Titanium Backup recently enabled conversion of app databases to a new WAL format. Is this safe to do? Can any dev's shed any light on this new file type?
Sent from my DROID3 using XDA App
Avoid
This ****s me I did this on my Samsung Galaxy, it WIPED ALL SETTINGS on my phone. no warning that it is dangerous!
Had to revert back, and then restore all settings again.
I learned quickly not to do anything that hasn't been discussed and tested by these talented people with XDA. And its still not 100 percent safe even then. I noticed by the release notes for the new TB Pro that its for all 2.3 roms, recognized by sqlite3, and is supposed to be faster than the old app database file type. What I don't know is the side effects, and what effect it has on rom updates applied over the change
Droid 1 Rooted (ChevyNo1 0.9MV Kernel, LGB2.6)
Droid 3 Rooted (Stock Kernel, Custom lite De-bloat)
Settings wiped out confirmed plus MAYBE a few very destructive glitch (Unconfirmed by others):
Power button only lists one entry: Power off instead of the original three - Confirmed by bonks
Home button not working (In respect, task switcher not available) - Confirmed by 0nebukadnezar0
Search button not working - Confirmed by bonks
Android market not connecting - Confirmed and solution provided by 0nebukadnezar0
SMS wiped
Nexus S Stock ROM 2.3.4 rooted (Kernel Netarchy Nexus 1.3.7)
Added symptoms :
Lost APN settings (0nebukadnezar0 on Galaxy S)
Screen lock not working (0nebukadnezar0 on Galaxy S and bonks on Motorola Droid 3 rooted)
Facebook authentication lost (0nebukadnezar0 on Galaxy S)
Some other application's settings (0nebukadnezar0 on Galaxy S and bonks on Motorola Droid 3 rooted)
Do not run this batch until further update!
Do not use this function!
I've also been hit by this. I paid for this software and it should really have a warning that:
1. it affects all application data: I was under the impression it affects only the TB internal database
2. it converts user data of the complete device: I had thought twice if this had been clear
3. one should create an up-to-date backup first
Instead it highly praised that this is a performance improvement traded against little higher storage usage. Why shouldn't I want to enable such a feature?
Had I known the implications I would've created a full backup first and thought twice. Now I had to go back to a three day old backup. My phone was completely wiped. No error message. Still some settings were missing after restore: TB still seems not to be able to correctly restore ActiveSync settings, and all widgets were gone from my start pages.
This is extremely unsatisfactory for an app I paid for. Please, developer: Improve your warnings in an application like a backup app which handles sensible data.
I noticed it in the change log, and was like " Uhh... why, in the last 6 months, have I not heard of this new super fast database conversion before now... I better ask someone before I mess with it"
Luckily I did, I'm still running the stock rom minus vcast and a few additional bloaties removes, and have dreaded altering anything without the bootloader unlocked, as this is my second device, the first returned returned DOA. I appreciate your testimonials guys, our stories will save the devs a few headaches, and will give titanium devs some live input on the batch operation. If Pzouza or Chevy has any comments on it, the input would be welcomed, as this is the first most of us have heard of it
Droid 1 Rooted (ChevyNo1 0.9MV Kernel, LGB2.6)
Droid 3 Rooted (Stock Kernel, Custom lite De-bloat)
verkerria said:
I noticed it in the change log, and was like " Uhh... why, in the last 6 months, have I not heard of this new super fast database conversion before now... I better ask someone before I mess with it"
Luckily I did, I'm still running the stock rom minus vcast and a few additional bloaties removes, and have dreaded altering anything without the bootloader unlocked, as this is my second device, the first returned returned DOA. I appreciate your testimonials guys, our stories will save the devs a few headaches, and will give titanium devs some live input on the batch operation. If Pzouza or Chevy has any comments on it, the input would be welcomed, as this is the first most of us have heard of it
Droid 1 Rooted (ChevyNo1 0.9MV Kernel, LGB2.6)
Droid 3 Rooted (Stock Kernel, Custom lite De-bloat)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 Droid3 rooted and de-bloat via titanium
Same thing happened to me. Not very pleased. Titanium Backup usually warns against dangerous options. This batch option not having one gives a false sense of security. I'm restoring a month old nandroid backup via clockworkmod now and then hopefully restoring my TB backups.
