. Any suggestions for how to export and transfer them if I get everything restored to the stock rom?
falec_illmore said:
Thanks for the suggestion. I downloaded the program and tried the free trial version. It found multiple backup files with text messages and call logs in them, but said there were no contacts in any of them. I guess I'm going to flash stock rom to see if the contacts are really in the backups or not. Any suggestions for how to export and transfer them if I get everything restored to the stock rom?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The contacts app on the phone should be able to export them to a .vcf file. You can keep the file as a backup and use it for import/export from contacts on other ROMs. I don't remember exactly how to get there on touchwiz, but if you poke around contacts settings a little bit I don't think it will be too hard to find.
jason2678 said:
The contacts app on the phone should be able to export them to a .vcf file. You can keep the file as a backup and use it for import/export from contacts on other ROMs. I don't remember exactly how to get there on touchwiz, but if you poke around contacts settings a little bit I don't think it will be too hard to find.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks again. For anyone who finds themselves in a similar situation, here's what happened. I did find how to export contacts to vcf file; it's pretty easy to find in the menu of the contacts app. I wanted to take my text messages and other settings, so I looked into programs to do that. I tried GO backup, but the upgrade process to the pro version is broken and support not responding, so I went with Titanium Backup. I flashed back to the stock 4.3 rom as described in a thread here (sorry I can't post links yet), restored all my data with Samsung Kies, but made the mistake of letting the phone install a software update. This put me at 4.4.2 with Knox active, and Titanium Backup needs root access. I regained root access by installing CWM using Odin 3.07 in dl mode as described elsewhere, pulling the battery after install to prevent stock recovery from reinstalling, booting to CWM recovery, and installing supersu binary. Then I installed supersu from the store and allowed it to update itself and block Knox, and disabled Knox as follows: (this is quoted from elsewhere, I can't post links yet)
"I installed Android Terminal Emulator from the Play store - granted it SuperSU access - and proceeded to type the following command(s):
su [enter]
pm disable com.sec.knox.seandroid
*NOTE - the above to lines require you to go to a new line after typing "su", the [enter] is only a reminder, DO NOT type [enter] after su"
At this point, I had stable root access, so I installed Titanium Backup Pro to backup by data. Unfortunately, I discovered that 4.4.2 has problems with permissions; Titanium Backup couldn't write to any location on my phone. After some more research, I installed SDCard Fix from the store and let it fix my permissions. This let me access my SD card with Titanium Backup, and I backed up everything I wanted. Then I installed my backup zip of CyanogenMod that I made before returning to 4.3 stock from CWM recovery and was back to CM and able to restore my data and apps from Titanium Backup.
Hope this helps someone else, but I would strongly suggest that before trying out a new ROM you use Titanium Backup or similar, and save a nandroid backup off the phone. That would have saved me a lot of trouble, but things have changed a lot since I last played with custom ROMs about 5 years ago, and I didn't do enough research first.
Or you could just use a google account and have all your contacts sync with no hassle.
elatllat said:
Or you could just use a google account and have all your contacts sync with no hassle.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do have a Google account, but when I switched to CM Rom and told it to sync with Google, I got a lot of my apps re-installed (not all of them), but no contacts, SMS or MMS, etc. Not sure why I didn't get any contacts, possibly the old OS wasn't set to sync contacts to Google. Just reinforces being thorough in research and preparation before trying to change ROMs.

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