I installed CM12 nightly a few days ago on my XT1097 and yesterday my retarded brother was messing with it and opened "some file manager app" (his words, I don't know for sure if it was this way things happened) that asked if he wanted to browse the "normal folder" or the "secure folder" and then as he picked the "secure folder", it asked if he wanted to encrypt it, and he promptly chooses yes, picks a password (that he thinks he can remember of) and encrypts the folder.
Anyway, today I restored my stock lollipop backup and everything was still fine but then I decided to flash the crDroid ROM. Now when the device is booting I get a screen that reads: "Encryption Unsuccessful: encryption was interrupted and can't complete. As a result, the data on your phone is no loger accessible. To resume using your phone you need to perform a factory reset". If wasn't for crDroid's message, I would never know of my brother's cryptographic adventures.
I have restored my stock backup and everything is fine again, but I want to know if there's a way to revert this encryption without having to actually perform a complete factory reset. Remember that I have the password (or at least I think I have).
Does anyone have any idea of what happened and how can I unencrypt that folder?
Related
So I installed and ran psouza's bloatware removal script, but when it was reset my phone got stuck at the boot screen. So I did battery pull and re-booted the phone, which led me to be stuck at the boot screen once again. Ok, no biggie, I don't really have too much on the phone I'll factory reset it. Once I did that everything was going good until after it asked me what gps services I was going to use(verizon, google, stand alone) I clicked them all pressed finished, and then things started to get a bit weird. The screen was completely black except for the notification bar up top, which I could access and set up things like wifi and such, but pulling it back up showed the same black screen as before. Now what this leads me to believe is that I might have removed the launcher on accident(I don't know how I was being very careful as to watch what I was removing, but it's been a long day...). So my question is, is there any way to recover my phone, whether it be setting it back to stock somehow, downloading another launcher from the android market(keep in mind I don't exactly have access to the market via my phone), or other? Also I really don't want to talk to Verizon/get a new phone unless it's the only thing possible.
Thanks in advance, and sorry for being such a noob >.<
Edit: Managed to install launcher pro and now everything is working fine.
use ADB and install launcherpro to the device. You can get it from www.launcherpro.com and use adb install (not push).
For everyone else reading...
Factory Reset is the last thing you want to do when having issues with your phone if you have modified the system/app files in anyway (renamed, deleted, froze, etc..).
It seems from what I've been reading, most do not know what a Factory Reset does. Factory Reset wipes your /data /cache and /davlik-cache partitions clean. It does not change your /system partition, does not "restore" apps you've deleted, changed, replaced, added or anything else in /system. Why...because there is no hidden partition that holds a copy of "how the phone was" when it was stock. It's only "resetting" what you have (as a user) done on the phone. If you've deleted contacts.apk and added SuperUser.apk to /system/app....then that's the same way it will be after a factory reset. Same for /system/xbin or /system/bin if you've copied SU and BUSYBOX there......
So what it does it is erases all the settings, configurations, apps you've downloaded/installed from the Market, account info and such....things that might still function once configured and then some apps deleted/renamed/frozen but will not function if trying to configure fresh.
If you have a stock phone, Factory Reset can be your friend. If you have a modified phone, Factory Reset can be your worst nightmare.
Complete ROMs (CM7, Bugless Beast, etc..) can be Factory Reset just like a stock ROM...unless you start changing things in /system......
Remember, Factory Reset is not a recovery, it's an "erase the stuff I've added/configured" based off a stock unrooted users abilities. Changes to files/folders/apps that are in areas that require root to access, are not touched by a Factory Reset.
This is why you can get in more trouble....things are missing and now you've wiped your configurations/install apps (example...using LauncherPro and deleted the stock Launcher.apk...do a Factory Reset....now LauncherPro no longer exist and the deleted stock Launcher.apk is still deleted....no home screen launcher).
Thanks for the insight tcrews, I managed to get everything straightened out right before you posted, but it still has some valuable information that I will make sure to remember. I really shouldn't have done to much messing around with my phone since I wasn't quite sure what I was doing(I don't even have a reliable way to recover via sd, or cloud storage yet). I think this instance was just one of carelessness, in that I wasn't paying full attention to what was going on. Oh well, I learned my lesson.
