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Trip to DC, Speedfix, Bricked, Glorious Recovery!

DT

Android Expert
Jul 23, 2010
783
145
Vilano Beach, FL
OK, my first "production" use of the phone and it worked outstanding!

I watched the last couple of Futuramas (from HD, HB'ed to 800x480), looked and sounded great! I also had Up! and Ninja Assassin from HD sources ready too :D I relaxed to some Radiohead (also from the phone) for the last 30 minutes [of the flight] or so. It was a perfect entertainment device for the place :)

I used Flight View and built a trip with my flight up and back. VERY cool app, with flight times, mapping, all sorts of super helpful flying tools. I had also installed DC Metro which is a schedule checker, train/line planner for getting around on the Metro. While I already know the trip in from Reagan pretty well, it was slick seeing the real time train arrival time. I handled a couple of emails on the train to clients too, made a few calls, etc., a couple of emails had attachments which the phone handled perfectly. I also used maps/nav to find the hotel and the new Google Places to locate a place to grab something to eat.

I planned on using it as a WiFi tether via the Google app, but it wouldn't fire up, so I'm going to re-investigate that issue (it wound up not being needed this trip).

The phone did doing a great job of end-to-end "business trip support", from mapping, scheduling, flight monitoring, email, phone, etc.

So after I got back from DC (and I purposely held off doing anything radical before the trip) I decided to try the ext4 fix.

Before I did it, I used ROM Manager to create a backup, though the current update.zip was actually the ext4 fix (I used the ext4-root version). I ran the ext4-update.zip via ROM manager (using the original filename), it ran, I rebooted, and it seemed to run just fine, but I didn't have the SL4A app. So I re-ran it via the regular recovery mode (Vol up+down+power) by renaming the file to update.

This time the SL4A app showed up, and I selecting the ext4 script, it seemed to run, but apps starting crashing. I let it complete, and when I rebooted, EVERYTHING was FC'ing all over the place (some of the core apps did fire up, because I was getting email notifications).

So...

I downloaded the Odin 3 bundled with the stock firmware (original non-leaked, JF6), got the phone into download mode (not sure why this is so tough for some folks?), flashed a fresh, OEM ROM. The phone fired up, everything looked fine (though crap-tacularly stock :D). So I connected the phone, accessed the SDCARD, and moved the backup-update.zip to the SDCard root, renamed it, went back to recovery, loaded the update, got the ROM Rec menu, selected Nandroid [restore], and 10 minutes later, I'm back to almost exactly where I was before the ext4 attempt. Odin, ROM Man, etc., all worked AMAZING. Nice job to the various developers.

The weirdness? The phone is SMOKING fast. No lag. Opening app grid? Super fast. Smart Shortcut? It used to have a big lag when opening it from the home screen. Now it's instant. Locked? No problem, instant unlock.

It's almost like the ext4 fix took and the restore applied the backup to the faster filesystem[?] I haven't really sat down and thought about the logistics of everything that happened, but _something_ has greatly affected (for the better) the speed (and the lagginess). Could it be the cache was flushed by flashing a new stock ROM and restoring?

The only thing that's a touch funky is via AppBrain a couple of apps are showing update available but result in a 'file not found', though that may be totally independent of my gyrations. I also can't push down app directly from AppBrain, it's just indicating the app on my phone expired, so I'm assuming some value stored in the system wasn't restored, so I'll just re-install it and see if that fixes it up.

Whew!


tl;dr version:

Went to DC, phone worked great.
Lag fixed, it "blowed up real good".
Reflash stock ROM, restored backup.
Phone is now super fast.

:D
 
The backup ROM was on your external card, and you moved that rom to the internal card and then flashed that?

Just trying to figure out some of this stuff, pretty sure I will be getting the captivate, and a full back-up ROM sounds great, just want to make sure I do it correctly.

The naming convention is a touch confusing, but the internal storage is called SDCARD, it's basically like an "sd card" :D The external card (if in use) mounts as SD under the SDCARD location (i.e., /sdcard/sd ).

The /sdcard (internal) storage is a different space allocation from where the ROM sits, so it survives a reflash. Though I still saved the backup off the phone to my notebook before I started all this :) After I got my phone back to bone stock, the /sdcard/clockworkmod/backup/<backup_folder_by_date> was still there and under the clockwork mod directory was the recovery-update.zip, that simply gets renamed to update.zip and can then be loaded by the stock package reloader.

Pretty cool stuff.

[edit]

I un- and re- installed Fast Web Installer, and it's fully functional again! Must have been some registration data in the system area that needed to be reset.
 
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The naming convention is a touch confusing, but the internal storage is called SDCARD, it's basically like an "sd card" :D The external card (if in use) mounts as SD under the SDCARD location (i.e., /sdcard/sd ).

The /sdcard (internal) storage is a different space allocation from where the ROM sits, so it survives a reflash. Though I still saved the backup off the phone to my notebook before I started all this :) After I got my phone back to bone stock, the /sdcard/clockworkmod/backup/<backup_folder_by_date> was still there and under the clockwork mod directory was the recovery-update.zip, that simply gets renamed to update.zip and can then be loaded by the stock package reloader.

Pretty cool stuff.

[edit]

I un- and re- installed Fast Web Installer, and it's fully functional again! Must have been some registration data in the system area that needed to be reset.


Thanks.

I hope I will be able to do all of this on my mac. When I finally think I have a grasp of Android, I read something that confuses me more.
 
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I've been a Mac user since the days of System 9 (Mid 90's). Currently, I only own two computers. A MacBook and a MacBook Pro. With just those two computers, I was able to...

