yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Android Apps and Games] DiamondJohn:
Doesn't that solve the whole problem by itself? in addition to deleting the ones already synched.

In case you didnt see, he has a thread here on XDA.

You could of used TeMeFI's dynamic SQL to do that, but you wouldn't of been able to restore it from TeMeFI. Personally, when making these type of backups, I additionally grab the actual dB as a secondary backup.

I remember when i did it to the app I saw, they had hidden it a little in a couple of steps deep. But as you have found, I would also believe that system apps would probably not have a UI for network access control. I was planning on finding the shell command to do it to add to TeMeFI, but I only needed to do a couple of apps; literally just two. All others need internet access. for something.

i have not checked, but inspecting the contacts in the local dB, it may actually still have a field that flags whether to copy the contact up to the google server. IDK in this case, But I have seen many features that I have only been able to modify by directly editing the sqlite databases.

Ummmm.... you actually did do some surgery, just using the UI's
[Android Apps and Games] HippoMan:
It solves the majority of the problem, but I also want to be able to save and restore contacts, and the current Contacts app was letting me do that. By disabling that app, I needed an alternate way to perform this saving and restoring ... which, as you can see, I came up with.

Yes, that's how I discovered True Phone. I first tried it a while ago and had it on my phone for a long time. But I never used it as the official "contacts" app until now.

That's a good idea. In addition to what I have already come up with, I too will take a secondary backup of the sqlite database itself.

If I ever stumble across such an app, I'll let you know.

I will check that a little later, and again, I'll let you know.

Yes. I just didn't need to do micro-surgery using the TeMeFI precision tools this time.

And thank you for all that you shared!
[Android Apps and Games] DiamondJohn:
There are numerous apps that backup/restore contacts (calls & sms) from the stock contacts app, that work if your not connected to the net. ie it works from the local dB's, so that would also be already covered.

I personally also get the SMS & call history backed up as well. Sometimes I dont save off the contacts attached to an unknown call or SMS (eg tradesmen), but know what/who sent the SMS and may need their number. Useful when clean flashing a ROM.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. tOmato tomAto :sneaky:
[Android Apps and Games] pocketrule:
A bit off-topic, but as "we" have this problem now and I'm interested in it, too, I want to share my experience:

I'm using MyLocalAccount from FJ Softwaredevelopment. This app creates a local account for contacts, which are visible in every app which has access to contacts. Backup and restore is possible in the "stock" contacts app, at least there are corresponding entries in the settings.

But I make Backups with MyPhoneExplorer Client, a companion app which synchronizes not only contacts, but also text messages and (local!) calendar. ("Synchronization" of text messages is restricted to only Backup).

I'm running LineageOS 18 (Android 11), and maybe above A11 or on other devices this may not work as smooth as for me, but that would depend on a trial.
[Android Apps and Games] nickelnine:
Download site down?
[Android Apps and Games] DiamondJohn:
@nickelnine please reduce the above screenshot to a thumbnail
[Android Apps and Games] DiamondJohn:
and there is something wrong at your end. I just checked in multiple browsers inc TOR, and they worked.
[Android Apps and Games] HippoMan:
Aha! When I originally asked about an alternate Contacts Provider service, something like MyLocalAccount is pretty much what I had in mind.

Even though I've now come up with a way to manage local contacts the way I want, I'm definitely going to check out MyLocalAccount.

Thank you!

UPDATE: I was able to install MyLocalAccount. It's around 10 years old, and the play store says it's for an earlier Android release and won't let me install it, but I found it on a 3rd-party download site. It nonetheless seems to work on my Android 11 device.

I don't need it now because of the way I managed to deal with device-only contacts (described above), but I'm gladly keeping it on my device anyway, in case I end up wanting to use it in the future.
[Android Apps and Games] HippoMan:
My recent search in the play store for an app that they told me I can't download due to its being too old for my device's OS is prompting me to ask a new question here:

I know how there are facilities offered by TeMeFI which give us some capabilitities to override the way that the play store interacts with our devices. I'm wondering: is there any way I can use TeMeFI to temporarily make the play store "think" that my device is running an older Android version, so I can download an ancient APK that they are still offering?

Concerning the APK I that mentioned: I was able to find it on some third-party download sites, and I installed it and it seems to work for me, despite the fact that it was written for an older OS version than my current Android 11 OS, and despite the fact that Google prevented me from downloading and installing it due to the earlier Android version for which it was written.

