Backup & Restore Apps + Data of RESTRICTED Profile

froggydoddy · Aug 16, 2013

Ok, so my tablet wouldn't install the latest JSS15J update. So I had to manually install it. In the process, it wiped out my entire tablet. I have a main profile and a restricted secondary profile (my son's. It's my son's tablet). How do I get all the apps + data backed up (from a restricted profile) and restored (to a restricted profile)?

I've tried Titanium Backup and MyBackupPro (both root). I got close a few times, but I CANNOT get the APK's + data off a restricted profile, flash the Nexus 7 upgrade, then install APK's + data again successfully.

If I use Titanium backup while logged into the main profile, it backup up the data from the main profile only. Nothing from the restricted profiles (game saves, settings, etc.)

I've spent the day trying to get this done! I've been going back and forth between NANDROID backups, trying different things.

teh roxxorz · Aug 16, 2013

i'm not sure, as i don't use profiles.

BUT, what I can suggest for the future is:

Create a new folder on your internal and call it R Tita. Backup [for giggles], then backup your sons apps to the second folder, keep yours in the original. Just before you restore, change the backup / restore folder appropriately.

froggydoddy · Aug 16, 2013

teh roxxorz said:
i'm not sure, as i don't use profiles.

BUT, what I can suggest for the future is:

Create a new folder on your internal and call it R Tita. Backup [for giggles], then backup your sons apps to the second folder, keep yours in the original. Just before you restore, change the backup / restore folder appropriately.

I've tried that. I played around all day with it. You also can't easily move backup files from one place to the other. Then even when you do it (with Root Explorer), it still doesn't work for some reason. On top of everything else, it's hard to make backups as TB says there's no storage space left even though there's over 20GB. That's while trying to save it in all different place. Emulation 0, Emulation 10, legacy, Sdcard.... etc...

teh roxxorz · Aug 16, 2013

froggydoddy said:
I've tried that. I played around all day with it. You also can't easily move backup files from one place to the other. Then even when you do it (with Root Explorer), it still doesn't work for some reason. On top of everything else, it's hard to make backups as TB says there's no storage space left even though there's over 20GB. That's while trying to save it in all different place. Emulation 0, Emulation 10, legacy, Sdcard.... etc...

You should just do all the backups in the /storage/legacy directory.

Though I don't see any reason why TB should have issues restoring that, should work. Have you verified your backups are good within the app?

froggydoddy · Aug 16, 2013

I wasn't even able to create the backup anywhere due to that "no storage" issue. Then finally when I was able to create one somehow, I wasn't able to restore from it.

I've emailed the makers of TB to ask if they are planning on adding that functionality (backing up restricted profiles)

Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium HD app

bounti · Aug 23, 2013

froggydoddy said:
I wasn't even able to create the backup anywhere due to that "no storage" issue. Then finally when I was able to create one somehow, I wasn't able to restore from it.

I've emailed the makers of TB to ask if they are planning on adding that functionality (backing up restricted profiles)

Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium HD app

What ever came of this? I too would like to know how to backup data from a restricted profile.

The apks aren't necessary, as the primary user is the one who's allowed to installed apps anyway, but the data itself is what's important.

Did the TB team ever respond to you?

viljoviitanen · Sep 12, 2013

bounti said:
What ever came of this? I too would like to know how to backup data from a restricted profile.

The apks aren't necessary, as the primary user is the one who's allowed to installed apps anyway, but the data itself is what's important.

Did the TB team ever respond to you?

I found a way to do it. It's not very easy, I'm afraid. You need root, busybox, and pretty good familiarity with the command line (adb shell or terminal emulator on the device itself. However with this much typing, I really recommend adb shell...)

App data for other than the main user is stored at

/data/user/XX/com.the.application/

where XX is a number. My restricted user was numbered "10".

so to backup, just make a tar archive of that directory:

Code:

cd /data/user/XX
tar cf /sdcard/whatevername.tar com.the.application

to restore,

Code:

cd /data/user/XX
tar xf /sdcard/whatevername.tar

but, this probably only works for the very same user, because the file ownerships need to match.

So if it's not the same user, you need to fix the ownership of the restored files, but not the "lib" symlink.

With the games (the different angry birds...) I cared about had the folders cache, databases, files and shared_prefs. If there are other folders, you need to need to include them too (I'm not sure what folders there can be).

So to fix the ownership of all those, before extracting the backup (the tar xf command), first see who the owner is:

Code:

cd /data/user/XX
ls -ld com.the.application

it says something like

Code:

drwxr-x--x u11_a89  u11_a89           2013-09-12 23:14 com.the.application

here the u11_a89 is the important value.

Then, do the above tar xf command, and run

Code:

cd /data/user/XX/com.the.application
chown uXX_aYY:uXX_aYY .
find cache databases files shared_prefs | xargs chown uXX_aYY:uXX_aYY

Where uXX_aYY obviously is the value the ls command showed before.

By the way, this way you can also copy data from one user to another, e.g. from the main user (who can use titanium backup etc) to the restricted user or the other way around.

