Database Users

preserving market "my downloads" list between wipes/rom installs

I've wiped and installed a lot of roms lately, and generally when I go to 'my downloads' in the market, only my paid apps are there. So, I have to go though the process of searching the installing each app again. It's just easier when they are all in a list.
I figured it would be a good idea to backup all my apps and then reinstall them afterward with adb in linux as such:
for a in `ls *.apk`; do adb install $a; done
this works, but of course they don't show up under 'my downloads' and I don't get update notifications.
Is there a way around this?

gsgleason said:
I've wiped and installed a lot of roms lately, and generally when I go to 'my downloads' in the market, only my paid apps are there. So, I have to go though the process of searching the installing each app again. It's just easier when they are all in a list.
I figured it would be a good idea to backup all my apps and then reinstall them afterward with adb in linux as such:
for a in `ls *.apk`; do adb install $a; done
this works, but of course they don't show up under 'my downloads' and I don't get update notifications.
Is there a way around this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You need to backup and restore the database file located in the market folder....it should be here...
Code:
/data/data/com.android.vending/databases
I'm assuming since you can backup and restore your apps thru adb then you can figure out how to pull and push this to your phone

I assume you would want to do this to get update notifications. If so you can grab "aTrackDog" from the market. It will list all you apps and when you refresh it will tell you when updates are available and give you a link to get the update from the market.

AdrianK said:
I assume you would want to do this to get update notifications. If so you can grab "aTrackDog" from the market. It will list all you apps and when you refresh it will tell you when updates are available and give you a link to get the update from the market.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
will it only work for software installed through the market or will manually installed software show up as well?

DirectMatrix said:
You need to backup and restore the database file located in the market folder....it should be here...
Code:
/data/data/com.android.vending/databases
I'm assuming since you can backup and restore your apps thru adb then you can figure out how to pull and push this to your phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Awesome. I'll do this next time I wipe and reflash with the latest coolest rom. =)

gsgleason said:
will it only work for software installed through the market or will manually installed software show up as well?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
nope, works for the apps on my ext3 even after switching builds several times, works great.

DirectMatrix said:
You need to backup and restore the database file located in the market folder....it should be here...
Code:
/data/data/com.android.vending/databases
I'm assuming since you can backup and restore your apps thru adb then you can figure out how to pull and push this to your phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For those of us who are not that familiar with adb, can you give a short tutorial on how to pull and then push that database folder?

well i just wiped and installed the latest cyanogen mod and when i went to the "my downloads" section of the store all the apps i had downloaded before were all there (paid and free)
I also thought it didnt do that, apperently it does

Gilliland12 said:
For those of us who are not that familiar with adb, can you give a short tutorial on how to pull and then push that database folder?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You don't need ADB, you can use the terminal emulator from the market or the recovery console.
To pull the database, open terminal or recovery and type:
Code:
su
cd /data/data/com.android.vending/
cp databases /sdcard
that will copy that database file to the root of your sdcard.
When pushing it back it is probably best to do it while the phone isn't running, so only use the recovery console:
Code:
cd sdcard
cp databases /data/data/com.android.vending/
reboot
I haven't tested this, but it will have the same results as the ADB method.

AdrianK said:
You don't need ADB, you can use the terminal emulator from the market or the recovery console.
To pull the database, open terminal or recovery and type:
Code:
su
cd /data/data/com.android.vending/
cp databases /sdcard
that will copy that database file to the root of your sdcard.
When pushing it back it is probably best to do it while the phone isn't running, so only use the recovery console:
Code:
cd sdcard
cp databases /data/data/com.android.vending/
reboot
I haven't tested this, but it will have the same results as the ADB method.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Many thanks.

Backup for Root works perfectly for me

if you got a paid app through adb and got a refund, can you still get updates for that app if you have it installed?

opasha said:
if you got a paid app through adb and got a refund, can you still get updates for that app if you have it installed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, you will not get updates without re-purchasing the app. And talking about ripping off app developers on this forum is frowned up so please stop discussing it.

opasha said:
if you got a paid app through adb and got a refund, can you still get updates for that app if you have it installed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you got a refund, then you shouldn't have the app. That's stealing and it's not nice. Most apps are cheap (a couple of bucks at most), stop being a cheapskate.

