Related
So yes, Titanium Backup and the deletion of google talk are at it again. This time I actually knew I shouldn't delete then brain farted and did it anyway. So here lies my marketless and FC gapps everytime I pull the market app up.
For the record I searched as best as possible for a solution and the closest I got was a link for gtalk and the Evo 4G, and needless to say it still doesn't work, the market and the force close gapps.service still happens after re install
A solution without a flash and re-root is preferred, please educate the new guy! Thanks for the record I know I'm a jack wagon lol.
Search these forums (or Google) for Fascinate System Dump. It will have whatever files you deleted.
So dump files obtained. Is this is simple drag and drop to the OS or do I need a program on the computer to be able to interface with the filesystem on the Fascinate?
Bare with me guys, while I bring myself up to speed on tearing through the Andriod OS, hacking windows is one thing - tearing apart my phone for the first time - thats a whole nother ball game for me.
DeezNotes said:
Search these forums (or Google) for Fascinate System Dump. It will have whatever files you deleted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So I did that, finally got the files onto my phone and reinstalled all the google.apks including ones that were already existing on the phone.
To no avail I still get the gapps Force close and I'm still unable to download from market after restoring Google Talk Service.
Any help or a simple suggestion would be appreciated - been trying this all day with no success.
I'm not sure if you "installed" the apps or if you placed them back in their proper folder(s), but my guess is that any app you had pre-installed which you deleted was previously in the /system/app folder. The dump has all the files in this folder. You don't need to re-install these files, you need to just copy them back to the /system/app folder.
When you download and install an app, it will install to /data/app. If you "installed" the files rather than copying them back to /system/app, that may be the problem.
On a side-note, this is why I like to move files from one folder to another rather than use Titanium Backup to delete apps/files.
Don't forget to reboot your phone after you copy the files back to /system/app.
Lastly, I'm not responsible for what you break.
DeezNotes said:
I'm not sure if you "installed" the apps or if you placed them back in their proper folder(s), but my guess is that any app you had pre-installed which you deleted was previously in the /system/app folder. The dump has all the files in this folder. You don't need to re-install these files, you need to just copy them back to the /system/app folder.
When you download and install an app, it will install to /data/app. If you "installed" the files rather than copying them back to /system/app, that may be the problem.
On a side-note, this is why I like to move files from one folder to another rather than use Titanium Backup to delete apps/files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Roger that side note - that will be my new policy when managing files.
As far as the clarification - I have been indeed installing the apps instead of moving them to the appropriate location - I guess the difference in installation location never occurred to me. Thank you in advance for the heads up and I'll report my success or failure, hopefully success after i get out of work this evening.
Don't worry if I brick I won't hold you accountable - after all I'm the one who deleted Google apps from the Andriod phone. LOL, In hindsight it was a terrible Idea.
First of all: hi everyone! This is my first posting on XDA o/
ITT I have a very specific question about applying Potatoman's Camera.apk mod, but, as I'm a freshman, I'm not allowed to ask it in the proper thread. The requirement to have 10 posts before being allowed to take part in the dev forums is a little over protective imo, but well...
About the issue:
I tried to replace the original Camera.apk with the modified version as described by Potatoman in the specific thread. However, as soon as I rename the original Camera.apk into Camera.apk.bak, the Camera application icon disappears from the application list. That might not be to bad in the first place, but putting the modified .apk into the /system/apps folder does not re-create the icon. So, I can basically put the modified .apk where it belongs, but I have no way to start the application.
Also trying to install the modified Camera.apk from the /system/apps directory does not work (says "installation failed" and seems to do nothing).
I have no clue what's making the icon disappear on renaming the .apk in the first place. Also I'm not sure if it is possible to create an icon link to the modified Camera.apk manually. Any help is greatly appreciated.
Here some additional facts that might be relevant:
CF-rooted
KF2 kernel + ROM
using ES File Explorer for r/w access to /system/apps and general file handling
reboots do not help...
oops
just noticed the sticky "If your thread can be phrased as a question, it belongs in Galaxy S II Q&A".
