Knowledgebase – Titanium Track https://www.titaniumtrack.com Titanium Track Official Website Thu, 08 Aug 2019 12:47:56 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.7.6 Titanium Backup Troubleshooting https://www.titaniumtrack.com/kb/titanium-backup-kb/titanium-backup-troubleshooting.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=titanium-backup-troubleshooting Fri, 06 Jan 2012 10:32:42 +0000 http://www.titaniumtrack.com/?p=608 If you are facing any problems while using our applications, this is a good place to start searching for answers. We assume that you have already read and understood the Titanium Backup User’s Guide. If you are having issues with the PRO/Donate license, please click here. Also, make sure your device is already rooted – click here to check.

Installing Titanium Backup:

1. I can’t download / update Titanium Backup from the Market. The progress bar stays at 0% and it never completes. If I use the “Cancel download” button to stop the download, the Market app crashes.

  • This is a Google Android Market problem (read here and here), not specific to Titanium Backup (read here).
  • Go to the Downloads page of the Market, long-click on the download progress bar and select “Cancel download”. This way it should not crash. Then try it again.
  • If that didn’t help, try to reboot your phone and see if the problem is gone.
  • If the problem still persists, open your phone’s Settings and delete the Market application’s data: Settings -> Applications -> Manage applications -> All -> Market then click on “Force stop” and finally on “Clear data”. Note that your Market auto-update settings will be gone.
  • If you can’t clear data from your phone settings, you can do it from Titanium Backup: just click on “Market” in the list, then hit the “Wipe data” button.
  • Reboot your phone and open the Market again. It will re-sync from Google.

2. Titanium Backup won’t install from the Market, it says “Package file was not signed correctly”. What should I do ?

  • Please first un-install the version you have, then install again from the Market.

3. When installing/upgrading Titanium Backup (free or PRO) from the Market, it says “Unknown error -18” or “Installation/update unsuccessful”. What should I do ?

  • A temporary file is preventing additional apps from being installed on your phone. Please click here to see how you can resolve it.
  • In case the above solution failed, you can work around (although not resolve) the problem, as follows:
    • Enable USB mass storage.
    • Install the app. The app will install to internal storage because your SD card is unmounted, thus sidestepping the issue.
    • Disable USB mass storage.

4. I’m getting the Error Code -504 (INSTALL_FAILED_UID_CHANGED) when installing Titanium Backup from Google Play

  • Try to erase the “/data/data/com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup” directory on your device and try again. This is a “bug” Android 5.0 Lollipop developer preview which was fixed in the final release version.

5. Since I un-installed Titanium Backup, I can’t use it again because it crashes on launch. What should I do?

  • “This is an Android OS bug. Please un-install the app and then delete the 2 offending directories using a root explorer, or use adb shell as follows (be careful to copy-paste these commands exactly): 
    su
rm -rf /data/data/com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup
rm -rf /data/user/0/com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup

Making & scheduling backups:

5. Titanium Backup hangs while making backups. What should I do?

  • Please try to disable the “Market Links” feature in the Titanium Backup preferences.
  • If that helped, then means that your Market’s database might be corrupted.
  • You can reset your Market’s database by following the procedure described there.

6. Scheduled jobs never run. Why?

  • If Titanium Backup is installed in external memory and you reboot your device, Titanium Backup can’t re-schedule your tasks automatically after the reboot (due to Android OS limitations). In that case, after every reboot you need to manually launch the app once and then everything will run as planned. To eliminate this problem you can simply move Titanium Backup to internal memory.
  • If you just installed Titanium Backup from scratch (not an upgrade), please launch it manually once or reboot.

7. I have a scheduled backup which shows it was “last run” last night but my backups are still older than that. Why?

  • Which batch action are you scheduling? Depending on the action, it might remake only a few backups of yours, of even none at all.
  • For example if you’re using the “Redo backups for newer app versions” action and your apps weren’t upgraded since the last full backup, the action will run but it won’t do anything.
  • Once you’ve set up a schedule you can hit the “RUN” button to test it (but be cautious: it runs for real).

Restoring backups:

8. I get a “Parse error” when I try to restore an app. Why?

  • Note: this would *not* have happened if you had a good busybox version from the start.
  • Most probably, you have a bad backup. Please see the relevant troubleshooting point.

9. My phone reboots when I attempt to restore some apps. It never happens when restoring data. Why ?

  • This usually indicates that you have corrupted apk backups. On some ROMs, attempting to install a corrupted apk will soft-reboot the OS.
  • Hit the “Problems?” button and then launch a batch verification of your backups as soon as possible.

10. I have a backup that can be restored manually, but when I attempt to restore it in batch mode nothing happens. Why ?

  • In batch restore mode, Titanium Backup will always attempt to restore the newest possible backup (within restrictions, in case you’re filtering by Platform).
  • Even if the latest backup cannot be restored, Titanium Backup will not fall back to an older backup.
  • As a consequence: if your latest backup is a data-only backup, and the app itself is not present on your phone:
    • Titanium Backup will not restore it – because data cannot be restored if the app is not there.
    • Even if an older backup contains the app, Titanium Backup will not use it, because it will never mix app and data from different backups.
    • Therefore, if you want to restore app and data from different backups, you need to do it manually.

11. I restored system data (eg: MMS/SMS) to a different phone/ROM, but now the system app (eg: Messaging) force closes when I launch it. What should I do ?

  • Wipe the data for that app
  • Launch the app again. It should run normally but without any data (eg: zero MMS/SMS messages).
  • Enable the “System data migration” option in Titanium Backup
  • Restore the data with Titanium Backup
  • Reboot.

Apps2SD & “Apps2ROM” issues:

12. I have Android 2.2/Froyo and it’s unstable or even reboots when moving apps to/from SD. Why ?

  • Yes I know, the Froyo “apps2sd” implementation is not perfect. Unfortunately there’s not much that I can do, because the problem has nothing to do with Titanium Backup. Some custom ROMs (such as MoDaCo for Nexus One) are based on Froyo, yet offer the “old-style” apps2sd implementation. Go for it.

13. I have Android 2.2/Froyo and my apps won’t move to the SD card anymore. If I do it from the command line I get INSTALL_FAILED_CONTAINER_ERROR. Why ?

  • This is most likely a temporary file that is stuck in your secure container and is preventing you from adding any app there.
  • Open a shell and try this to clean up the Froyo secure container
  • su
rm /mnt/secure/asec/smdl2tmp1.asec
  • Please vote for this issue by starring the bug there: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=9593

System app issues:

14. I tried to integrate system app updates or to convert user apps to system apps but it didn’t work. Why?

  • These features require a NAND unlocked (“S-OFF”) device, in order to write to the ROM.
  • Depending on the software, some S-ON devices may “remember” modifications made to /system for a while, or until the next reboot. That is not enough for our purpose.
  • Please search the Internet for information on how to make your particular device S-OFF.

15. I have integrated some system app updates into my ROM, now some icons appear twice in the apps drawer or are not launchable. What should I do?

  • Depending on the launcher and the ROM, a reboot may be required after integrating system apps. In some rare instances, two subsequent reboots will resolve the issue.
  • With some system apps (eg: Google Maps) the widget may be removed from the desktop and you’ll need to re-add it.

General issues:

16. No data elements are found and my apps and data don’t appear in the list. Why?

  • Please hit the “Problems?” button, it will (almost certainly) resolve your issue.

17. I have a bad backup for an app. What should I do?

  • When you backup an app, the “old” backed up APK is reused in the new backup (if the app version did not change).
  • For this reason: If you have a bad APK in a backup, you need to delete all backup(s) for that app.
  • To keep your data: reinstall that app from Market, restore data-only with Titanium Backup, then delete all backups for it.
  • On the next backup, the APK will be created again, and your backup will be (and remain) good.

18. The “Problems?” button fails to work. What should I do ?

  • You can also install BusyBox manually. Read on…
  • Download busybox 1.15.3 or 1.16.0 and unzip it.
  • Copy the “busybox” file to the root directory of your phone’s SD card.
  • Remount the SD card in the phone.
  • Open a shell on the phone (using either “adb shell” or the free “ConnectBot” app) and do:
  • Installing busybox into TB’s data folder:
  • su
cd /data/data/com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup/files
cat /sdcard/busybox > busybox
chmod 755 busybox
rm /sdcard/busybox
  • Exit the shell and restart Titanium Backup. If it says “busybox from app” then it’s a success !
  • As an alternative, you could install/upgrade busybox directly into your ROM.

19. I have un-installed some system apps (or bloatware) with Titanium Backup, but their icons won’t go away from my apps drawer. Why ?