Originally Posted by AdrianK View Post
You don't need ADB, you can use the terminal emulator from the market or the recovery console.
To pull the database, open terminal or recovery and type:
Code:
su
cd /data/data/com.android.vending/
cp databases /sdcard
that will copy that database file to the root of your sdcard.
When pushing it back it is probably best to do it while the phone isn't running, so only use the recovery console:
Code:
cd sdcard
cp databases /data/data/com.android.vending/
reboot
I haven't tested this, but it will have the same results as the ADB method.
i tried this but it dodnt work.
when I did the first command it said ommiting databases. so I thought it worked.
flashed to the new cyanogen 4.0 rom (which is amazing btw!) did the second command and it said cannot stat file "databases" no such file or folder.
what gives??

Id say the databases were open and couldnt be backed up.
You should try to copy them from the recovery.
Also, after copying why didnt you check if the database files were in your sdcard (or the path you specified for the copy) before wiping? If the file is not there its obvious that it cant be restored after the wipe..

thought it might have been hidden or on my ext2 partition! never mind i got atrackdog!

addiosamigo said:
thought it might have been hidden or on my ext2 partition! never mind i got atrackdog!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seems you can only copy each of the four db files individually... but copying the entire folder doesn't work.

All that is needed is assets.db
Open the terminal and enter
$ su
# cp /data/data/com.android.vending/databases/assets.db /sdcard
Wipe, flash, reboot.
YOU MUST OPEN THE MARKET AND AGREE TO THE TOS BEFORE RESTORING!!!!
Open the market, agree to the TOS, and close the market. Open the terminal and enter
$ su
# cp /sdcard/assets.db /data/data/com.android.vending/databases/assets.db
# reboot

Extra Features on AOSP 1.6

I'm setting up this thread to keep extra functions on AOSP 1.6 & the actual development of AOSP 1.6 separate.
Discuss issues with extra functions in this thread & NOT the AOSP 1.6 thread.
________________________________________________
Googlebits:
Flash with this signed update.zip: Multiupload (RS|MU|DF|HF|ZS|4S)​
________________________________________________
Superuser:
Flash with this signed update.zip: Multiupload (RS|MU|DF|HF|ZS|4S)​________________________________________________
Busybox:
This needs to be installed if you install Superuser.
Code:
adb remount
adb shell
busybox --install /system/xbin/
adb reboot
________________________________________________
HTC Keyboard
Download Clicker.apk & HTC_IME.apk from here.
Do the following commands:
Code:
adb remount
adb install -r Clicker.apk
adb install -r HTC_IME.apk
adb reboot
Go into Settings>Locale & Text, made sure "Touch Input" is checked
Long press a text box, selected Input Method & selected "Touch Input"
________________________________________________
Thanks:
quietcbelongs for working on AOSP 1.6
gbhil for the two signed update.zips, this really makes it much easier for everyone
cyanogen for the framework-free HTC keyboard

Great thread.
A couple things to do after you get the Googlebits on:
Move su
Code:
#cp /system/xbin/su /system/bin/su
#ls /system/bin/**to verify su copied**
#rm /system/xbin/su
Install busybox symlinks
Code:
#busybox --install /system/xbin/
I'm loving this build. As soon as GPS gets working I'm deleting my 1.5 nandroid backup.

Link is broken. :-(

JasonMudd said:
Link is broken. :-(
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Link perfectly fine for me, site is loading a little slow, but it's still there.

Thanks for posting googlebits.
Just a FYI
its a bit cleaner if you do the following.
unarchive google bits to androidsdk/tools
change dir to androidsdk/tools
adb remount
adb push system/framework /system/framework
adb push system/etc/permissions /system/etc/permissions
adb push system/app /system/app
adb reboot

lonerebel said:
Thanks for posting googlebits.
Just a FYI
its a bit cleaner if you do the following.
unarchive google bits to androidsdk/tools
change dir to androidsdk/tools
adb remount
adb push system/framework /system/framework
adb push system/etc/permissions /system/etc/permissions
adb push system/app /system/app
adb reboot
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I prefer to push each file individually but I guess that would work also.

lonerebel said:
Thanks for posting googlebits.
Just a FYI
its a bit cleaner if you do the following.
unarchive google bits to androidsdk/tools
change dir to androidsdk/tools
adb remount
adb push system/framework /system/framework
adb push system/etc/permissions /system/etc/permissions
adb push system/app /system/app
adb reboot
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Worked great for me! Thanks!