I really don't like the way that Google keeps "enhancing" (ha ha!) Android to (allegedly) better protect us from ourselves, and I wish that I could totally eliminate this "protection". I take responsibility for my own software protection and security, and I'm not going to go whining to Google if I download some software which ends up giving me problems on my device.

Anyway, what I'd like to do is ...

(1) ... temporarily make my device look like it's running an older OS version from play store's perspective;

(2) ... thereby be able to see and download older APK's in the play store that they otherwise are preventing me from accessing;

(3) ... install one or more of these older APK's;

(4) ... restore my device to its original state, whereby the play store once again can see that I'm actually running Android 11.

Is there any way that TeMeFI could help me achieve this goal?

Thank you in advance for any thoughts and suggestions.
[Android Apps and Games] DiamondJohn:
There is not a specific method in TeMeFI for that. But, it has multiple methods that may help you see what needs to be done.

I personally would look into the Magisk modules used to fool banking apps, they may be able to fool the playstore regarding what version of Android is running. Don't forget, it may also be a region thing. There are more than one reasons a dev can block you from installation, and the playstore may just report the first or what it deems as major.

My first check would be the many version & rom version & name references in your build prop file. I think that may even be how Magisk also fools other apps. IDK never looked.

The last method I would try is inserting a record within the vending db to try and fool the playstore that it is already or previously had been installed on your phone, which *may* trick it into letting you re-install it. There's a LOOOOT of steps for this, so Im not typing a novel & going into detail. I think on one of my oooold spare devices, it didnt let me clean install an app, but i *think* I received an update; an old APK was installed. Which is different to what I suggest above.

I actually have a few apps that are no longer on the playstore, including ones I paid for. I have saved off the APK in backups, and also modified some to run on newer android. I have one paid for live wallpaper, which it takes a couple goes of trying to configure it, as I have to turn off a feature (not supported in newer android) quickly, before it dies. Another old one, I have modified to get around the new scoped storage issue brought in, in newer android versions. And of course as I mentioned, there are apps that still work for me, but are removed completely from the playstore. i.e. maybe a manual install of a working APK is the solution, with rare manual updates, since its working. Thats been my path for apps that are gone. That used to be one of my detach purposes, as the newer version had bugs. Now, that one is no longer on the playstore, so no reason to detach it.
[Android Apps and Games] rodken:
Which program are you utilizing to modify your oldies but goodies?
[Android Apps and Games] DiamondJohn:
Are you talking about the APK's? If so, then multiple tools. I did it a few years ago, but from memory, 7-ZIP to extract, notepad++ to edit XML etc, Paint.net to edit image resources (the main change as it used to load themes from a now un-approved location), 7-zip to re-compress & something (nothing fancy) to re-sign it. Oh, and TeMeFI to block updates over my modded APK. Its really only one APK modified from memory, but it covers nearly all the widgets on my home screen (everything below the 5day weather forecast and above the 4 folders (each containing sub folders, widgets and apps galore) of Start, Applications, "Tools" & "Navigation". 4 rows having a single widget with 5 sub-widgets in each row, not 20 individual widgets, but also a few rotated 1x1 widget without icons overlayed showing items such as wifi signal strength as %, screen on0time %, batt6ery time since last charge etc etc (thats a launcher feature) The icons without a mod where monochrome blue, basic & UGLY!

NB: the planet in the background spins & orbit's the sun, and you fly around the solar system visiting each planet and viewing the sun & other planets from its perspective. I LOVE this wallpaper, and it has freaked a few people out when they see it live. I have used it since Gingerbread, but its no longer on the market.

I am a little fond of my setup, and maybe a little proud, and have only added rows to the above setup as the screens get bigger with higher res. I had a similar (but smaller) look back on my first android, a gingerbread device. Oh, the CPU temp is borked (3700C) on my Pixel4a as it doesnt have a CPU temp sensor, but the reading it does get is also out by x100.

EDIT: PS, the scoped storage issue blocked the widget from using downloaded themes, and hence you could only use the in APK widget images, that were ugly as sin. I made a copy of all the themes, and added/ modified one and then put those into the APK as the default (no scoped storage read issue)
[Android Apps and Games] HippoMan:
I'm sorry for my late reply. I totally understand and respect and support that you wouldn't want to post a novel here, and I very much appreciate that you still went to the trouble of writing this short story.

I will look for appropriate Magisk modules, as you suggested.

Also, do you or anyone happen to know where is a likely place to find the vendor DB on an Android 11 device? I haven't been able to locate it on my device yet, but I'll keep on searching.

