Did you know there is no way to backup third party data

[bbaratz]

My original Pre from day 1 had to be replaced, no longer answered calls.
I had bought some apps and palm profile restored all the apps, but no data. I use pocketmirror to sync to Outlook 2003, so no problem, all my contacts, appointments and memos were all synced over perfectly.
Tealshopper, a good shopping app, I had spent a long time setting up stores, items, prices, etc. and I can't believe all that time was wasted, because palm profile does not backup third party data. In fact, with the OS, the palm rep told me there is no way to back it up at this time. Not in the clouds, not on your harddrive. Through USB, I had copied the old Pre to my computer, but that data is not copied over.
This is not acceptable. I hesitate to spend time adding data to these apps since there is no way to back them up.
What can be done to prevent this? Since Palm is so negligent to not include this basic computing premise of complete backup, we need some of the great programers on this site to come to the rescue..

[ekuns]

The short term solution on a device that is either rooted or has Preware installed on it is to locate the databases for these programs and copy them off the Pre as a backup. I'm not sure how to find this data on the Pre, but it's stored somewhere in a file. We just have to find it.

[Shadavis08]

misleading title change please!

[bbaratz]

I have no trouble getting into USB mode.
There is no access to third party app data, so it can not be backed up.
When I asked the palm tech rep if that isn't a problem, I got a moment of silence before she said, "I'm sorry."

[donm527]

hmm... didnt think about that.

so if you have a portfolio app and entered securities and transactions, it doesnt back it up?
or simple weather app where you have a few cities entered to check?
or future apps like bank of america or chase or etrade, etc... account info not saved?
all have to be set up and re-entered again?
OMG, all the work on Farm Frenzy and my high score on Tetris?!! GONE?!!

that last one would suck for me.

[bbaratz]

If you need a new Pre, it is all gone.

[Dr.Grace]

You can find out where the data files are stored, then use Internalz to copy the files to the media partition, from which they can be backed up via USB.

[bbaratz]

Originally Posted by Dr.Grace

You can find out where the data files are stored, then use Internalz to copy the files to the media partition, from which they can be backed up via USB.

Can you please write a patch or program that does this. It would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

[Dr.Grace]

Unfortunately, I don't have the skills for that. I've been saying for a long time that an enterprising developer could make some money with this.

Also, why don't developers write data to the media partition so it can be easily backed up? If it's sensitive data, you'd need encryption, but otherwise I don't see why that wouldn't work.

[bill.millett]

I'm not really sure why this is Palm's problem, if you install a 3rd party app that stores data and Palm doesn't back it up. I mean, you can't expect Palm to manage the backups for every app that is written. I would think the app developer should provide that capability, or should use a directory in accessible space.

I personally wouldn't expect that an app that I added to my phone would somehow have it's data backed up by palm.

[deafinoneear]

Originally Posted by bill.millett

I'm not really sure why this is Palm's problem, if you install a 3rd party app that stores data and Palm doesn't back it up. I mean, you can't expect Palm to manage the backups for every app that is written. I would think the app developer should provide that capability, or should use a directory in accessible space.

I personally wouldn't expect that an app that I added to my phone would somehow have it's data backed up by palm.

Well, the way I see it is that Palm hasn't built in the archetecture for app developers to have an integrated backup option. One good thing about the sandboxing of iPhone apps (and correct me if I'm wrong) is that it's all self contained within the package. Is there even a standard the Palm has set up in WebOS for the storage of 3rd party app data?

[donm527]

Found this old article...

http://www.precentral.net/good-and-n...od-palm-backup

IMO, if you (Palm) don't offer a desktop solution to backup/restore content of your phone and offer to backup apps through your profile, then you should also backup your app settings and data. they are already backing up each individual's apps... why not the data/settings? What's the point in having business software on it and you have to reload and have apps but no more data?

[Jason Robitaille]

Wanted to pop in here and mention I should have a desktop solution ready within the coming weeks (no set ETA, but now that WOSQI 2.95 is out, I'll be a high priority)

Now that I have a Pre myself (and am unable to use Palm's backup) I find myself needing local backup too

[bbaratz]

Jason,
Thanks, and I can't wait to use your backup solution. It is crazy not to have a backup solution, but what can I expect from a company that sells apps and puts a limit on the number you can download. I know they are correcting that in the next update, but why would they ignore that for so long.

