Database Develop

Still confused about encryption!

Hello...I'm new to the nexus phone. I am still confused about "encryption" . I'm Stock rooted encrypted, if I flash a new rom what would be my procedure? Normally I wipe data, dalvik, system. But reading the threads here on nexus forums "data" seems to mean something else(user data). If I flash a rom with kernel included( encrypted kernel), then I would lose all my settings and my internal sdcard. Phone would be like new out the box. How can I flash from TWRP without losing my internal sdcard when I'm not near my computer?
Do I need to look for a rom without encrypted kernel? Seems like that would keep my user settings intact?

you would flash any rom just like you would normally flash any rom. if a kernel allows for decryption, then you would have to format data to decrypt(after flashing that kernel, or you will lose it out of your storage after decrypting). if you dont format data, then you will stay encrypted.

simms22 said:
you would flash any rom just like you would normally flash any rom. if a kernel allows for decryption, then you would have to format data to decrypt(after flashing that kernel, or you will lose it out of your storage after decrypting). if you dont format data, then you will stay encrypted.
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So is "wipe data" the same as "format data"? I normally wipe data unless I'm dirty flashing. And do I have to flash a "radio" every time I flash? I thought that I read that roms don't include radios . This nexus stuff seems confusing coming from other phones. I'm on sprint if that makes a difference.

kwdan said:
So is "wipe data" the same as "format data"? I normally wipe data unless I'm dirty flashing. And do I have to flash a "radio" every time I flash? I thought that I read that roms don't include radios . This nexus stuff seems confusing coming from other phones. I'm on sprint if that makes a difference.
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roms dont include radios, so they wont touch the one that youre currently using. its in a different partition. you dont need to flash radios when flashing a rom, ever, on a nexus. carrier also makes no difference. and wipe data and format data are two different thing. wiping data itll just clear the user data. formatting data will clear the whole partition and reformat it.

kwdan said:
So is "wipe data" the same as "format data"? I normally wipe data unless I'm dirty flashing. And do I have to flash a "radio" every time I flash? I thought that I read that roms don't include radios . This nexus stuff seems confusing coming from other phones. I'm on sprint if that makes a difference.
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**NINJA'D
Radios are part of the firmware, and are not touched by flashing a rom. They will stay on your device, unaffected by flashing or normal wiping procedures.
Wipe data = clearing out app data, settings data, etc., created during normal use of an os.
Format data = completely wipe out the data partition of your phone, meaning anything and everything you ever save to your device will be deleted. This is what is needed in order to decrypt.
Hope that helps clear things up.
Sent from my Nexus 10

So.... I had similar questions.. As long as I flash whatever ROM and kernel I want first, I can go ahead and format data. I will then boot intro android, unencrypted, running my desired ROM and kernel, but will have lost anything in my storage? Correct?

And there's no way to decrypt without data wipe?

trickster2369 said:
**NINJA'D
Radios are part of the firmware, and are not touched by flashing a rom. They will stay on your device, unaffected by flashing or normal wiping procedures.
Wipe data = clearing out app data, settings data, etc., created during normal use of an os.
Format data = completely wrong out the data partition of your phone, meaning anything and everything you ever save to your device will be deleted. This is what is needed in order to decrypt.
Hope that helps clear things up.
Sent from my Nexus 10
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes.. That makes since to me. It's just that there is a "Sprint radio.Zip" floating around that you have to flash if you lose signal. That would be a "radio" so how does it get wiped when flashing? I was going to try the "Pure Shamu" rom. That's what brought all the questions.
Ok.. Seems like any kernel change will wipe internal storage
If I'm encrypted, stay encrypted and internal storage is safe. Change kernels and internal storage is wiped...

kwdan said:
Yes.. That makes since to me. It's just that there is a "Sprint radio.Zip" floating around that you have to flash if you lose signal. That would be a "radio" so how does it get wiped when flashing? I was going to try the "Pure Shamu" rom. That's what brought all the questions.
Ok.. Seems like any kernel change will wipe internal storage
If I'm encrypted, stay encrypted and internal storage is safe. Change kernels and internal storage is wiped...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't had to deal with the Sprint radio issues because I'm on Verizon. But i believe that is a patch to the rom to make sprint data work.
Changing kernels does not automatically wipe internal storage. The kernels are "decryptable", meaning if you format data, you will be decrypted. If you do not format data, you will be as you were, encrypted. If you were already decrypted, you will still be decrypted.
I believe there was one rom or kernel , don't remember which, that automatically decrypted, but I know that was stated in their OP.
Sent from my SinLess Shamu

9wire said:
And there's no way to decrypt without data wipe?
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Click to collapse
I dont think its possible now.

I had to factory reset after formatting data, but after that all is smooth.

