Root Possible to restore sms/text messages?

[theonewho]

I flashed a rom which of course erases all of the text messages and stuff like that, but I did make the nandroid backup first. My dumb ass forgot to back those up to the sd card first Is it possible to get those text messages from the cwm backup or am I boned? Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[dsmryder]

I flashed a rom which of course erases all of the text messages and stuff like that, but I did make the nandroid backup first. My dumb ass forgot to back those up to the sd card first Is it possible to get those text messages from the cwm backup or am I boned? Thanks in advance for any help.

You could restore you nandroid backup and use an SMS backup tool. And I think there is a way to pull the messages from the backup. I'm going to look as I have a failed backup for a while and would like to restore them.

EDIT: Found a method, testing it out.

 

[theonewho]

Thanks for the reply dsmryder. I finally hit on a good combination of words for a search and I see that it should be possible without doing a whole restore and then reflash. I was going to use AppExtractor to do it, but I see that cm7 (which is what the rom I flashed uses) has the sms db in a different location than stock. So I think I just need to figure out where cm7 looks for them? I'll keep researching

I didn't mention that it was someone else's phone that I was flashing so I won't be able to even do this until next week as I won't see them over the weekend. I was really hoping that AppExtractor would work because it's so easy they could have easily done it themselves. Anyone know of an alternative that can do this from Stock rom to a CM7 rom?

 

[dsmryder]

Thanks for the reply dsmryder. I finally hit on a good combination of words for a search and I see that it should be possible without doing a whole restore and then reflash. I was going to use AppExtractor to do it, but I see that cm7 (which is what the rom I flashed uses) has the sms db in a different location than stock. So I think I just need to figure out where cm7 looks for them? I'll keep researching

I didn't mention that it was someone else's phone that I was flashing so I won't be able to even do this until next week as I won't see them over the weekend. I was really hoping that AppExtractor would work because it's so easy they could have easily done it themselves. Anyone know of an alternative that can do this from Stock rom to a CM7 rom?

Well this is the thing I found
The only differance is is our nandroid backups are in .tar for and thus don't need to be extracted this way. If you have WinRAR you can just open up the backup and extract the databases. Heck, you could do it on the phone through a TE or certain apps that will open a tarball. I didn't even think when I read through the post on xda.

Just extract mmssms.db, mmssms.db-shm, mmssms.db-wal and be done.

 

[theonewho]

Well this is the thing I found
The only differance is is our nandroid backups are in .tar for and thus don't need to be extracted this way. If you have WinRAR you can just open up the backup and extract the databases. Heck, you could do it on the phone through a TE or certain apps that will open a tarball. I didn't even think when I read through the post on xda.

Just extract mmssms.db, mmssms.db-shm, mmssms.db-wal and be done.

Yea, that's where I'm at right now. I just need to find out the correct location of the files in CM7. Easy enough if I had the phone in hand lol! The person that owns the phone isn't technically inclined so they're going to have to wait for me to do it. Having the names of the files I need to extract are a big help. Thanks again dmsryder!

I see in the link provided that they were using CM7 and gave the correct path. BONUS! Thanks a million :-D

 

[dsmryder]

Yea, that's where I'm at right now. I just need to find out the correct location of the files in CM7. Easy enough if I had the phone in hand lol! The person that owns the phone isn't technically inclined so they're going to have to wait for me to do it. Having the names of the files I need to extract are a big help. Thanks again dmsryder!

I see in the link provided that they were using CM7 and gave the correct path. BONUS! Thanks a million :-D

When I did it I had to fix the permissions and ownership manually. Keep that in mind

 

[theonewho]

Thanks for the heads up. Do you know off the top of your head what the permissions need to be at? If not I'll just look at the current ones and make them match when I put the backup files in place.

 

[dsmryder]

Thanks for the heads up. Do you know off the top of your head what the permissions need to be at? If not I'll just look at the current ones and make them match when I put the backup files in place.