  • You just need to reboot, the icons will be gone.

20. When I start Titanium Backup I get just a black screen and then it FC. In the log I get exceptions such as: “java.lang.IllegalStateException: /data/data/com.noshufou.android.su/databases/permissions.sqlite SQLiteDatabase created and never closed”

  • The database of the Superuser Whitelist app is corrupt.
  • Open a shell and do:
  • su
rm /data/data/com.noshufou.android.su/databases/permissions.sqlite

21. Titanium Backup is crashing. What should I do?

  • Ensure that you’re running an original Titanium Backup APK (from the Market).
  • If it’s crashing right away when you launch it, try clearing its data (in your phone settings, under Applications) and be sure to also remove the “data/com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup” directory on your sd card, if it exists.
  • Please try to capture a log, it can be very helpful for devs to locate a bug. The log often contains a so-called “stack trace”.
  • To capture a log, you can use either “adb logcat” from a computer or the aLogcat app on your phone.
  • E-mail me the log and some information about your ROM and how the problem can be reproduced.

22. I have frozen too many apps and now I can’t even use my device to launch Titanium Backup! What can I do?

  • Let’s hope that you have USB debugging enabled, “adb” root access on your device and a Busybox version that has the “sed” command.
  • Install the Android SDK Tools(external link) on a computer.
  • Connect your device to your computer via USB.
  • Open a terminal and login with “adb shell”.
  • Type the following command (replace with /dbdata/system/packages.xml if you have a Samsung phone):
  • busybox sed -n 's/<package name="\([^"]\+\)".*enabled="false".*/\1/p' /data/system/packages.xml | while read PKG; do pm enable "$PKG"; done

23. When I create an update.zip with Titanium Backup 3.9.0.1 or later, I get a tiny 2kB ZIP file that only contain certificates, not the app itself. What should I do?

  • Upgrade to ZipSigner 2 (version 2.2 or later).
  • If you can’t upgrade ZipSigner, disable the “Gingerbread ZIP bug fix” option in the Titanium Backup preferences.

24. I have an ext2/3/4 partition on my SD card that is mounted, but Titanium Backup shows an incorrect gauge (or no gauge) for it. Is there something I can do?

  • Please ensure that you have created an “app” directory on your ext2/3/4 partition. That usually means:
    • /system/sd/app
    • or /sd-ext/app (for CyanogenMod ROMs)
    • or /data/sd/app (for MIUI ROMs)
  • If you have already done so, please contact us and include the output of the “mount” command.

Android Market issues:

25. Some of my apps don’t appear in the “My apps” / “My downloads” section on the Market, yet they appear as “Installed” when I search for them. What should I do?

  • This is most likely a Market refresh problem. Try installing an app (any app) on the Market, that should help.
  • If the above didn’t help, try clearing (wiping) the Market app’s data, then launch the Market, accept the license and try again.

26. Titanium Backup does not save/restore/create the Market links anymore. The rest (apps & data) works. What should I do?

  • In Titanium Backup, hit MENU -> Preferences and verify that the “Market link” option is enabled.
  • If it was already enabled, it means that your Market database might be corrupted. You’ll need to reset it:
    • Open your phone’s Settings and delete the Market application’s data: Settings -> Applications -> Manage applications -> All -> Market then click on “Force stop” and finally on “Clear data”. Note that your Market auto-update settings will be gone.
    • If you can’t clear data from your phone settings, you can do it from Titanium Backup: just click on “Market” in the list, then hit the “Wipe data” button.
    • Reboot your phone and open the Market again. It will re-sync from Google.

Dropbox / Box.net / Google Drive Issues:

27. The Dropbox / Box.net / Google Drive sync fails repeatedly. What can I do?

  • Try to use a different connection type (Wi-Fi instead of 3G, or the other way around).
  • Try to lower the “History coverage” setting in the Titanium Backup preferences (This feature requires Titanium Backup 3.6.7 or later). This allows you to sync only the N latest backups per app, instead of everything.
  • Try to use a custom label for the Dropbox / Box.net / Google Drive sync, in order to sync a lower number of apps.
  • If you have lowered the “History coverage” or lowered the number of apps yet the sync still fails, try to remove (or rename) the whole folder at the Dropbox / Box.net / Google Drive side, then try to sync again.

Issues that are related to Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich”:

28. Titanium Backup hangs while freezing apps, restoring apps or other actions. What should I do?

  • You might have incorrect permissions (eg: 04755) on your “su” binary, which causes problems with some root apps.
  • Open a shell and do:
  • su
/data/data/com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup/files/busybox mount -o remount,rw /system
/data/data/com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup/files/busybox chmod 06755 /system/bin/su /system/xbin/su
/data/data/com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup/files/busybox mount -o remount,ro /system
  • Once it’s done, reboot your device and try again.

Issues that are often related to Samsung phones:

29. It hangs (at 0%) when I try to restore, un-install, move or freeze applications. The free version was working. What can I do ?

  • Open the Titanium Backup settings and scroll down to the “Troubleshooting” section. Set the “Apps processing mode” to “AUTO, Indirect”.
  • If the above step didn’t help, enable the “USB debugging” option in the phone settings, under “Applications”.

30. Titanium Backup won’t save my settings anymore. What should I do ?

  • It’s a known Samsung bug.
  • If you have a Samsung Galaxy S:
  • Open a shell and do:
  • su
cd /data/data/com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup/
busybox mkdir shared_prefs/
busybox chmod 771 shared_prefs/
  • If the problem persists:
  • Open a shell and do:
  • su
cd /dbdata/databases/
rm -r com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup

SDCard issues (Android 4.4 and above)

31. External SD Card problems (This Folder is NOT Writeable)

  • Since Android 4.4 and above, the SDCard permissions have been changed on how it is granted to an application. A quick way to fix this is by using SDFix application.
  • There is an elegant way of giving TitaniumBackup write access to the external sdcard, without having to forfeit security (as in method 3 below). Since the time of Android 4.3, Google uses a very clean security-solution by giving apps that request write access to external SD, permission only to their own folder – not to the entire card! In order to get TitaniumBackup to work without compromising security, you can simply create a folder on the external sdcard,using the following folder-structure: /storage/extSdCard/Android/data/com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup/
  • If you already have existing backups, move them with a file-explorer from their current place to: /storage/extSdCard/Android/data/com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup/ Lastly, go to the preferences of TitaniumBackup, choose “Backup folder location” and choose the above specified folder.
    Finish.
]]> Titanium Backup Licensing https://www.titaniumtrack.com/kb/titanium-backup-kb/titanium-backup-licensing.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=titanium-backup-licensing Fri, 06 Jan 2012 08:30:53 +0000 http://www.titaniumtrack.com/?p=633 The Donate (Paypal) and PRO (Market) versions are functionally the same. The only real difference is the nature of the license key. In both cases the key is used to activate the free version. You can continue to upgrade Titanium Backup from the Market the same way.

Donate version

With the “old-style” Donate version you have a license key file (TitaniumBackup_license.txt) that you need to keep on your SD card or Internal Storage in case you un-install and reinstall the app.
These keys are useful in countries where paid Android applications are not available.

1. My .txt license file does not work. How should I install it ?

  • Save the ZIP file attachment to your computer.
  • Unzip it. You will get a .txt file.
  • Connect your phone through USB and enable “Mass storage” mode on it.
  • Copy the .txt file directly onto your SD card (not in a sub-folder). Alternatively, you can also copy the license to your internal SD card
  • Disable “Mass storage” mode on your phone. In other words: switch USB connection from “Disk Drive” to “Charge Only”.
  • Un-install Titanium Backup and install it again from the Market.

2. May I use the Donate license key on several phones ?

  • Yes, this is a personal license which you can use on all your devices.
  • Before you give/sell your device away, don’t forget to delete the key !

3. Can I remove the Donate license key file from my SD card ?

  • Yes, but I generally don’t recommend it. Be sure to keep a copy of your license elsewhere!
  • If you removed the license key from your SD card, Titanium Backup will remain activated until you un-install it.

4. My license key is not working. What should I do ?

  • If your license file is not attached, in Titanium Backup application, hit the Menu button -> Help & Support -> Manage License.
  • You should be able to find the absolute path in which the license file should reside.
  • In most cases, the license file should be put in /mnt/sdcard/TitaniumBackup_License.txt

PRO version (Android Market)

With the “new style” PRO version you have a license key app (Titanium Backup PRO) that I recommend that you keep installed. If you just wiped your phone, Titanium Backup should remain registered for a while (without the key) but I recommend that you install the key again, as soon as possible.