[srdiamond]

God bless you Jason.... its criminal that Palm didnt have one as a standard issue....dont they use their own product??? ..Since there isnt a backup solution, there is no way the engineers havent lost data of their own ....you would think just out of pure frustration they would have created one by now

[Daemon]

Actually, there is a way, and I've been using it since day one.
If you dig around in the "Backup your Pre!" thread in the Tip/Info/Resources forum
you'll see mention of using gnutar to backup *everything* on your Pre.
It's a bit easier now than it used to be, since you can install gnutar and Terminal
from Preware.

I then just created a little shell script called fullbackup.sh with the following lines

cd /
gnutar -cvf /media/internal/bigbackup.tar / --exclude /media --exclude /sys --exclude /proc --exclude dev

When I want to do a full backup, I start terminal, and run
sh fullbackup.sh
It backs up the entire Pre from the root directory excluding the /media partition
which is already visible via USB drive and some real-time sensitive system directories.
This backup will grab the palm databases which have all your contacts/messages/etc,
email, plus all the front (app catalog) and side loaded (homebrew, etc) apps and all
their own databases. It creates the backup tar file in root of /media/internal where
you can see it from the USB drive and copy to your PC.
A look through the contents of the tar and it starts to become clear
where everything is stored on the Pre.
/var/usr/palm/applications has most of the side loaded apps themselves
/var/palm/data has some of the databases for external apps

Once you know where stuff is stored there are ways to restore it.

BTW, *some* of the external apps store their stuff in various sub directories of
/media/internal/.app_storage
which means that it is accessible from the USB drive, but you have to
make hidden files and dirs visible, as .app_storage is flagged as hidden to the PC.

Anyway, my point is, there's no point and click solution for third party data backup
and restore yet, but the actual backup part is not impossible right now.


ian

[Daemon]

Originally Posted by Jason Robitaille

Wanted to pop in here and mention I should have a desktop solution ready within the coming weeks (no set ETA, but now that WOSQI 2.95 is out, I'll be a high priority)

Now that I have a Pre myself (and am unable to use Palm's backup) I find myself needing local backup too

Are you actually planning to pull the location of the app .db files from
/var/palm/data/Databases.db and grab all the relevant .db files
for each app out of each
/var/palm/data/<app subdir>
and
/media/internal/.app_storage/<app subdir>
?

Or just snag everything at once from /var/palm/data and
/media/internal/.app_storage ?

Keep in mind that /var/palm/data/Database.db and the subdirs
are only a snapshot of the phone at a particular time. If you
clear the phone and start installing new apps in any order
different from the last time, the names of all the db files will change.
What was db #3 may now be db #8 and thus in a differently named db file.
There are ways to restore and rename by hand, but it'll take some work to
make it automated.

ian

[abegee]

I hope I'm not missing something here but there are 2 points that some people have been missing which I think will, make this issue a non issue.
point 1
as of 1.3.1 the usb partition does not get deleted when using webos doctor.
point 2
as of (yet to be released) 1.3.5 apps will be installed into the usb partition.

hopefully that means that
1.) if you doctor your phone, your apps will not lose their data, since they will be in the usb partition.
2.) if you backup your usb partition and restore it to a new phone, the new phone will see all your apps and app data in the usb partition.

please correct me if I'm wrong.

[Daemon]

The short answer is "Maybe".

The long answer:
The app data is not currently stored in the same place as the app installation
directories (which are generally the root of the space problem).
The apps go in /var/usr/palm/applications and /usr/palm/applications
and presumably they'll all now go somewhere under /media/internal in 1.3.5
However, the data for apps currently resides in either
/var/palm/data
or /media/internal/.app-storage or both (for instance Fliq Notes has dbs
in sub directories of both locations) and there's no way to know if the
former will move.

Also, the plan (as we've heard so far) is to encrypt the application
directories as soon as the Pre is put into USB mode, so that
individual apps cannot be copied easily. That may rule out the possibility
of simply copying any or all of the apps off the USB drive, and even
if you did, there's no guarantee that you could restore to a new
Pre and that the encryption key would be the same.
There's also no way to know right now if the app data will likewise
be encrypted or not.
Even if the data is directly accessible, what I said a post above, about the way
there's a database that points at all the other databases will be a problem.

My guess is that any complete backup solution following 1.3.5 will
still require something that runs under linux (scripts, a service, etc)
and not just a simple WebOS app, or copying to/from USB drive.

ian

[Calvin]

Originally Posted by Jason Robitaille

Wanted to pop in here and mention I should have a desktop solution ready within the coming weeks (no set ETA, but now that WOSQI 2.95 is out, I'll be a high priority)

Now that I have a Pre myself (and am unable to use Palm's backup) I find myself needing local backup too

If you make this as simple and nice as your other java apps, I hope you're planning on taking money for this. Since day 1, I've thought a backup/restore solution would make someone some good bucks.