Here's the deal: I rooted my DROID 2 Global using Pete's Motorola Root Tools in order to perform a full backup (using MyBackupPro) as I was having what looked to be a possible HW issue and didn't want to lose App data. The backup went well.
I inadvertently did a factory reset without unrooting first. When I try to unroot now, I get an error message saying, "ERROR /restore/ backup doesn't exist or is incomplete!" The Tool says there are links to the files I needs but I cannot find them.
So I think I may be stuck in a strange state - but I don't have enough knowledge to know for sure. I have seen other threads talk about similar issues but after using different rooting tools and/or different phones. I want to get back to a state where I can now call my carrier to discuss the HW issue (the touchscreen flips out and randomly and on it's own starts registering touches/keystrokes.)
On top of this, for some reason, I can't log into my Google account from my phone to start the process of doing a data/app restore and I'm don't know if this is related to factory-reset-after-rooted state or something else.
Any and all advice is appreciated.
Here's what I learned....
After trying some more and fiddling, here is what I found.
A factory reset does not unroot. (Obvious to experts, but not so to newbies perhaps. The key observation: the "superuser" app was still installed.)
You can unroot after a factory reset. Not sure why it didn't work at first - perhaps I used the wrong options (the toolkit works with multiple Motorola phones - for non-DROID 3, do NOT say "yes" to restore /system/app; the instructions are clear on this.)
It took several times, but it was successful. Pete's Motorola Root Tools are quite good. Thanks.
BTW, the account issue I had was unrelated to rooting - I use Google 2-Step Authentication, but after the factory reset, the authentication app and credentials were lost. Had to disable 2-Step Authentication on the website to get by this.
Overall a good learning experience....
-Tim
Hi,
Just got my new Nexus 6 64GB. Rooted and I transferred my titanium backup files from my Galaxy Note 3. Everything went fine. 3 hour later all my apps are up and running and I'm peachy.
After that I was doing some reading a I stumbled upon the tutorial on how to disable encryption. I gave it a go and upon restart it asked me for my pin number. I enter the pin and then I get the message saying that the phone has to be reset. I hit reset and after the procedure finished phone rebooted and all my files where completely wiped clean. In all my previous phones I could do a reset and keep all my downloaded and backed up files. Is there a way to do this too with the nexus or every time I screw something up I will loose everything?
Stock recovery always resets /sdcard too. Custom recovery only /data and /cache, etc.
However, ALL your data is on an encrypted file system so the only way to decrypt is by reformatting the places that contain ALL the data
rootSU said:
Stock recovery always resets /sdcard too. Custom recovery only /data and /cache, etc.
However, ALL your data is on an encrypted file system so the only way to decrypt is by reformatting the places that contain ALL the data
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does this apply even if I disabled the encryption?
I love the phone but this is an issue for me. Please give me your opinion on which is the best way to go. I was thinking to not install a custom recovery so I can be able to do the OTA updates even thought I never owned a phone that I didn't root and install custom recovery and ROM from day one (Only have used Samsung Note Phones all these years). Is there a ROM that is based on the Original with encryption disabled and has some good tweaks and will be updated as soon as there is an update? Thanks for your help.
slekkas said:
Does this apply even if I disabled the encryption?
I love the phone but this is an issue for me. Please give me your opinion on which is the best way to go. I was thinking to not install a custom recovery so I can be able to do the OTA updates even thought I never owned a phone that I didn't root and install custom recovery and ROM from day one (Only have used Samsung Note Phones all these years). Is there a ROM that is based on the Original with encryption disabled and has some good tweaks and will be updated as soon as there is an update? Thanks for your help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All phones that have "internal storage" their stock recovery wipes "sdcard" when you factory reset.
slekkas said:
Does this apply even if I disabled the encryption?
I love the phone but this is an issue for me. Please give me your opinion on which is the best way to go. I was thinking to not install a custom recovery so I can be able to do the OTA updates even thought I never owned a phone that I didn't root and install custom recovery and ROM from day one (Only have used Samsung Note Phones all these years). Is there a ROM that is based on the Original with encryption disabled and has some good tweaks and will be updated as soon as there is an update? Thanks for your help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The ROMs have nothing to do with encryption. When you want to turn encryption off, all your data will be reset, there is no way around it.