1. I bought Titanium Backup PRO from the Market but it doesn’t appear in the app drawer? I can’t launch it?

  • Yes, you got the key. Now you just need to install “Titanium Backup” which is the app itself, and launch it. It will be the PRO version.
  • I could change the PRO key to display an icon in the app drawer, bxut then other users would complain about the useless icon!

2. I bought Titanium Backup PRO from the Market but I can’t download it?

  • If the Market says “Authorizing credit card” then maybe you’ll just have to wait until the next business opening hours.
  • Please login on Google Checkout with your Google credentials and verify the status of your order. If you are within normal business opening hours and it’s still stuck, canceling your order there and then trying again may help.
  • If your order is fine then maybe it’s your Market app or phone itself that has a problem. Please click here for more info.
  • If your bank or google wallet records show that payment was processed, but “Titanium Backup PRO” in the Google Play market still displays a purchase option instead of “Install” or “Uninstall,” or the Titanium Backup app still asks you to purchase the PRO version, then: (1) reboot phone (2) search for “Titanium Backup PRO” in the Google Play market (3) it should have an “install” button now.

3. I have a prepaid credit card and the authorization fails on Google Checkout, which can I do ?

  • Many prepaid cards (such as VISA) will only work for domestic purchases, unfortunately.
  • You also have the option of using PayPal from the web site instead.

4. I bought the PRO license key and it works, but I don’t see my name and e-mail address in Titanium Backup ?

  • You can customize your full name and e-mail address in the Titanium Backup preferences.
  • Hit MENU -> Preferences -> GUI Preferences and set your full name (or nickname) and your e-mail address there.
  • They will then appear in the Titanium Backup welcome screen.

5. May I use the PRO license key on several phones ?

  • Yes, as long as these phones are linked to the Google account on which you purchased the PRO license key.

6. I already have the Donate version. May/should I get the Market PRO version ?

  • You may but it wouldn’t be useful to you. The functionality is exactly the same between the two versions.
  • The only technical difference is the license.
  • Don’t worry: the Donate and the PRO licenses will both work for all future Titanium Backup versions.

7. I bought the PRO key but Titanium Backup still appears as the free version ?

  • Please check that “Titanium Backup PRO” is really installed on your phone (Settings -> Applications -> Manage applications).
  • Please make sure that “Titanium Backup PRO” is not installed on the SD Card, but rather in the phone’s internal memory.
  • If the Market download of the PRO version is stuck, you can try to login on Google Checkout and cancel your order on the web, then try again.
  • Please ensure that your Google Checkout order is in good standing (not cancelled).
  • Please ensure that your device is set to use the same default Google account that the one you purchased the PRO key on.
  • Please un-install and reinstall “Titanium Backup” from the Market. Version 3.5.4 or later is strongly recommended.

8. Can I un-install the PRO key from my phone ?

  • No, you shouldn’t – unless you also un-install the Titanium Backup app.
  • The key only takes 30kB, has no icon and does not run in the background. There’s no technical reason to un-install it.
]]> Titanium Backup HOWTOs https://www.titaniumtrack.com/kb/titanium-backup-kb/titanium-backup-howtos.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=titanium-backup-howtos Fri, 06 Jan 2012 08:30:18 +0000 http://www.titaniumtrack.com/?p=631 This section describes the specific and basic jobs methodologies.

1. How to make your first backup WITHOUT root:

Before beginning, you need to setup your ADB and have your device detected. You must also running Android version 4.0 and above. Also, make sure you have a file manager installed. Our favorite is the ES File Explorer.

  • Connect your device and make sure its listed with the following command: 
    adb devices
  • Run a FULL backup with the following command: 
    adb backup -f FullBackup.ab -apk -all
  • This will create a “package” called “FullBackup.ab” on the current location in your command prompt. This is your backup package.
  • Now you can root your phone.
  • Once finished rooting, insert the “FullBackup.ab” package on your sdcard
  • Hit the menu button and look for “Extract from ADB backup” option. This will prompt you to search for the file. Use the file manager that you installed earlier and navigate to the directory and select the FullBackup.ab file.
  • Now restore like as if the backup was made with Titanium Backup. Don’t forget to make a fresh copy of the backup using Titanium Backup. You’re Done!

2. How to make your first backup on rooted device:

  • Verify that Titanium Backup has started without warning and that your busybox is OK
  • Click the Backup/Restore tab
  • Click Menu (the button), Batch
  • Click “Backup all user apps”
  • Let it run, then go back
  • Individually backup the system data you want. That is most green-colored items. This will be bookmarks, call log, calendar, launcher, WiFi, etc.
  • Now your backups are in the “TitaniumBackup” directory on your SD card.

3. How to restore your backups on a new phone, or after installing a ROM (if you wiped your phone):

  • Download Titanium Backup from Market
  • Click the Backup/Restore tab
  • Click Menu (the button), Batch
  • Click “Restore all missing apps + system data”
  • Reboot your phone
  • It’s done ! The only thing you may have to adjust is usually your wallpaper/widgets.

4. How to use the multi-user “data profiles” feature (Pro version, TB 4.0.0 or above):

Important note: This feature is able to overcome the single-user nature of Android to some extent, and is (of course) awesome, but it will not turn your Android OS into a fully fledged multi-user entity. The feature is meant for apps that don’t use background services and don’t sync their data with a server. Ideal candidates are games, note taking apps, prank apps and many others. Itmay also work with some apps/games that access online services, as long as you use a different online account on each profile. Don’t use this feature with system stuff such as SMS/MMS. If you’re unsure about an app, feel free to try it in multi-profile mode with unimportant data for a while.

  • Create the data profiles you want:
    • In the Overview screen hit “Switch profile” then “Create a new data profile”.
    • If your goal is to have separate “Angry Birds” high scores, repeat the previous step to create one profile per player.
  • Click on “Switch profile” and activate the profile that matches your current data. For example, if you played the game already, you’ll want to activate your own profile now, so that the current data gets assigned to that profile in the next step.
  • Switch to the apps list
  • Make the app(s) multi profile aware. For each app:
    • Long-click on the app
    • Click on “Enable multiple profiles for this app”. Your current data for that app will be moved into the profile you activated in the previous step.
  • Create a profile switching widget (optional):
    • Hit the “HOME” button
    • Long-click on the background
    • Click on “Widgets”
    • Choose “Titanium Backup (Data Profiles)”.
    • The widget is on your background now. Every time you want to switch the active profile, just click on the widget.

5. How to do an advanced system data restore (the most difficult case, where both data migration and manual data tinkering are needed)

  • Restoring “Memo 1.0” data (com.sec.android.app.memo) from SGS to SGS2
    • First of all, just to be safe: Launch Titanium Backup Pro and wipe data for the Memo app
    • Launch the Memo app once, which will create an empty database (and default settings) automatically
    • Switch back to Titanium Backup Pro
    • Enable “System data migration” in the Titanium Backup preferences (because Samsung’s Memo database format has changed)
    • Restore “data only” for your Memo app
    • Yay! Now your memos are restored to your new (previously empty) Memo database. However, some data columns (which didn’t exist in the older Memo database) have the default value, which makes the new Memo app believe that every memo was deleted. Awesome work Samsung! Anyway, here’s how to fix it:
      • Open a shell and run the following:
      • su
/data/data/com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup/files/sqlite3 /data/data/com.sec.android.app.memo/databases/Memo.db
UPDATE memo SET delete_flag = 'false', locked = 'false', synch_t = 0;
    • Close the shell and launch the Memo app.
    • Your memos should appear now !

