[Q] blobs in clockworkmod folder? - Nexus 7 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hi everyone... enjoying my nexus 7, couldn't be any better...
Anyway, my question... I first heard of the blobs on my Asus transformer, and never really looked into them any further...
I noticed my storage going down quite a bit, and looked into why it was going down... in the clockworkmod folder there is the back folder, all fine, and the blobs folder... the blobs folder 2gb+ in there... can anyone tell me what the blobs folder is and what it does?
Thanks, Matt
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium

The blobs folder contains portions of your CWM backups.
When you make a new backup, CWM checks the blobs folder to see what has changed between backups, since it's likely that a lot has remained the same.
This can actually save a lot of space, and make backups happen faster.

ffff00 said:
The blobs folder contains portions of your CWM backups.
When you make a new backup, CWM checks the blobs folder to see what has changed between backups, since it's likely that a lot has remained the same.
This can actually save a lot of space, and make backups happen faster.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply... I noticed they did take a lot less time to backup... so the safest way to delete a backup is through ROM manager? As I would usually just delete the backup folder (the ones inside the backup folder)... but half of my nandroid is still there?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium

I haven't had to delete any yet, but I'd assume that managing them through Rom Manager would be best.
Good luck

Thanks again, will try that way next...
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium

found this thread through google.
cos i was wondering why there is this blobs subfolder in cwm folder, since it's the first time i encountered it.
by the way it's the 1st time i'm using cwm touch to backup so the new prog has got to do something with since there are no blobs folder since i've been using the non touch version of cwm.
and i also noticed that it makes backups faster the non touch version.
thanks.

radeonxt said:
found this thread through google.
cos i was wondering why there is this blobs subfolder in cwm folder, since it's the first time i encountered it.
by the way it's the 1st time i'm using cwm touch to backup so the new prog has got to do something with since there are no blobs folder since i've been using the non touch version of cwm.
and i also noticed that it makes backups faster the non touch version.
thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think it is touch version, I think it is the newest 6.x.x.x clockwork.mod versions... I have many touch versions installed on different devices, but this is the first time.I've seen the blob folder...
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium

I was hoping to use ROM Manager or ROM Toolbox Pro to backup my Nexus 7 into one file or folder, so that I could then take it off the tablet to store on my laptop in case I need it in the future. I don't want these damned blobs taking up my precious space.
WHAT SHOULD I DO?

bulldozed said:
I was hoping to use ROM Manager or ROM Toolbox Pro to backup my Nexus 7 into one file or folder, so that I could then take it off the tablet to store on my laptop in case I need it in the future. I don't want these damned blobs taking up my precious space.
WHAT SHOULD I DO?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure.. as it is (what I believe to be) a feature of 6.x.x.x. maybe you/someone could compile a 5.x.x.x. version and see if it just creates the backup folder and not blobs...
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium

From the source: https://plus.google.com/103583939320326217147/posts/L5aVZe7C9vg
It's new functionality in CWM 6.x.

pixelens said:
From the source: https://plus.google.com/103583939320326217147/posts/L5aVZe7C9vg
It's new functionality in CWM 6.x.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, as I expected...
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium

I actually preferred how it was before. Now it's impossible to download the clockworkmod folder over in Windows.

https://plus.google.com/112476065271141473049/posts/CHoh72BD3aj

So basically it's impossible to store my CWM backups on my PC or the cloud now, or export via TB. And the blobs folder is already at 2gb on my 8gb Nexus 7 after only two backups. Time for TWRP.

fonseca898 said:
So basically it's impossible to store my CWM backups on my PC or the cloud now, or export via TB. And the blobs folder is already at 2gb on my 8gb Nexus 7 after only two backups. Time for TWRP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
I have the same exact concern.
Plus this time i had to manually specify a backup to internal SD. The first time i did a nandroid i selected "Backup" and it over wrote my external SD card - I may have used an older CWM in the past that didn't behave like that - but this sure did get my blood boiling.

it may be faster on the backup process itself, but copying the blob folder to PC or deleting it, takes ages.
i don't kinda like this way of backup
so: what is the last safe version of CWM using the old style ?