I wasn't aware of that when I started this thread. I just saw many threads with the [Q]-tag here and put mine here as well...
@moderation: please feel free to move this over to the Q&A forum (or to close it :I)
Flashed CleanGB Rom v16 today and there is no AllShare app
After some searching I found the dlna.apk for allshare.
used ES File Explorer to place it in the system/app folder set the permission that where given in another thread
USER = READ + WRITE
GROUP = READ
OTHERS = READ
App starts but then force closes after 5 sec.
Also installed it with SDX Stock App Removal and did the same thing.
Im stuck at this point
is there any way to get it working?
I grabbed my allshare app off of this thread and it worked. It's for Deodexed Roms. I'm currently on ACS ICS 5.1.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=824953
From your post though, it looks as if that's the file you may have used?
yea thats the thread i was looking at
and i got the apk file from there.
anyone has any idea how to fix this?
All I did to get it to work was copy the file, and paste it into the system/apps folder with write permissions. then just reset your phone and it should have shown up in your launcher. should work since cleangb is deodexed.
where the permission the same ones i posted?
Captain obvious stand-in:
There is a Q&A subforum. This is obviously a question as your title denotes with the [Q], so try to utilize it in the future.
Make sure the file you're trying to push over fits your current rom's structure, such as odexed or deodexed. Move the file over with a file manager, like Root Explorer, and a restart may be required.
If that doesn't help you could always try using the "fix permissions" feature in CWM.
Hi. I accidentally deleted my stock gallery app so I re-downloaded it (from here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2449815) to try to install it again. Apparently I can't just re-install it because it's a system app so it keeps telling me that it's not installed. I tried a file manager to move the apk file into the system/app folder and changed the permission to rw--r--r--. I restart after that and now I can find the gallery app installed on my phone, but it crashes right away every time I try to open it ("Gallery has stopped working"). It also doesn't work whenever I go into camera and tap on the photo browser box because it also says gallery stopped working.
I'm on Kitkat right now with root access and I can't for the life of me figure out what I'm doing wrong. Please help!
joline4 said:
Hi. I accidentally deleted my stock gallery app so I re-downloaded it (from here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2449815) to try to install it again. Apparently I can't just re-install it because it's a system app so it keeps telling me that it's not installed. I tried a file manager to move the apk file into the system/app folder and changed the permission to rw--r--r--. I restart after that and now I can find the gallery app installed on my phone, but it crashes right away every time I try to open it ("Gallery has stopped working"). It also doesn't work whenever I go into camera and tap on the photo browser box because it also says gallery stopped working.
I'm on Kitkat right now with root access and I can't for the life of me figure out what I'm doing wrong. Please help!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First, are you on NC2 leak or NC4 OTA? I'm not sure if it matters with a gallery apk but you never know.
If you're on NC2 leak go to Beans thread here : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=52088473&postcount=1
If you're on NC4 go here : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=53508270&postcount=1
1) Next, I'd download the rom for whatever you're on NC2 or NC4.
2) Extract rom zip with 7zip or Winrar or whatever your zip extraction program is.
3) Look for the secgallery.apk and pull the apk from the folder and transfer to your phone on your sd card.
4) Once on your sd card use your file explorer with root access. I prefer Root Explorer, if you don't have it it's worth buying to me.
5) Push the secgallery apk to system/priv-app and set permissions to rw-r--r--, then reboot and see if that helps.
6) If you still have problems try going to settings>application manager>all>then look for gallery and clear cache and see if that works
I don't know if you should use the apk you got from that link you posted as I don't know if it's been altered or not. It might be as easy as you putting that secgallery apk you have already in system/priv-app instead of system/app but let's be on the safe side. That's why I said download Beans stock rooted roms.
Hopefully this works for you.
EDIT: After going through both roms I have on my pc it appears the gallery is the same so I pulled it and uploaded here for you : http://d-h.st/9TK Let me know once you have it so I can take it down.
