How to transfer Memento database file which has been recovered from the internal storage of previous broken phone to new phone

[James Shaw]

Please could someone help me?  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!  I have been using a Memento database in my Samsung Galaxy S3 for about 21 months and have added a large amount of data in that time.  Unfortunately, I have never properly familiarised myself with the backup process.  I had assumed that it was only necessary to back up to my PC via Samsung Kies.  I have been meaning to learn how to transfer data via Google Docs but haven’t been able to spend the time to learn the basics. 

Unfortunately, last week my Samsung Galaxy S3 stopped working.  I was unable to restart it and was afraid that any attempts at a factory reset or reboot would wipe the data.  I had an SD card mounted but had not configured Memento to store data on it, so everything was in the phone’s internal memory.  I was advised that the best way to be sure of rescuing the data was to arrange for a forensic specialist to remove the phone’s internal memory card and extract all of the files.  This has now been done and I have since spent a full week trying to make sense of the various databases and piece together what I can of my SMSs and contacts.  The most important thing is for me to recover my Memento data but I have been struggling with this.  I have found the following three memento files:

memento-03092013-143811 - Copy, 1408 KB, Data Base File

memento-03092013-143811.backup, 1408 KB, BACKUP File

db, 6648 KB, File

I have been working my way through all of the database files trying to open them using SQLIte.  It has been a very steep learning curve for me. 

The last of the above files, simply called ‘db’ contains all of my 875 Memento records and it is showing as last modified on 14 March 2015 at 22:00:17, which corresponds with my last entry.  This file is simply showing the file type as ‘File’ in Windows XP.   I have had only very limited success trying to open this with SQLite – I am only able to see the field names in one output file CSV but the other CSV files are all completely unintelligible.  The forensic information shows the following data for this file:

Data:                           D:\James Samsung\SamsungGT-i9300GalaxySIII\eMMC0000000000000000\Files-Databases\db

File Name:                 db

File Format:               SQLite

File Size:                    6.49 MB

Path:                           /USERDATA/data/com.luckydroid.droidbase/databases

Modified:                    14/03/2015 22:00:17 UTC (Device)

Accessed:                  12/06/2013 12:55:19 UTC (Device)

Status Changed:       14/03/2015 22:00:17 UTC (Device)

 

Please could you let me have any ideas as to how I can transfer this database to my new Samsung phone?  I have tried e-mailing it to myself and downloading and saving into the equivalent folder on the new phone, then using ‘recover libraries’ but this has not worked. 

I have installed memento version 2.6.4 on my new phone.  I noticed that the version on Google Play is now 3.0 but, as this looks very different, I think that will stick with the version I know for now!

The two files called ‘memento-03092013-143811’ contain only 181 records up to 3/9/13.  Presumably I made a backup on that date but I don’t know how.

The forensic information shows that the file memento-03092013-143811.backup was located in USERDATA/media/memento/backup.  Please see the following data for this file:

Data:                           D:\James Samsung\SamsungGT-i9300GalaxySIII\eMMC0000000000000000\Files-Databases\memento-03092013-143811.backup

File Name:                 memento-03092013-143811.backup

File Format:               SQLite

File Size:                    1.38 MB

Path:                           /USERDATA/media/memento/backup

Modified:                    03/09/2013 13:38:11 UTC (Device)

Accessed:                  03/09/2013 13:38:11 UTC (Device)

Status Changed:       03/09/2013 13:38:11 UTC (Device)

 

Unfortunately, I had not performed a general backup of the phone using Samsung Kies since 10/1/15.  My new phone is an S5 which uses Kies 3 but unfortunately this does not seem to allow restoration of the Memento part of the backup made using an earlier version of Kies!

Thank you in anticipation for your help and thank you to all the team Memento Database for an excellent product.  I just need to learn how to use it properly!  Best regards, James.

[JohnO]

A direct email to the developer might be the most reliable way to find out is recovery is possible.

[Jason Loewenstein]

I am having a similar issue. Just updated to new version and no databases are linked to memento anymore.
There are backup files, but seemingly no way to restore them. Nothing in the manual.

More documentation and instructions needed please. Thank you.

[Jason Loewenstein]

Ok... Figured it out.
Main menu, settings, restore... Done.

[James Shaw]

Hi John. Thank you very much for your suggestion. I will try that and let you know the outcome. I have tried placing the 'db' file in /local storage/device storage/memento/files and using main menu, settings, restore as suggested by Jason. It seemed to be working but then I received the message 'Unfortunately, Memento stopped working'. 

This attempt to restore the database removed the test library which I had created. There are now no libraries in my Memento. I have also tried to restore the db file from /local storage/device storage/memento/backup with the same result. Many thanks again for your help. James

[James Shaw]

Hi Jason.  Thank you very much for your suggestion.  I have tried placing the 'db' file in /local storage/device storage/memento/files and using main menu, settings, restore as you suggested .  It seemed to be working at first but then I received the message 'Unfortunately, Memento stopped working'.  This attempt to restore the database removed the test library which I had created.  There are now no libraries in my Memento.  I have also tried to restore the 'db' file from /local storage/device storage/memento/backup with the same result.  Any further suggestions would be gratefully received!  Many thanks again for your help.  James