yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Miscellaneous Android Development] Nephatiu:
News to me, though. :p Anywho, I just checked the CDD and it only states a device "SHOULD" have a rear facing camera, but then it says: "if it does it MUST be at least 2 megapixels". So imho "should" and "must"' aren't the same thing.

Haven't tried it though, since BS comes with Play Store working for me and all my other devices have camera's...

Grtz,

~ Nephatiu
[Miscellaneous Android Development] Almighty2:
Should means it's a requirement and then the must part is more like the smaller details, it's like saying device should be a phone or tablet but must run atleast Android version 2.2. Like I said, most if not all devices that natively has Google Play Store access, has a camera. If you look at the HP eStation printer's tablet, it has no camera at all, it doesn't have google apps even though it runs Android 2.2, it runs on a yahoo login instead. Next time when you are in Google Play Store, doesn't matter which device as long as you use the same Google login, click on the install in an app and look at the name of the devices, you will not see BlueStacks listed but instead, it will show as seen in attached image... The other thing could be GPS as the HP eStation Zeen tablet has no GPS functionality either as it's a pretty dumb down device and even the hardware is full of bugs it seems. Ofcourse we're talking about when Android was still at 2.2, they might have relaxed the requirements.

http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/09/07/hp.zeen.tablet.gets.full.leak.sour.early.look/
[Miscellaneous Android Development] Nephatiu:
Well, I do believe you on the camera being a requirement, don't get me wrong,... But that has nothing to do with BS actually saying it's a Samsung SII. :p You could put any device name there and it would still work. (I already replaced mine.) The gapps I flashed on my Kindle Fire HD 7" see that device as a "KFTT" device, which is clearly the mark of a Kindle Fire, which has no backwards facing camera, and I don't think the frontcam is 2MP (not sure there, but it's a typical frontcam). It's also clearly marked as a frontcam only device in it's settings as seen when 3th party apps check for it. So I think the faking SII bit must be for some other reason, like maybe not bombarding Google with obvious "BlueStacks" connections or any other dark reason. :p Dunno why gapps works just fine on my Kindle Fire without backwards camera though... All I did was root it.

Grtz,

~ Nephatiu ;)
[Miscellaneous Android Development] Chakkas:
Im pretty sure thats what Bluestacks identifies itself as (a Samsung S2) because the play store doesnt accept working with phones that it doesnt know about or recognize from Google's database of certified Android phones, possibly as away to prevent non working apps from being installed on it?
[Miscellaneous Android Development] Nephatiu:
Then explain how it works for my BlueStacks identifying as "Vortex Maxi" and my Kindle Fire as "KFTT"... :p Not talking about my (A12-Winner) Yarvik tablet just identifying as "Tab". ;)

EDIT: Correction, I just checked and I even seem to have changed them further. My Kindle Fire now Identifies as "Kindle Fire HD 7"", my Bluestacks as "Vortex-Maxi BS", my Yarvik tablet "Yarvik TAB464", and my actual Samsung SII identifies as "Project 480", so... yeah... ;p

Grtz,

~ Nephatiu
[Miscellaneous Android Development] Chakkas:
I guess my theory just got mythbusted lol, but does the Play store identify them the same way [MENTION=4892503]Almighty2[/MENTION] showed in the screenshot?

I thought that device identification the Play store has is the reason it sometimes says that you cant use a particular app because its incompatible with your device. Im taking now that thats more based on what Android version you have than what device..
[Miscellaneous Android Development] Nephatiu:
Hehe, "Pics or it didn't happen"? :D Well, here you go. You'll see my devices in 2 screenshots.

And dpi, and device hardware,...

