• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Root Titanium Backup Pro stuck " Processing "

B

biggdogg

Well-Known Member
This is just some information from an experience I just had while trying to convert a system app to user app with Titanium Backup Pro. I wanted to convert Google + from a system app to a user app as a test as well as to possibly move the application to the extSD card . When I tapped the prompt to convert to user app TB seemed to get stuck " Processing " . I waited for about ten minutes while I Googled information on why it was taking so long and couldn't find anything pertaining to this situation. After another ten minutes of debating on weather to take my chances and back out of TB I decided to give it try . Unfortunately it wouldn't let me back out or cancel the action . I took a chance and force closed TB and rebooted the system. I then checked my devices application manager and TB and Google + was uninstalled (gone) from the system altogether . I went into the Market and installed the G+ app from the Play Store and it is now showing up as a user app with the option to uninstall but still no way to move it to the extSD card . The app works fine and the only side effect I have noticed from force closing TB while it was " Processing " is that I had to re-grant Super User permission upon opening Titatanium Backup again . After all of this trouble I basically accomplished nothing but giving myself a headache, haha. Hopefully this saves someone else a headache in the future. My next test is going to be to uninstall the G+ app from my device then try to restore it as a system app with my original Titanium Backup through the restore feature. Ill post the results as a comment here to let you guys know what happens.
Samsung Galaxy Avant , Rooted , Stock T-Mobile Rom
 

Attachments

  • 1436042197080.jpg
    1436042197080.jpg
    55.7 KB · Views: 605
Hi,

:rolleyes:

I think you learn a lot when you do a mess in your cell, I'm still learning...
566611.gif

sifflote.gif


Sorry for not be able to helping you (<==French/English?)
There is some stuff in your cell you need to play with caution.
 
Last edited:
The only way to convert user apps to system apps on the stock rom is to do it manually with a file manager like root explorer.

1 First you install the app normally.
2 Next you navigate to /data/app and copy the apk to your storage or sd card and then uninstall it.
3 After that you have to go to /system/app or /system/priv-app and find the apk file for the app you are replacing.
4 Rename the apk you just copied so that it has the exact same file name as the one already installed to your system(case sensitive).
5 Then you need to open the apk and look inside.
6 If it has a lib folder inside then extract the lib folder. Inside the lib folder you should see files with a .so file extension. If there are more folders inside the lib folder you need the libs that are in a subfolder that will be called arm armv7 or armeabi.
7 Copy the libs to /system/lib then set the permissions to rw-r--r-- for all the new lib files you just copied.
8 Next you take the apk that you copied earlier and move it to the same folder as the app you are replacing. If you do it right you will get a prompt telling you that a file with the same name already exists.
9 Select the option to overwrite the original file and then set the permissions to rw-r--r-- and then reboot your phone.
If the apk does not contain a lib folder then steps 6 and 7 are not necessary and you can skip from step 5 to step 8.
 
Masterchief87 said:
The only way to convert user apps to system apps on the stock rom is to do it manually with a file manager like root explorer.

1 First you install the app normally.
2 Next you navigate to /data/app and copy the apk to your storage or sd card and then uninstall it.
3 After that you have to go to /system/app or /system/priv-app and find the apk file for the app you are replacing.
4 Rename the apk you just copied so that it has the exact same file name as the one already installed to your system(case sensitive).
5 Then you need to open the apk and look inside.
6 If it has a lib folder inside then extract the lib folder. Inside the lib folder you should see files with a .so file extension. If there are more folders inside the lib folder you need the libs that are in a subfolder that will be called arm armv7 or armeabi.
7 Copy the libs to /system/lib then set the permissions to rw-r--r-- for all the new lib files you just copied.
8 Next you take the apk that you copied earlier and move it to the same folder as the app you are replacing. If you do it right you will get a prompt telling you that a file with the same name already exists.
9 Select the option to overwrite the original file and then set the permissions to rw-r--r-- and then reboot your phone.
If the apk does not contain a lib folder then steps 6 and 7 are not necessary and you can skip from step 5 to step 8.
Click to expand...
Thank you very much for taking the time to give me such a detailed tutorial on doing this the proper way . Will this give me the ability to move the app to the extSd card by changing the permissions or is there another process to do that ? Please correct me if I'm wrong but I think all I managed to do was uninstall the G+ system app ( which I could have just done by using the unistall option in TB ) then reinstall it as user app when I downloaded it from the Play Store . Google + does show as a user app in TB and my application manager gives me the uninstall instead of just the option to turn it off . Sorry to make something so simple sound so complicated but I like to know what I did instead of just saying "ok" and pretend I understand, Lol. Thanks again for taking the time to explain everything. Im posting a few screen shots of my app manager to show the difference in how the G+ app is now displayed and how other pre-installed system apps show up that only give you an option to turn off but not uninstall .
 