It takes long due to blobs folder containing 16000+ of small files and windows is trying to index it first before moving. What I do is to zip that folder on the device and move it then ....
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

I've been wondering about this too. I know it took longer for backups to complete but it was nice just being able to drop a backup folder to my computer for those "just in case" times.

yeah this sucks. I use TB for regular backups and nandroid only when making massive changes, so why would I need it to be slightly faster at the expense of gigs of wasted space?

I switched Tod TWRP because of this stupid blobs. Backup to PC takes forever. TWRP has the old method. It also supports mount of external USB devices and backup to them.

Related

Clockworkmod

Can someone please tell me what folder clockworkmod stores the backup's in? I formatted my sdcard on accident with a rom that was not booting.
I have copied backup's stored on my computer but when i put in on the sdcard and go into restore, clockwork does not see it. I thought is was in a folder called "backup" on the sdcard, but that does not seem to work.
clockworkmod/backup/
Sent from my HERO200 using XDA App
Thank you
Sent from my HERO200 using XDA App
*edit* removed apparently I forgot my helmet
Kumetto said:
Also you want to make sure to use the correct recovery CWM 2.x or 3.x.
CWM2 ex. BCDMRS-date-...
CWM3 ex. Date-...
The times are in military/24 hour format.
My cousin ran in to issues mixing recov's & backup's. I suspect it was more than just that. However I haven't tried when its pretty painless to switch between the two.
Sent from my HTC Hero CDMA using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not quite sure what your saying here. So you know, you can name the backups whatever you want, like "3/26gb.firerat.4_20" and you can restore backups between cwm2 and 3.
sent from a series of tubes.
il Duce said:
Not quite sure what your saying here. So you know, you can name the backups whatever you want, like "3/26gb.firerat.4_20" and you can restore backups between cwm2 and 3.
sent from a series of tubes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Every time i rename them the backups always fail. I had to stop naming them. It would just say md5 sum failed or something like that. I got screwed over twice that way so if you do rename just be cautious.
herouser26 said:
Every time i rename them the backups always fail. I had to stop naming them. It would just say md5 sum failed or something like that. I got screwed over twice that way so if you do rename just be cautious.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
FYI the key is not putting spaces in there. I have renamed EVERY backup I have ever made (using ANY recovery) so I could tell them apart. I never use anything but numbers, letters, periods, and underscores. I currently have 6 on my sd in /clockworkmod/backup/ named:
gb326.perfection.norat
gb326.perfection.rat
gb326.perfection.rat_ap5
gb421.perfection.rat
gb421.perfection.rat_ap5
nfx.prl01115.pri2.20
I have restored each one of these (I always restore them to make sure they work).