It may be something else I've broken (I've been tinkering), but is anyone getting gmail push with this build?
Mine seems to have stopped. I can check the mail manually, but nothing is getting pushed to me. Since this could be a Google issue, or something I've done, I'm looking for input before i troubleshoot.

incogneato said:
It may be something else I've broken (I've been tinkering), but is anyone getting gmail push with this build?
Mine seems to have stopped. I can check the mail manually, but nothing is getting pushed to me. Since this could be a Google issue, or something I've done, I'm looking for input before i troubleshoot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was getting Gmail fine the first day. I'm going to reflash my phone tonight & start fully testing it.

nevermind.

thanks so much for this works like a charm

contacts arent syncing
Hi. I'm having a problem getting my contacts to sync up.everything else though is working flawlessly though

Do the protected apps in the market place show up with this rom??
Thanks!

incogneato said:
It may be something else I've broken (I've been tinkering), but is anyone getting gmail push with this build?
Mine seems to have stopped. I can check the mail manually, but nothing is getting pushed to me. Since this could be a Google issue, or something I've done, I'm looking for input before i troubleshoot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm also having issues with new emails being pushed to my phone, but I have been tinkering with SU, so I also may have broke it. I have already installed this on another friend's Hero & I'm going to see if they are having the same issue.
UPDATE:
My friend has not been having an issues receiving new email or with the notifications, so something related to SU or busybox, is possibly causing the issue.
darchstar said:
Hi. I'm having a problem getting my contacts to sync up.everything else though is working flawlessly though
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think there might be issue with Google sync after the initial sync.
jerrygon said:
Do the protected apps in the market place show up with this rom??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes protected apps show up in the market & install fine.

gu1dry said:
I'm also having issues with new emails being pushed to my phone, but I have been tinkering with SU, so I also may have broke it. I have already installed this on another friend's Hero & I'm going to see if they are having the same issue.
UPDATE:
My friend has not been having an issues receiving new email or with the notifications, so something related to SU or busybox, is possibly causing the issue.
I think there might be issue with Google sync after the initial sync.
Yes protected apps show up in the market & install fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. I went the whole way back. RUU, rooted with 1.5.2 recovery, flashed quietcblongs 1.6 and copied over googlebits. I'll leave it for a while and verify sync works as expected.
I don't see how busyboxes symlinks or moving su could break it, but your research mirrors mine, so we will see what happens.

Sometime last evening Google syncing stopped again. I'm going to try some mixing and matching with the various 1.5 and 1.6 versions of googlebits.

When i put the code in the cmd it says code not found

i meant error device not found

Did you install the Android SDK? If you did, did first cd to the tools folder of you Android SDK, before you did all the adb commands?

i did i do not know what is wrong

Serious unexplainable issue with my rom

Hey, i'll make this brief. Whenever I use an update
Or try and push an apk over to /system/apps
It doesn't stick.
For example I removed the browser.apk, and replaced it with my own (using root manager and adp both) rebooted my phone and I have no browser.apk anylonger cant put one in regardless of how I try...
Another example, while installing and update to HTC_IME.apk (Black theme) It sticks to the phone until i reboot it...
Any advice?

Do a search on the missing apk. Just to be sure.
Not much help huh?

Its like the missing apk completely disappeared... no traces of it.

on your phone try going to the superuser and there should be a + /system/sh push it and it should disappear then try the adb push method

XxsydenxX said:
Hey, i'll make this brief. Whenever I use an update
Or try and push an apk over to /system/apps
It doesn't stick.
For example I removed the browser.apk, and replaced it with my own (using root manager and adp both) rebooted my phone and I have no browser.apk anylonger cant put one in regardless of how I try...
Another example, while installing and update to HTC_IME.apk (Black theme) It sticks to the phone until i reboot it...
Any advice?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you were trying to push to /system/APPS That might be a problem. I don't know alot, but if I'm not mistaken, the correct directory for apps is /system/app/
Try this.
Code:
adb remount
adb push browser.apk /system/app/
Also, if you're using A2SD.. it would be /system/sd/app
Let me know if it worked.