TheAfroSamurai said:
First, are you on NC2 leak or NC4 OTA? I'm not sure if it matters with a gallery apk but you never know.
If you're on NC2 leak go to Beans thread here : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=52088473&postcount=1
If you're on NC4 go here : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=53508270&postcount=1
1) Next, I'd download the rom for whatever you're on NC2 or NC4.
2) Extract rom zip with 7zip or Winrar or whatever your zip extraction program is.
3) Look for the secgallery.apk and pull the apk from the folder and transfer to your phone on your sd card.
4) Once on your sd card use your file explorer with root access. I prefer Root Explorer, if you don't have it it's worth buying to me.
5) Push the secgallery apk to system/priv-app and set permissions to rw-r--r--, then reboot and see if that helps.
6) If you still have problems try going to settings>application manager>all>then look for gallery and clear cache and see if that works
I don't know if you should use the apk you got from that link you posted as I don't know if it's been altered or not. It might be as easy as you putting that secgallery apk you have already in system/priv-app instead of system/app but let's be on the safe side. That's why I said download Beans stock rooted roms.
Hopefully this works for you.
EDIT: After going through both roms I have on my pc it appears the gallery is the same so I pulled it and uploaded here for you : http://d-h.st/9TK Let me know once you have it so I can take it down.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh my goodness, you're a life safer! It finally worked after spending many hours trying to figure out what was wrong. I guess it's because I use the wrong apk and also because I put it in the wrong folder in the system root. After I downloaded the apk you provided, I moved the file to system/priv-app and changed the permission. After rebooting, gallery is now working perfectly fine again instead of crashing.
Thank you so much for your help! I really couldn't have figured this out on my own without your information!
joline4 said:
Oh my goodness, you're a life safer! It finally worked after spending many hours trying to figure out what was wrong. I guess it's because I use the wrong apk and also because I put it in the wrong folder in the system root. After I downloaded the apk you provided, I moved the file to system/priv-app and changed the permission. After rebooting, gallery is now working perfectly fine again instead of crashing.
Thank you so much for your help! I really couldn't have figured this out on my own without your information!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's what's up... ?
Glad I could help you out, it's no problem at all.
Sent from the Note 3 of The Afro Samurai
Background: Really not loving the default New Contact icons and the random colors. Should be easy enough to change. What I tried (and failed miserably...)
MODest ROM 11 (Twiz/stock 6.01-based)
Flashpoint 5 Kernel
Copied SecContacts_M_OSup_Note_Legacy_USA.apk from
/system/priv-app/SecContacts_M_OSup_Note_Legacy_USA/
to my Win7 PC.
Used 7-Zip to unpack the file to a temporary folder.
Found the .qmg files I didn't like.
Found a .qmg that would be a passable replacement for the ones I didn't dig.
Made 11 copies of that image in a working folder.
Renamed each copy to the exact name of each of the 11 files I wanted to replace.
Dragged those 11 files back into the open .apk in 7-Zip
On the Phone, in Root Explorer:
Made a copy of SecContacts_M_OSup_Note_Legacy_USA.apk in the same folder:
/system/priv-app/SecContacts_M_OSup_Note_Legacy_USA/
deleted the original
Copied my mod'd apk back into this folder and set the perms.
Rebooted.
No Phone or Contacts on home screen or in Apps
Tried to 'install' the apk from Root Explorer.
Wouldn't install
Tried to delete cache & Dalvik from TWRP.
No Joy.
Tried to do a partial Nandroid restore of Contacts and sec.phone from Titanium (nothing there called /systempriv-app/SecContacts_M_OSup_Note_Legacy_USA)
No Joy.
Nandroid restore from TWRP.
Back to normal.
Okay, what did I do wrong, and how can I change the icons?
Should I have used APKTook instead of 7-Zip, created a new signature, etc?
Should my mod'd apk somehow be flashed from recovery rather than copied to a system folder?
Is this some perverted Samsung-ism that would have worked fine on any other phone on the planet?
Thanks for reading.