Thank you!
[Android Apps and Games] evildog1:
I got an error trying to detach Youtube

Failed in the preperation while looking for com.google.android.youtube. Do you have ANY apps detached?

I tried reflashing my phone entirely (because my phone had strange issues), the issue did not solve. Maybe because issue with Magisk? Previously I was on 25.2, now i'm on 26.1

My phone is Moto 5G Plus running Android 11
[Android Apps and Games] DiamondJohn:
"I got an error" doesn't help either of us. Save off the results (the pencil icon in the right most position of the fly-out menu), zip them up and attach to a post or PM me with the results. "an error" could be anything, so its the same as asking "how log is a piece of string".

As An FYI, my daily has been a Pixel 4A 4G running A11 for over a year. As for Magisk, if it gets root, then that should be all my dealings with Magisk when detaching. You wouldn't have the menu option to detach, if you did not get root.
[Android Apps and Games] evildog1:
In the log file, it says:

Failed in the preperation

while looking for com.google.android.projection.gearhead.

Do you have ANY apps detached?

exactly what I have mentioned before. That's pretty much all. It happens on all apps I never detached before. I'm using 1.1.19

I have also attached logcat, see if you can find anything useful or not

Also I already switched to a Magisk module that works perfectly
[Android Apps and Games] DiamondJohn:
you appear to be mixing detach methods. They are not compatible/interchangeable. Detaching using one method (ie provider/developer) does not mean its detached in another method/app. Its not some standard setting/feature within android. When it asks "do you have any apps detached", what it is asking is, "do you have any apps detached BY TeMeFI" And when you say "it happens on apps I never detached before", for starters, then it is working perfectly as it has noted that "nothing is detached". You have to have a least one app detached to run any report of/on detached apps.

Your first attachment is for the CHECK within TeMeFI, which will only work for apps detached using TeMeFI; of which, its telling you that you have none. It is NOT the output from trying to detach YouTube as you first reported.

And since you are not using TeMeFI, then a logcat (second attachment) of "not using TeMeFI" is of no use. If you search the logcat you provided for "TeMeFI", there isn't even a single line.
[Android Apps and Games] evildog1:
So it turns out I have been tapping on wrong option all time. I guess because my english is not my native language 😂. Nevermind then
[Android Apps and Games] DiamondJohn:
Holly crap!

Its been quiet on the thread, so I have not prioritised the next release over other things to do, thinking it wasnt being installed much. I use a link shortner for the download just to give me an idea how many downloads have happened, and only a count. When I was away late last year my login expired and I forgot which of my dummy accounts I used to create the links. Out of interest, I thought I would have a look, I was shocked to see it was over 5000! on only the last version. Sure some would be uninstalls. Maybe it is time to finalise the next release. Although not many new methods / menu items, it has a BIG change in that it keeps a configurable viewable history of every run (results stored below a configurable size and are searchable [huge useability benefit] and are compressible; but not both ;)). I have also moved favorite's into this history dev, so that also gets an upgrade in many ways. I have delayed it as there a small number of tiny bugs that are more than livable for me, and I am getting all the benefits of these new feature's. I really like the new history. I just did not want to release it without fixing those small bugs. Its fine for me, but not good for a release.
[Android Apps and Games] HippoMan:
As for me, I am gladly willing to wait until the small bugs are resolved.

Something worth having is worth waiting for.
[Android Apps and Games] rhetorician:
I stumbled across this app a few months back and have played around with it a little bit here and there but I just know that I'm not in any way aware of its potential. So, I was curious if some of you would share your experience. Specifically, what is your favorite features and/or uses? Wha do you use this app to accomplish most often?

Thanks in advance!
[Android Apps and Games] DiamondJohn:
One of the features which I use heavily are the Favorites. The Favorites allow quick access to methods you have used before, and wish to use on a regular basis, but are deep with the menu and/or require a few options to get to your standard report. So you dont have to navigate through the deep menu to get to it and the unrelated locations between items.

These are basically the ones I run on a possible daily basis, and some are very specific to my personal phone configuration and even boot & utility scripts. But apart from these there are many that I run on an ad-hoc basis beyond this list. But because there are just soooo many methods and so many individual user needs, it really is a personal case of what you find useful.; and hence the favourites feature Some will end up being only a run-once, and then you'll forget you ever ran it. For example, whenever I set up my phone (flash new rom, change device or crash), I run the App Hibernate, clear, freeze, hide on all the bloat, especially since I am running a pixel device. where google bulk it up with features to demonstrate everything possible under the sum in android. I do run the report of what I have debloated and save it off & transfer to PC, to make sure I dont miss anything on my next rebuild. PS The thick menu breaks are me testing, and the numbers at the end are specific to the next release, and the names you see are my renaming of the Method & options selected.