Ok well, I checked for root access just to be sure, And of course, I have it lol..
But none of these methods work.
Edit: I mean ive done it before, I dont know what the hell is wrong...

Why not do a simple mount of the sdcard , no adb.
Then copy the file to the card. Use a rooted terminal emulator or even root explorer to copy/move it.
BTW I know that on some systems the ".foo" files ( beginning with a . ) can be invisible and on other systems they can be designated as temporary, I don't know the convention for linux/android.
I do know that I would push a file which has been disappearing and then do a ls -af xxxx on it in a rooted terminal emulator to see it's permissions and "real" name.

^Tried using a rooted file manager to move it..it simply doesnt show up in the tray and when i go back..it's gone like always.

XxsydenxX said:
^Tried using a rooted file manager to move it..it simply doesnt show up in the tray and when i go back..it's gone like always.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So it's on the sdcard?
Use a terminal emulator and do a
$su
#ls -af filename.

Eh you know what, I'll just wipe and reflash a fresh rom. I'm not putting in anymore effort lol...
A mod can close this now.

App location

I have been running Tainted Vanilla and was going to try Ivan's Eris_Official Rom. but when I installed it there are some apps missing from the market that I have paid for ( ie. Age of Conquest Europe, Africa, Asia ). I have installed the market fix and this has made no difference.
I have looked in /system/app but did not see the apps listed in there
I have also looked at backing it up with astro but it is listed as private
So i wanted to see if I could just pull the APK from adb or if there is some thing I have done wrong.
Any help would be cool Thanks
Mike

i'm not sure i can help with the missing apps (were you using apps2sd?)... but, i often backup my apks for just that reason
you can pull/backup the apks...
adb remount
then... depending on where apps are...
adb pull /system/app ./
or
adb pull /data/app ./
or
adb pull /system/sd/app ./
it will copy all the installed apks to the current working directory (i'm assuming you're using a Windows PC... if not, let me know). hopefully this at least helps!

Thanks for the help.
I was using a Nand backup and jumping from one to the other.
the adb commands worked for me. thanks again

[Q] Google Books on GT 10.1 from Google I/O

I can't speak for all GT 10.1s, but the one I received at Google I/O certainly does not have Google Books installed and it's not available in the Market. It comes with Kindle pre-installed, so I'm guessing Samsung has inked a deal with Amazon, but uhh... what about choice? I have several books from both Amazon and Google and use both applications on my Xoom, but now I'm curious why I can't use Google Books on my new tablet. Do I need to try to get the Google Books APK off my Xoom or what? Anyone else found a solution, besides reading their purchases online?
EDIT: The attached file is what finally worked for me. Thanks to smaskell for the link.

Books works fine on the 10.1. Just grab it off another device. My guess is that the market may not know the 10.1 yet as it is not really released now aside from IO.
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA Premium App

I wasn't able to install the tablet version but I did manage to push it to /system/app/ and it works.
1. get root access
2. download busybox
3. adb push busybox /sdcard
4. adb push BooksTablet.apk /sdcard
5. adb shell
6. cd /sdcard
7. su
8. mount -o remount,rw /system
9. ./busybox cp busybox /system/bin - yes, I'm using busybox to copy itself
10. busybox cp /sdcard/BooksTablet/apk /system/app
and you're good to go!

I'm still struggling with this and I've tried installing (via adb, adb shell, and via Astro / app manager) both a BooksTablet.apk (with and without BooksTablet.odex) from a stock Xoom dump and with a copy from my Honeycomb 3.1 Xoom. Am I missing something? Installing always fails and simply putting the files in place does nothing as well (with a reboot). Anyone have any more ideas? I'm out at this point and it seems as if it should be so simple from what you guys are saying! Thanks for the help!

have you tried a deodexed version of the apk?

I have not and cannot seem to find these files anywhere and am not sure how to deodex the files I have. I tried the 1.2.7-dev version of baksmali with no luck. Any other thoughts or perhaps a link to the files you used that seemed to work? Thanks!

