Rescuing a Full Tangerine Tablet¶

If you have a tablet that is no longer able to sync because the disk is full, you can pull files off it and install on a clean tablet.

This is relevant only to tablets that are runing sqlite/sqlCypher.

Listing files in private database dir¶

Android databases are stored in a defined location. You may list them using the adb shell command.

adb shell "run-as org.rti.tangerine ls -lsa -R /data/data/org.rti.tangerine/databases/"

If the package name of your Tangerine differs, substitute 'org.rti.tangerine' with your package name.

This command should return something like the following:

4 -rw-------  1 u0_a647 u0_a647       0 2021-11-04 08:15 shared-user-database
4 -rw-------  1 u0_a647 u0_a647       0 2021-11-04 08:15 shared-user-database-index
500 -rw-------  1 u0_a647 u0_a647  507904 2021-11-04 08:08 shared-user-database-mrview-058020864d38b2f7c7203401485e2f6d
3180 -rw-------  1 u0_a647 u0_a647 3248128 2021-11-04 08:10 shared-user-database-mrview-0b8e5d92430db6d71d1379d7c9862b79
500 -rw-------  1 u0_a647 u0_a647  507904 2021-11-04 08:06 shared-user-database-mrview-0c1a03125cc747770c5ae321753f4ec2
3156 -rw-------  1 u0_a647 u0_a647 3223552 2021-11-04 08:10 shared-user-database-mrview-34a25e481c98744e67427811b36567c4
2900 -rw-------  1 u0_a647 u0_a647 2961408 2021-11-04 08:13 shared-user-database-mrview-3d495638a28b32b444ca7a9452a9ec5e
2924 -rw-------  1 u0_a647 u0_a647 2985984 2021-11-04 08:12 shared-user-database-mrview-918a54f957639ea4a8d24e16c6d93f50
500 -rw-------  1 u0_a647 u0_a647  507904 2021-11-04 08:12 shared-user-database-mrview-a3b8826be74302784a7af55681039cac
744 -rw-------  1 u0_a647 u0_a647  757760 2021-11-04 08:08 shared-user-database-mrview-d121af6c2693286feb260c1843a65996
1344 -rw-------  1 u0_a647 u0_a647 1372160 2021-11-04 08:09 shared-user-database-mrview-e0db7a0ed91857c44dd6ad77ee5b37f4
2588 -rw-------  1 u0_a647 u0_a647 2641920 2021-11-04 08:07 shared-user-database-mrview-e4d1230d206245fc83e75ee420b1f31e
500 -rw-------  1 u0_a647 u0_a647  507904 2021-11-04 08:11 shared-user-database-mrview-fc95555b88f96506de12d279698695f2
72 -rw-------  1 u0_a647 u0_a647   69632 2021-11-04 08:04 tangerine-variables

In this example, the tablet was running with the "encryptionPlugin":"CryptoPouch" configuration in app-config.json. That switch configures the app to use CryptoPouch, which encrypts documents in the app's indexedb for storage and stores indexes using sqlCypher. This is why the shared-user-database is 0 but the indexes - such as shared-user-database-mrview-fc95555b88f96506de12d279698695f2 - are large.

Pulling the files¶

Once you list the files, you much change permissions on them and then pull them. Change the permissions (chmod 666) for each file you wish to transfer:

adb shell "run-as org.rti.tangerine chmod 666 /data/data/org.rti.tangerine/databases/shared-user-database-mrview-e4d1230d206245fc83e75ee420b1f31e"

Once the permissions is changed, you may transfer the files:

adb exec-out run-as org.rti.tangerine cat databases/shared-user-database-mrview-e4d1230d206245fc83e75ee420b1f31e > shared-user-database-mrview-e4d1230d206245fc83e75ee420b1f31e

After the files are transferred, you may reset the permissions:

adb shell "run-as org.rti.tangerine chmod 600 /data/data/org.rti.tangerine/databases/shared-user-database-mrview-e4d1230d206245fc83e75ee420b1f31e"

Restoring a database¶

In the docs/system-administrator/restore-from-backup.md, there are instructions in the section "Restoring backups onto a fresh Tangerine app installation" on how to restore a database. Those instructions show how to use Android File Transfer to move the database files to the clean Android device and restore the app using a fresh Tangerine installation.

Database file analysis¶

In the docs/system-administrator/restore-from-backup.md, there are instructions in the section "Viewing data from an encrypted backup" that show how to compile and use sqlcipher to view and fix a corrupt SqlCypher database.