Attachments

  • 1436061342889.jpg
    1436061342889.jpg
    62.5 KB · Views: 355
  • 1436061358638.jpg
    1436061358638.jpg
    59.8 KB · Views: 338
Since there won't be an apk inside your system for Google plus I can tell you that it should be named PlusOne.apk and it goes inside /system/app. Doing this won't give you the ability to move it to the sd card because this is a feature that kitkat does not have.
Also, Google plus does contain lib files that you have to extract, just so you know.
 
Okay, thank you once again! Just one more question about the apps to extSD on KK . How come some of my user downloaded apps are able to be moved to the extSD card and others arent ? I am assuming it is something to do with how the application is coded and if so how come there isn't some kind of work around on KK ? If I am not making any sense just let me know, you know what they say about people who assume, hahaha.
 

Attachments

  • 1436062782768.jpg
    1436062782768.jpg
    53.2 KB · Views: 301
Now that I read your reply again I see that you are giving the explanation to convert from user app to system app to get G+ back to its original place as a system app. What I was trying to do was to convert system app to user app . Just wanted to clarify that just in case that would change anything .
 
biggdogg said:
Now that I read your reply again I see that you are giving the explanation to convert from user app to system app to get G+ back to its original place as a system app. What I was trying to do was to convert system app to user app . Just wanted to clarify that just in case that would change anything .
Click to expand...
Okay I guess I was mistaken about not being able to move apps to your sd card. One thing though, if you look closely you will see that when you move an app to your sd card it gets bigger. Most of the time freeing up 10mb of space on your internal memory will cost you up to 2x as much space on your sd card so it is very inefficient. About converting a system app to a user app so you can move it to your sd card, this is very inefficient also because system apps are on a separate partition and don't use your internal storage. Converting a system app to a user app then moving it to your sd card will consume more internal storage space than just leaving it where it is at and will also consume space on your sd card.
 
Also, google+ is not an app that can be converted from a system app to a user app because it has lib files that are necessary for it to function. The problem is that when the phone manufacturer added google+ to the phone's rom they didn't just extract the lib files from the apk and put them in /system/lib. They also deleted the original lib files from the apk to save space. Because of this, you would have to find these lib files which is like looking for a needle in a haystack, open the apk, make a new lib folder inside the apk, place the libs in this folder inside the apk, and then sign the apk and zipalign it.
Edit: I forgot to mention, even if you did all of this successfully, you wouldn't be able to update the app because the signature on the apk that you put back together wouldn't match with the update so you would have to delete it manually then reinstall from Google play.

Instead of converting the app to a user app, just delete it using titanium backup, then reinstall it from Google play. If by chance you don't like the material design of the new versions and want to use the version already installed to your system then just leave it as a system app.
 
Okay , Everything you explained has been very helpful and I really appreciate all of the information. I definitely understand the process a whole lot better now. You are 100 % right about the size of the app growing when it is moved to the sd card . I was wondering about that because it was something I didn't recall happening on previous versions. I think my best bet is to just restore my nandroid backup from TWRP and start from scratch. What I was attempting to do seems to be counterproductive and thankfully I did make a backup before I started screwing around with the system apps . Thanks again for the time you took to explain all of this , I really appreciate it !
 