ForestCat said:
Background: Really not loving the default New Contact icons and the random colors. Should be easy enough to change. What I tried (and failed miserably...)
MODest ROM 11 (Twiz/stock 6.01-based)
Flashpoint 5 Kernel
Copied SecContacts_M_OSup_Note_Legacy_USA.apk from
/system/priv-app/SecContacts_M_OSup_Note_Legacy_USA/
to my Win7 PC.
Used 7-Zip to unpack the file to a temporary folder.
Found the .qmg files I didn't like.
Found a .qmg that would be a passable replacement for the ones I didn't dig.
Made 11 copies of that image in a working folder.
Renamed each copy to the exact name of each of the 11 files I wanted to replace.
Dragged those 11 files back into the open .apk in 7-Zip
On the Phone, in Root Explorer:
Made a copy of SecContacts_M_OSup_Note_Legacy_USA.apk in the same folder:
/system/priv-app/SecContacts_M_OSup_Note_Legacy_USA/
deleted the original
Copied my mod'd apk back into this folder and set the perms.
Rebooted.
No Phone or Contacts on home screen or in Apps
Tried to 'install' the apk from Root Explorer.
Wouldn't install
Tried to delete cache & Dalvik from TWRP.
No Joy.
Tried to do a partial Nandroid restore of Contacts and sec.phone from Titanium (nothing there called /systempriv-app/SecContacts_M_OSup_Note_Legacy_USA)
No Joy.
Nandroid restore from TWRP.
Back to normal.
Okay, what did I do wrong, and how can I change the icons?
Should I have used APKTook instead of 7-Zip, created a new signature, etc?
Should my mod'd apk somehow be flashed from recovery rather than copied to a system folder?
Is this some perverted Samsung-ism that would have worked fine on any other phone on the planet?
Thanks for reading.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That apk took me a long time to figure out too. It's one of the apps you I had to modify for multi dpi. The only way I know of is to change the compression when you're putting the app back together and even then it took a couple tries. There's probably a better way but the compression change seems to work well enough.
I don't know if 7-zip has this option, but with winrar you can change the compression to "store". You should know right away whether or not it worked. You'll see the little phone icon in the bottom left of the lock screen. You may still have to do a factory reset to see your changes (probably not though) but the app should work without it.
By the way, you can swap those image files for .png files if you'd like. Just delete the corresponding .qmg or .pio file.
I saw your post in the rom thread about theming TouchWiz. You should check out @supergrobi94's theming threads. He's put together an impressive collection of options for 6.0.1 and 5.1.1 and there's also a [how to] section that uses the vrtheme zip that will modify the res folder of a specific app without having to break it down. I'm not sure how active he is these days but he's always been very helpful with requests and questions in the past if you need it.
Supergrobi94's theming threads:
This one has all the themes
This is the [how to] thread
kevintm78 said:
That apk took me a long time to figure out too. It's one of the apps you I had to modify for multi dpi. The only way I know of is to change the compression when you're putting the app back together and even then it took a couple tries. There's probably a better way but the compression change seems to work well enough.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah, that makes perfect sense. But I'd never have figured it out myself, lol.
I'll dig into those theming threads, thanks.
kevintm78 said:
☆☆Edge Panel for ModestRom v11☆☆
DOWNLOAD-This will change your Contacts app to the S6 version and the IncallUI app to the Note 7 version because the people stripe will not work with the N4 contacts.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK, this is from the MODest ROM thread, but I think it's germain here.
SO.....
If I want to 'try out' that Edge Panel, is there a way to revert back to the stock apps in question other than restoring a nandroid backup or re-flashing the ROM?
I ask because I'm thinking that, at least in the case of the Note 4 and its well known memory problems, 'bulk' memory writes like ROMs, nandroid retores, etc., stress the device, so I'm trying not to do it more than I have to.
During my last episode(see above) putting the stock apk back in its original folder didn't work.
Is there a standard procedure for either android generically, or touchwiz specifically, for safely reverting back to the stock system apps after experimenting w/ custom stuff?