1. Root
2. Enable sideloading (non-market apps)
3. Apply one touch lag fix (ext2)
4. Flash back the stock rom using Odin
5. Flash I897UCJH3 rom using Odin
6. Apply GPS Log fix to the JH3 rom

4 and 5 required BootCamping into Windows XP.

Thanks.

I hope I will be able to do all of this on my mac. When I finally think I have a grasp of Android, I read something that confuses me more.
 
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I've been a Mac user since the days of System 9 (Mid 90's). Currently, I only own two computers. A MacBook and a MacBook Pro. With just those two computers, I was able to...

1. Root
2. Enable sideloading (non-market apps)
3. Apply one touch lag fix (ext2)
4. Flash back the stock rom using Odin
5. Flash I897UCJH3 rom using Odin
6. Apply GPS Log fix to the JH3 rom

4 and 5 required BootCamping into Windows XP.


I was under the impression that I could flash the stock rom using Odin without bootcamping. I must have read that wrong. I am trying to find a copy of XP to have the option of bootcamping, but no luck yet.
 
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DT - when I had "file not found" in AppBrain, it was when I couldn't view protected apps in the market. You might want to grab the market access app and try changing your market and see if that makes those apps 'visible' again. Easy fix, at least.

I had wondered about that. Funny enough, I already had the item installed, this was an update (but installed before 'black thursday' :D). I definitely still have the allow_non_market apps set correctly (it was restored from my backup).

*IF* I now have some apps that are not showing up vs. pre-restore, that sort of implies this ROM may not be 100% the same as my previous ROM, though all the versions match (I had saved my previous info).

Everything continues to be super fast. A few things like dragging a shortcut to the can, used to have a little 2-3 second lag, now it's instant. Just like when I open Smart Shortcuts, and email.

I figured I would be exactly back to the same setup, but the speed/de-lagging is pretty noticeable, and the slight weirdness with a couple of app download/updates leads me to believe I'm in a slightly different configuration.

I noted something else too: when I use GPS test, last night on the 2nd floor, I got up to 9 sats being seen (and 5-7 locks), where I thought before with my original JF6 it was always limited to 8 seen at the max[?]
 
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Cool! Thanks for the great story and write up. Good to hear some good, reliable, real life usage stories rather than the usual, "I was sitting in my bedroom last night and i got a GPS lock on 5 sats in like 15 seconds ZOMG it fixed itself!" Or the, "Oh ccrap, this battery sucks! I was watching Lady Gaga videos on you tube for 5 hours on 3g last night and my battery died like 70%!" (No offence to anyone, just being satirical ;) )
 
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Not entirely on-topic with this thread, but your steps interest/confuse me. I'm interested in simply way to perform a full backup of data and apps. Up until this thread I was under the impression that the only/standard/easiest way was Titanium Backup. But you don't appear to have used that.

So I'm confused about what step in your procedure backed up the configuration, apps and data. Part of this stems from what seems to me to be inaccurate use of "ROM" maybe (whether by you or others I'm not clear). Some of the stuff you refer to as the "ROM" talks like it includes the apps, but my understanding of what is traditionally called the "ROM" is the underlying OS firmware side, which is independent of the apps/data/config/etc.

Can you clarify and elaborate on this? Thanks. :)
 
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Not entirely on-topic with this thread, but your steps interest/confuse me.

I confuse everybody, myself included. :D


So I'm confused about what step in your procedure backed up the configuration, apps and data. Part of this stems from what seems to me to be inaccurate use of "ROM" maybe (whether by you or others I'm not clear). Some of the stuff you refer to as the "ROM" talks like it includes the apps, but my understanding of what is traditionally called the "ROM" is the underlying OS firmware side, which is independent of the apps/data/config/etc.

Can you clarify and elaborate on this? Thanks. :)

I use the word ROM, like I believe you're using it, i.e., ROM == OS (I also occasionally call it the "firmware" as it's what I consider a "fixed" or "firm" part of phone memory).

What I backed up (and subsequently restored) was the entire phone, including: 1) the ROM (as in the firmware/OS), and 2)the apps/data/configuration. I believe Titanium just convers #2 (though I'm not 100% sure about what is saves in terms of config). ROM Manager/Clockmod/Nandroid backup also handles #1 and I did that because I was concerned the speed fix might tinker around at the OS level too much and I wanted to make sure I could get back to my original, OOTB version of 2.1.

I probably could have Ti Backup'ed, and after the Odin restore to 2.1, re-rooted, re-installed Ti, and recovered, but I figured the single step flash back was simpler and all inclusive. My ROM Manager backup directory has a ~360MB data image and a ~255MB system image (plus a few other smaller images and a MD5 file for checksum validation).
 
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DT:

I read that on XDA but don't know what link 1,2 and 3 mean. Why 3 diff link? I assume u download the third one? about ~250MB?

Oh yeah, they just deployed it in different file formats: a .ZIP file, a .RAR file (which is another archive/compression format) and also a .EXE which is probably just a self extracting archive.

I grabbed the .ZIP format that was ~160MB (it unzips into ~266MB).

FYI, where the "regular" Odin is a small runtime (~400K), where you select the ROM image and a control file, the "one click" has the ROM embedded in the runtime so it's just a single file.
 
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What I backed up (and subsequently restored) was the entire phone, including: 1) the ROM (as in the firmware/OS), and 2)the apps/data/configuration. I believe Titanium just convers #2 (though I'm not 100% sure about what is saves in terms of config). ROM Manager/Clockmod/Nandroid backup also handles #1

So ROM Manager backs up the system/OS ROM as well as your apps and data? I didn't realize this. I guess I need to look into it more. Thanks for the info.

(PS: If you know of a good FAQ or thread I should be reading about this, feel free to send it my way).
 
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