Sorry if I'm not very clear.. maybe someone could make a more understandable guide from this.

Disclaimer: I tried this on a rooted stock 4.3 nexus 7 (2012). But I think it's the same on any android 4.3 based device. Also, I really only did this with the angry birds games, I don't know if other apps need other tricks. (well except Bad Piggies is different, the data is /sdcard/Android/data/com.rovio.BadPiggies, and it can be copied with a file manager, without root.)

jicama · Jan 19, 2014

Thanks. Based on this I wrote a perl script to fix up all the user/group names after restoring the entire data directory; you may need to change u11 to u10 or whatever the restricted user is on your tablet.

Code:

#! /usr/bin/perl -w                                                                                            
# Script to fix ownership of data directories on restore of Android                                            
# restricted profile.                                                                                          

open (LS, "adb shell \"su -c 'ls -l /data/data'\" |") || die "Failed: $!\n";
while (<LS>) {
      (undef, $owner, $group, undef, undef, $dir) = split(' ');
      $owner =~ s/u0/u11/;
      $group =~ s/u0/u11/;
      system ("adb", "shell", "su -c \"cd data/user/11/$dir && find . \! -type l -print0 | xargs -t -0 chown $owner:$group\"");
}

lanwarrior · Feb 5, 2014

froggydoddy said:
Ok, so my tablet wouldn't install the latest JSS15J update. So I had to manually install it. In the process, it wiped out my entire tablet. I have a main profile and a restricted secondary profile (my son's. It's my son's tablet). How do I get all the apps + data backed up (from a restricted profile) and restored (to a restricted profile)?

I've tried Titanium Backup and MyBackupPro (both root). I got close a few times, but I CANNOT get the APK's + data off a restricted profile, flash the Nexus 7 upgrade, then install APK's + data again successfully.

If I use Titanium backup while logged into the main profile, it backup up the data from the main profile only. Nothing from the restricted profiles (game saves, settings, etc.)

I've spent the day trying to get this done! I've been going back and forth between NANDROID backups, trying different things.

How did you get root to work on restricted profiles? In this mode, AFAIK root doesn't work.

EDIT: Just tried creating a restricted profile and assigned rooted apps like Titanium Backup - it complained no root was found, even though the tablet is rooted.

os2baba · Feb 12, 2014

lanwarrior said:
How did you get root to work on restricted profiles? In this mode, AFAIK root doesn't work.

EDIT: Just tried creating a restricted profile and assigned rooted apps like Titanium Backup - it complained no root was found, even though the tablet is rooted.

I'm not sure if this works in a restricted user account. But to get TiB to work in a secondary user account, I had to go into the SuperUser app from the primary user account. Open the settings and select the "Wnable mult-user" checkbox. This is in Chainfire's Super User app. Not sure if other SU apps have this or not.

hondoslack · Mar 25, 2014

jicama said:

Thanks. Based on this I wrote a perl script to fix up all the user/group names after restoring the entire data directory; you may need to change u11 to u10 or whatever the restricted user is on your tablet.

Code:

#! /usr/bin/perl -w                                                                                            
# Script to fix ownership of data directories on restore of Android                                            
# restricted profile.                                                                                          

open (LS, "adb shell \"su -c 'ls -l /data/data'\" |") || die "Failed: $!\n";
while (<LS>) {
      (undef, $owner, $group, undef, undef, $dir) = split(' ');
      $owner =~ s/u0/u11/;
      $group =~ s/u0/u11/;
      system ("adb", "shell", "su -c \"cd data/user/11/$dir && find . \! -type l -print0 | xargs -t -0 chown $owner:$group\"");
}

Just wanted to say your script worked wonderfully. Thanks. Unfortunately, though, Clash of Clans still opened up as if it were a new install

. Anyway, good job!

viljoviitanen · Mar 27, 2014

hondoslack said:
Just wanted to say your script worked wonderfully. Thanks. Unfortunately, though, Clash of Clans still opened up as if it were a new install . Anyway, good job!

Perhaps Clash of Clans keeps its data on sdcard like Bad Piggies?

hondoslack · Mar 27, 2014

viljoviitanen said:
Perhaps Clash of Clans keeps its data on sdcard like Bad Piggies?

Yeah, I thought that too, but couldn't find it. I'll take another look when I get home, maybe I can find a definitive answer and post back.

quicktek · Oct 23, 2014

hondoslack said:
Yeah, I thought that too, but couldn't find it. I'll take another look when I get home, maybe I can find a definitive answer and post back.

Did you find anything on this? I'm trying to backup CoC on a restricted profile as well.

Edit: found these instructions and they worked great! http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=51352083&postcount=4

hondoslack · Oct 30, 2014

Sorry, totally forgot to reply. IIRC, those were the exact same steps I ended up stumbling upon. Glad you found a solution.

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Backup & Restore Apps + Data of RESTRICTED Profile

froggydoddy

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teh roxxorz

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froggydoddy

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