EDIT: Just tried something. In Root Explorer, went into:
/system/priv-app/SecContacts_M_OSup_Note_Legacy_USA/
and simply renamed the .apk to .foo
Rebooted.
No Contacts, as expected, but no Phone either??? Not sure why.
Anyway, back into Root Explorer.
Rename .foo back to .apk
Reboot.
Still no Contacts or Phone, so something bigger at work here.
Before I have to restore Nandroid anyway (unless there's a better way???),
I flashed your EdgePanel.zip in TWRP to see if it would restore the Phone/Contacts apps.
Wiped the cache. Reboot.
Edge Panel is now there, but still no Phone or Contacts. WTF???
Last resort-TWRP- Factory Reset.
Now the Contacts/Phone are back (and all my other stuff is gone, lol)
So is whacking the Data a necessity here?
If so, it makes trying out things related to the phone/contacts a LOT more tedious...
Any workaround???
Thanks again.
ForestCat said:
OK, this is from the MODest ROM thread, but I think it's germain here.
SO.....
If I want to 'try out' that Edge Panel, is there a way to revert back to the stock apps in question other than restoring a nandroid backup or re-flashing the ROM?
I ask because I'm thinking that, at least in the case of the Note 4 and its well known memory problems, 'bulk' memory writes like ROMs, nandroid retores, etc., stress the device, so I'm trying not to do it more than I have to.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, it doesn't look like I ever made an easy way to go back. I had thought I did but I'm either overlooking it or it's not there. Feel free to rifle through my androidfilehost folders if you want to double check. All of my stuff is very organized so it could be buried in there somewhere.
If you still need a recovery zip let me know and I'll get one together. I'm actually going to make one anyway but if you need it right away I can get on it. I didn't realize that there wasn't a way back to stock.
ForestCat said:
During my last episode(see above) putting the stock apk back in its original folder didn't work.
Is there a standard procedure for either android generically, or touchwiz specifically, for safely reverting back to the stock system apps after experimenting w/ custom stuff?
EDIT: Just tried something. In Root Explorer, went into:
/system/priv-app/SecContacts_M_OSup_Note_Legacy_USA/
and simply renamed the .apk to .foo
Rebooted.
No Contacts, as expected, but no Phone either??? Not sure why.
Anyway, back into Root Explorer.
Rename .foo back to .apk
Reboot.
Still no Contacts or Phone, so something bigger at work here.
Before I have to restore Nandroid anyway (unless there's a better way???),
I flashed your EdgePanel.zip in TWRP to see if it would restore the Phone/Contacts apps.
Wiped the cache. Reboot.
Edge Panel is now there, but still no Phone or Contacts. WTF???
Last resort-TWRP- Factory Reset.
Now the Contacts/Phone are back (and all my other stuff is gone, lol)
So is whacking the Data a necessity here?
If so, it makes trying out things related to the phone/contacts a LOT more tedious...
Any workaround???
Thanks again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is strange that they are not coming back. You may just want to double check your permissions and that there isn't two of the same apps in your folder. At the time of making that Edge zip I was still using other programs to make zips for me and the major downside to that is having to name the new apps the exact same as the old so it would get overwritten so if it doesn't match you'll end up with two active apps in one folder.
Now I think the best way to do that is to use a binary script (osm0sis has great tutorials for this) to change the app getting replaced to a .bak file and then just copy the new app to the system, set perms, and reboot (dalvik cache/ cache needs to be wiped if it's a framework .jar file). But to each their own. If you can get the job done a better way then I would use what you're comfortable with.
My system to test apps isn't much difference than yours. I think the only thing I do differently is change the app to be replaced to .bak instead of .foo although I can't imagine there's much difference. There's been a few apps like the Contacts app that gave me a bunch of trouble when modifying them but I can't remember ever having trouble bringing back the stock app. I wish I had more insight on that situation for you. If push comes to shove I would reflash the rom zip over factory reset only because the factory reset won't correct the system partition problem, if that's what's going on in this case.
kevintm78 said:
If you still need a recovery zip let me know and I'll get one together..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First, Merry Christmas!