NANDROID backup too small

Hi guys,
I have an unlocked/rooted N7. The tablet has quite a bit of data in it and I am trying to initiate a back up using ROM Manager but the backup is only of about 20Mb when I check it.
I tried to do the backup straight from CWM but it is the same, very fast to back up and I assume it is not backing up all of the partitions...
My tablet has about 5Gb used so I expect the NANDROID backup to be around this size ...
Any idea ?
Cheers
Don't count me on this but I believe that the blobs file within the clock work mod folder contains some information as well.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium
Thanks for that, I have since checked the blobs folder and indeed it is about 1Gb in size but that doesn't explain the time to take the backup (strangely quick, about 30secondes).
I am not confident enough to test my restore to see if it works :]
julien.me said:
Thanks for that, I have since checked the blobs folder and indeed it is about 1Gb in size but that doesn't explain the time to take the backup (strangely quick, about 30secondes).
I am not confident enough to test my restore to see if it works :]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This tablet does backup and restore very quickly. I can confirm they work as well.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium
Was this the first nandroid that you took?
CWM 6.0+ now does incremental backups, the first backup creates a blob folder where 'common' files will be placed and teh backup itself only includes 'new' files.
That being said a full old style nandroid with TeamWin recovery on the N7 only took me 130 seconds
Thanks guys, I understand now why it takes very little time to take the backup
So not only the backup folder is used but also the blobs one...
Hate to bump this but I figure it's better than duplicating threads...
I just did a Nandroid backup (assuming that's the backup & restore function found in CWM) and ran two backups. Each came up to about 23-24MB. I do see a blobs folder, where there's about 1.6GB worth of data. My real confusion is... is this ALL of my data, partition structure, and everything? Pictures? App data? I just want to make sure I'm doing this properly.
Also, I want to store my backups on my server at home, so I'm assuming my best bet is to just copy both the backup and blobs folder entirely?
Nandroid does not backup your media, docs etc. It just backs up your system and user apps with the associated data for each.
Same for titanium backup. You need to backup those other things to your PC or a flash drive through the USB connection.
Under the clockwork directory there is a backup and blobs directory. Both of them combined are your nandroid backup.
Rootbrain
For 100% recoverable backup from PC I have to copy across the blobs folder then?
I'm interested in the user apps and data, they must be in the blobs I guess?
Just so I'm really clear on this...
Say I only had the backup timestamp folder and missed out the blobs, and did recovery from that, would it work? Would that return to a clean ROM, or would clockworkmod not be able to use it without the blobs folder?
Thanks
Apologies guys, I just did some more reading and found this post http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1933000
It explains it all, and I have my answers

Nandroid backup problems.

I'm running version 5 (beta) of the Tweaked Stock ICS ROM on my GT-P6800, but I'm having a problem with nandroid from CWM.
I've created some valid nandroid backups in the past, but I found (to my cost!) a few weeks ago that the more recent backups I'd made weren't valid.
Reading the CWM thread over at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1542897 it sounded like there was a known problem, but should have been fixed. I flashed version 6.0.1.1 this morning, but I'm still having the same problem.
Instead of getting three .img files and three .tar files, I'm getting the three .img files but then get three small (<1MB) .dup files instead of the .tar files (data.ext4.dup, cache.ext4.dup and system.ext4.dup).
Anyone else seen this? Any ideas why?
Sorry for posting this here instead of in the developers forum - I don't seem to have posted enough on XDA to allow me to post the question in the right place!
Thanks,
Adam.
Cwm now does incremental backups as only the changes from the original backup are done. This results in faster and smaller backup sizes after the original backup. If your original backup is corrupt delete the clockworkmod folder and redo your backup. After that incremental backups will be fast and small.
Sent from my GT-P6800 using xda premium
kishd said:
Cwm now does incremental backups as only the changes from the original backup are done. This results in faster and smaller backup sizes after the original backup. If your original backup is corrupt delete the clockworkmod folder and redo your backup. After that incremental backups will be fast and small.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Aaaaah! Right. Hmmmm. I kinda liked the standalone nature of the full backups.
Having been bitten by a broken backup before, I'm rather nervous of testing this out! So if I want to restore an incremental backup, do I select just the latest dated file, or do I need to restore the last full back-up (and it'll restore the original and all the changes), or do I need to restore each increment myself?
Are the backup folders completely portable, such that I can move them in and out of the 'clockworkmod' directory as requried, to force full backups each time?
Many thanks,
Adam.
Just select the last dated backup. I have restored a number of times using Iocerra's cwm 6
Sent from my GT-P6800 using xda premium
Fantastic. Thanks, kishd.
Sent from my GT-P6800 using XDA Premium HD app
Is there any way to make a standalone backup?
And how do we know what backup folder is the main backup? Aka how do we know what one is safe to delete?
I've made several backups on different roms/kernels, and I often delete old backups to free room on sdcard..
edit: I just did a backup after changing backup format to "tar" and it was over 1GB. The previous backups were between 1 and 3 hundred MB, so I assume setting the backup mode as tar does a standalone backup. can anyone confirm?
changing backup format to "tar"
mvmacd said:
edit: I just did a backup after changing backup format to "tar" and it was over 1GB. The previous backups were between 1 and 3 hundred MB, so I assume setting the backup mode as tar does a standalone backup. can anyone confirm?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How did you do this? I know I saw the option last night, selected it, and backed up, but then I flashed a couple upgrades and now I don't see this option anymore. I tried deleting the clockworkmod folder and backing up from fresh, but it made a dup backup. I've been burned by a string of broken dup's so I really want the tar format (plus, I can extract apps and data from a tar, but not from the blob/dup mixture). I even see a file in my new clockworkmod directory called ".default_backup_format" that contains only one word: tar. This file had to be created with the backup I just did, and yet it was still a dup style backup.
So, where did you see the option to change format to "tar"? I would really like to know.
Thanks.
kevlar11 said:
So, where did you see the option to change format to "tar"? I would really like to know.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
advanced backup options in CWM recovery (or same) ))