same thing on my Galaxy S:
- home button does not work anymore
- Market "Server Error", this has been cleaned through "Clear Data" under Manage applications
- lost 3G settings, it was necessary to enter the APN configuration manually
- screen lock does not work anymore
- lost the facebook authentication
- some other apps have lost her settings
Titanium Backup DB modes
Rooted Droid 3 with TB pro
Power button only lists two entries rather than I think the three or four it had.
Home button not working
Search button not working
Screen lock not working
Some other apps have lost their settings
-> Widgets needed to be readded
-> All email accounts had to resync
What I did:
Wokeup, saw TB update, downloaded & installed, tried new feature in TB for faster databases.
Ran the "Convert DBs to Rollback Journal mode (works on all ROMs)" batch process. It completed successfully.
Ran the "Convert DBs to WAL mode (faster, slightly bigger, Android 2.3+ only)" batch process. It completed successfully.
Hit the home button, tried to open an app. Force Close. Tried a few more apps, all force closed.
Restarted.
The white animated "DROID" screen infinitely repeated itself.
Removed battery.
Powered On.
Successfully reached Home screen (ADWLauncher EX).
My fault for trying these new features without looking into it first, but I did not think they would be dangerous.
Now, are Journal mode and WAL mode the two available types of DBs. Could I just run the Rollback Journal mode to revert back? Is this safe?
Their wiki says it's safe but has anyone tried this? matrixrewriter.com/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=TB+-+Technical+FAQ&highlight=rollback%20journal
(#32 and #33)
Woah, glad I googled this before running it on my Galaxy Tab. Will avoid.
From Titanium Support:
We're truly sorry about this issue. Yes, today we discovered a terrible bug in the SGS2 stock ROM, which explains what happened. Titanium Backup has converted your databases to WAL fine, but the SGS2 stock ROM itself does not support WAL properly: instead of opening the WAL databases, it will silently erase them and then claim that the open has succeeded!
Before allowing any conversion to WAL, Titanium Backup performed a verification, which we have tested and properly fails on older ROMs. On the SGS2 though, the verification passes because the test database is fine after the conversion - well yes it's fine, but it's empty.
We have improved the WAL testing code and we will release an updated version as quickly as possible. The new version has been tested well on SGS2 and detects the problem properly (ie: it prevents conversion to WAL format). This only applies to stock ROMs though, as CyanogenMod (for example) does not contain the buggy Samsung code and fully supports WAL without issues.
If you have no backups of the erased databases, we're very sorry to confirm that it cannot be recovered, unfortunately. Please accept our deepest apologies for this issue. If you would like a refund, please let us know because we stand behind our product.
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I converted back to journal mode but this did not fix any of my issues. I'm guessing that the lockscreen, home button, and search buttons had some kind of association to a database from the manufacture install which I don't know how to recover. Any ideas?
Bad Titanium Pro!
GldRush98 said:
Woah, glad I googled this before running it on my Galaxy Tab. Will avoid.
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Click to collapse
ditto to that, I was just about to hit that button and thought maybe I should do some googling...
All, the standard rule to all root users, is to do full nandroid backups before making any serious changes to your phone. changing database formats is a major change. You should have all done a full nandroid, then a full tb backup. That's the main rule of thumb if you start down the road to root. Anytime you play with root focused apps, you're playing with fire. At some point we all get burned. I have plenty of times, but always get back with a nand restore. we all learn eventually. I know I've messed up a few phones this way, but that's the joy of going the root route. Its all in fun.
I wasn't aware of this feature and definitely will be trying it now that its been posted.