Thanks very much. No rush on that, I'm OK on the Edge version for the minute.
What would be extremely useful if you have some time/curiousity would be to replicate my steps, ie renaming the untouched apk in a fresh MODest flash (i.e. break the contacts/phone function), and then see if you can get the whole thing working again without a factory reset, or if not, why. I see on xda, you & I are not the first ones to be tripping over this contacts.apk issue.
The other thing that would be telling is after successfully installing the Edge.zip, whether you can modify something (like a picture) within the contacts apk within the zip, reflash the zip and have contacts/phone still working with the change active.
I think there just HAS to be abetter way than Factory Resets.
Thanks so much again for the insights. I really want to become at least minimally competent at hacking my own ROMs together so I don't have to feel like such a noob/mooch on here, but I really do appreciate the help.
What are your weapons/platform of choice, or, if there are better tools for noobs learning the ropes, I'm all ears.
EDIT: Just found this. The last post is interesting...
https://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s5/devs-only/recompile-seccontacts-apk-t3377142/page2
ForestCat said:
First, Merry Christmas!
Thanks very much. No rush on that, I'm OK on the Edge version for the minute.
What would be extremely useful if you have some time/curiousity would be to replicate my steps, ie renaming the untouched apk in a fresh MODest flash (i.e. break the contacts/phone function), and then see if you can get the whole thing working again without a factory reset, or if not, why. I see on xda, you & I are not the first ones to be tripping over this contacts.apk issue.
The other thing that would be telling is after successfully installing the Edge.zip, whether you can modify something (like a picture) within the contacts apk within the zip, reflash the zip and have contacts/phone still working with the change active.
I think there just HAS to be abetter way than Factory Resets.
Thanks so much again for the insights. I really want to become at least minimally competent at hacking my own ROMs together so I don't have to feel like such a noob/mooch on here, but I really do appreciate the help.
What are your weapons/platform of choice, or, if there are better tools for noobs learning the ropes, I'm all ears.
EDIT: Just found this. The last post is interesting...
https://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s5/devs-only/recompile-seccontacts-apk-t3377142/page2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not exactly sure what's going on with your contacts app not showing back up. Ever since modestrom v8 (I think) I've been doing the multi dpi on SecContacts_M_OSup_Note_Legacy_USA and every time I would test it doing the same as your way. After a reboot if the modified app was no good, then I would just delete that new app and change the name of the old app back to .apk, reboot and it would work again. I can't remember running in to any problems where I would have to factory reset or reflash the rom to get things working again.
There has been a couple times where I've had to factory reset to get a color change to show up or if you're adding toggles to the QS drop down that also (sometimes) requires a factory reset to show up.
As far as the post you linked, that is exactly how I do it except I use winrar to open the newly compiled app and drag the changes to the original. When I drag the changes over I change the compression method from "normal" to "store". If I don't change the compression the app doesn't work for me. The apps that I've ran into where I had to change the compression are: secContacts, secCamera, secSettings, and framework-res.apk. Any other app that I've worked on can be dragged and dropped without compression changes.
Jar files don't need an original signature though (so long as signature verification has been disabled, which it has in modestrom). They can be decompiled, edited, recompiled, and copied to the system. It does require a dalvik cache/cache wipe though on all framework files except for the framework-res.apk and twframework-res.apk
If you get a chance, you should start using apktool to decompile/recompile. It will make things easier for you in the long run and most of the time if you've made any mistakes in your edits apktool will catch it. If you're not familiar with apktool you can try using Tickle My Android or Advanced Apktool. You may also want to get Apktool by itself. I use all three of them. Android can be fickle and sometimes what works with one app won't work with another. What's nice about TMA and Advanced Apktool is that they'll do the drag and drop method for you, but when the compression needs to be changed that's when I use apktool by itself.
Sorry for the word vomit. Hopefully, this all makes sense.