Database Develop

Phantom Reset

I was using my phone a few hours ago (adding an icon from the application drawer to the home screen if that will help with solving the problem) when suddenly, the phone reset itself as though I had done a wipe from the recovery console. I had to sign back into Google and re-sync my contacts and calendar. All my settings were back to defaults. My home screen icons disappeared and changed to the default icons (browser, contacts, dialer, market, messaging, maps) as did the wallpaper. All my SMS messages were gone. Basically, it as was as though I had wiped and flashed the ROM for the first time.
However, and this is the weird part. Not only were all my apps still there but they were still installed. All the settings were lost but they were still there. I am not concerned with the restoration of my settings or anything like that. I've got that all covered with backups. My big question is why did it happen? Has anyone experienced or heard of this phantom reset? My ROM details are in my sig but just in case that changes and someone visits this post later, it will make more sense to them if I list it in the post itself.
Cyanogen 3.6.8.1 w/Recovery Menu v1.4. Radio v2.22.19.26i. A2SD on 550MB ext2 partition. Compcache enabled/24MB.

Has the only happened once with you? It could have been just a glitch.

supremeteam256 said:
Has the only happened once with you? It could have been just a glitch.
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Well, I can tell you why your apps survived, because you have them on sd card so that's not weird, you can wipe all you want and they will survive.
I would say this is a glitch, don't worry about it unless it happens again.

borodin1 said:
Well, I can tell you why your apps survived, because you have them on sd card so that's not weird, you can wipe all you want and they will survive.
I would say this is a glitch, don't worry about it unless it happens again.
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Yes, the apps on sd being the reason I didn't lose them makes sense. I had a different problem losing apps on the sd when I wiped but that was a mistakes in the way I was slinking and it was also on JF1.51 (a2sd is very unstable on that ROM). Anyway, I'm seriously hoping it was just a one time glitch because my setup is voodoo smooth otherwise. I finally got my G1 running perfectly and I'd hate to think something was wrong. Either way, Nandroid is always an option.

Phantom Reset Not a Glitch. Happened Again!
OK. So it happened again. The phantom reset that I described in the first post happened to me again. It's pretty annoying to have to perform Nadroid restores all the time. Anyone have any real thoughts other than telling me it was a fluke?

Possible Answer
I am pretty certain that this happened right after I used Backup for Root Users. I have my identical setup on my father's G1 and this has never happened. He has told me in the past that he does not use that app. I don't want to instantly blame the app but I want to provide as much info as possible. Cyan's ROMs are too good for this to be an issue.

aaronratner said:
OK. So it happened again. The phantom reset that I described in the first post happened to me again. It's pretty annoying to have to perform Nadroid restores all the time. Anyone have any real thoughts other than telling me it was a fluke?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The dev has reported that it has issues (if you can replicate the errors, send him a logcat)
hes on the forums on this site

SOLVED
Thanks a lot. I will try and write-up (on dev's site) of what I was doing when it happened. It happened to me twice so I don't think I will use it again (at least until it's fixed). I am a backup freak so I like to use multiple apps but nandroid seems to cover it all. I will stick with what seems to work (and work well) for now.
On a side note, Cyan's latest looks too juicy not to try out. Going to upgrade now.

(help)wanting to Nandroid to backup apps, but wanna change roms and restore apps+data

I'm sorry, I tried.
I have been looking all day. Timed search functions are not working in my favor, and again i mean ALL day. I have looked, but I don't believe the information i've found applies to my scenario.
Girlfriends phone is running cyan 4.2.5
I wanna change roms, but not lose the data with the apps.
I've gotten backing up and restoring/reinstall apps with DroidExplorer down to a science, but for some reason I can't find the right way to transfer the data with it.
I read somewhere to just do a nandroid backup, and pull the data file from that nandroid and to put it in a new one(after flashing new rom and creating a nandroid), etc that whole thing. It didnt work for me, and that was me trying it on my phone with the same rom for before and after.
Again for her's, its going to be cyan 4.2.5 going to superd 1.9 -- should I also be expecting some things not to work just because the way it links into other files?
any insight? please anyone? i would send my Chrome history to prove I've been searching ALL DAY.
thank you!
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ah hell. while looking into her phone, i realized/remembered i didnt finish the job the very first time i upgraded her phone and just kept up-flashing the cyan builds
her phone has a 2gig, probably class 2 card, so i never set up a partition on it, and there is no apps2sd going on there, that i know of at least [does it do it automatically without a separate partition?]
and to top that, it wont let me do an nandroid backup - was in CF 1.4, i flashed Amon152 on it and it still wont let me
perform a nandroid backup, just gives me the run from console error. im down for reading, i do that, but pages, on pages.
again if anyone can spare a lil bit of time, and just simply help for a minute, not only will i appreciate it, ill donate. moneys money.
i work in computers, i know troubleshooting **** isn't simple, or cheap. I code other stuff, and cant get enough time to learn ALL of this.
just trying to pull apps + data off of her G1 as easily as possible..