Sent from my DROID3 using XDA App
Ok, after doing a full nandbackup, and TB backup of User Apps. I did successfully migrate all the DBs to WAL format. I then rebooted right into CWM, formated the cache to avoid any old data crap, rebooted back into normal phone. Ran my most common apps and had no issues I've got 217 user apps on my phone, I think I ran 20 of the core apps I use. no issues in the first 1 hour. I did confirm all the previously posted issues and experience none of them within the first hour of testing. This is probably due to me not messing with the system apps. I'll test that next for the fun of it and report back. But, I can safely say, in my case, I had no issues with this conversion of "user" apps.
Power button only lists two entries rather than I think the three or four it had.
Home button not working
Search button not working
Screen lock not working
Some other apps have lost their settings
Widgets needed to be readded
All email accounts had to resync
Stay tuned for round 2 of testing
---------- Post added at 10:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:39 PM ----------
Ok Round 2 WAL conversion and testing completed.
Everything works perfectly. Not sure why everyone else is having issues. I would say anyone else should be free to do the conversion. Again, this is how I did mine. I did a full nandbackup, in case i screwed things up and messed my phone up. Did a full TB backup of system apps. Then did the conversion to the system apps. Immediately after rebooted into CWM. I formatted the cache. Rebooted, let my phone load up. I did notice during the first 5-10 seconds of the loading home apps and widgets half of the widgets gave a widget error, but I was patient enough to let the phone get fully loaded. After that all widgets did start back up just fine. I tested all reported bugs and errors everyone else had, and I had no issues with anything. I'll keep an eye on things for the next few days. I'm a heavy, nerdy user of my phone, and am constantly tweaking it so i'll know if I screwed something up and report back.
Widgets all loaded fine after reboot.
Search works as it should
Long Press Power button pulls up standard 4 options.
Home works fine
Long press home pulls up all recent items (do keep in mind if you reboot there are no recent items so you have to go into apps for it to tell you recent items)
Lockscreen works as it should.
I would say this WAL conversion for both System and User apps works just fine. But, that is only in my case apparently. I am using Steel Droid 3 (v1).
Good luck to the rest of you. Oh, and I have no affiliation to TB, but I must admit that its one of my most used Root apps since it helps me unscrew myself when I do fudge things up. It is just so much faster to fix mistakes than a full nandrestore. Albeit the NandRestore is my Plan B fix it solution TB is plan A.
Where exactly is this option? I havent seen anything and just redid apps for data
WAL DB Conversion Success
I followed Izeltokatl's information by performing a full backup with Titanium Backup and ClockWorkMod via ROM manager, then updating the system and app DBs to WAL via TB, then immediately booting into recovery and wiping the cache.
I'm happy to report complete success updating my Ideos U8150 running Gingerbread 2.3.7 to WAL DB without any problems.
Even after wiping cache, the quick search function was force closing, so I just restored it from TiBu.
So what are real benefits of Wal or Rollback Journal databases of android. Is it really faster? Are there any reasons to make Rollback journal conversion on unsupported roms?
Has anybody tested it?
Some good reading.
http://www.sqlite.org/draft/wal.html
The ROM I was running was using SQLite version 3.7.2, and I unchecked 'force system SQLite' in preferences and it upgraded to the TiBu optimized version which is quite a bit newer. Seems to speed things up slightly if you convert to WAL.
I didn't spot any thread around here covering the topic of debloating stock sony firmware. Not that it would be cluttered like other manufacturers firmware, but theres still room for improvement
Is there a guide somewhere or a list of all apk safe to disable/remove (provided root acces) on sony firmwares? Similar to a Samsung Galaxy S2 related guide here or another very exhaustive one here (<- preferred).
I'm from the X10i & the Arc forums, I use this as a guide
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1089470
Good Luck
* If you want to delete a app by Root-Explorer, don't update it by Playstore first before removing it. (Facebook)
* Some apps can be removed by Settings - Apps etc.
Sent from my LT30p using xda Hotline
Well on tx stock, I got the following apps disabled. ;/
my phone is running fine. From start up to everyday use.
This all depends on what functions you use for the phone. Deleting apps stops their functionality, so you always reduce the functions of the phone when deleting apps. It is persona l preference on which apps you want to delete.