6. How to export an app’s data to a Google Docs spreadsheet, Excel or OpenOffice Calc

  • Install the Google Docs app from Android Market
  • Install the IMDb Top 250 app from Android Market – Oops! It doesn’t exist in the Market anymore.
  • Launch Titanium Backup
  • Long-click on the “IMDb Top 250” app and hit “Explore”.
  • You’ll see a database named “top250”. That database contains a table named “films” which has 250 rows. Click on that “films” table.
  • The column selection dialog opens. De-select the “utitle” column which we don’t need and leave the others checked. Hit “OK”.
  • A file named “top250 – films.csv” is create in the “Download” folder on your SD card now.
  • Now you get to choose where you want to export that CSV file to. You can either hit “BACK” and later open the file yourself, or otherwise:
    • Hit “GMail” for sending the data to a PC so you can then open it with Excel or OpenOffice Calc.
    • Hit “Docs” for uploading the data to Google Docs (use this for this example).
    • Note: If the CSV file isn’t in the format you need, hit MENU -> Preferences -> “CSV File Format Preferences” in Titanium Backup.
  • Google Docs opens automatically. Choose “Convert file to Google Docs document” (otherwise it would get uploaded as a text file) and hit OK.
  • A few seconds later, you’ll get an “Upload to Google Docs complete” notification. Click on it, which will open Google Docs.
  • In Google Docs, click on the top document in the list, which is the one you just uploaded.
  • A spreadsheet will open, which contains 250 rows (one per movie). For every movie you have:
    • the date of the movie
    • the link to the IMDB review (without the http://imdb.com(external link) prefix)
    • the movie’s ranking on IMDB
    • “TRUE” or “FALSE” (indicates whether you’ve seen the movie or not)
    • The name of the movie
  • As you’re seeing the spreadsheet, you can edit rows or click on any column header to order the rows by it. For example click twice on “Col D” to bring all movies you have already watched to the top of the list. The power of spreadsheets is now yours!
]]> Titanium Backup Tips & Suggestions https://www.titaniumtrack.com/kb/titanium-backup-kb/titanium-backup-tips-suggestions.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=titanium-backup-tips-suggestions Fri, 06 Jan 2012 08:08:00 +0000 http://www.titaniumtrack.com/?p=629 Titanium Backup is an application beyond just backup utility. Here are some tips & tricks that you might find interesting.

Reliability tips:

  • When you start Titanium Backup on a new ROM, if you have any doubt about your BusyBox version, it is highly recommended that you click the “Problems?” button before doing any backup or restore !
  • Don’t forget to verify your backups (Click MENU – Batch) to ensure that your backups are OK.
  • You need to reboot after restoring system items (eg: Contacts, SMS, Settings, etc) for the changes to take effect. If you backup/restore across very different ROMs, I advise to be cautious and only include the system items you really need to preserve.

Troubleshooting tips:

  • After restoring your apps, you can run the Market Doctor to verify their Market links. If Market Doctor reports everything as okay, yet your apps are still not listed in “My Downloads”, try to search for them in the Market. If they show as “Installed”, it confirms that the links are okay, but your Market needs a refresh: just install any app from the Market, and the “My Downloads” section will be refreshed !

Tips to optimize your phone:

  • If your phone is not NAND-locked, you can free up some precious internal memory by integrating your updated system apps directly into your ROM (requires the PRO version). Just hit MENU -> Batch, scroll down and do it. You can also do it to a single app by long-clicking on the app in the list and choosing the appropriate option.
  • You can usually free up even more internal memory by cleaning the Dalvik cache.

Usability tips:

  • Schedules

    You can easily create a custom apps list by creating a Label in “Apps Organizer” or “Folder Organizer”, then going back to Titanium Backup, clicking “MENU” and then “Filters” and finally, selecting the Label you want. You can also create a custom-colored label directly from the “Filters” dialog. Your apps list will then be filtered just the way you want 🙂

  • If you want to remove a system app, first you can try to freeze it and see if everything still works fine. Once you’ve gained more confidence that you don’t need it, just go ahead and un-install that system app.
  • You can launch a scheduled task immediately (even if it’s disabled) by hitting the corresponding “RUN” button on the right, in the Schedules tab.
  • You can configure a schedule that takes care of backing up any new apps and upgrades that you install, and a 2nd schedule that you associate to a “Frequent backups” colored label and which makes sure that your frequently-modified data is backed up often. For even more peace of mind, you could also create a “critical backups” colored label which you associate to Dropbox / Box.net / Google Drive sync, to ensure you don’t lose these apps even if your phone gets lost or stolen. However the Dropbox / Box.net / Google Drive sync can’t be scheduled, you need to launch it manually.
  • You can remove all the bloatware from your ROM in one shot, by defining a custom colored app label for these apps. Then filter by that label and run the “Un-install all user & system apps” batch job. Be careful: this batch job is very powerful and could delete critical parts of your ROM, if you ran it without filters!
  • If you have LauncherPro and the icons for some of your frozen apps still appear in the apps drawer, hit “MENU”, “Preferences”, “General Settings”, “Hidden Apps” and select the apps that you want to be hidden.

Good to know:

  • If you backup the same app several times, Titanium Backup will save SD card space by storing each apk version only once.

Suggestions and Discussions:

  • How about developing a Ghost for Rooted Android. If we compress and dump the block device to SD card, could we restore it in runtime?
  • How about using Dropbox / Box.net / Google Drive’s API to allow the Android phone to sync with Dropbox / Box.net / Google Drive over your home WiFi? Much faster and does not burn your upload bandwidth with massive uploads. Dropbox / Box.net / Google Drive would probably walk you through how to add this function to your app if you contact one of their devs because it would drive further business to their service.
  • How about instead of integrating updates into ROM in runtime, TB just creates update.zip that can be flashed from recovery? Right now update integration (and convert to system/user app) process deletes accounts and sync settings (Facebook, Twitter, Google+), widgets and shortcuts disappear and other non-fatal, but pretty annoying things happen.
  • How about adding the ftp syncing feature from Titanium Media Sync into Titanium Backup Pro. That would be an excellent feature to attract more customers to buying the pro version, and fund future updates and development.
]]> Titanium Backup Cryptography https://www.titaniumtrack.com/kb/titanium-backup-kb/titanium-backup-cryptography.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=titanium-backup-cryptography Fri, 30 Dec 2011 08:14:03 +0000 http://www.titaniumtrack.com/?p=610 This page is all about encrypting and decrypting your backups. Questions about encryption and decryption are likely to be founded here. Use the index below for easier navigation to find answer to your question.

General

1. I can’t enable encryption, why ?

  • Cryptography is only available with Titanium Backup PRO.
  • You need Titanium Backup 3.6.0 or newer.

2. What can Titanium Backup encrypt ?

  • It can encrypt the app data (or system data) contained in your backups.
  • It will not encrypt the apk files.

3. How does Titanium Backup encrypt the data ?

  • It uses a combination of asymmetric (RSA) and symmetric (AES) cryptography in order to provide you with:
    • High performance when creating and restoring backups,
    • The ability to perform backups without entering a passphrase,
    • The ability to restore backups across different phones,
    • The inability (obviously) to restore backups without having the passphrase.

4. When restoring it needs my passphrase, but when making backups it doesn’t. How is that possible ? Is my passphrase hidden somewhere ?

  • No, your passphrase is not stored anywhere. Otherwise it would be “security by obscurity” and would defeat the point of using real cryptography.
  • When you backup data, an encryption is performed with a public key. That public key can be read without needing your passphrase – because it’s public.
  • When you restore data, a decryption is performed with a private key. That private key is encrypted with your passphrase – so you are prompted for it.
  • So, there are two separate keys (a public key and a private key) and they are tied by a precise mathematical relationship. This relationship allows you to encrypt your data safely, without your passphrase.

5. Which actions will require my passphrase ?

  • Verifying your backups.
  • Restoring your backups.

6. What is a passphrase ?

7. If I create a new master key, do I lose the ability to restore my existing backups ?

  • No, existing backups are not affected and can be restored without problems – as long as you remember the passphrase for them.
  • All future backups will use the new master key.

8. If I change the symmetric key length, do I lose the ability to restore my older backups ?

  • No, existing backups are not affected and can be restored without problems – as long as you remember the passphrase for them.
  • All future backups will use the new encryption settings.

9. I’d like to modify the encryption on existing backups (ie: encrypt, decrypt or re-encrypt an existing file). Can I do that ?

  • Not yet. For the time being, existing backups cannot be modified in any way.
  • You need to change the encryption options and then make a new backup. You can then verify your backups and then delete the previous backup.

Advanced

10. I forgot my passphrase or want to decrypt someone’s backups. Is there a backdoor that will allow me to do that ?

  • No, there’s no backdoor. If you don’t have the passphrase, you’re screwed: the files are just as valuable as random data to you now. And I can’t help, either.

11. I want to use SWAP or COMPCACHE to increase the available RAM on my Android phone. Is that safe ?

  • Compcache is safe.
  • Swap is unsafe because anything that’s in RAM (except the kernel and a few system elements) can end up in the swap file. Your passphrase, private key or symmetric keys are not pinned in RAM and (if you’re unlucky) they can end up in the swap file. It’s the same issue with any Android security app, by the way. Therefore if you’re a paranoid user, swap is not recommended.