Please Help, Apps Crashing

Hi:
I have installed the JH7 update found here on xda. My phone is rooted with sideloading enabled. I will be honest, I have a ton of apps on my phone.
I have had SO many problems since the update. I had to re-install the update 3 times, because after HOURS of trying to enable sideloading it still wouldn't work. After the third install I was finally able to enable sideloading.
Now, my problem is, some apps are crashing as soon as I open them. The 2 biggest culprits are e-mail, and Shop Saavy. I click to open them, they open for between 1-5 seconds, then close.
Any thoughts? I am desperately trying to find an answer, I would hate to have to hard reset, since I have already spent in excess of 10 hours trying to get my phone to where it is now.
I did have task manager installed, but the problem persists even after uninstall. Also, I used task manager prior to the update with no problems.
Thanks so much!
PS: If I do have to hard reset, can I simply use Sprite backup to restore everything, or will there still be some things that need configuring (ie. home screen etc)?

Quick idea: Download ROM Manager from the Market and run "Fix Permissions." Sometimes that will clear up any force close issues.

a.n said:
Quick idea: Download ROM Manager from the Market and run "Fix Permissions." Sometimes that will clear up any force close issues.
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Hi:
I tried your suggestion, but sadly, it didn't work
Thanks so much for your suggestion though!!
PS: The apps just close, I do not get an error message. I have found some posts with people with e-mail crashing issues, but it seems that they do get a force close message, and that it is Exchange related. I do not use exchange.

Now that you mention it, I have had the stock email client force close upon load a few times since the update, and it had never done that beforehand. Maybe try reflashing just the kernel?

swedishcancerboi said:
Now that you mention it, I have had the stock email client force close upon load a few times since the update, and it had never done that beforehand. Maybe try reflashing just the kernel?
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Hi:
Sorry to be a dunce, but how do you reflash just the kernel, and will it delete everything (apps, data etc)?
Thanks so much!

My 2 cents:
I don't know why it took hours to enable sideloading, i spent only a few minutes - but that gives me the impression that something might seriously be broken.
I would back up everything you want to save and do a master reset - it will clear all data, but you hould be JH7 fresh. If you want to go further, you can reflash factory JF6 then update to JH7. Either way, make sure you check basic apps first before installing a bunch of stuff.
I don't subscribe to the blind grasping at straws method of fixing things. After to many hours it is just faster to rebuild. If you knew what was wrong, then fix it, but if you don't then rebuild.

I agree. If you are needing this to function properly now, then just reset back to factory and start over. But if you are like me and just have to know what is broken.....that could take a while. I always try to make sure I don't have anything on my phone I couldn't live without just for instances like this.
Flashing just the kernel can be done with Odin (search the forum). There is a "stock captivate kernel" floating around (I'd post it, but I'm sure we don't need files posted multiple times). Instructions are included in that post. Basically you need a computer, USB cable, drivers, and bollocks. However, as mentioned, this is a shot in the dark. Random force closes could be caused by a variety of issues ranging from corrupt software, file system inconsistencies, to hardware failure, phase of the moon, appetite level, etc....
The safest bet is to backup everything, flash stock (if needed) and take it back to AT&T for a replacement.
Good Luck!

Hi:
Thank you so much for the replies, and help.
I decided to go ahead and reflash JH7. This has fixed the entire problem. So, apparently it was software related.
I am now going to install all my apps one at a time, in order to find the culprit. Hopefully it is one I can live without lol.
Anyway, thanks again!

Did you ever figure out what app was causing this? I am starting to get annoyed with my force closes and was going to re-flash and re-add all apps.

Hi:
Well, I MAY have figured it out. I had a million programs installed, and it just seemed like too much work to try to figure it out.
So I just re-installed JH7, and started from scratch, so I'll never really know what the problem was.
However recently I started having the same problem again. Since I started from scratch I have been gradually installing programs, just in case one cased a problem.
Well, it seems my problem was Startup Manager. I did NOT disable any system programs etc..., but it was still causing apps to crash, as soon as I froze it with Titanium Backup Manager, the problem stopped.
So, if you happen to be using Startup Manager, I would try uninstalling/ disabling it. Or, if you use a task manager, try not using it, maybe it is stopping whatever Startup Manager was disabling on mine.
Anyway, I hope this was of some help.

Oops, sorry, the program causing my troubles is actually called Startup Auditor.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

[Q] Things I want to know about flashing and more!