However, there are plenty of apps that are "safe" to delete and still keep your phone working as a phone. The best way I have found of doing this is not by following other peoples list but by using Titanium Backup to "freeze" apps and then test the phone to see if it still works the way I want it. Then I could delete the app. If I ost some functionality I would defrost the app and no harm is done.
gregbradley said:
This all depends on what functions you use for the phone. Deleting apps stops their functionality, so you always reduce the functions of the phone when deleting apps. It is persona l preference on which apps you want to delete.
However, there are plenty of apps that are "safe" to delete and still keep your phone working as a phone. The best way I have found of doing this is not by following other peoples list but by using Titanium Backup to "freeze" apps and then test the phone to see if it still works the way I want it. Then I could delete the app. If I ost some functionality I would defrost the app and no harm is done.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What Greg says is right, but to add to it:
Apps that you can "disable" will not effect the functionality of the phone, you will just lose the function of the app in question.
Secondly, if you are using titanium back up to freeze system apps, and you are not sure what the app you are freezing does you might stop your system from working, so before you freeze anything you are unsure of, take a full backup first so you can restore it if your system becomes unstable.
Please post your results in this thread for others to learn from.
There is also a system app cleaner in flashtool, although I have not used it with the T yet.
Sent from my LT30p using xda app-developers app
gregbradley said:
Deleting apps stops their functionality, so you always reduce the functions of the phone when deleting apps. It is personal preference on which apps you want to delete. *snip* However, there are plenty of apps that are "safe" to delete
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As for the first part of your post, I'm fully aware of. In fact thats the reason why I'd like to have some of useless stuff removed (numerous FB clients/apps/agents for example) But thanks for putting it here as other users might not be aware of the possible issues.
The part in bold is of most interest to me. I'm totally not an Android novice, I know most crucial system packages. Derping around in relatively pure Android releases like AOSP and CM10 and reading the same package names over and over again gives a feel what is Android related and what is vendor specific. For Sammy/Touchwiz I know which package does what, but with Sony I'm new and dont know which files are safe to remove without breaking the system. Hence this thread.
[email protected] said:
What Greg says is right, but to add to it: *snip*
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Of course same as above. I do not use TiB though, I use an app called System App Remover. I know TiB very vell of course, but then, who doesn't But again, I'm not interested in getting informations what removing or freezing apk's means in general, I'm interested in which are essential to Sonys UI and will break the system if removed.
I'll have a look at the link provided to the Arc/X10 forums.
Gesendet von meinem ASUS Transformer Pad TF300TG mit Tapatalk 2
LitoNi said:
Well on tx stock, I got the following apps disabled. ;/
my phone is running fine. From start up to everyday use.
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Click to collapse
Yesterday I found out that disabeling Setup Guide resulted in me losing all APN settings and the phone refused to (automatically) recreate them. They got recreated without any fuzz after enabeling the setup wizard and running it. I'll eventually try to recreate this as I fight with myself if this connected or if I coincidentally hit a time where my network decided to derp on me.
schaggo said:
Yesterday I found out that disabeling Setup Guide resulted in me losing all APN settings and the phone refused to (automatically) recreate them. They got recreated without any fuzz after enabeling the setup wizard and running it. I'll eventually try to recreate this as I fight with myself if this connected or if I coincidentally hit a time where my network decided to derp on me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
not sure whats that got to do with it, Setup guide is one of the first apps i delte. Unless this an app from your carrier that loads the apn settings...mine are downloaded automatically from vodafone.
I got a new wifi S2, installed the permissive kernel and rooted it. I installed TWRP and made a backup. Now I've got an uninstall app and I've removed a few things; primarily Knox and the security logger so that it quits whining at me. I have a strong desire to never ever use the cloud, create a Samsung account, or a Google account. I really just want to load some books onto it and DLNA some music and videos.
So I want to get rid of all the stuff that I'll never be able to use but it's not clear to me how to identify all that. I'm a long time Unix guy but not at all an android guy. If something prompts me to create an account I know I want to uninstall it, but damned if I can figure out how to identify what to uninstall from what icon I touched.