12. Does Titanium Backup use secret algorithms for encryption, or well-known ones ?

  • No, it only uses solid and well-established encryption methods that were designed by top-level cryptographers, not weekend programmers:
    • The AES algorithm, designed by Joan Daemen and Vincent Rijmen.
    • The RSA algorithm, designed by Rivest, Shamir and Aldeman.
    • The SHA-1 algorithm, designed by the NSA.
  • Secret encryption algorithms are a recipe for disaster, because they are often designed by amateurs – we can take the DVD-CSS fiasco as an example.
  • In conclusion: it’s the secrecy of your keys that provide the security – not the secrecy of the algorithm itself.
]]> Titanium Backup Technical FAQ https://www.titaniumtrack.com/kb/titanium-backup-kb/titanium-backup-technical-faq.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=titanium-backup-technical-faq Fri, 30 Dec 2011 03:28:31 +0000 http://www.titaniumtrack.com/?p=606 This is the technical FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions). Most probably, if you are looking for a quick answer, it would be found here. If you are looking for the solution to a problem, please look in Titanium Backup Troubleshooting instead. For questions about encryption, please see Titanium Backup Cryptography instead. Use the index table below to quickly jump to your preferred section and/or question:

General

1. What can Titanium Backup back up ?

  • All the applications you have installed, included protected ones,
  • All the data and settings of these applications,
  • Most (nearly all) of your phone’s settings and data.
  • Titanium Backup 3.8.0+ will also backup the system applications from your ROM, not just their settings and data.

2. How do I restore my apps without having to do them one at a time ?

  • Hit MENU (button on the phone) then “Batch”,
  • Scroll to the restore scenario you want to run,
  • Hit the “RUN” button.
  • NOTE: The applications will install in sequence, but will require user interaction (in the Free version). The PRO/Donate version will do unattended, background restores.
  • NOTE: System apps won’t get restored in Batch, that would be too dangerous. Only system settings + data will get restored in batch.

3. Can it back up SMS, MMS and system settings ?

  • YES. The most useful “system items” are green-colored and have a prefix such as SMS/MMS/APN in the list.
  • Other system items (that are usually less useful to backup) are red-colored.
  • Please note that if you backup and restore all system settings across very different ROMs, you are on your own. Before restoring on a different ROM, it is strongly recommended to enable the “Migrate system data” option in the Titanium Backup Preferences | Restoration Settings.

4. Where are my backups stored ?

  • By default, they are in the “TitaniumBackup” folder on your SD card.
  • To change the location of your backups, hit MENU -> Preferences -> Backup folder location.

5. For some apps I don’t have the “Restore” button. Why ?

  • This is probably a system app that you don’t have anymore. System apps are part of your ROM, so Titanium Backup will only backup their data (not the apps themselves). For this reason, if you backup a system app and then switch to a ROM where that app is missing, Titanium Backup obviously cannot restore the data for it. You have a data-only backup. Before you can restore the data you’ll need to install that system app again, either by reinstalling your ROM or by copying its apk manually into /system/app.
  • If you had disabled the “Normal apps (apk)” and/or “Protected apps (apk)” options in the Backup settings, then all backups of your apps will be data-only, in which case you’ll need to re-install these apps manually before you can restore their data.

6. An app is still appearing in the Titanium Backup list, but I feel it should be gone. Why?

  • An app will appear in the Titanium Backup list if (and only if) at least one of these 3 conditions is true:
    • The app is currently installed (either as a user app, as a system app or both).
    • The app has one or more associated (app and/or data) backups in the backup folder.
    • The app has associated data in the phone memory. If the app itself is not installed, that’s orphan data.
      • You can easily remove orphan data by running the “Remove orphan data” batch job.

7. I would like to save a list of apps (for example the list of my frozen apps) for later use. For example to save the list of frozen apps for future freezing, in case I do a factory data reset of my phone. Can I do that?

  • Yes you can. Here’s how:
    • We will take frozen apps as an example. So first, freeze the apps you want.
    • Filter by frozen: Hit MENU -> Filters -> Filter by temperature -> Frozen -> Apply
    • Now you’re seeing only the frozen apps in the list.
    • Create a label containing frozen apps: Now hit MENU -> Filters -> Create label -> Add/remove elements -> Select shown elements -> OK
    • Edit the name and hit “Save” to save the label.
    • To reset the filtering and see the full list again: Hit “Clear” -> “Apply”.
  • Remember to enable the “Auto-sync TB settings” option in the Titanium Backup preferences, so that your custom labels get automatically copied to your SD card.

8. Is there any way I can restore exactly what is already in my app drawer at the moment I decide to wipe (or change ROMs) and then restore ONLY those apps after a wipe (or reflash) ?

  • Yes, you just need to filter by “Installed” state, then create a custom label and finally, add all displayed elements to it.
  • See the point about “making a custom label containing all frozen apps” above. It’s exactly the same steps.

Titanium Backup vs Other Tools

9. What is the difference between Titanium Backup and CWM (ClockworkMod) / Nandroid ?

  • CWM creates a Nandroid backup, which is snapshot of the whole phone at once (including the ROM itself) in recovery mode. It’s helpful if you screw up the phone and need to “go back in time”.
  • Titanium Backup backs up each application+data and system settings individually; it doesn’t touch the ROM itself. So you can use Titanium Backup to restore applications and system settings on top of a new ROM. Or, if you copied your Titanium Backup folder, you can restore to a new phone. There are batch options to help you backup/restore several things at once.

Backup / restore across ROMs / devices

10. Can it back up and restore applications across different ROMs or even different phones ?

  • YES, without restrictions.

11. I want to restore some system data (eg: MMS/SMS) to a different phone/ROM. How should I do that ?

  • Launch the corresponding app (eg: Messages) at least once. If it crashes, wipe its data first and then launch it again.
  • Enable the “System data migration” option in Titanium Backup
  • Restore the data with Titanium Backup
  • Reboot

Device-specific

12. I have an Android device that is x86 based, and rooted. Can I use Titanium Backup ?

  • YES. Please ensure that you have a working BusyBox on your device and make the following changes in TB preferences:
    • enable the “Force use external BusyBox” option (under Troubleshooting) then hit MENU -> Reload application.

13. I have a Samsung and your app (free version) tells me to check the “Unknown sources” check box under Settings -> Applications, but I can’t find it ?

  • Yes the setting exists but Samsung hides it from the UI.
  • Note: Titanium Backup PRO/Donate does not need the “Unknown sources” setting to be enabled, only the free version does.
  • Here is how you can enable it. Be careful about single vs double quotes. Open a shell and then do: 
    • su
    • First we can read the settings. A result of 0 means it’s disabled:
    • /data/data/com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup/files/sqlite3 /dbdata/databases/com.android.providers.settings/settings.db "SELECT value FROM secure WHERE name = 'install_non_market_apps'"
    • Ok, so now lets enable the setting:
    • /data/data/com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup/files/sqlite3 /dbdata/databases/com.android.providers.settings/settings.db "UPDATE secure SET value = 1 WHERE name = 'install_non_market_apps'"
    • Done! Now it shall work, and (as a bonus) you can also install apps manually by opening “.apk” files 😉

14. My phone (eg: Samsung, Viewsonic G-Tablet, HTC Incredible/EVO) has two SD cards, internal and external. I want to store my backups on the external SD card. How can I do that ?

  • Open the Titanium Backup settings (MENU -> Preferences)
  • For the Android 2.2/Froyo ROM (or the Cognition ROM on a Samsung Captivate), set the “Backup folder name” to external_sd/TitaniumBackup
  • For other Samsung ROMs, set the “Backup folder name” to sd/TitaniumBackup
  • For the Viewsonic G-Tablet, set the “Backup folder name” to ../sdcard2/TitaniumBackup
  • For the HTC Incredible/EVO, set the “Backup folder name” to /mnt/emmc/TitaniumBackup
  • If you have Titanium Backup 3.6.4 or above, you can specify an absolute path (starting with “/”) such as: /mnt/sdcard/external_sd/TitaniumBackup
  • Any existing backups will not be moved automatically. If you want to do it, you need to use a file explorer app.

Filtering

15. What is affected when I apply a filter (MENU-Filters) ?

  • The applications list is filtered.
  • The batch actions will operate on the filtered list.
  • The Market “auto updating” manager will operate on the filtered list.
  • The Market Doctor is not subject to filtering.
  • The scheduled actions are not subject to filtering.
  • The widget actions are not subject to filtering.

16. What does the “Filter by platform” feature affect?

  • It will affect the batch menu: backups that are filtered out, will be considered as if they didn’t exist. For example, if the latest version of an app was backed up on a different ROM, it will consider that it needs to be backed up again.
  • When batch restoring, instead of restoring the newest version, Titanium Backup will restore the newest version that passes the filter.
  • When viewing the backup properties, you can only restore/delete the backups that pass the filter.
  • Widgets and scheduled actions are not affected by the filter.

