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Root TWRP, Lollipop and the Nexus 5

Hook

Hook

Ever since DU... ;-)
Once again, I have been occupied heavily elsewhere for about a week and I may have missed something about this in the many Lollipop threads. However, this threw me for a while until I got it researched, so I thought I would post this for fellow noobs.

When you create a Nandroid Backup in Lollipop using TWRP 2.8.1.0, you will see it on the restore list, but when you reboot, neither Root Explorer nor Windows Explorer sees a TWRP folder in Internal Storage. This was concerning since I want these files on internal memory and I want to be able to copy them to my PC or delete them when they are OBE.

Turns out that they are stored at /data/media/0/TWRP. Which appears to be another symlink to the Internal Storage, but apparently one that has peculiar properties. You can see this folder in Root Explorer as if it were in phone memory, but you can't see it if you are connected to a Windows computer with Windows Explorer.

The magic trick turns out to be that you have to boot into TWRP and then plug the Nexus 5 into your Windows computer, at which point the MTP connection with TWRP will make that folder accessible in Windows Explorer.

I'm sure somewhere around the webs the TWRP people have explained it, but I couldn't find it other than references to TWRP having MTP mounting capabilities (which was the clue that sent me in the right direction). Once you know how it works, it's fine, but it wasn't something that was obvious to me.

Hope this saves some folks some time. Sorry if this is something I should have known and everyone is rolling their eyes at me. ;-)
 
TWRP thread on XDA has a lot of info on this. I think it was fixed with the latest build (2.8.2.0) but that build is broken for a lot of people - me included. Just reboots into system when you try to enter recovery.
 
GrenW said:
TWRP thread on XDA has a lot of info on this. I think it was fixed with the latest build (2.8.2.0) but that build is broken for a lot of people - me included. Just reboots into system when you try to enter recovery.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I noticed that, which is why I didn't go to 2.8.2.0. I should have added that warning, so thanks. :)
 
Had this problem at first and somehow fixed it along the way doing my normal troubleshooting. Thanks for the info!
 
Nice post Hook!
I also had this problem when I was trying to access the TWRP backup. Through Root Browser and on my PC.
I then to found that it was available in TWRP for a backup and the found that I could use the MTP mode in TWRP to transfer the file to my PC.
Interestingly after using TWRP MTP mode the file was available and I had full access through Root Browser, but is was accessible in /SDcard/TWRP/backups/
Along with my last DU backup.
I'll have to check and see if it's also in /data/media/0/TWRP/
Just in case it's taking up additional storage on the device.
Seems like I looked in /data/media/ for it too, but it wasn't there.

Edit:
Guess that is technically the same file path /data/media/0/ takes you to the SD card parent folder so it is in there.
 
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You are right, after accessing with MTP in TWRP, it does show up in Root Browser on the normal SDCARD path again. It's as if connecting in TWRP allows Root Browser to translate the symlink. Odd. But once you figure it all out, it's fine.
 
Open a terminal emulator on your Nexus and run the 2 lines below to fix this issue.

su
restorecon -FR /data/media/0/

or

su
restorecon -FR /data/media/0

Will now show TWRP backup folder in both Storage and data/media/o with Root Explorer, MTP internal storage and so on. Is a thing with SELinux.
 
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