Grtz,

~ Nephatiu ;)
[Miscellaneous Android Development] Almighty2:
Actually, the device is what makes Google Play Store show what apps are available and not available because you can change the ro.build.fingerprint= string in build.prop and depending on which device you pick, Play Store will display the apps available for that device. The Kindle Fire is actually a pretty powerful device if you compare it to the HP Zeen which is a joke. I think you misundersood what I said, I never said gapps didn't work, I said Google Play either works or it requires hacking build.prop's ro.build.fingerprint= line to emulate some other device before you will either see all the apps. But one strange thing you will notice is the build.prop in BS has BlueStacks listed as the device so not even sure how Google Play Store is even seeing it as a Samsung device. gapps would work as long as the correct version of gapps is installed from regardless if Google Play Store does or not. IMHO, Google not allowing free opened access to any device is stupid since the more people that connect to it, the more there are people who will buy the paid apps but they can't buy it when they don't have access to the Google Play Store. Google Play Services would not install in BS 0.7 which was the exact same error I had with the HP Zeen while it worked fine for my devices that used 4.1.2 Jellybean so it is something it doesn't like. If you search "Google Play Services Shared User ID error", you will see people with the problem are running 2.2 or 2.3 so perhaps Google Play Services doesn't support 2.x devices or 2.x devices require a earlier version of Google Play Services since I have tried both sideloading and just copying the apk to /data/app. I had never installed or updated Google Play Services as the apk I copied in 0.7 was still in /data/app and it updated on it's own. Both Google Play Store, Google Play Services and Maps have more than one apk for the same version as it's based on the API and also the resolution is different for the different variations of the apk's.

Also, we are talking about two different things.... In your example, you can call your device "Nephatiu 1" and that's how it will show up but it's the ro.build.fingerprint= line in build.prop that makes the difference in what you see and don't see when it comes to apps, I think you are referring to ro.product.brand= and ro.product.model= which are different. In any case, look at the build.prop for BS 0.8 and you will see there is no Samsung listed anywhere. Even getting into terminal shows the GT1900 as the default. Just a guess but I remember the reason there was BS in the first place was the guys daughter wanted to play games on his Android device so he came up with putting Android on the PC and obviously, there has to be a device the guy is using as the reference device to make sure things are working, maybe the guy had a T-Mobile Samsung GT-1900? http://www.digitizd.com/2012/10/17/run-android-apps-on-windows-7-with-bluestacks/
[Miscellaneous Android Development] Nephatiu:
k, And I'm telling you I didn't need any hack to my Kindle (or Yarvik Tablet, which is a joke compared to the Kindle Fire)

Google Play Services sees BlueStacks as a 160dpi device. It does not care what model or device it is, because in that case Google Play Store would have to know every single model of every single device out there, and hold data for all of those devices worldwide,..

So you're saying it works, but it's not supposed to? I never had to edit my build.prop to get Play Store to work,... DPI yes, but device model or such? Never.

Seeing as they prevent having to pay back lot's of apps (because they were bought and didn't work) by checking hardware related stuff, I understand why they block apps from devices. Still haven't seen any "Device" blocked by Play Store, though.

Which has nothing to do with device, but rather with actual requirements to run. :p

Right, that's why we all update the same apk from hacked KitKat roms a while ago... ;p

Then how did I change it? :p

Changed that too... ;p

Could be, but then tell me why BlueStacks 0.7 still identified as "BlueStacks", and it worked as well,... (It's still even also in my devices list at Google Play Store, and that one I never edited. ;) (Means I also got Play Store to work on 0.7 as well, though... ;p)

Grtz,

~ Nephatiu
[Miscellaneous Android Development] Maurice5813:
where is ProgramData folder for windows 7? Its not mentioned in the first post, just for windows vista and xp
[Miscellaneous Android Development] Chakkas:
Same place as Vista exactly, it also applies for windows 8 too

Btw, its a hidden folder, so to view the ProgramData folder you have to enable viewing hidden folders, to do so; in Window's Explorer file manager click on organize > folder and search options, and do as so in the picture
[Miscellaneous Android Development] Chakkas:
Does anyone know where bluestacks stores the data of its apps? i was editing something in the registry earlier and deleted a few things that turned out to be for bluestacks and now it refuses to open or to reinstall (even if i uninstall it but choose to keep app data)

Only things i really wanna keep from Bluestacks before i start fresh with it are my Kik convos (if you log out of kik it nukes your prev messages) and some data i saved in Bluestack's emulated SD card. anyone? :| if its possible.. all the apps i used to have installed in it, id like to save those :/
[Miscellaneous Android Development] Nephatiu:
I thought it said "Windows Vista and higher" in the OP? ;p

Same dir as your Root.fs, in a folder named 'Data.sparsefs'...

Haven't checked how to open the sparse files, though, but iirc it's not a real directory (although it looks like one on Windows), but it's more of an fs-image as well... Don't really have the time to look it up myself right now. ;)

Grtz,

~ Nephatiu
[Miscellaneous Android Development] vn00914361:
I got this message though
[Miscellaneous Android Development] Nephatiu:
So, again, I just now removed my BlueStacks completely, rebooted, reinstalled it, replaced it with these files uploaded now and it still works, so... Maybe you could post ANY information?

- U got the last files (the update of 30 nov with the su binaries of v1.80)?

Does it come with the Nova Launcher and Root Explorer installed? (because that's the last one, if you still have the BS launcher, you have the wrong file...)

- U replaced them in the right folder?

- BS wasn't running when you did?

- Did you just update a previous install? (If you did, an older version of SuperSU may be installed in data/app, taking priority over system/app.)

I really don't know how it's possible when you have the only files changed exactly the same as me and you don't have root, while I do,...

Grtz,

~ Nephatiu
[Miscellaneous Android Development] Almighty2:
Not sure what to suggest except one of us probably has to remote into his system or something to help as you can't replace the files if BS was running as I forgot to stop BS running a few times before and it doesn't let me replace the files. So assuming he has the correct files with the Nova Launcher and he doesn't have a SuperSU apk in /data/app, then not sure what is wrong unless his file transfers has the files corrupted when he downloaded as this happened before when Microsoft had their Windows betas available which shows the file received 100% but it was a corrupted image and redownloading fixed the problem as tcp/ip doesn't have CRC checks like people did when they downloaded from BBSes directly which is probably a reason to provide a MD5 just in case.
[Miscellaneous Android Development] Nephatiu:
I'm gonna stop the whole discussion about the Play Store, since it's going nowhere and it actually doesn't matter that much, and also there seems to be some sort of loss in understanding eachother's statements, so nm... ;)

On this next thing, I do agree that MD5's may be a good addition to the uploaded files and I will add them ASAP so ppl can check they downloaded what I upped.

EDIT: And done. ;)

Haha, I still have a dial-in- & telnet-BBS running, though, with 16bit doors and everything. ;D I miss those days. ;p

Grtz,

~ Nephatiu
[Miscellaneous Android Development] EniHS:
Unfortunately it is not working for me either.

Just installed Bluestacks, closed it, downloaded the files, replaced in the right folder and there is no root access. It has Nova and root explorer, but root checker says it is not rooted and I can't open SuperSU.

Any help?
[Miscellaneous Android Development] Nephatiu:
Again, all I did was take Root.fs and the initrd.img, change them, put them back, so even when changing them, all I did to my install was replace the 2 files with my 2 files, which are in the 7z, and I have root.

But also, again: Could you give more information? Like is there a 'su' binary in '/system/xbin' ? (is there a file named 'su' in that folder (you should be able to look in that folder, even without root), and what are it's permissions, owner and group? And is it the same as the other files in that folder?)

Grtz,

~ Nephatiu
[Miscellaneous Android Development] vblues:
BlueStacks has updated their version: 0.8.3.3026
[Miscellaneous Android Development] Nephatiu:
Great, I'll do it tonight. ;)

Grtz,

~ Nephatiu
[Miscellaneous Android Development] Chakkas:
I love how Bluestacks is updating regularly and fixing its issues bit by bit :D previously it was when who knows when

Btw, for all those who arent getting root, have you considered replacing root.fs and initrd.mg while in Windows's safe mofe? i had issues trying to replace them normally so i did it in safe mode then rebooted and voila, i had root

You may have to install Bluestacks from scratch first and have a normal clean version of it first before you do that though...
[Miscellaneous Android Development] vblues:
You don't have to overwrite those files in Windows Safe mode if you kill all the BlueStacks processes.
[Miscellaneous Android Development] noxxle:
When searching for " ro ", I get two results (below). Which do I change to " rw "?

*edit*

#first:

try_mount ro $1 /mnt && [ -e /mnt/$SRC/ramdisk.img ]

[ $? -ne 0 ] && return 1

zcat /mnt/$SRC/ramdisk.img | cpio -id > /dev/null

#second:

Options: ro (read-only mount), force, remove_hiberfile, locale=,

uid=, gid=, umask=, fmask=, dmask=, streams_interface=.

Please see the details in the manual.
[Miscellaneous Android Development] Nephatiu:
Yeah, I saw that today too, that's new. I just changed both now and as I'm a perfectionist I changed 'only' to 'write' as well. :p Dunno if the second one is necessary, though...

The new version is online!

EDIT: DO NOT CHANGE THE

Options: ro (read-only mount), force, remove_hiberfile, locale=,
uid=, gid=, umask=, fmask=, dmask=, streams_interface=.
Please see the details in the manual

ONE! BlueStacks won't boot if you change the second one!. ;)

And btw:

Doesn't Windows 7 have backups of certain files while running some processes in winsxs? If it does, it could be that it runs them from that location until you reboot...

Grtz,

~ Nephatiu ;)
[Miscellaneous Android Development] draiyan:
Hi, do i need to download both files???
[Miscellaneous Android Development] Nephatiu:
No, they're mirrors of eachother. You get to choose which one and the 7z contains the 2 files. ;p

Grtz,

~ Nephatiu
[Miscellaneous Android Development] draiyan:
Thanks man!:highfive:

just last 3Qs, how can i migrate my data files from my old bluestacks? my apps, games, data.. everything. like save files from games.. this seems my biggest hurdle updating.

and i have this problem on BS(old version 0.8.0), it says my SD card isnt mounted, how will i get it mount?

lastly, do i need to install the fresh BS from the bluestacks? or i can just download ur files right away and do overwrites?
[Miscellaneous Android Development] Nephatiu:
np. ;)

I dunno, you could try saving the data.sparsefs, but I don't know how compatible it is with newer versions of BlueStacks,... I suppose it should work, but haven't tried it. I personally use BS for testing, and intentionally without anything saved on it I want to keep, so I can do clean reinstalls.

There's no mounting it in your Settings > Storage ? If not, I suppose either your BS install or your sdcard.sparsefs-files are corrupted. Try first saving the 2 sparsefs dirs, doing a clean reinstall and putting them back. If it's not solved then, it's probably corrupted anyway...

Normally it is advised to install a fresh install to use the latest updates to the framework, but I haven't tried how far back you can use Root.fs files, so it's worth a try.

I'd suggest editing your own initrd.img yourself, since you have another layout in it if it's the 0.8.0 one. ;p

Grtz,

~ Nephatiu
[Miscellaneous Android Development] draiyan:
HI, done installing. there is no google play, isn't it?
[Miscellaneous Android Development] Nephatiu:
Google Play Store comes installed with the latest BlueStacks,... It should ask you to set up your Google-account and 1-Click Sync when searching something it doesn't find, and after that you should have the Play Store activated.

Grtz,

~ Nephatiu
[Miscellaneous Android Development] draiyan:
so i need to do that before doin the root(extracting the files to programdata)?

what I did is, install fresh bluestacks. then extracted the root files right away. and restart bluestacks.
[Miscellaneous Android Development] Nephatiu:
Isn't there a Play Store button in the App Drawer? Cause normally it should be in '/data/app', which I do not provide. (My 7zip only contains everything in /system).

You could maybe try moving the Play Store's apk from '/data/app' to '/system/app' and then rebooting BlueStacks, but that's just a wild guess. ;p

Grtz,

~ Nephatiu
[Miscellaneous Android Development] draiyan:
Hi, sad to say there isnt a play store app in the drawer, in my case. I tried doing a fresh install of non rooted BS, did some setup, then i saw a play store app, then I installed/extracted the root files, after restarting the bluestacks, i cant see the play store app nor there is no setup that pop out.

there is no play store app in the data/app

i guess the only way is to push the app?

dont i need google framework systems for that?

if you could please uplaod for me the needed files.

thanks :)

for the other users, am I the only one having this problem?
[Miscellaneous Android Development] Nephatiu:
Very strange, indeed. Anywho, just download any market and put it in your data/app folder with Root Explorer, or maybe even first just try installing it the regular way, since it runs from data/app normally anyway.

Anyway, I've changed the OP and added a second set of links to a new 7zip containing not only the rooted Root.fs and initrd.img, but it also contains everything else in the BlueStacks/Android folder, except for the SDcard.sparsefs (which you can keep your own for backups and such).

These new files also contain a fully working and on boot loading Debian Linux which is accessable by just opening the provided preconfigured Terminal app. (Which isn't the one everyone uses, so you can use the popular one for regular Android-linux access, if you like. ;p)

Already installed and working on the internal BlueStacks Debian Linux are stuff like screen, irssi, sudo, andromize, (of course) aptitude,... And 'apt-get install build-essential' will get you the needed files to even compile stuff on it. ;p

Replacing all the files with the files in the second new 7zip will delete all your personal settings and apps installed at this time and you'll need to start over. You can however first use something like Titanium Backup or something alike and restore your apps and settings afterwards, since the only thing remaining yours is the virtual SDcard, Titanium should have no problems before or after replacing the files. You will need to reinstall the app of course, but all backups you make should remain. ;)

In theory, you could then use BlueStacks as a Portable Linux on x64 Windows for anything, except of course for the rooting of BlueStacks, since you're already running it then. :D

Grtz,

~ Nephatiu ;)
[Miscellaneous Android Development] Chakkas:
Ive found the solution to making backups for apps and their data when say you want do do a fresh install of Bluestacks or just want to make a backup of your apps + their data.

For this you will need a file manager (personally i recommend this https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fm.clean, however any file manager would work) and most importantly this app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.koushikdutta.backup (Helium Backup)

Get the app from the play store and let it install, when done open it, it will list all your apps, choose what apps you want to backup by marking their checkbox, when done at the very bottom it will show a checkbox saying "app data only" untick that box, because if you leave it ticked it will only backup the data of the apps but not the app itself and youll be forced to download the app manually yourself. when done with that press the button called "Backup" it will start backing up your apps+data to a folder called "carbon" on Bluestack's emulated SDCard.

Using a file manager navigate to the SDCard and copy that carbon folder to one of the shared folders Bluestacks lists so that you can have those folders on Windows (by default, Bluestacks shows you your Documents, Pictures, and Music folder of Windows in the subfolder of the SDCard called "bstfolder") , once done you should be able to see a folder called "carbon" on your computer in the folder you copied it to.

Now you may delete, uninstall, or do anything you want with Bluestacks because your apps+data are backed up. if you want to restore your data from that backup, first make sure you reinstalled Helium Backup to Bluestacks and a file manager too. With the file manager copy that "carbon" folder back to the root of the SDCard. open Helium Backup and on the top of it there will be a tab called "Restore", click on it and it should now list all the apps that you backed up previously.

Note: If you want you can also make Helium Backup make backups to your Dropbox/Box/Google Drive account instead of the SDCard if you get the premium version of it (thats what i use)

---------- Post added at 01:23 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:14 AM ----------

Also, for all those getting an issue with apps in Bluestacks opening and closing randomly, it seems to be solved by having the Google Play Services installed (cant completely confirm this though) to get the google play services you have to install an app that includes it such as the official Youtube .apk, you can get that from here http://www.androidfilehost.com/?fid=23189362627840301

Also, for all those who dont see see Bluestacks listing Google Play, then simply get the Google Play .apk from here http://www.androidfilehost.com/?fid=23252070760973351 to install it, simply double click it and Bluestacks will install it for you.
[Miscellaneous Android Development] Nephatiu:
Yeah, I've found that folder the hard way... I was deleting everything off of the internal BS SD-card and when it got to that folder, I saw my entire Documents folder go along with it. :/

And no, I don't have backups, since I'm always short of space (even with my current 5TB,... :p), so, yeah,... I'm going to curse myself for a future while now, everytime I will search for something and then remember that it was in My Documents,... Grmbl... :p

Grtz,

~ Nephatiu
[Miscellaneous Android Development] Chakkas:
Dont beat yourself up on it :P Bluestacks is a confusing thing anyways, could have happened to anyone, especially since Bluestacks's team doesnt document a thing about their own app so we have to learn the hard way to do things...

Btw, if someone wants to add their own folder to be a shared folder for Bluestacks you can do so by opening RegEdit, find HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SOFTWARE > BlueStacks > Guests > Android > SharedFolder, theres several subfolders it will show that its making available as shared ones, you can change one of the ones it lists to a custom folder of your choice and it should be available the next time you restart Bluestacks