I used the one from this thread
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1071047
works like a charm

Case closed
Perfect! Thanks for the link, one of the two files in that thread worked like a charm! In case anyone else is looking for it, I've attached the file that worked for me.

Each time I try installing the BooksTablet.apk file provided above, it fails on the device. When I try installing it via "adb install BooksTablet.apk" it constantly fails with the error "INSTALL_PARSE_FAILED_NO_CERTIFICATES"
I took a look at the logcat output and it seems to be having an issue finding the "fallback_covers.png" file in the assets folder.
I tried renaming the apk to .zip and poking around and I was not able to find this file.
Anyone else having this issue when installing the Google Books app?
I searched around regarding the error message on installation and the solution is to uninstall the app and reinstall it. But because I don't have the app installed to begin with then this isn't an option.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

yeah, I had the same problem. The only way I got it to work was by pushing it to /system/app. see my earlier post for details.

Ok so I tried following the same steps however, I was having some odd problems. I installed Titanium backup since it automatically installs busybox or so I've been told. When I actually try copying however, the adb shell throws an error saying busybox isn't installed which is odd.
Because of this the cp command also isn't available. Instead I copied over the BooksTablet.apk file from the sdcard to the system/app folder by using the following command:
dd if=/sdcard/Download/BooksTablet.apk of=/system/app/BooksTablet.apk
This command executes successfully however, the google books app still isn't available to launch from the app drawer. I verified that the BooksTablet.apk is actually in the system/app folder however, I still cannot launch it. Any other suggestions? Or did I just completely miss something. Thanks again for the help.
All the best,
Nader

nadewad said:
Ok so I tried following the same steps however, I was having some odd problems. I installed Titanium backup since it automatically installs busybox or so I've been told. When I actually try copying however, the adb shell throws an error saying busybox isn't installed which is odd.
Because of this the cp command also isn't available. Instead I copied over the BooksTablet.apk file from the sdcard to the system/app folder by using the following command:
dd if=/sdcard/Download/BooksTablet.apk of=/system/app/BooksTablet.apk
This command executes successfully however, the google books app still isn't available to launch from the app drawer. I verified that the BooksTablet.apk is actually in the system/app folder however, I still cannot launch it. Any other suggestions? Or did I just completely miss something. Thanks again for the help.
All the best,
Nader
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you try navigating to the apk and launching it?

nadewad said:
Ok so I tried following the same steps however, I was having some odd problems. I installed Titanium backup since it automatically installs busybox or so I've been told. When I actually try copying however, the adb shell throws an error saying busybox isn't installed which is odd.
Because of this the cp command also isn't available. Instead I copied over the BooksTablet.apk file from the sdcard to the system/app folder by using the following command:
dd if=/sdcard/Download/BooksTablet.apk of=/system/app/BooksTablet.apk
This command executes successfully however, the google books app still isn't available to launch from the app drawer. I verified that the BooksTablet.apk is actually in the system/app folder however, I still cannot launch it. Any other suggestions? Or did I just completely miss something. Thanks again for the help.
All the best,
Nader
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While I did have BusyBox installed, I can only vouch for the last thing I did that wound up working since I'd tried so many different things before getting the right APK. So once I had the file in the first post (and of course a rooted GT 10.1), I opened a shell, mounted the /system directory for read/write, chmod'd the app directory to 777, pushed the APK into the /system/app folder and then chmod'd the directory back to 644 (IIRC?). So the steps would have been:
1. adb shell
2. su
(if you get a permission denied error, make sure you leave your screen on and accept the prompt by Superuser Permissions, I forgot this on the freshly rooted tablet the first time)
3. mount -o rw,remount /system
4. chmod 777 /system/app
(now either exit the shell or open a new command prompt)
5. adb push BooksTablet.apk /system/app/BooksTablet.apk
(now back in your su'd adb shell)
6. chmod 644 /system/app
(you'll probably want to note what permissions were there previously as I'm going from memory)
There was no need to launch the APK or issue an install command (it fails anyway), the Books app appeared right away in my app drawer but got a FC after only a moment of it being opened the first time. After a reboot, everything has been working just like on the Xoom!