A lot of things are never explained. Its really easy to just flash a ROM but there is a lot more to the process that could help.
I have soo many questions its ridiculous.. Why not ask them all at once? Im not dumb, I would like to see someone find complete information on any of these things..
1. Nobody ever explained what we can do with Clockwork Recovery, I know that I can restore previous ROMS with it but what else? Could I easily just flash back to my original 2.1 out of the box modded phone ROM even though I am on 2.2 now?
2. When I flash these ROMS, should I be doing like a format of the internal SD card to make it all fresh and what not?
3. What about App2SD? Thought sounded way cool when I first heard about it. How can I get that working? Couldn't I just use that and never have to backup my apps between ROMS anymore? Maybe I don't get it but theres no info on it either.
4. What is Nandroid? Sounds cool.
5. What would be the best way to back everything up between flashes?
At the moment, I just use TB to back up my important apps and then restore them + data afterwards. And for contacts and stuff I just uses Google sync, easy enough. It seems pointless to back up though because the Titanium Backup folder still remains after flashing, why do things still remain? Is this a good thing?
6. What the heck is kernel swapping and more specifically, what does it do? I have a general idea what a kernel is but feel free to explain!
7. Anything else about the finesses of flashing would be awesome to read about. This is all that comes to mind but yeah, feel free to really lay on the details.
I don't really care how ridiculous this seems, its a forum. More specifically, the Q&A section. Any help would be awesome!
[Edit] Ha, go figure. No replies. Was worth a try.