CWM Recovery Issue

I have been reading about how people (including myself) are having issues mounting the SD card with CWM Recovery 6.x.xx and I was wondering where (if it exists) I can find an earlier version for my Nexus 4. The problem I am having is when my phone is connected to my computer, I cant find the Clockwork Mod file to remove the backup from the device. I have the 8GB N4, so I really want to remove it, put it somewhere safe and not have it take up precious space.
If anyone has any thoughts or other solutions, please let me know. I am also having the same issue with TWRP2 (cant mount while in recovery).
toonhead85 said:
I have been reading about how people (including myself) are having issues mounting the SD card with CWM Recovery 6.x.xx and I was wondering where (if it exists) I can find an earlier version for my Nexus 4. The problem I am having is when my phone is connected to my computer, I cant find the Clockwork Mod file to remove the backup from the device. I have the 8GB N4, so I really want to remove it, put it somewhere safe and not have it take up precious space.
If anyone has any thoughts or other solutions, please let me know. I am also having the same issue with TWRP2 (cant mount while in recovery).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just download Astro file manager from the Play Store and find the backup and delete it. You can also delete the backup from in recovery as well.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2
scream4cheese said:
Just download Astro file manager from the Play Store and find the backup and delete it. You can also delete the backup from in recovery as well.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have Root Explorer and can't find the folder on my /sdcard. If I could, I could take the backup and move it, but it doesn't seem to be visible.
I have been thinking, do I need to be rooted to be able to access the folder, or see it for that matter?
And as a side note, I tried TWRP2 and I can see the folder with backups made.
toonhead85 said:
I have Root Explorer and can't find the folder on my /sdcard. If I could, I could take the backup and move it, but it doesn't seem to be visible.
I have been thinking, do I need to be rooted to be able to access the folder, or see it for that matter?
And as a side note, I tried TWRP2 and I can see the folder with backups made.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had this same issue as I'm using CWM 6.0.2.0. For whatever reason, they changed the saved backups location to /data/media/clockworkmod now so you can't access it by plugging in your phone because the backups aren't on the sdcard. That's also the reason you can't find it. To my knowledge, you can do two things to get them to your computer:
1. Use ADB to pull the clockworkmod folder to your computer. I still haven't completely figured out how to do that yet as I don't screw around in ADB shell too much and I'm not sure if you have to mount the filesystem before doing it. I'm sure if you search around, you could find the ADB solution.
2. (This solution sucks but it works...) If you have a file manager (like X-plore) and root access, you can copy the contents of /data/media/clockworkmod folder to the sdcard location on your phone. Once it's there, THEN you can access that copy when it's plugged into your computer. Then just get rid of the .nomedia file in the folder and move it from your sdcard to your PC. Simple but takes forever for the files to copy depending on how many backups your moving and how big your blobs folder is.
If someone knows a better way, I'm definitely all ears. Really don't like how they changed CWM to this new style. Makes it a pain to offload backups from your phone to your PC.
Hatzy said:
I had this same issue as I'm using CWM 6.0.2.0. For whatever reason, they changed the saved backups location to /data/media/clockworkmod now so you can't access it by plugging in your phone because the backups aren't on the sdcard. That's also the reason you can't find it. To my knowledge, you can do two things to get them to your computer:
1. Use ADB to pull the clockworkmod folder to your computer. I still haven't completely figured out how to do that yet as I don't screw around in ADB shell too much and I'm not sure if you have to mount the filesystem before doing it. I'm sure if you search around, you could find the ADB solution.
2. (This solution sucks but it works...) If you have a file manager (like X-plore) and root access, you can copy the contents of /data/media/clockworkmod folder to the sdcard location on your phone. Once it's there, THEN you can access that copy when it's plugged into your computer. Then just get rid of the .nomedia file in the folder and move it from your sdcard to your PC. Simple but takes forever for the files to copy depending on how many backups your moving and how big your blobs folder is.
If someone knows a better way, I'm definitely all ears. Really don't like how they changed CWM to this new style. Makes it a pain to offload backups from your phone to your PC.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use ROM manager to connect to the server and download my nand directly to my PC.
Sent From a Freaked out Nexus 4
You have an option in cwm uder the backup menu to remove the backups or unused data. It works for me.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium
strapped365 said:
I use ROM manager to connect to the server and download my nand directly to my PC.
Sent From a Freaked out Nexus 4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Didn't even know you could do that. I always just boot to CWM, never use the ROM manager app. That sounds like a paid feature or is it on the free version?
Edit: Yeah, it's a paid feature but I'm seriously considering going this route since it's so damn handy. If I can't figure out how to ADB it, I may just buy the premium version. Thanks bro.
webdo said:
You have an option in cwm uder the backup menu to remove the backups or unused data. It works for me.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He wants a copy of the backups on his PC before he removes them.
Sorry for my incomplete answer than. I found mine using a root explorer
/mnt/shell/emulated/clockworkmod/backup
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium
Thanks for all the great tips/answers/comments. I will see what I can do in terms of finding where the backup is stored on my phone now (since it seems there could be two places).
Cheers!!
Hatzy, you can pull the backups using insecure adbd by chainfire [app]. Otherwise, you can only pull sdcard. Or, i believe you can pull via the path /mnt/shell/emulated..
So, after doing some looking... I thiink my best bet is to use Rom Manager's new Download Server feature. I'll give it a try and let everyone know how it works out!!