That's what I did. And for the ownership, I looked at it. It should be radio. When you copy it over it's set to root. You don't seem to have to worry about the group which is also radio

 

[theonewho]

Sorry to bother you again, but I have a potential problem. When I go to the backup folder, I open the data.ext4.tar file, go to data\data\com.android.providers.telephony\databases. All I see in there is mmssms.db and telephony.db. Where would I find the mmssms.db-shm and mmssms.db-wal files? I didn't see any errors when I made the backup so I hope that I didn't do something wrong.

Also, what's up with the app_parts folder? is this needed for anything?

 

[GKNByNW]

I think perhaps the easiest method would be:

1. Make a nandroid backup of your current ROM
2. Restore your previous backup
3. Install SMS Backup & Restore
4. Backup your messages (NOTE: There are currently NO apps that I have found that will backup MMS messages, only SMS)
5. Restore the nandroid backup of your current OS
6. Restore the backed up SMS messages

It sounds tedious but it's actually not at all. I make both an SMS backup and a nandroid at least twice a week. The great thing about SMS Backup & Restore is that it saves your messages in XML format on your SD card. If you are being harassed (as is the case with me) you can open the backup in your PC's browser and print out hard copies of everything

 

[dsmryder]

Sorry to bother you again, but I have a potential problem. When I go to the backup folder, I open the data.ext4.tar file, go to data\data\com.android.providers.telephony\databases. All I see in there is mmssms.db and telephony.db. Where would I find the mmssms.db-shm and mmssms.db-wal files? I didn't see any errors when I made the backup so I hope that I didn't do something wrong.

Also, what's up with the app_parts folder? is this needed for anything?

I think it might depend on whether you have MMS and what not.

I think perhaps the easiest method would be:

1. Make a nandroid backup of your current ROM
2. Restore your previous backup
3. Install SMS Backup & Restore
4. Backup your messages (NOTE: There are currently NO apps that I have found that will backup MMS messages, only SMS)
5. Restore the nandroid backup of your current OS
6. Restore the backed up SMS messages

It sounds tedious but it's actually not at all. I make both an SMS backup and a nandroid at least twice a week. The great thing about SMS Backup & Restore is that it saves your messages in XML format on your SD card. If you are being harassed (as is the case with me) you can open the backup in your PC's browser and print out hard copies of everything

It was on some one else's phone.

 

[theonewho]

Would the nandroid backup have mms messages saved in it? I think I'm going to try this tonight so I'm trying to gather as much info as possible.

 

[bob-st]

Sorry but I'm a little late o the party.

If I understand the OP correctly he wants to retrieve SMS and MMS messages from a nandroid backup. I do this every time I flash a new ROM using AppExtractor (I m currently using v2.0 Beta).

This is a great app that lets you restore sms, mms and apps directly from your backup.

 

[theonewho]

Sorry but I'm a little late o the party.

If I understand the OP correctly he wants to retrieve SMS and MMS messages from a nandroid backup. I do this every time I flash a new ROM using AppExtractor (I m currently using v2.0 Beta).

This is a great app that lets you restore sms, mms and apps directly from your backup.

I tried the 2.0 beta of AppExtractor and it didn't work. Apparently it can't do it if going from a stock rom to CyanogenMod. I didn't have the time to do a reflash of the nandroid backup to backup the messages yet but I'm afraid that's what I'm going to have to do. Unless you have any idea how to make it work from stock to cm7 bob-st?

 

[dsmryder]

I tried the 2.0 beta of AppExtractor and it didn't work. Apparently it can't do it if going from a stock rom to CyanogenMod. I didn't have the time to do a reflash of the nandroid backup to backup the messages yet but I'm afraid that's what I'm going to have to do. Unless you have any idea how to make it work from stock to cm7 bob-st?

I have one, assuming the backup isn't corrupted.
You could load a stock ROM, then use the pulled text data to restore the messages. From there, still assuming the GB and FroYo ROMs do texting differently, use SMS backup and restore. And finally, restore to the GB ROM.

 

[theonewho]

I'm going to try the restore from nandroid>save sms messages>flash new rom method I think. I didn't have time to do it tonight and probably won't have time tomorrow. Thanks for your guys' help so far. I'll try up update when I finally get a resolution to this.