Those are all very good questions.
I agree with you that so far there is not a good central repository of information to explain all this that I know of.
I recently flashed to Cognition 9.1 after reading bajillions of threads to try and piece together the proper procedure. You see people making suggestions left and right, but half the time they conflict with each other, and the other half are stated in terms that only someone that already knows how to do it would understand.
There are two wikis and a couple guides out there with good information, but they tend to be grander in scale. "How to make your Captivate take over the world" articles are great and useful. But it's very difficult to find information on the small specific bits contained in those guides.
To understand all those little bits requires lots of googling and taking notes. I can't tell you how many e-mails I've sent myself from work containing little snippets of "do this", "try this", "how to..." that I've slowly come across after scouring these forums for hours on end.
That's not to say I don't appreciate all the info given from the users here. I'm just saying it'll be nice when all that knowledge gets pooled into one central location like one of the wikis rather than scattered sentence by sentence amid thousands of pages of posts.
And the next response to me from some snarky person will undoubtedly be "Well if you want the wiki to have that info then do it yourself!". My response then would be, "I don't know that information which is why I'm saying it would be nice if..."
The next snarky response to expect would be "If you want to know stuff then search the forums you newb. That's how *I* did it!" And my response to that would be, "And wouldn't you have been incredibly overjoyed to have NOT spent hours of your free time trying to piece together knowledge out there? And why the heck didn't you then post a straight-forward guide of simple steps on how to do it. And why the heck aren't you being a good person and helping me out now rather than being snarky and telling me to figure it out myself??"
So here's my answers to your questions which won't be very good but maybe if enough of us clueless people discuss this kind of stuff we can start to hash out more specifics.
1. Clockwork Recovery? I really don't know. I've read so many cryptic discussions about Clockwork that I can't tell you what it does. I know it can be used in flashing ROMs, but in following the Cognition line it's easier to use the Odin One Click method.
The name of it however makes it seem like its purpose is to recover from something to something. I'd assume that means you can recover our phone to stock if we have problems, but I bet that assumption is wrong.
2. Flash internal SD when updating ROM? Funny story that... I found this thread because I was doing a search on that very thing. I have seen mentioned in a couple places people saying you should do it. However in most "How to flash a ROM" discussions I've read they don't have formatting the internal SD as part of the scenario. And nowhere (yet..) can I find instruction on how to do it properly. I'm assuming I shouldn't just hook it up in USB mode to my computer and having my computer run a format on it. So I won't.
I know that the Odin tool does a "Master Clear" which I assumed would wipe the internal SD. But when I look at my internal SD it still has all sorts of stuff on it from before still. So evidently to "Master Clear", which is suggested in many "How to flash a ROM" guides, doesn't format the internal SD but "clears" some other mystical information.
3. App2SD. Well when I look up App2SD at Appbrain the description says, "helps you to move apps to either external or internal storage thru' the system Settings." Ok... great... So if I have apps installed (which default to internal SD) then I should be able to run this to move those apps to my external SD.
What happens when I flash a new ROM though like you said? The apps are on my external SD, but can I instantly use the apps on the fresh ROM or do I have to use App2SD again to move them to internal SD or what?
4. Nandroid! It does sound cool doesn't it? In most "How to flash ROM" guides and just about every other guide people say "Make sure to make a Nandroid backup before proceeding". Ok, doing a search on Nandroid I find this in the G1 forums:
"* What is Nandroid Backup v2.0?
Nandroid Backup is a set of tools and a script that will enable anyone who has root on their G1 and has the engineering/dev spl bootloader [1] (or has a dev phone) + a recovery image with busybox and adbd running as root [2] to make full system backups. These can then be restored using the fastboot [3] commandline tool and your phone in SPL/bootloader mode (hold camera + power)."
Uh.. say what? Ok I get what its end result is. It backs up my system. But what's this engineering/dev spl bootloader? I remember from WinMo that a bootloader booted the phone into a state where you could load a ROM onto it. Doesn't seem to fit exactly in this context.
I don't think I have a dev phone and I know I don't have any sort of recovery image. Busybox I recognize because Titanium Backup makes you install it. Don't know what it is though. And "adbd" has to do with running the Android developer kit or terminal or something which allows you to interact directly with Android on your phone I think. I couldn't get it to work on my computer so haven't been able to play with it.
So yeah, when everyone one says "Make a Nandroid backup" like it's the most simple thing in the world that every newborn baby is born with instant knowledge of doing... I must be missing something...
5. Backup between flashes. Well, from all the discussions I've read it sounds like you're supposed to use Clockwork Recovery or Nandroid or maybe both. Possibly you're also supposed to hunt down an ostrich and ride it to your local gas station to pick up a pack of bubble gum and donate it to your local charity of choice in order to get it to work.
Titanium Backup appears to backup your Apps so you can then install them again (I wonder if using App2SD affects that?). You can also back up system stuff, but everyone says not to do that. I assume that means it backs up various system files that would just mess up your new ROM if you restored them.
6. Kernel swapping. I know in general computing terms a Kernel is the very core of an operating system. Since there's swapping going on I assume there are different versions of the Android kernel out there and each one must have something different about them or there wouldn't be any swapping going on. As to what those differences are I couldn't tell you. Personally I'm going to stick with premade bundles like Cognition. That way I don't have to worry about kernel swapping and sacrificing chickens since some awesome genius (like DesignGears) has already done all that. Minus the chicken sacrifice possibly.
7. Flashing finesse. Like I said I've recently flashed from stock to Cognition 9.1 and everything seems to work (except my battery seems to be draining faster, even though I flashed from 100% charge, and did "Master Clear". So next step will be clearing the battery stat file which is another thing I need to research and doing another full charging cycle to see if that helps).
I scoured the forums before doing the flash looking for the proper steps and I finally came upon a post from someone that actually listed each step very clearly on how to do it properly. Huzzah!
Here's what KewlRobD posted:
"- I was running 2.1.7 so I disabled voodoo lagfix
- I powered off my phone and waited for it to reach 100% battery
- I removed my SIM card
- I then used ODIN to flash back to JF6
- I then used ODIN to Master Clear
- I then used ODIN to flash Beta9
- I then used ODIN to Master Clear again.
- I then put my SIM back into my phone and began customizing"
How many hours did I spend reading thread after thread to slowly piece parts of this together into some confused possible instruction list?? Well here you go, KewlRobD was very awesome and actually listed very clearly the steps to take.
The disabling lagfix part he mentions didn't apply since I was on stock and never applied a lagfix. However this is something else I'll have to research if I decide to flash to a new ROM because all "How to..." guides tell you to disable lagfix. Because again, all newborns pop out of the womb with instant knowledge on the disabling of the lagfixes.
Now the only thing he didn't mention was formatting the internal SD, nor did he mention anything about recalibrating the battery, clearing the battery stats file, bump charging etc. (besides saying to charge to 100% first)
So I'm still searching for the formatting of the internal SD information, and I remember reading somewhere about clearing the battery. I think I actually e-mailed it to myself. Yep, here's what Demented71 says about clearing the battery:
"As far as the battery, I would:
Charge your phone while it's on to 100%
Turn it off and charge to 100%
Turn it on and let it fully boot and turn it off again, charging to 100%
Then, when you unplug it, put it into recovery mode first, use CWR (the green recovery) to 'wipe battery stats' in it's advanced menu.
Then use your phone completely until it won't turn on, trying not to connect it via USB or wall charger.
When charging it up after that for the first time, try and leave it off and charge it to 100%, but let it sit for a few hours past 100%, and then use it normally. It's best to do this when your sleeping if you don't need your phone during that time. Another option is to buy the 2x battery+charger from eBay. Works great to always have a full battery."
Again, very helpful post with nice clear instructions instead of "Ur battery sux? Then reset it... duh!" However, there's one spot in there where he says to use CWR. I can only assume that means Clockwork Recovery. KHAAAAAAAAAN!! So in the end I need to do more research to figure out what exactly CWR is and how it works. *sigh*