I've found bloatware lists but they're all somewhat old and not for the S2, so it's not clear to me if I should trust them. I'd like to avoid trial and error "uninstall and reinstall if something doesn't work" or the even more dreaded "uninstall and find out six months later that something doesn't work". Can anyone point me at a good list of what I can remove, or where I can figure out how to determine that for myself? Thanks.
Better start freezen apps instead of uninstalling them. I use titanium backup for that, but you can use whatever you like. Just be carefull freezing or uninstalling OS related apps, you can end in a bootloop, but you always have the odin flash method to reflash your system back to normal. Just don't play around with partitions or /dev .
Right now I using my tablet unrooted and untouched, so I can't be more specific which apps you can freeze without problems.
He doesn't need odin as he has a twrp backup.
I take it you are using System App Remover (root) to uninstall system apps? If so you are pretty safe as they are backed up and can be restored any time if something goes wrong.
Also are you aware without a Google account you will lose part of the functionality of an Android device?
Samsungs account you can do without. All that stuff related to it can be deleted, but don't advise removing any of the Google core services from the stock rom.
If you really want a GAPPless rom then you're better off with a non stock custom rom like CM or AOSP.
Not much in that area of development at the moment, but there are a couple of members working on it.
ashyx said:
He doesn't need odin as he has a twrp backup.
I take it you are using System App Remover (root) to uninstall system apps? If so you are pretty safe as they are backed up and can be restored any time if something goes wrong.
Also are you aware without a Google account you will lose part of the functionality of an Android device?
Samsungs account you can do without. All that stuff related to it can be deleted, but don't advise removing any of the Google core services from the stock rom.
If you really want a GAPPless rom then you're better off with a non stock custom rom like CM or AOSP.
Not much in that area of development at the moment, but there are a couple of members working on it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, thanks. If I lose functionality to avoid Google watching over my shoulder I'm all for it. I'm old and probably overprotective of what's my business and not theirs. In truth, I bought the S2 because I have a collection of chess book pdf's and djvu's that I want to be able to read while I'm sitting at my chess board. I got the 9.7 inch S2 because the old eyes aren't what they used to be. Anything I can do beyond that is icing on the cake.
I do have the app remover, and I've removed the stuff that was obvious to me (like the Microsoft Office stubs). But there are still lots of things that bring up a prompt for an account when I run them and it's not clear to me how to figure out what app to remove to get rid of that particular thing. On Linux I could use rpm -q to figure out what rpm contained a file I want to remove and I'd be good to go. I've tried googling some of the app names but the "descriptions" I end up finding are particularly unenlightening. And since this is definitely not my area of expertise I don't really want to operate in "let's remove this and see what happens" even if I can reinstall the app from its backup. I've been doing software development and sysadmin for more than 35 years now and that just doesn't seem like the way to approach this.
I was looking at CM, which seems like it might be what I'm looking for, but it's still in alpha and my skill level is probably not up to coping with that so I'm back with the problem of how to decide what to get rid of.
Hi Guy's/Girl's,
So i just successfully rooted my device with SuperSu and I'm looking to delete some bloatware, I've read good things about Titanium so i thought i'd give it a go. I'm mainly just removing all the stuff i don't use on this Tab to speed it up as all im doing with it is playing Mobile Legends and browsing, I've noticed that after removing app's their icon is still viewable in the draw but when i click on it nothing happens.. Does this mean that the app has been successfully removed and i just need to hide the icon?
I was also wondering would i be able to delete TouchWiz if im using another launcher (NOVA Launcher) or will it bug out?
Thanks in advance,
Cheers.
I generally freeze things in Titanium initially. Then, if no problems crop up after a reasonable time, I'll go back in an uninstall. If problems *do* crop up, I can thaw the app with (hopefully) no harm done.
That said, I've left TouchWiz alone since it is tied fairly tightly to the whole OS (and yes, I do use Nova).