Freezing Apps

17. Does “freezing” apps free space from phone memory ?

  • No, it doesn’t. The “frozen” app remains on the phone with its data, it’s just that the app gets completely disabled until you “defrost” it.

18. What happens to my frozen apps if I do a factory reset ?

  • They will be defrosted.

Apps2SD and Data2SD (moving apps or data to external memory)

19. What are the requirements for using the “move to SD” and “move to Internal” features?

  • You need a ROM that supports the Froyo (Android 2.2) apps2sd implementation.

20. What are the requirements for using the “Move app data to SD card” (Data2SD) feature?

  • Our Apps2SD scheme creates symbolic links (one per app) at /data/data/com.x.y that will point to somewhere within an ext2/3/4 partition on the SD card.
  • The supported mount points for the ext2/3/4 partition are:
    • /system/sd/ (“classic” sd-ext)
    • /sd-ext/ (“Cyanogen” sd-ext)
    • /data/sd/ (“MIUI” sd-ext)
  • So for Data2SD to work, you’ll need to ensure that your ext2/3/4 partition is mounted at one of these locations. Then create an “app” directory at that location in case it doesn’t exist. Once it’s done, you’ll see a free space gauge for it in the Titanium Backup welcome screen, and you can then long-click on an app in the list and hit the “Move app data to SD” button. Once you do that:
    • First, Titanium Backup will look for existing symbolic links in /data/data/ and attempt to re-use the same target location, if it lies within the ext2/3/4 partition.
    • If it finds no existing (or no suitable) destination, it will propose to create a “data2” folder within the ext2/3/4 partition, and will then move the app’s data inside it.
    • So by default, you’ll get: /data/data/com.x.y => /system/sd/data2/com.x.y (in the “classic” sd-ext case).

Upgrading or un-installing Titanium Backup

21. Are older backups compatible with newer Titanium Backup versions ?

  • YES, always.
  • The backups are in 100% standard UNIX formats and can also be unpacked on Linux machines.

22. If I un-install Titanium Backup, do I lose my backups?

  • No, because the backups are stored on your SD card, not in Titanium Backup’s own data.

23. Is it possible to make a backup of Titanium Backup’s settings, labels and schedules?

  • Yes, enable the “Auto-sync TB settings” checkbox in the Titanium Backup preferences.
  • This feature will create and maintain a copy of your settings on your SD card.
  • In case you un-install Titanium Backup and install it again, the settings will be automatically restored the first time you launch it.

Cleaning the Dalvik Cache

24. What does the Dalvik cache cleaner do ?

  • It performs a deep analysis of the Dalvik cache and then offers to reclaim all unneeded entries from it. This frees up precious internal memory that would never have been freed otherwise. The space is really gained (not fake!) and will remain available after a reboot.
  • It does not wipe the whole Dalvik cache. Wiping the whole Dalvik cache is not needed and would just make the next reboot very slow.

Data Profiles

25. What happens when I backup/restore an app that has multiple data profiles?

  • All profiles will be backed up / restored at once.
  • Every backup of the app will contain the data for all profiles.

26. I restored an app that has multiple data profiles, but I don’t see these profiles in the list. What should I do?

  • Hit “Switch profile” -> “Detect existing data profiles”.
  • All your apps’ data will be scanned and the list of data profiles will be updated.

Android Market

27. Can I tell the Market that I do not want to update a specific app?

  • Yes. Just long-click on an app in the Titanium Backup list and hit “Detach from Market”.

28. I have a rooted Android device that has no Android Market app. Can I use Titanium Backup ?

  • YES. Please make the following changes in TB preferences:
    • disable the “Market link” option (under Backup settings).
    • disable the “Remove Market entry” option (under Un-installer settings).

29. Recent Titanium Backup versions (4.0.2+) are showing some apps as having auto-update “enabled”, while they are actually “disabled” in the Market. Why?

  • When you install an app from the Market, its auto-update setting is set to “default”. The meaning of “default” depends on the app, for example for YouTube this means “enabled”.
  • Recent versions of Titanium Backup are aware of this, and thus they display the status for these apps as being “enabled” – because it is really, for practical purposes, possibly enabled.
  • You can truly switch the auto-update mode for these apps from “default” to “disabled”, by un-checking them in TB’s auto-update manager and applying the changes.

30. I want to keep my older Market version. Can I prevent the Market from auto-upgrading itself?

  • Yes, if you have Titanium Backup Pro you can freeze the “Market Updater” (com.android.vending.updater) app. That will prevent the Market from upgrading itself automatically.

System Apps

31. What does the “Integrate updates of system apps into ROM” feature do?

  • System apps are part of your ROM, but some of them (eg: GMail) can be updated from the Market (if the version on the Market is newer than the version in your ROM).
  • Upgrades are not installed in your ROM, instead they are installed in your phone’s data memory. The original version (within your ROM) is shadowed (masked) by the newer version.
  • Titanium Backup can move the newer version of the app, directly into your ROM (thus overwriting the older version). This frees up precious data memory.

32. Does un-installing system apps free space from phone memory ?

  • Yes it does, because the Dalvik cache element (for that app) and the application’s data will be removed from your phone’s data memory.

33. I have un-installed a system app by mistake. What can I do?

  • If you made a backup of it with Titanium Backup 3.8.0 or later, you should see a smiley icon for it and you can restore it easily, along with its data.
  • Older versions of Titanium Backup did not backup system apps – only their data. In that case you can do as follows:
    • You can reinstall the exact ROM (update.zip) that you have now, without doing a wipe. Your system app(s) will be back.
    • If you don’t want to reinstall the whole ROM, you can decompress the update.zip on your PC and copy the apk manually onto your phone, into /system/app/.
    • Once the system app is back on your ROM, you can restore its data with Titanium Backup.

Converting databases between “Rollback Journal” and “WAL” modes

34. Which Android versions support each DB format?

  • “Rollback Journal” mode is supported by all known Android versions.
  • “WAL” mode is supported by Gingerbread (Android 2.3) and later, and by any ROM that features SQLite 3.7.0+ (eg: CyanogenMod).

35. Can I safely convert between the two formats?

  • In principle, yes.
  • Titanium Backup checks for WAL support on your ROM before allowing conversion to WAL.
  • If you have WAL databases on a ROM that does not support them, don’t worry: Titanium Backup can process databases (to convert them back) even if the ROM itself cannot read them.
  • It is usually safe to convert the data for user apps (because it can easily be converted back if needed) but be careful when converting the data for system apps. Let’s say converting system app data should be attempted by advanced users only!

Dropbox / Box.net / Google Drive

36. What does the Dropbox / Box.net / Google Drive sync do ?

  • In the typical case, it’s a one-way sync from your phone to Dropbox / Box.net / Google Drive.
  • You can opt to either sync all your backups, or all backups that are associated to a custom colored label of your choice.

37. How can I restore my backups from Dropbox / Box.net / Google Drive if my SD card failed or my phone got stolen ?

  • With Titanium Backup 3.6.4 (or above):
    • If your backup folder is empty, then with you can simply switch to the Schedules tab and hit the “RUN” button in the “Sync to Dropbox / Box.net / Google Drive” section to download all backups from Dropbox / Box.net / Google Drive back onto your phone.
  • With older Titanium Backup versions:
    • Do not use the “Sync to Dropbox / Box.net / Google Drive” button now: it’s a one-way sync and would erase your Dropbox / Box.net / Google Drive files because you have no backups on the phone.
    • You need to copy the “TitaniumBackup” folder back from Dropbox / Box.net / Google Drive onto your SD card:
      • On a computer, login to Dropbox / Box.net / Google Drive on the web
      • Click on the “TitaniumBackup” folder
      • Click on “Download folder”.
    • Extract the ZIP file that you just downloaded.
    • Move the resulting “TitaniumBackup” folder from your computer onto your SD card
    • Make sure USB mass storage is disabled (ie: your phone is disconnected from the computer)
    • Launch Titanium Backup and it should see your backups.

38. I have the PRO/Donate version but I see “Dropbox => NO” in the Titanium Backup main screen. Why ?

  • You need to hit MENU -> Preferences and then enable the Dropbox feature.

Security

39. Why does Titanium Backup require the Internet permission ? This is scary for a root app. Do you collect usage data ?

  • No, Titanium Backup does not collect any usage data (or any other data) under any circumstances whatsoever.
  • Internet access is used only to download Busybox (when you hit the “Problems?” button), to connect to your Dropbox / Box.net / Google Drive account (if you use the Dropbox / Box.net / Google Drive feature), to fetch the ChangeLog and to query the Android Market.
  • For your information: even without the “Internet” permission, a root app could bypass the Android security model and access the Internet anyway. In the case of Titanium Backup, the “Internet” permission is listed for your convenience and because there is nothing to hide from the user.
  • This is a backup tool which can handle all your apps and personal data – so you have to trust the developer in the first place, otherwise you wouldn’t use this app 😉
  • For more information please see the Privacy policy.