Clockwork Recovery is a very useful tool. With it you can do many system type things before the os proper (android) is loaded.
You can install "mods" which are modifications to the system, such as zmod, or replacing your battery icon. They are given to you in zip files that have the instructions in place as scripts and such that install the mod for you. No creeping around your internal file system wondering what goes where and I hope I get it right.
You can install roms the same way.
A nandroid back up is the backup (for us) that clockwork recovery provides. If you do a rom manager or clockwork backup, you just did a nandroid backup. It lets you rollback to a point of your chosing as long as you can root your phone and install rom manager.
rom manager downloads the clockwork recovery app to your phone. As long as it's the most recent version you can move the update.zip it puts on your phone to your computer, and then you can put it on your sdcard anytime you want. Once it's there, reboot into recovery, select reinstall packages, and you should be in the clockwork recovery program.
From there you can create or restore a backup, install a mod, or rom from sdcard and quite a few utiliy scripts like formating your sd, removing battery stats, and the like. Careful. Some of this will wipe your data and leave you without apps and such. Like new.
Titanium Backup is your friend. A nandroid backup is a fallback spot, or a relatively easy way to switch back and forth between roms, sort of. If you flash a new rom you don't want to do that. Titanium Backup allows you to backup all your apps and thier data. If you pay for it, and you'll want to, it allows you to do it all as a batch operation, instead of one app at a time.
While it's beyond my time constraint's AND expertise level to answer all your questions, I hope these helped some?
Edit: Before messing with this it's a good idea to be sure you can do the button combinations to get into recovery and/or download modes. DesignGears has a thread in development that explains this and offers a fix if you can't do it. Will help keep/get you out of reboot loops if something goes fubar.
Recovery: From power off, hold both volume buttons down and push power. Hold all three until you see the at&t white screen. Hold for a second or so then release the power button while still holding the volumes. You should boot into recover there. Blue text with some choices. Move with volume up and down, choose with power.
Download: From power off, hold both volume buttons and plug in your usb cable. You should get a big yellow graphic with "Don't turn target off." That's download mode. (If you are planning to use odin or odin one click then have that program running on your computer when you do this.
(Just in case ya didn't know. Don't mean to talk down to anyone.)

Awesome response, Sulphur4724. Thank you very much.
I had no clue Clockwork Recovery was capable of doing so much stuff. I'll definitely have to check it out now.
And that answers our question on how to format the internal SD. Now we just need to find out under what circumstances it's a good idea to do so.
Along the same lines I've also heard people mentioning repartitioning the SD. I'm assuming that's only to do with the various lag fixes out there?
And thanks for clearing up the Nandroid inquiry. I always thought when people said "Make a Nandroid backup..." that they were referring to a program called Nandroid. No wonder I couldn't find an app called that!
So to simplify a little:
1. What can I do with Clockword Recovery (CWR)?
CWR backs up your ROM to an update.zip file that you can store elsewhere in case you want to restore your ROM to saved state. It also allows you to install modifications to Android such as a new battery icon. And finally, it allows you to run system utilities such as formatting the SDCard, or clearing the battery stats. CWR also works in conjunction with an App called "Rom Manager" to perform some operations.
2. Should I format the internal SD when installing new ROMs?
Not sure yet. But in order to actually DO the formatting you would use Clockwork Recovery.
3. What is App2SD and how do I use it?
Not sure yet. The description sounds simple. Move apps to the external SD card. But earching the interwebs for information is giving descriptions involving repartitioning the system into 2 partitions, flashing things, running adb commands, etc. Maybe all that information is old and it's now a simple process? We need more info.
4. What is Nandroid and how do I do it?
Nandroid is basically backing up your ROM so you can use it to restore later. To do this you use Clockwork Recovery. See question 1.
5. What's the best way to back up everything between flashing ROMs?
Using Rom Manager and Clockwork Recovery you can make a backup (Nandroid) of your current ROM. See questions 1 and 4.
In order to back up applications you will want to use an app called Titanium Backup (often referred to as TiBu). With TiBu you can make backup copies of any apps you want. Along with that you can tell it to back up any data for those apps (which would be game saves, app settings, etc.). You can also back up system files and data, but this can often lead to ROM issues if you replace a new ROMs files with old backup files so do your research and be careful.
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Besides the formatting internal SD and App2SD questions, does that all sound right so far?
Does anyone know if all this is universal Android stuff, or if it only pertains to the Captivate?
By the way, thanks for asking these questions, Shival!

And that answers our question on how to format the internal SD. Now we just need to find out under what circumstances it's a good idea to do so.
Click to expand...
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You can also format the SD card by settings/sdcard and phone storage.
Along the same lines I've also heard people mentioning repartitioning the SD. I'm assuming that's only to do with the various lag fixes out there?
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Click to collapse
Lagfixes will take care of themselves. I'm not real sure how this works, tho I always do it and it ain't hosed me yet. From my days as a computer geek I seem to remember that when you make a partition you should make the blocks, where stuff actually gets written, as small as possible. When a file is written to a file system it is written to these blocks. On the last one it uses, if it doesn't fill it up that space is wasted. So smaller blocks = smaller waste = more free space. Not really expert about this (hell, about any of this) so someone else may be able to clarify better, but it's workin' for me so far.
And thanks for clearing up the Nandroid inquiry. I always thought when people said "Make a Nandroid backup..." that they were referring to a program called Nandroid. No wonder I couldn't find an app called that!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I spent a while lookin' for it too.
CWR backs up your ROM to an update.zip file that you can store elsewhere in case you want to restore your ROM to saved state
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
An update.zip is a stored mod or rom before it's applied to your phone. Made by the developer with install scripts and such to automate the process. The actual backups you can find and inspect under clockworkmod/backup on your sdcard once you've run a backup. They are saved as img files that can be written back to your phone if you have an issue you can't recover from using cwm. But they are NOT the update.zip files. Those are the android format for installing stuff from recovery.
2. Should I format the internal SD when installing new ROMs?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The jury is out on this. Some guys swear by it, some guys say "nah." What it will do is wipe all YOUR data and stuff off the phone, leaving it with just the OS ROM as created by the dev. cwm can do it, or you can do it from settings/sdcard and phone storage.
3. What is App2SD and how do I use it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most phones have a finite amount of storage that the system can use. Most of them have a relatively small amount actually. As cappy owners we have a whopping 2 gb of that storage. But the other guys usually have considerably less. Applications get written to that space and it quickly runs out on other platforms. so app2sd moves apps to the external sd. Or the internal for us, since our total storage is 20 gb. (i think.) The unreserved space is formatted by the phone to look like an external SD card to the phone. anyway, it's not as big an issue for us as 2gb is a LOT of space that will take a while to fill up.
You can also back up system files and data, but this can often lead to ROM issues if you replace a new ROMs files with old backup files so do your research and be careful.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For backups this is fine. If you flash a new rom do NOT restore system settings from an older backup. It will restore stuff that may not work with what your flashing and will gum it all up but good. FC hell. You are pretty safe restoring apps+data as that just restores the apps data itself and doesn't overwrite any system files.
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Does anyone know if all this is universal Android stuff, or if it only pertains to the Captivate?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I dunno! This is my first android phone!