 

[bob-st]

I tried the 2.0 beta of AppExtractor and it didn't work. Apparently it can't do it if going from a stock rom to CyanogenMod. I didn't have the time to do a reflash of the nandroid backup to backup the messages yet but I'm afraid that's what I'm going to have to do. Unless you have any idea how to make it work from stock to cm7 bob-st?

I haven't been on stock for more than a year so I can't comment on that... Don't know why it wouldn't work though.

As stated above, there are several ways to backup your messages, but the AppExtractor has always worked for me. And since I ALWAYS make a nandroid backup before I flash, my messages and apps are easily restored.

 

[theonewho]

This is weird. I went ahead and installed cm7 on my phone (Samsung Galaxy Prevail) and used AppExtractor to successfully restore sms messages from one of my own cmw backups. I wonder why it didn't work on the Triumph...maybe bad backup?

[Edit]

I think I know what's going on here guys. The whole reason we flashed from stock was because of the stupid alog file and the person kept having to delete messages and uninstall apps or new messages wouldn't come through. Seeing as how the process (with AppExtractor 2.0 Beta) worked fine with my phone after going to cm7, I'm going to have to assume it worked with the Triumph as well. After trying to restore and seeing there were no messages in the messenger app I just thought it didn't work lol.

Thanks again to everyone for being so patient and helping me with this. There is another issue the person has mentioned with cm7 on the Triumph, but it doesn't fit in this thread. If I can't find the answer on my own I'll be posting in the Triumph forums again

 

[GKNByNW]

I wonder why it didn't work on the Triumph...maybe bad backup?

Do you know what recovery you were running on the Triumph? I just learned the hard way that AppExtractor will only restore SMS/MMS messages from backups made under CWM 5. I have been running b_randon's CWM 6.0.1.5 and I've been scratching my head trying to figure out why AppExtractor wasn't working. Come to find out (through my own experimentation and through a little in-depth reading) that AppExtractor does not work with Nandroids made from CWM 6.

I use CWM 6 as my "daily" recovery, but I also keep the factory recovery image and CWM 5 on my phone so that it's a simple matter of renaming a couple files while in Download Mode and then I've switched recoveries.

 

[dsmryder]

if you sms restore in you phone or phone memory, you may have the opportunities to retrieve them. But it is not sure because the data may switch sometimes.

I'm sorry, could you elaborate? Are you talking about using SMS backup and restore or the manual way?

 

[jr9306]

Has anyone mentioned Titanium Backup? It's what I use to back up almost anything. Since most people should already have that app on their phone (at least I think so), it saves you from having to download another app like SMS Backup & Restore.

 

[dsmryder]

Has anyone mentioned Titanium Backup? It's what I use to back up almost anything. Since most people should already have that app on their phone (at least I think so), it saves you from having to download another app like SMS Backup & Restore.

I didn't know that TiBU did that.

 

[klownprince420]

Has anyone mentioned Titanium Backup? It's what I use to back up almost anything. Since most people should already have that app on their phone (at least I think so), it saves you from having to download another app like SMS Backup & Restore.

I just use nandroid manager it allows u to merge or overwrite texts from your nandroid

 

[thangfish]

I didn't know that TiBU did that.

It can back up texts (and Bluetooth, Wi-Fi etc) as an .xml file that can be restored across Roms.

 

[GKNByNW]

I didn't know that TiBU did that.

I didn't realize this until recently myself. As I stated in my previous post, your Nandroid has to be made with CWM 5 for AppExtractor to restore your SMS/MMS messages. I am *guessing* the same applies to using TiBU for restoring messages from Nandroid backups because I have had zero luck trying to extract messages from my Nandroids (I run b_randon's CWM v6.x.x.x)

The easy solution that I have found is this: Before switching from one ROM to another, use TiBU to make a backup of your Messages, and whatever apps/data you may wish to save. Once you have your new ROM up and running, and TiBU re-installed, it's a simple matter of restoring your messages from the backup. Just to let you all know, the backup runs quickly but restoring the messages can be VERY slow if you have a large number of messages. The tradeoff for this slow speed is that TiBU will restore ALL of your messages, including MMS

I hope somebody finds this information helpful.