40. Why does Titanium Backup demand that the Android Debugging Bridge (ADB) be enabled? I don’t develop on my phone and don’t want this.

  • The only reason is that on some ROMs, earlier versions of Superuser (the app that grants root privileges) didn’t work properly if ADB (USB debugging) was disabled. This is why I added the warning at startup.
  • Nowadays, on most ROMs you can leave USB debugging disabled in your phone settings and also disable that warning in Titanium Backup. The option is: MENU -> Preferences -> “Warn if no USB debug”.
  • Prior to v5.6 and above, the USB Debugging option is located at MENU -> Preferences -> GUI Preferences > Warning > “Warn if no USB debug”

Annoyances

41. Why does Titanium Backup run at startup ?

  • Titanium Backup runs at startup in order to check the list of scheduled actions.
  • Once this is done, it shuts down and will get unloaded as soon as the OS needs some memory. It will not use any CPU time until the next scheduled event occurs.
  • If you don’t intend to use schedules at all, and you want to prevent apps from running at startup, you could use a tool such as Autorun Killer or Autostarts.

42. Your app stores some files in the “/data/com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup” folder on my SD card, which annoys me. Can’t you just follow Google’s guidelines?

  • We agree that using the standard location (according to Google’s guidelines on using external storage) would be more pleasant but unfortunately, we can’t use that location because it gets erased whenever the app is un-installed. The files we store there are not temporary files: they need to survive a full uninstall / reinstall of Titanium Backup. For that reason we can’t store them in there.
  • The files are:
    • A copy of all Titanium Backup settings (optional).
    • The Pro license cache.
  • If we ever need to store temporary files on external storage, we would surely store them in the standard location.

43. Your app is updated too frequently and it annoys me. Can’t you just slow down?

  • No. What is unneeded for a user can be critically needed for another.
  • Nobody forces you to install every update. You could just open the Market once a week and update on this occasion only.

44. What is this “Titanium Backup Add-on”?

  • The Titanium Backup add-on exists for root users only.
  • It’s a helper for the PRO backup/restore (XML) features. So is it PRO-only? No, simply because free users can restore their PRO XML data too (eg: in case of lost license).
]]> Titanium Backup User’s Guide https://www.titaniumtrack.com/kb/titanium-backup-kb/titanium-backup-user-guide.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=titanium-backup-user-guide Mon, 19 Dec 2011 08:22:49 +0000 http://www.titaniumtrack.com/?p=583 This is the Titanium Backup official manual. If this is the first time you are using Titanium Backup, this is the best place to begin. It will enhance your understanding on the application and at the same time tell you why is this application a must have for any Android user. Here is the index of the page:

  1. Preface
  2. Requirements
  3. Installation
  4. First Start
  5. Backup
    1. How to make your first backup
    2. Subsequent backups
    3. Backup Verification
    4. Scheduled Backups
    5. Extended Backups
  6. Restore
    1. How to restore your backups after installing a ROM (if you wiped your phone)
    2. Restoring single Applications
    3. Restoring your messages
  7. Manage Applications
  8. Configuration
  9. Tips & Suggestions for using Titanium Backup

Preface

A reliable backup is a must – especially when thoroughly investigating your (new) Android phone, testing a lot of apps, and playing with all those settings – so in case of trouble you can simply revert. Or think of upgrading to a newer/different ROM: Do you want to spend hours afterwards fuzzing around re-instalingl and re-configuring all your applications and settings – if the same result can be achieved by just tapping three times and leaning back?

Most backup applications only cover parts of what’s involved: They either backup (and restore) only your applications, or your SMS, or … And last but not least, only a few can even backup your applications settings. Those which can require root access – and so does Titanium Backup.

2. Requirements

Of course, you need an Android phone which – you might have guessed from the preface – must be “rooted”. That is, you must have “super-user” permissions on your device; except for developer devices, none have this as they are shipped. So this is something you have to take care of yourself. Also required is that you have the “superuser” application installed, which in most cases is done during the “rooting process”.

Titanium Backup is designed to work on any rooted Android device. Android OS versions from 1.5 to 4.0 are tested and supported.

3. Installation

If all requirements are met, you can go to the market and install the application from there – as you do with all other applications.

4. First start

Titanium Backup uses an optimized, built-in version of busybox by default, so you usually don’t need to change anything. If, however, you have problems with root access or with busybox, try hitting the “Problems” button to upgrade your “Superuser” app first. If the issue persists, you may try to enable the “Force use system busybox” option in the preferences as a last resort.

For those who are interested in this (and are too lazy to look it up at Wikipedia 🙂 ): You can think of busybox as a “system toolbox”. Simply put, it collects a bunch of basic Unix/Linux tools and bundles them into a single binary, taking a minimalistic approach: Offer as much as needed, take up as little space as possible. Titanium Backup makes use of this functionality (why to invent the wheel twice?), and thus needs this executable.

You should also visit the Titanium Backup -> Preferences -> Backup Folder Location and set the folder for your backup. When selecting the backup folder location, you must be *inside* the target folder, before tapping on “Use the current folder”. If you have to navigate to the parent folder, just use the “back” hardware key on your device.

5. Backup

There are multiple ways of how a backup can be created. You can backup a single application, all user applications, all your settings… So let’s go with the most likely scenarios:

i. How to make your first backup

  • Verify that Titanium Backup has started without warning and that your busybox is OK
  • Click the Backup/Restore tab
  • Click Menu (the button), Batch
  • Click “Backup all user apps” (if you want just your apps) or “Backup all user apps + system data” if you want everything backed up. This doesn’t seem to always backup SMS and contact history.
  • Let it run, then go back to the main backup tab.
  • Individually backup the system data you want. That is most green-colored items. This will be bookmarks, call log, calendar, launcher, WiFi, etc.
  • Now your backups are in the “TitaniumBackup” directory on your SD card.

Depending on how many applications you have installed, this process will take several minutes. But you don’t need to worry that your screen may switch off and abort the batch backup – Titanium Backup makes sure this doesn’t happen.

ii. Subsequent backups

Batch Scenarios

As you can see on the screen shot, there are a lot of batch jobs available to select from. Once your first backup is done, you probably don’t want to backup everything again – usually you want to only backup the apps that were updated or newly installed. You may have already spotted this option in the list of Batch operations …

Please note, however, that some apps may contain important data (to you) that changes often. You might want to define a label for them (hit “MENU” -> “Filters” and then “Create label”). You can schedule a regular backup for that label.

If you have the PRO/Donate version, you can tell Titanium Backup to keep several successive versions of your backups: hit “MENU” -> “Preferences” -> “Max backup history”.

iii. Backup Verification

So how can you tell whether your backup was successful? The first entry in the batch list runs a verification process. This is only available in the PRO/Donate version.

iv. Scheduled Backups

Scheduled Backups

This feature was long waited for: You can create scheduled backups. As the picture to the left suggests, you can setup multiple items here. To serve even the most paranoid, you could e.g. decide for an hourly backup of your settings, plus a daily backup for your (user) applications. Plus saving your call logs and messages all 3 hours, if you like. And whatever else comes to your mind…

v. Extended Backups

Some applications (especially games) require more than just the APK and settings data. In most cases, these are assets of the particular application. In our terms, we call these “external app data”. With Titanium Backup, you can create backups containing these if you have enough storage on your device. To do this, you just need to go to Titanium Backup’s preferences and look for “Backup app external data” option. If you decide to set a limit to the external data, the subsequent option in the preferences namely “Select external data by max size” will allow you to set the respective limits.

Note that Titanium Backup only includes external data that is stored in /sdcard/Android/data/ directory. Some files like the OBB files are big and are downloaded straight from Google, thus never contain user generated content. These files are NOT included and are NOT considered as app external data by Titanium Backup.

6. Restore

i. How to restore your backups after installing a ROM (if you wiped your phone)

  • If you just formatted your SD card, don’t forget to copy the “TitaniumBackup” folder (and possibly your license) back from your PC.
  • Download Titanium Backup from Market
  • If you intend to restore system data (eg: MMS/SMS) from a different phone/ROM, enable the “System data migration” option now.
  • Click the Backup/Restore tab
  • Click Menu (the button), Batch
  • Click “Restore all missing apps + system data
  • Reboot your phone
  • It’s done ! The only thing you may have to adjust is usually your wallpaper/widgets.

ii. Restoring single Applications

To restore a single application and/or its settings, just see “Manage Applications” below.

iii. Restoring your messages

To restore your SMS/MMS, call logs, phone book, and the like: Tap the “Backup/Restore” button, and scroll the list for those data. They usually appear in green letters with square brackets around. Then deal with them as you would do with “single applications”. Again, if you’re restoring them from a different phone/ROM, enable the “System data migration” option.