[Q] My 64gb Nexus 6 thinks its a 32gb. What gives?

So I was playing around yesterday loading a few different roms, and much to my chagrin i was having issues with twrp continually asking me for a password even though i did a data format, factory reset, etc. Eventully i gave up and, using wugfresh's kit, flashed stock and unrooted (which im fine with since 5.1 has been running like a dream) and now all of a sudden it says i only have a 32gb hard drive. I tried flashing LMY47D and LMY47E and it still says the same thing. What have i done to myself? And how the hell can i fix it?
Thanks in Advance

hotrodotb said:
So I was playing around yesterday loading a few different roms, and much to my chagrin i was having issues with twrp continually asking me for a password even though i did a data format, factory reset, etc. Eventully i gave up and, using wugfresh's kit, flashed stock and unrooted (which im fine with since 5.1 has been running like a dream) and now all of a sudden it says i only have a 32gb hard drive. I tried flashing LMY47D and LMY47E and it still says the same thing. What have i done to myself? And how the hell can i fix it?
Thanks in Advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Factory reset through settings not twrp

jiv101 said:
Factory reset through settings not twrp
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Click to collapse
Thanks man. I guess i just assumed that when i flashed stock/unrooted that was good enough but i guess OEM Data reset TRUMPS ALL.

Same issue - I am charging my phone now to do the same. Hope it works! I thought this was very weird.

Part A) tool kits are satan.
Part B) the stupid ****ing userdata.img partition that flashall flashes is ONLY for 32gig devices. Its ridiculous, the stock images and directions google supplies are for 32 gig devices, with no notice or warning, so if you flash them blindly it will format your userdata (basically the partition mounted as /sdcard) to be the size it should for a 32 gig device.
Best is to manually flash, and leave out userdata, then wipe internal with custom recovery.
If you wanna fix with out extra wiping and work, see this thread
http://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-6/general/phone-gb-storage-to-factory-reset-t3225492

scryan said:
the stupid ****ing userdata.img partition that flashall flashes is ONLY for 32gig devices. Its ridiculous, the stock images and directions google supplies are for 32 gig devices, with no notice or warning, so if you flash them blindly it will format your userdata (basically the partition mounted as /sdcard) to be the size it should for a 32 gig device.
Best is to manually flash, and leave out userdata, then wipe internal with custom recovery.
If you wanna fix with out extra wiping and work, see this thread
http://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-6/general/phone-gb-storage-to-factory-reset-t3225492
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Excellent. Exactly what I needed. Had to flash a newer TWRP, but then this worked perfectly. Cheers.

Problem with my TMO Note 4

Hi, Im having problems with my phone. In the 3 different roms I tried the same, The 3 nandroids I made I can't restore and give errors, Cant restore user apps from titanium backup apps alone or with data, optios for restore is unavailable and now this message at startup "uids on the system are inconsistent, you need to wipe your data partition or your device will be unstable"
I think this problems are related. Someone know what it can be? Bad partitions or something?

Quick question, are you doing a Wipe Data/Factory Reset when changing roms?. If not try going booting to recovery choose Wipe>Advance> choose everything except Internal Data and SD> wipe 3 times to be sure then install Rom and after it finishes Wipe Davik/Cache then boot up.

glm0025 said:
Quick question, are you doing a Wipe Data/Factory Reset when changing roms?. If not try going booting to recovery choose Wipe>Advance> choose everything except Internal Data and SD> wipe 3 times to be sure then install Rom and after it finishes Wipe Davik/Cache then boot up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes I follow the directions by the book in all roms

carlosgardel said:
Yes I follow the directions by the book in all roms
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Click to collapse
Odin the base before clean flashing the new rom

xnknown said:
Odin the base before clean flashing the new rom
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Like I said I followed directions by the book and that includes odin the base of the same baseband and bootloader.

carlosgardel said:
Like I said I followed directions by the book and that includes odin the base of the same baseband and bootloader.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then it's likely your partitions been corrupted somehow, you should rma for a new device

xnknown said:
Then it's likely your partitions been corrupted somehow, you should rma for a new device
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes I think something like that but Its not possible to test it and be sure? I bought it used and I don't think I can send it back anyway apart from that phone works great.

Stuck on bootloop, stock recovery, want to recover files.