However, once you have disabled encryption, then you can stay on a stock rooted ROM, or go to any ROM you like, your internal files will not be touched (data will be deleted though). If you were to stay on the stock rooted ROM, and then accept an OTA update, your phone will automatically encrypt on first boot afterwards. Most ROMs update within a day (if not hours) after the OTA update, so best bet is to flash than to accept OTA if you want to stay unencrypted.
When you wipe your phone in recovery yo flash a different ROM, you do a custom wipe, where you uncheck "internal storage", so your files/pictures/etc don't get deleted.
The cool thing about the N6 is the restore option. If you were to completely wipe right now and go to a different ROM, on first boot, upon logging in you will be asked if you want to restore a backup (if you have enabled backup apps, data, WiFi passwords for your google account). If you select yes, all your apps will automatically be downloaded from the play store, you won't have to do it manually. However, I have seen data for the app is not restored, but you can log into most apps and most games save your progress on the cloud now.
Got my new 3T two days ago. It's a beautiful phone. I am replacing my currently not-bootlooping Nexus 5X.
I have spent nearly 10 hours trying to get this phone restored from my existing phone. NOTHING IS WORKING - AT ALL!
Originally I unlocked bootloader and rooted using TWRP and SuperSU (using the toolkit from XDA). All seemed to work.
First bootup asked about activating location services in a popup window - said something about 'in a previous version of android this was disabled' So I activated it.
I attempted to do the initial setup - only the basic information was transferred (and I think that came via providing my Google Account info).
Tap & Go would connect and then finish in a matter of seconds and It says nothing to restore.
I input wifi info.
I input my google account information.
I attempted to use Tap & Go from Nexus 5. It only transferred my email address and a few settings. No apps, nothing else.
I have since restored via TWRP recovery, restored using factory recovery image, etc. I've wiped data a multitude of times. I am now locked and not rooted and I should be with OnePlus stock recovery and OS.
I rebooted and it always has a message that says that 'in a previous version of Android location services were disabled' and do I want to activate them.
It asks me for my Language, whether I wanted to restore from a device, etc. The Tap & Gp transfers nothing. I have manually used the Nexus 5x "prepare a new device' and when the restore starts it stops almost immediately with nothing transferred.
I have activated Developer Options and also did and "adb backup -apk -shared -all -f name.ab" from Nexus 5X and a "restore name.ab" on the OP3T. It did move some of my pictures. None of my apps, none of my app data, etc.
When I got my Nexus 5x it was able to restore from a google backup from a broken Moto X via Google Drive Backup. It brought over apps, settings, screen setup, etc. All I had to do was put pictures and music back on. I can see the Nexus 5X backup in Google Drive, but the OP3T doesn't see it or want to use it... or even ask to restore from it.
This shouldn't be this difficult. Does it have something to do with Oxygen vs Vanilla?
I basically decided that I wouldn't unlock and root since Google won't let you use android pay (and probably other things in the future) if it's "not secure".
I'm willing to try just about anything! I appreciate any help!
I don't have any real help for you, sorry... But I just wanted to let you know it's perfectly possible to restore from a previous device.
I did it 2 days ago when I switched from my Nexus 6.
First thing I did was to unlock the bootloader, install TWRP and root (Magisk). I then update to OOS 4.1.1 and did a factory reset in TWRP (to start the initial setup again). After that, all I had to do was to choose "Restore from the cloud" and choose my Nexus 6 in the list during the initial setup.
I figured out part of it. my 5X was on Android 7.1, the OP3T was on 7.0, so when I forced OP3T to 7.1 everything started restoring.
Only problem is that I unlocked bootloader in the process. I have since relocked and restored factory recovery and 7.1.1 but now I get the stupid DM_Verity warning and I can't get it reset no matter what I do.
I thought that while encrypting my phone, the result would be that my data is preserved, just encrypted. So I went through the encryption process only to find that all my data is wiped, so that I have to restore everything from backups, as far as I have them.
Did I overlook something, or is this a bug? I have LineageOS 14.1, installed yesterday, official.