If they don’t show up in the list, make sure you didn’t filter them out: tap your phones menu button, select “Filter”, and set the filters appropriately.

7. Manage Applications

List of apps

Tapping the “Backup/Restore” button brings you to the application list – or rather the list of available “items”. Here you can see which applications and settings are available on your phone, and what has already been backed up (the symbols to the right tell you the latter – hit your phones menu button and select “Legend” for details on what they mean).

Tapping an application brings up a popup from which you can select actions to be taken with the selected item: You can e.g. run an application, back it up, restore it (or its settings). You also may also decide to un-install the application – even if it is a system app! But with the latter, you should be very careful: Remove the wrong thing, and your phone may start malfunctioning. Which is why you should first try whether it’s safe to remove that system application. This can be done by “freezing” it.

Properties of a backup

Freezing is only available with the PRO/Donate version. It makes the application unavailable to the system without deleting it. If your phone starts with some strange behavior, you can simply “defrost” the frozen application, and everything should be fine again.

Tapping-and-Holding brings up a different set of choices, but again just concerning the tapped (and held) application: You can search for all files belonging to it, view the app in the market, re-create the market link, if it does no longer appear in your market downloads (or do the opposite, detach it from the market), or move it between internal and SD storage (with Froyo) – even if the app does not officially support this.

8. Configuration

Why do I bring up this as almost the last item? Because the defaults are usually fine, and I guessed you were more eager for a fast start 😉

You will find the settings by tapping your phones menu button, and then select “Preferences”. Here you can configure the following things:

  • Auto-sync TB settings: This should be switched ON. It ensures that Titanium Backup automatically saves its own settings to your SD card. After a complete restore, you probably want those back as well.
  • Backup Folder name: Where on the SD card your backups should be stored. By default, this is “TitaniumBackup” in your SD cards root directory. If you have a Samsung you can use “sd/TitaniumBackup” to store your backups on the external SD card.
  • Normal Apps (apk): Include your applications *.apk files with the backup
  • Protected Apps (apk): These are the apps on your system partition. As that partition is read-only, they cannot be restored.
  • Market Link: Backup the market links together with your apps?
  • Max backup history: How many different versions to keep for your apps. Useful if some app gets broken by an update – so you can revert to a previous copy.
  • Compression: What it says, how to compress your backups.
  • Force to same location: Concerns Apps2SD (Froyo only). Whether an app should be restored exactly to where it was backed up from (SD/internal).
  • Migrate system data: Use this before restoring system data from a different (incompatible) ROM, or even different phone model. Although it usually works well for the most common data (eg: SMS/MMS) from Android 1.5 to 2.2, this is a best effort approach and is not guaranteed to work from any ROM to any ROM.
  • Remove Market Link: Exactly.
  • Chuck Norris mode: Enable the feature to remove protected “bloatware” apps from your ROM (using a roundhouse kick 🙂 )
  • App processing mode: If Titanium Backup continually hangs while installing or freezing apps, you might try to switch this.
  • Min days: For the batch-mode backup of “apps older than…”

9. Tips & Suggestions for using Titanium Backup

  • When you start Titanium Backup on a new ROM and you have any problems with root access, try clicking the “Problems?” button first.
  • Don’t forget to verify your backups (Click MENU – Batch) to ensure that your backups are OK.
  • You need to reboot after restoring system items (eg: Contacts, SMS, Settings, etc) for the changes to take effect. If you backup/restore across very different ROMs, we advise to be cautious and only include the system items you really need to preserve. Try enabling the “System data migration” option before restoring, too.
  • You can easily create a custom apps list by creating a Label in Apps Organizer, then going back to Titanium Backup, clicking “MENU” and then “Filters” and finally, selecting the Label you want. Your apps list will then be filtered just the way you want 😀
  • If you backup the same app several times, Titanium Backup will save SD card space by storing each apk version only once.
  • After restoring your apps, you can run the Market Doctor to verify their Market links. If Market Doctor reports everything as okay, yet your apps are still not listed in “My Downloads”, try to search for them in the Market. If they show as “Installed”, it confirms that the links are okay, but your Market needs a refresh: just install any app from the Market, and the “My Downloads” section will be refreshed !
  • If you want to remove a system app, first you can try to freeze it and see if everything still works fine. Once you’ve gained more confidence that you don’t need it, just go ahead and un-install that system app.
  • If you are using Dropbox / Box.net / Google Drive and want to sync the backups somewhere other than in a folder at the root of your account use the format <Directory1>/<Directory2> in the “Dropbox / Box.net / Google Drive target location” setting. For example typing: “Android/TitaniumBackup” syncs your backups to a folder named TitaniumBackup underneath a folder called Android. Dropbox / Box.net / Google Drive sync is only available with the PRO/Donate version.
]]> The Basics https://www.titaniumtrack.com/kb/kb-general/the-basics.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-basics Mon, 19 Dec 2011 07:50:17 +0000 http://www.titaniumtrack.com/?p=568 This is where your journey of understanding the basics begin. We try to answer questions such as “what’s a system app?” or “what’s a shell?”. You will need to understand these nomenclatures and information as it will be used throughout the rest of the knowledgebase. Here is a summary of the chapters contained in this page:

  1. What is a system app?
  2. What is a user app?
  3. What is system data?
  4. What is root/rooting?
  5. What about the Android security model?
  6. Why isn’t my phone rooted out of the box?
  7. What do “NAND locked” and “S-ON” mean?
  8. Everyone talks about “opening a shell” so how do I do that?

1. What is a system app ?

A system app is an application that resides in /system/app/ and thus is technically a part of your ROM.

2. What is a user app ?

A user app is an application that resides either on the /data partition of your phone’s internal memory or on your SD card.

3. What is system data ?

In the vast majority of cases, system data is simply the data that belongs to system apps or services. For example your SMS/MMS are system data that belong to the “Dialer Storage” system service. There are some special elements (such as the Wi-Fi access points list) that don’t belong to a specific system element, but they must be considered as exceptions.

4. What is root/rooting ?

  • “root” is the UNIX system administrator.
  • Rooting an Android phone means modifying your ROM (or installing a 3rd-party custom ROM) so that you can grant “root” privileges to certain programs.
  • In our case, Titanium Backup uses these privileges to backup other applications’ data, regardless of security restrictions. Without root privileges this would be impossible to do (see the Android security model point below).

5. What about the Android security model ?

  • Under the Android security model, every app can access its own data, plus some of the general phone’s data (eg: SMS/MMS, Contacts) if it has the necessary permissions. Apps may also share their data with other apps, but they are (of course) not forced to do so.
  • While some apps have a way of backing up/restoring their own data (which resides inside the phone’s memory) to your SD card or to the cloud, and some apps offer a way of sharing their data, the vast majority of apps do not have any backup or data sharing features built-in. This is where Titanium Backup comes in.
  • Titanium Backup is not constrained by the Android security model so it can potentially backup/restore all the data that is on your device.

6. Why isn’t my phone rooted out of the box ?

  • Because of restrictions imposed by the manufacturer or perhaps by your carrier. In its pure form, the Android OS itself is open-source and not limited.
  • Rooting gives you full access to your device, which gives you more power and responsibilities – which some novice users may not need nor want.

7. What do “NAND locked” and “S-ON” mean ?

  • A “NAND locked” (or “S-ON”) device is a device where the ROM (usually mounted at /system) is write-protected in hardware and thus cannot be modified, even if you have root privileges. Sometimes you get the illusion that you can write to /system, but in any case all changes will disappear after a reboot. This is why these devices often have “temp root” instead of “permanent root”.
  • In order to get permanent root access, you need to make your device “NAND unlocked” (or “S-OFF”) first. In other words, you need to “unlock the bootloader”.

8. Everyone talks about “opening a shell” so how do I do that ?

  • A shell simply is a “command line” to type commands on your Android phone.
  • If you’re comfortable with typing on the phone then you can just use the ConnectBot (free) app or the Better Terminal (paid) app.
  • If you want (or need) to type commands from a computer, just install the Android SDK, then enable “USB debugging” on your phone and finally, connect your phone through USB and type “adb shell” on your computer.
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