If you wish to get some idea and have the time & commitment, you can run the full menu report under TeMeFI Configuration>Show Whole Menu. Or you can run the about screen and get a cheezy dad joke ;)
[Android Apps and Games] DiamondJohn:
Since its been so long, and Im in a busy time to get to the niggling issues, I was also tossing up the idea of releasing an ALPHA build. NB: To me, BETA builds are release candidates whereas ALPHA builds have known bugs. And the bugs in the current build are not damaging , they are purely UI niggles which at worst require a restart but I normally have to just click the home button to rebuild/reset the menu. And I dont see structural changes to the run history, just UI bugs fixed, so whatever I do now doesn't require a fix of anything I have run before. Thing to note, i personally run this build as my daily and have never reverted to the previous stable release. This new Run History is pretty good for heavy users eg ME. So, many times I used to run some random method and then a few days later realise how I could use the feature or info, but forgotten where the heck it was. Now I can see it in the history or even search the historic runs for something that references it, even If I didnt realise it at the time that specific report had that info. Great to understand what info is available in some reports that are just reams of data. When I first built it and tested it with almost unlimited history (i got up to about 3GB of history >1000 reports), i was running all the reporting features without any thought and then used the history search to get an understanding of which features referenced that item.
[Android Apps and Games] DiamondJohn:
Just an FYI, more for me and to stop from having too many random files on my personal disk, I thought i'd share this little analysis of weekly downloads of the last version of TeMeFI.

The dip in the center is because I grouped by the numerical week of the year, and over new years, it broke on a partial week.
[Android Apps and Games] pocketrule:
Wow, that's a lot. Is it possible to add timestamps?
[Android Apps and Games] DiamondJohn:
The source data only has the date. AND, I realise anytime playing with stats is time that could of been spent on finishing the build.

Attached is the source data, which is only down to day.
[Android Apps and Games] DiamondJohn:
Ooops... I was mistaken :oops: I realised after I posted, the RAW textural data actual does have the times. But I still dont see the benefit in knowing the time, especially considering it could be downloaded from any pat of the world, across different time zones. And it really is a case of not being able to see the forest for the trees.
[Android Apps and Games] HippoMan:
I agree that using the times can add confusion ... unless date/time conversions could be performed to some sort of standard base like UCT.

But even if that's theoretically possible, it's clearly a lot of work on your part, and I certainly understand how it would not seem to be worth the effort.

The info is still quite useful, as is.
[Android Apps and Games] DiamondJohn:
I have historically worked across time zones as part of my paid work, and for this kind of data, instead of reverting to UTC (which I would assume the data from the website IS already presented as, as that IS how time is normally logged on backend servers for world support), it would *possibly* (I don't see how) be interesting to see what local time it was downloaded. ie are people looking at this in the evening or first thing in the morning. And that would only be of interest for large aggregated data such as the from the whole playstore, to see the pattern of people filling up empty travel time to and fro from work.

Useful? probably not, more interesting than useful. And by useful, only to me to let me know if there is anybody actually using my work. Which I mostly do for me anyway., and I see you guys as being just along for the ride :p
[Android Apps and Games] KitsuneFoxy:
I keep getting these errors, the second one is when trying to get a logcat for you. The first os something about access, like it cant create the file
[Android Apps and Games] halø:
Any chance to get the app from a mirror link? I think the URL doesn't work for me cause my firewall blocks URL redirects.
[Android Apps and Games] DiamondJohn:
You appear to have multiple errors, so lets address one at a time.

Firstly, you do NOT need to get a screen shot with toast message perfectly timed! and it sux for me! as you can see in your screenshots, there is a bomb icon in the top right of the screen. Short press/click that and the whole error will appear in the results window with a lot of other useful info. SAVE that file off, zip it and attach it. screenshots are close to useless.

The next thing to address is you SQLite error. There are three methods/checks you should, save off the results, zip and attach. All three are the first three methods found under Database

And what ROM/Android version/build are you running? are you rooted?
[Android Apps and Games] KitsuneFoxy:
I am running a Google Nexus 4 with AICP. Marshmallow 6.0.1 (i think its cm13) from 2016 with the quanta kernel, using your make a magisk plugin for sql ))