Sulphur4724 said:
You can also format the SD card by settings/sdcard and phone storage.
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Click to collapse
Ah cool, thanks!
From my days as a computer geek I seem to remember that when you make a partition you should make the blocks, where stuff actually gets written, as small as possible. When a file is written to a file system it is written to these blocks. On the last one it uses, if it doesn't fill it up that space is wasted. So smaller blocks = smaller waste = more free space. Not really expert about this (hell, about any of this) so someone else may be able to clarify better, but it's workin' for me so far.
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Yeah if I remember correctly small blocks mean less space wasted, but it also means more I/O which slows performance. And bigger blocks mean more potentially wasted space but faster performance since there is less I/O going on because you're writing bigger amounts of data at once rather than a bunch of tiny writes. In today's computers where space is cheap you want to make bigger blocks to enhance performance. Not sure what's suggested for NAND. And my memory could be faulty on all that, but that's what I remember from back in the day of tiny hard-drives.
An update.zip is a stored mod or rom before it's applied to your phone. Made by the developer with install scripts and such to automate the process. The actual backups you can find and inspect under clockworkmod/backup on your sdcard once you've run a backup. They are saved as img files that can be written back to your phone if you have an issue you can't recover from using cwm. But they are NOT the update.zip files. Those are the android format for installing stuff from recovery.
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Ahhh, ok. So update.zip is literally the file Android uses to make updates with whether it's a mod or ROM. The backed up ROM then will be a .img file?

Yeah if I remember correctly small blocks mean less space wasted, but it also means more I/O which slows performance. And bigger blocks mean more potentially wasted space but faster performance since there is less I/O going on because you're writing bigger amounts of data at once rather than a bunch of tiny writes. In today's computers where space is cheap you want to make bigger blocks to enhance performance. Not sure what's suggested for NAND. And my memory could be faulty on all that, but that's what I remember from back in the day of tiny hard-drives.
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Never thought of it like that, touche'. Now I gotta try changing sizes.
Ahhh, ok. So update.zip is literally the file Android uses to make updates with whether it's a mod or ROM. The backed up ROM then will be a .img file?
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Roger that. Now ya got it.

WOW!
This thread RULES! Sulphur4724 and sschrupp, many thanks, I learned a lot. If I have the time this weekend I'll try to edit this information into a backup / memory FAQ, if you think that would be useful.
sschrupp check out this guide if you haven't seen it before, it's pretty idiot proof; I had no trouble and I am an android n00b.
edit: nevermind the forum isn't letting me post links because I'm new here. It's a great guide though, so if you want, go to the website android police, and under the guides tab, read the guide called "complete guide how to fully back up and restore your android phone using nandroid backup and clockworkmod rom manager"

Glad I could help. I'd let this stand a few days and see if there are any corrections. I'm going by what I know which may or may not be 100% correct. I came to this phone from a Blackberry. Everything I'm trying to pass on I learned from reading the cognition thread and branching from there. Yes. All of it! Even before the 4k post cleansing it got a while back.
But see I can't code, and I wanna participate. So I'm doing what I can to be part of this community and if it takes some weight off the guys that DO code... well that's full of win.
/shrug

Sulphur4724 said:
But see I can't code, and I wanna participate. So I'm doing what I can to be part of this community and if it takes some weight off the guys that DO code... well that's full of win.
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Yeah that's how I see it too. Also I almost always buy the pay version of apps that really help me that independent devs here on XDA write.

Why does ROM manager run after startup? Is it okay if I disable this through autostarts? I don't run pre-scheduled backups so I can't think of any reason for it to be running in the background all of the time.

This thread is epic!
So worth it =]
I really hate that the phones storage is called internal SD, I get soo confused reading thing that say "do something to the SD" I am like, WHICH ONE!? and then I explode.
I tried to install a lagfix on a Cognition ROM once, it failed. Did it right after flashing, created the file system then I tried to do the lagfix and it failed. I never tried again. Don't know if its worth it anyways.
Battery has been a super drain! It is incredibly hard for me, a light user who is mildly OC, to let the battery get below 80% and yet, within ten minutes off the charger it starts going down lol. I keep it clean and everything, nothing is running and I always disable background data. I probably do need to redo the battery bin file. Wish I had time, either at work or I am in class.
Phone runs fine I think so I guess I'll just forget formating the internal SD. Maybe I'll try it someday though. I'd imagine the device would clog up eventually.
I just wish I was smart enough to make use of some of the more advanced facets of Android.
I guess there are just too many devices and technology moves so fast that its almost impossible to make a guide. Searching for the info is sort of fun and I do try.
I love it when you are searching for something specific but you learn so much more along the way and I, usually forget what I was searching for in the first place.
This CyanogenMod thing sounds cool. I want it, when its finished, I know barely anything about it though.
I cannot keep up at all with the Cognition releases. I barely know what the changelogs are even talking about when I do lol.
Do our phones work more efficiently with a linux distribution? I just use my Windows Vista partition mainly but I have Ubuntu. Screw windows 7, I am sticking with Vista lol. I'd imagine it would be super hard to find the same tools we use to mod our phones via windows, for Linux.

Komodo Rogue said:
Why does ROM manager run after startup? Is it okay if I disable this through autostarts? I don't run pre-scheduled backups so I can't think of any reason for it to be running in the background all of the time.
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Be careful in your thinking. Just because an app is loaded in memory does not mean it is actually doing anything. This is not windows with hundreds of processes going on. Android actually prefers to have things in memory to make accessing them faster and consuming LESS battery power as a result of not having to load them every time you want to access them. Each activity is assigned a number corresponding to its priority which determines what gets kicked out when you want to load something that is not already present and more memory is needed than what is available.
You can see this in action by utilizing a system monitor that tracks cpu activity for each process. Most apps that are in memory use ZERO cpu time unless/until you open them. For the ones that do, such as an email app, they will only use cpu time when retrieving messages which takes little energy. If you endlessly kill these with a task manager, you willuse MORE battery as a result of these having to be reloaded by the os instead of accessing them from ram, not to mention the battery drain caused by the task killer constantly polling to see what is in memory.
Sent telepathically using vulcan mind meld app.

newter55 said:
Be careful in your thinking. Just because an app is loaded in memory does not mean it is actually doing anything. This is not windows with hundreds of processes going on. Android actually prefers to have things in memory to make accessing them faster and consuming LESS battery power as a result of not having to load them every time you want to access them. Each activity is assigned a number corresponding to its priority which determines what gets kicked out when you want to load something that is not already present and more memory is needed than what is available.
You can see this in action by utilizing a system monitor that tracks cpu activity for each process. Most apps that are in memory use ZERO cpu time unless/until you open them. For the ones that do, such as an email app, they will only use cpu time when retrieving messages which takes little energy. If you endlessly kill these with a task manager, you willuse MORE battery as a result of these having to be reloaded by the os instead of accessing them from ram, not to mention the battery drain caused by the task killer constantly polling to see what is in memory.
Sent telepathically using vulcan mind meld app.
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Thanks for the response, that's helpful information to know. I don't use a task killer but I DO have quite a bit of apps disabled at boot through the app "autostarts" that I am going to turn back on now. Quickoffice comes to mind as an example; I use that maybe two or three times a week so I didn't see why I should have it "running" all of the time, but now I'm going to re-enable it.
Nevertheless, the only time I see myself using ROM Manager is before a system flash... and sadly if you read the thread I wrote about flashing to a new ROM, it turns out I may NEVER be flashing a new ROM. So in THIS case, shouldn't I just disable it from startup?

I tried to install a lagfix on a Cognition ROM once, it failed. Did it right after flashing, created the file system then I tried to do the lagfix and it failed. I never tried again. Don't know if its worth it anyways.
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The answer to this is... sometimes. The phone can get pretty laggy if there are a lot of os writes and reads. A lagfix helps out with this. It depends on your patience and how fast/cool you want to be. (I do it just for the geek factor! RAWR!)
Battery has been a super drain! It is incredibly hard for me, a light user who is mildly OC, to let the battery get below 80% and yet, within ten minutes off the charger it starts going down lol. I keep it clean and everything, nothing is running and I always disable background data. I probably do need to redo the battery bin file. Wish I had time, either at work or I am in class.
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I have tried every thing I could find/read/think of and my battery life still sux. Why? It's not a phone, it's an ENTERTAINMENT CENTER! Seriously, the Amoled screen on this puppy is pretty as hell but it's also hell on a battery. When it's open, it's eating energy as fast as it can put it away. My philosophy after hours and hours of trying to figure this out is this: Enjoy the phone and keep a charger handy. Try this tho, next time you flash something rom wise pull your sim card. DG says that when the modem.bin file flashes with it in it can cause it to keep the modem open all the time causing massive battery drain. I tried this last flash and it does seem to make a difference. /shrug
Phone runs fine I think so I guess I'll just forget formating the internal SD. Maybe I'll try it someday though. I'd imagine the device would clog up eventually.
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I haven't done a master clear or format in several flashes and I've had no ill effects. I can imagine a point down the road where issues may ensue, but not recently.
I just wish I was smart enough to make use of some of the more advanced facets of Android.
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Don't we all!
I guess there are just too many devices and technology moves so fast that its almost impossible to make a guide. Searching for the info is sort of fun and I do try.
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There are some guys trying, they just aren't advertising well!
This CyanogenMod thing sounds cool. I want it, when its finished, I know barely anything about it though.
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CDE is about as close to CyanogenMod as we have right now. Want a sneak peak? There's your huckleberry.
Do our phones work more efficiently with a linux distribution? I just use my Windows Vista partition mainly but I have Ubuntu. Screw windows 7, I am sticking with Vista lol. I'd imagine it would be super hard to find the same tools we use to mod our phones via windows, for Linux.
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If you are coding or plan on coding i'd say yes. If not? nah. winders works just fine. Or as fine as it ever works.

[Q] Dialer self close

this seems to be happenning very ofthwn for my phone, and it hasn't disappeared even with using a different ROM or kernel.
I'm on tweaky's 2.3.5 JVS now, and I sometimes when I am in dialer and I type in 3 numbers, it just closes itself and shoots me back to the homescreen. it keeps doing that, and I'm unable to dial out because of this, until after a while and it irritates me to no end.
this also seemingly happens with me using whatsapp or Viber, where when I want to reply a message, after whatsapp has loaded up, it shoots me back to the home screen.
now, I've tries to get rid of my task killers, and saw no changes whatsoever, so can someone enlighten me on what's going on, and how to rectify this????

You say you did try a couple of roms, have you performed a factory reset or re-partition when flashing the roms?

Yes I did, all the time with Odin... Happenned with Darky, symply, simplicity, all of them
I wipe data and factory reset, even format the storage.

I'm not sure but as you said you've tried to change both rom and kernal yet there seems to be some sort of constant.
Are you backing up your apps accounts data etc and then restoring data? or the apps themselves? Because this can cause in-compatibilities.
If you do then start from scratch install only apps but only from market and one by one. Try play around half a day or something (or if you know a definite trigger see if it happens) if nothing then install another of your old apps.
Also have you tried installing no apps just use those that came with the rom. If it still happens after everything has been wiped (cache, dalvik cache, repartition, format sd, no external sd) then im inclined to say its hardware... When did this start happening?

Hi, thanks for the reply.
I back up my applications using Appmonster, and this retains just the program itself, I reset everything back to how it was after I wipe.
I'm not sure, I tried to think on whether its an issue with like lacking of ram or something, because SOMETIMES it behaves after I kill of some apps and free up some RAM.
I also thought it might have been a task manager which is doing it but uninstalled that and nothing changed.
I tried to install the programs slowly and individuality and it was a VERY slow and painful process, and it got me really nowhere, as like after i uninstalled and backtracked it still happenned.
I was wondering to myself if it was app incompatibility, as I have a relatively large list of apps installed.
It doesn't seem to do it if its fresh, so I'm not too sure myself.
Any ideas per se? Maybe a list of my installed apps? IDK I'm trying to find a solution to this.
At this rate I'm tempted to get a new phone

No harm in sharing the list of apps I guess, maybe someone more knowledgeable can give you a hand with that info.

Okay, But are there known apps that do this to the system? doesn't seem to happen for games but for Dialer and Whatsapp and Viber.
Everything else just works peach.
I just realised it might take more than a while, perhaps I will try a slow install of only the absolute necessities then.
I'm just wondering if I'm the only one who's encountering this issue. I'll try a week of the basics soon.
Thanks anw. :3

hamsteyr said:
I'm just wondering if I'm the only one who's encountering this issue. I'll try a week of the basics soon.
Thanks anw. :3
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It happened to me too.
I am also seeking the reason.
But the latest ROM Gingerreal v7.14 was okay..

That's really strange then.
Perhaps its the combination of apps... I don't know, I'll try getting rid of the unnecessary and see if it'll cause the same issues.

dialpad problem and other
sas_sas said:
It happened to me too.
I am also seeking the reason.
But the latest ROM Gingerreal v7.14 was okay..
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good to me the same thing happened to good use Viber but not if I used other application in restored times I have installed from scratch I have used several JVS rom and even some custom rom and also jvr stock but it is more about the JVS rom because jvr step with me after a few occasions,
JVS install and initially as well but in the kernel changes and custom rom rom that has happened to me in all I've used lately.