Found that after a reboot, the data was again gone. (after I spent considerable time setting the phone up yet again), now factory reset, running unencrypted, until I know what has been going wrong here. Sigh. Custom roms and encryption continue to be a toxic mix for me.
yahya69 said:
Found that after a reboot, the data was again gone. (after I spent considerable time setting the phone up yet again), now factory reset, running unencrypted, until I know what has been going wrong here. Sigh. Custom roms and encryption continue to be a toxic mix for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I first started playing around with encryption (Samsung Note 3) I discovered that to get encryption to work properly I had to format /data (you lose everything, including internal shared storage) and that it worked better on stock ROM rather than custom ROMs.
Sent from my OnePlus3T using XDA Labs
BillGoss said:
When I first started playing around with encryption (Samsung Note 3) I discovered that to get encryption to work properly I had to format /data (you lose everything, including internal shared storage) and that it worked better on stock ROM rather than custom ROMs.
Sent from my OnePlus3T using XDA Labs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
which I kind of accepted after learning it the hard way, but the problem was that after encrypting the device, all data was wiped each time the phone was rebooted, so something is buggy here.
yahya69 said:
which I kind of accepted after learning it the hard way, but the problem was that after encrypting the device, all data was wiped each time the phone was rebooted, so something is buggy here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I resolve this problem using latest official twrp.
dimon2242 said:
I resolve this problem using latest official twrp.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How did you? (What version of TWRP did you install) After all, it is not TWRP that does the encryption, or is it? So I don't see how this could be the cause.
With TWRP, I had the additional issue that it kept asking me for a password to mount /data, but it wouldn't accept the PIN that I had set in Android. I have no idea what other password it might want.
Oh, well, there is just too much fumbling in the dark in this whole mobile devices business. I have been a Linux user for some 20 years, and there, if things go wrong, you can actually view what is happening. On android, this is so much more difficult, even with logcat.
yahya69 said:
How did you? (What version of TWRP did you install) After all, it is not TWRP that does the encryption, or is it? So I don't see how this could be the cause.
With TWRP, I had the additional issue that it kept asking me for a password to mount /data, but it wouldn't accept the PIN that I had set in Android. I have no idea what other password it might want.
Oh, well, there is just too much fumbling in the dark in this whole mobile devices business. I have been a Linux user for some 20 years, and there, if things go wrong, you can actually view what is happening. On android, this is so much more difficult, even with logcat.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried default_password as the password in TWRP?
Also, if you can actual log into your system normally, then you can set the password again and require it on boot.
BillGoss said:
Have you tried default_password as the password in TWRP?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What "default password"? You mean, literally typing "default_password"? No I did not. What would that have done?
After all, again, it required a password for the /data partition, hence a password with whom it is encrypted. But I had used no password other than the PIN. And again, I can't see how my problem of data disappearing on each boot would be caused by TWRP.
Also, if you can actual log into your system normally, then you can set the password again and require it on boot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Again, what password do you have in mind? The PIN? Yes, the system asked for the PIN at boot, but nonetheless, all data was wiped on each boot.
For the time being,I run the system without encryption, because I have had enough of setting is up again and again anew (had to do this three or four times.)
Again, it looks like this is a bug. Because after initially encrypting the phone, my data should still have been there. But it was gone. The phone was now encrypted, but there was nothing on it. That's something that I am pretty sure is not supposed to happen.
just had the same using Samsung S5 Duos with latest lineage-os (20180427): this is a cluster-f**k, I cannot believe it. I advocate using Lineage-OS whereever I go. Of course, it's my fault, I did trust Lineage-OS too much so I didn't think of backing-up. I didn't believe something like this could happen.
chaos_prevails said:
I did trust Lineage-OS too much so I didn't think of backing-up. I didn't believe something like this could happen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You probably already realize this, at this point. But there is no such thing as an OS (on any device) that is so secure or stable, that backing up your data is not necessary. Even regardless of OS, memory corruption and data loss can happen for any number of reasons. Golden rule: If your data is important to you, back it up.
Of course, I know.
I took the loss of all data as opportunity to flash newest modem, CSC, and PDA firmware via latest stock-rom, and then re-flashed latest Lineage OS again. This time, it didn't factory reset my phone with encryption. Don't know if that had anything to do with my old firmware (I had G900FDXXS1CPK2 installed when factory reset-with-encryption happened).
Beside, I was lucky as no other migration method to my new phone worked out except going via a old-school micro-sd card copy. I could undelete almost all pictures on it