So I decided to try out Ivan's Marshmallow ROM, knowing it would be a bad idea... I backed everything but the photos which were 2.5GBs and was too lazy to copy over. I wiped cache, but not user data, copied ROM to phone, rename to update.zip and updated through recovery(stock). Now it's stuck on booting and want to know if there is any way to recover my photos.
Keep in mind there is a functional MIUI ROM inside but it is named differently than update.zip so I don't know how to flash it. It turns on, boots on fastboot and recovery but can't do much... I could wipe it, but I need the photos....
Thanks in advance.

eXtrimist said:
So I decided to try out Ivan's Marshmallow ROM, knowing it would be a bad idea... I backed everything but the photos which were 2.5GBs and was too lazy to copy over. I wiped cache, but not user data, copied ROM to phone, rename to update.zip and updated through recovery(stock). Now it's stuck on booting and want to know if there is any way to recover my photos.
Keep in mind there is a functional MIUI ROM inside but it is named differently than update.zip so I don't know how to flash it. It turns on, boots on fastboot and recovery but can't do much... I could wipe it, but I need the photos....
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Assuming that you haven't yet extended partitions, stock phone has 2 system partitions. So if you're using system 1, boot using system 2 and vice versa. AFAIK, if you flash stock miui using MiTools, it wouldn't erase the storage on the phone.

The second partition seems unable to boot as well...
Anyway, if found out I could install twpr through fastboot, from where I could mount the sdcard.
As far as MiTools are concerned, last time I tried it, I think it erased everything.
The thread can be closed. Thanks!

eXtrimist said:
The second partition seems unable to boot as well...
Anyway, if found out I could install twpr through fastboot, from where I could mount the sdcard.
As far as MiTools are concerned, last time I tried it, I think it erased everything.
The thread can be closed. Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad you could work it out. Don't be lazy next time

No Mobile Data after Nandroid Restore

I don't think I can edit the title so I'll write it here for anyone who wants to help: This problem is SOLVED. (Y)
So the matter is a bit complicated and I can't guarantee I even remeber everything I did but I'll try to include as much detail as I can:
I had the Stock Rom (OOS4.0.0) running, OEM unlocked & rooted when the OOS4.0.1 OTA notification kept nagging in the back of mind. I thought I should just leave it ago because I already had a feeling it would go wrong...
So I download the Full .zip and flashed it through TWRP 3.03-1 and after that it was stuck on the boot screen for more than 15 minutes or so. So I restarted it again and this time it booted butall my data was deleted and it gave me an error about the encryption having failed. But as you probably know, one can't flash anything on an encrypted phone so I checked back in TWRP and it was really encrypted. Checked back in the phone's settings: Also encrypted. I then used a tool to force decryption (it also wipes all the data) and I was back to square one.
From that moment on I tried: 1. restore nandroid (all partitions included [that includes EFS]). It got me to the booting screen, but when I unplugged it shut down and a reboot got me to the battery screen. I had 72% left so at this moment I thought it had nothing to do with it not booting at 72%. Then I wiped everything (checked every box in TWRP) and was left without any OS. Then I let my phone charge to 100% and re-restored the nandroid OOS4.00 and it worked but I had the Unlock-Bug, I was able to fix that. Then it booted but it wasn't able to recognize any SIM cards, so I fixed that by re-re-restoring with TWRP 3.03-0 (which automatically replaced 3.0.3-1 after the nandroid) and everything worked fine. until I went out today and realized I had no mobile data. I doubt it has something to do with EFS because everything else is working fine (calling, checking IMEI wih *#06#).
I then proceeded to check the APN and it looked ok, I then tried another SIM card (from the same provider) and it didn't change anything.
My provider is the german company 1&1 (1und1) but it uses vodafone APN.
I have no clue what to do right now so I am asking you guys for help.
Thanks in advance!

Well, first things first. On rooted devices with stock rom always flash a full/complete zipped image - never, never, never use an official partial image. And always wipe Dalvik/Art and common cache before reboot.
In your case now I would probably try to clean re-flash the current OOS image version (4.0.1). You'll find guides and downloads in the guides and rom section of this forum. Clean flashing your device requires you to completly wipe the data partition before flashing (the internal partition remains untouched). Don't forget to wipe Dalvik/Art and cache before rebooting. This will hopefully completly reset your device.

Inciter said:
Well, first things first. On rooted devices with stock rom always flash a full/complete zipped image - never, never, never use an official partial image. And always wipe Dalvik/Art and common cache before reboot.
In your case now I would probably try to clean re-flash the current OOS image version (4.0.1). You'll find guides and downloads in the guides and rom section of this forum. Clean flashing your device requires you to completly wipe the data partition before flashing (the internal partition remains untouched). Don't forget to wipe Dalvik/Art and cache before rebooting. This will hopefully completly reset your device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First of all: Thanks for your reply.
I don't know if there was a misunderstanding but I only ever flashed the full 1,4gb .zips.
Also I am running 4.00, because I had to restore it as the 4.0.1 flash ruined my phone. Just now I flashed 3.03-1, wiped dalvik & cache and flashed the 4.02 .zip which I got from this [https://forum.xda-developers.com/oneplus-3t/how-to/rom-oxygenos-3-5-4-mm-ota-update-t3519074] thread but it left me stuck on "patching image uncoditionally" or something and then I rebooted and now I am stuck on the +1 booting screen (not even the animation, just the +1 logo witht he "powered by android" signature in the bottom).
I have the feeling it's a software bug not related to what I did with my phone. it was just luck that I did not havfe that problem prior to my nandroid restore or something. I mean: Looking at it from a logical perspective: When you restore your phone with a full nandroid backup it should be exactly the same phone, shouldn't it?