I had one more question about the system apps if you have the time to answer I would really appreciate it. I have a lot of bloatware frozen in TB and I was going to uninstall now that it has been disabled for quite awhile and I have not encountered any negative effects. When I unistall them through TB does this erase all of the files associated with the apk or would I have to manually erase the files from the system? Thanks again for all of your help.
 
biggdogg said:
I had one more question about the system apps if you have the time to answer I would really appreciate it. I have a lot of bloatware frozen in TB and I was going to uninstall now that it has been disabled for quite awhile and I have not encountered any negative effects. When I unistall them through TB does this erase all of the files associated with the apk or would I have to manually erase the files from the system? Thanks again for all of your help.
Click to expand...
I'm inclined to think that it only deletes the apk along with the classes.dex what I usually do is freeze, clear data, then uninstall. This way you won't end up with left over bits of data taking up dead space on your internal storage. Lib files associated with the uninstalled apps will probably still be present but this isn't a big deal considering that these lib files won't take up any internal storage space.
 
*Update - I just tried restoring G+ system app and data from my backup on TB and apparently the restore option for system apps/ data on TBP is also useless on the Stock T-Mobile rom . It got hung up the same way that it did in my first post. I had to force close TB and reboot because it was stuck " Restoring " with no way to back out or cancel the action . I can still install G+ from the playstore and have a functioning user app but cannot restore the original backup from TB .

**( USB Debugging , Allow Mock Locations, Install from Unknown Sources all checked )** .

I guess a good way to get some of my storage space back will be to delete the TB backups for system apps from my system. I copied them to my PC just in case but it seems they are pretty much useless.
 
Last edited:
Okay I tried doing the app first and TB hung up again. I had to force close and reboot. It did show up as a system app in TB again so I restored the data and it restored almost instantly but now I get the message I posted in the screen shot below. I went to the playstore to see if I needed to update the app and it only gives the option to open it . When I try to open it I just keep getting the same error message. There definitely seems to be a problem with TB being able to restore system apps properly on the stock T-Mobile rom so I am going to quit wasting time trying to get it to work . Hopefully this thread serves as a warning for anyone counting on TB to be able to restore their backed up system apps . Thank you all for responding and giving me such detailed information. I apologize if for taking up so much of your time.
 
Here are the screen shots . The first one is a picture of TB hung-up trying to restore the system app , app only . Like I said the restoring the data did not hang and gave me a notification that it was successful and to reboot which I did only to encounter the error message which is in screen shot #2 .
 

Attachments

  • 1436204185445.jpg
    1436204185445.jpg
    51.3 KB · Views: 389
  • 1436204200560.jpg
    1436204200560.jpg
    38.3 KB · Views: 380
Final update, Lol . I was able to get the G+app and data restored . I used ES file explorer to go into my Titanium Backup folder and copied the G+ apk to my download folder on my ExtSD card and installed the app with my package installer . The app installed fine with no hang ups and is back on my device as a user app instead of a system app . I then went into TB and did a restore of the data only through TB restore function which worked instantly and without any problems. To make a long story short I pretty much went about the whole process wrong from the beginning. Instead of trying to convert a system app to user app through TB I should have just did a back up of the data, uninstallled the system app through TB and just downloaded the app from the playstore as a regular user app. I hope this saves someone else a headache in the future and can use the great information posted by Masterchief to expand their knowledge of the Android OS .
 
Glad you figure it out. TB is so iffy with system apps. Sometimes I have to do a clean install and then restore the data too if the first step I told you don't work.

*Maybe some can recommend another app that has no issues with system apk backup
 
Wame26 said:
Glad you figure it out. TB is so iffy with system apps. Sometimes I have to do a clean install and then restore the data too if the first step I told you don't work.

*Maybe some can recommend another app that has no issues with system apk backup
Click to expand...
It isn't titanium backup. It's Samsung with their extra security crap that they build into touchwiz. The avant is the only phone that has given me this problem and it only happens on the stock rom.
Edit: You could try the backup app built in to rom toolbox and see if it works any better.
Edit#2: It is also available as a standalone app called Ultimate Backup.
 
Masterchief87 said:
It isn't titanium backup. It's Samsung with their extra security crap that they build into touchwiz. The avant is the only phone that has given me this problem and it only happens on the stock rom.
Edit: You could try the backup app built in to rom toolbox and see if it works any better.
Edit#2: It is also available as a standalone app called Ultimate Backup.
Click to expand...
U right because I'm not having this issue when I'm on AOKP
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom