[Samsung Infuse 4G] Shoraht:
Hi,

Background:

I am a retired software engineer. I worked on the windows platform and focused on the Visual Basic family of code though I was familiar with many languages from assembly to C. I am very familiar with the programming jargon but find myself at a loss when reading to posts here, so bear with me if I don’t have a complete grasp on the terminology.

My Story:

I have an AT&T Samsung Infuse with android v2.3.6 and have been very happy with it. This is my first smartphone and didn’t pay much attention to how it worked until now. I bought an irrigation controller that has an app for the phone. After installing the controller, I found out the app only runs on v3.0 or newer (mine is v2.3.6). So, here I am trying to upgrade my phone to a newer version so the app will work (trying not to buy a new phone for this). My first goal was to back up everything, so I spent a number of days reading threads here trying to understand what I needed to do. I discovered that v3.0 is a tablet only OS (not completely sure about this). I researched the different version and thought that v4.3 or v4.4 would be the final goal. This lead me to finding a path that required going through v4.0 to get there (please correct me if I have drawn the wrong conclusion on this). I could not find a way to back up the OS without stumbling on the instructions to either root the phone and/or wipe the data and cache to install something.

What I have done so far:

1). I paid to have my phone rooted. The apps I installed would not back up the entire OS and my recovery did not have an option to do that.

2).I followed [ODIN][UCLB3] AT&T 2.3.6 Gingerbread with root and CWM recovery option - Infuse 4g instructions. I was able to back up the entire rom from the red recovery.

3).Next I followed the [Firmware][ICS]UNOFFICIAL CM9 for the Infuse 4G (07/28/2012) instructions. I was now up in the v4.0.4 OS but did not have any of my applications or any of my old data.

4). I redid step 2 and restored the backup I made and was back on v2.3.6 again.

5). I installed fx w/root, Easy Back, then step 3 and got some of what I wanted but no apps. So step 4 again. I did this again with My Backup Root (MBR). I had a backup of my apps this time but they would not install in v4.0.4. So I did step 4 once more.

And yes I have been bitten by a boot loop. I did something wrong after I got it to 4.0.4 once. Not sure what it was.

Questions:

1). Is (was) there a way to back up the OS(ROM) from my vanilla v2.3.6 so I had a true representation of my original phone? Seems like a bit of a catch 22.

2). When I was on v4.0.4, I could not find settings/application to change both my USB settings and Playstore options. This caused the restore to fail because it was not from the playstore. I was able to use fx to find the backup file, select an apk file and try to restore it that way. It told me it was not a playstore app, but gave me a link to settings/Application so I could change it. Then I restored the app successfully. Then I went back to MBR and tried to restore the data for that app, it failed. Now that the Playstore option was turned off, I tried to restore from MBR. This went successfully but the restore of the Data failed because the app was not installed. I am thinking that there is a difference in the folder structure that is causing this (maybe to do with MTD). I was not able to turn on the Setting/Application/Playstore option. Where did the Settings/Application option go in v4.0.4?

3) Is there a way to backup up applications from v2.3.6 and restore them to v4.0.4 (or any 4.0 + version)? I could do it one at a time from the MBR backup but not the applications data.

4). I noticed that in v4.0.4 there was a screen after the first Samsung one that said Galaxy S. Can this be changed?

5). After the Galaxy S screen (again in v4.0.4) came a screen with a stickman and real intense flashing. Can this be changed?

6). How can I find the most stable ROM to use? is there a list of available ROMs all the way to v4.4?

I am sure I will have more questions, Thanks