Well, flashing the TugaPower rom might break the alert slider. To fix this you have to simply backup and recover the data partition. I don't know why this is happening but I believe that sometimes permissions to files and folders remain untouched in certain situations. Maybe someone else knows more details on this topic.
If you are absolutly sure that your nandroid contains all required partitions just try to wipe all cashes, data and system partition before recovery. But like I said before I would then clean re-flash your current OOS image version. In your case the error might possibly be some error resulting from faulty permission on configuration data. If it was a common bug more people would have reported it already.
If something broke and it can't be easily fixed... trying to return to point zero and resetting everything to defaults will possibly your best chance.

Inciter said:
Well, flashing the TugaPower rom might break the alert slider. To fix this you have to simply backup and recover the data partition. I don't know why this is happening but I believe that sometimes permissions to files and folders remain untouched in certain situations. Maybe someone else knows more details on this topic.
If you are absolutly sure that your nandroid contains all required partitions just try to wipe all cashes, data and system partition before recovery. But like I said before I would then clean re-flash your current OOS image version. In your case the error might possibly be some error resulting from faulty permission on configuration data. If it was a common bug more people would have reported it already.
If something broke and it can't be easily fixed... trying to return to point zero and resetting everything to defaults will possibly your best chance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have no problem with that, but my device does.
I can't flash anything because TWRP (bot 3.03-0 and 3.03-1) will be stuck at "patching system image unconditionally", ( I tried the full 4.02 .zip and the ful 3.54 .zip that I am 10000% sure used to work, because I used it before the Nougat release).
Wiping everything but Internal and USB OTG changes nothing.
If you have any idea how I can get to a fresh start, I would really appreciate it.
EDIT: I am sorry, I don't know what you mean by TugaPower Rom. I never installed anything like that - atleast not knowingly.

Due to encryption returning to OOS 3.X after having upgraded to Nougat is difficult. Just flashing wouldn't do. There's still an option to format data - not just to wipe it. Was boot, EFS and firmware partition included in your nandroid? Does the recovery still work now? Another Approach would be to use the Unbrick Tool.

Inciter said:
Due to encryption returning to OOS 3.X after having upgraded to Nougat is difficult. Just flashing wouldn't do. There's still an option to format data - not just to wipe it. Was boot, EFS and firmware partition included in your nandroid? Does the recovery still work now? Another Approach would be to use the Unbrick Tool.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So, I have the means to decrypt my device through a tool I found here on the forums last month. It does wipe all your data, though. Anyways: I was able to restore mobile data through an older nandroid backup (and yes: all my back ups include all partitions; glad I was smart enough to do that haha). That worked for me and made me come to the conclusion that the back up I used first was somehow corrupted. Then I restored the data partition using my most recent nandroid back up and now I am back in the game. Thanks for all your help so far!
The only thing that kind of makes me worry is that I only get ~60mbit/s through speedtest even though I should get 200. I know I was able to get 200Mbit/s at some point using that phone, but I don't remember if it was with OOS 3xx or the OOS 4.00 update. So I can't tell whether it has something to do with me restoring the phone, my WiFi connection (a speedtest with my lan-connected desktop gave me 200) or just an android bug.
I'll wait until weekend when I have the means to test it with another 200k connection - and imho 60k is enough for anything I do with my phone anyways and I don't plan on reselling the phone in the future, so it won't kill me even if it is nandroid-related.

Linux/Android backups aren't always that satisfying. I often experienced diffences between what was saved and what or how it was restored. Most problems resulted in faulty permissions or missing file execution attributes.
Nevertheless, I'm glad your devices is working again. Keep that backup save, you'll might need it again... or hopefully not.

Inciter said:
Linux/Android backups aren't always that satisfying. I often experienced diffences between what was saved and what or how it was restored. Most problems resulted in faulty permissions or missing file execution attributes.
Nevertheless, I'm glad your devices is working again. Keep that backup save, you'll might need it again... or hopefully not.
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Click to collapse
Thank you, I just checked the wifi-speed with an iPhone 6 and it even got lower results (>30k) so I assume it has something to do with the WiFi itself at the moment and not with the OP3t.
And even if the backups are not always satisfying: I want to quote someone I read on some forums doing my research to fix this phone: "The seasoned user knows: A backup makes the difference between an awesome phone and a beautiful brick." That is a most evident truth to me now haha.