Unzip multi part TWRP backup

Hi,
I while ago I backed up my nexus 7's data partition as it was no longer booting and expected to be able to extract it and gain access to some data I needed. I do this on my HTC sensation using 4EXT recovery which outputs a zip but TWRP has given me .win000/1/2 files. I've read somewhere they are tar files but I have no idea how to rename them to make them able to be extracted using archive apps. I've attached a screenshot of the files if this helps.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using xda app-developers app
microang said:
Hi,
I while ago I backed up my nexus 7's data partition as it was no longer booting and expected to be able to extract it and gain access to some data I needed. I do this on my HTC sensation using 4EXT recovery which outputs a zip but TWRP has given me .win000/1/2 files. I've read somewhere they are tar files but I have no idea how to rename them to make them able to be extracted using archive apps. I've attached a screenshot of the files if this helps.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, microang...
Not quite sure what kind of data you're looking to retrieve, but have you investigated Nandroid Manager ?
This app allows you to examine, and selectively extract stuff from Nandroid backups, whether they be created by TWRP or CWM.
I used it myself quite recently to pull a 'build.prop' file for somebody here on XDA.
Needlessly to say, because this is an Android app, the Nandroid backup would first have to be copied over to some Android device.
With regards to using something like Windows... looking through my Nandroids backed up on my Windows laptop, I note that, like yourself, I also have several incidences where the data partition has been broken up into multiple archives, with names like data.ext4.win000 and data.ext4.win001.
Upon appending a .tar extension to these files, so thus, for example, data.ext4.win001 becomes data.ext4.win001.tar... and some of these files will open, and some will not... but that just maybe because I'm using old Windows archive software (jZip). I guess I need to update my Windows zip archive software.
Anyway... the best I can suggest is Nandroid Manager... but as mentioned, the Nandroid backup in question would first have to be copied over to some Android device - and you do need root, but as far as I know, you don't need TWRP/CWM installed. You can then explore the Nandroid and extract stuff.
Hope this helps.
Rgrds,
Ged.

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