Development How To: Get the Android Market on your eDGe

First, thanks to brianb5010 for coming up with a variant of this procedure.

Before you get started, you need the following things:

1. A rooted Android phone/tablet with 2.2 (or maybe higher) with the Android Market;

2. A copy of Titanium Backup installed on your phone/tablet.

Basically, this is what you do:

1. Start by rooting your eDGe. You can use several different procedures, but the easiest is probably just to download z4root from the Amazon Appstore. Make sure to select the "Permanent Root" option.

2. Next, install Titanium Backup and Root Explorer on your eDGe.

Root Explorer is in the Appstore, and you can get Titanium Backup here: http://matrixrewriter.com/android/

3. Open Titanium Backup. On your phone, you want to make backups of the following applications:

Calendar Sync Adapter
Contacts Sync Adapter
Gmail
Google Partner Setup
Google Services Framework
Market
Market Updater
Talk
YouTube

And, of course, anything else you want to install.

4. Next, you need to move these backup files from the Titanium Backup folder on your phone (which is usually stored in your sdcard) to the Titanium Backup folder on your eDGe.

5. On your eDGE, go into Titanium Backup. Then, you want to restore the gapps, which should be crossed out at the bottom of the screen (alternatively, if you've already been messing around with the gapps, you can just restore them on top of the old versions). This is extremely important: WHEN YOU RESTORE THE FILES, MAKE SURE THAT YOU CHOOSE THE APP + DATA OPTION. Moving the data from your phone to your eDGe is an essential part of this process.

6. Finally, you need to do a little text editing. On your eDGe, go into the root explorer and navigate to the system folder. Press "mount r/w" on the top of the screen. Press and hold on the "build.prop" file. Then, select "open in text editor." Find the line that says "ro.build.fingerprint." You want to change it to the following:

"ro.build.fingerprint=google/passion/passion/mahimahi:2.2/FRF91/43546:user/release-keys"

7. Reboot your machine.

8. Go into the Market and setup your Google account.

Unfortunately, I don't know how to do this without another Android device. I've tried installing by just sideloading the gapps, but moving over the data seems like a crucial step. I'm considering sending out my Titanium Backup files, but I'm a little nervous about my name/password information being included in the data.

Hope this helps some people out!

*edited 5/27 to fix an error in the directions*

Cool, good work!
I'll consider trying this.

For those interested, below is the link to the XDA thread going on about the pocket edge.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/show...1057206&page=7

If someone wanted to post their working market titanium back up, you should change your password before making the backup and then change it after you make the back up. Then you wouldn't have to worry as much about that data...

Or possibly make a dummy/throw-away gmail account and signup using that then you can make the backup and post it with no worries.

I am working on getting my market working, so if I find another way I'll let you know.

Does rooting on EE remove OTA update? If it does, does using update.zip from entourage gain it back?

I posted this in the xda thread, but I'll re-post it here as well in case someone checks this more often:

Just got all the gapps working, all I had to do was install them normally then convert each to system files.

However, now I'm running into the problem with the accounts, whenever I try to sign in I get the network error, I tried the youtube workaround (didn't want to do that first as it was mentioned that it could cause sync issues), but now it just comes up saying that it has encountered an error and needs to close(on the terms acceptance screen I think).

If anyone has any idea what this might be that would be great, I can post a log and any other info you would need/want. Thanks

Oh, should be noted that I did not use a backup from another phone, but just the gapps posted in the zip file above, so I might be missing some required data...

Also, if we can get this to work, it would mean that people would not need a rooted phone(they may need a paid copy of titanium backup, but there may be ways around that as well).

Might as well answer this as well:

Originally Posted by T-virus

Does rooting on EE remove OTA update? If it does, does using update.zip from entourage gain it back?

No, I don't believe that it does remove the OTA update, though I doubt there will be many if any more of those, and the worst that could happen is doing the OTA update would remove the root, however you could always just re-root the device afterwards(I doubt we will get anything past 2.2 in the near future, so rooting and re-rooting should stay pretty easy for now).

And yes, using the golden update file will restore the device completely, removing all data, including your root, meaning the device will be the same software wise as the day you got it.

Originally Posted by emusan

No, I don't believe that it does remove the OTA update, though I doubt there will be many if any more of those, and the worst that could happen is doing the OTA update would remove the root, however you could always just re-root the device afterwards(I doubt we will get anything past 2.2 in the near future, so rooting and re-rooting should stay pretty easy for now).

And yes, using the golden update file will restore the device completely, removing all data, including your root, meaning the device will be the same software wise as the day you got it.

Thanks a lot, I will try it right away

Thanks for the post. I'm really eager to get this working. Unfortunately, there is no way for me to follow your instructions. There is no APP+DATA option when I backup the files. There is only Backup! Freeze!(not available in free version) Un-install! Run app and Wipe data. Any help would be appreciated.
Jonathan

Did you root your phone first? From what I understand, your device needs to be rooted for Titanium Backup to work.

Originally Posted by kennyminot

Did you root your phone first? From what I understand, your device needs to be rooted for Titanium Backup to work.

Yes, both my phone and my PE are rooted. As I said, I am able to run it, but none of the options I get are the one noted as so important by the op.

Sorry, my directions contained a mistake. Apparently, Titanium Backup automatically backups the data. You just need to select the APP + DATA option when you RESTORE the files. Hopefully, this didn't cause too much anxiety.

I was just writing a note to suggest that that's how it might be! I hadn't refreshed the page since last night and didn't see your reply!

-- Ed

I was up just a wee bit too late last night doing this, but it worked for me. I wasn't 100.00000% successful, and there was a surprise along the way, but I'm going to try again.

The surprise came at this step:

Originally Posted by kennyminot

4. Next, you need to move these backup files from the Titanium Backup folder on your phone (which is usually stored in your sdcard) to the Titanium Backup folder on your eDGe.

I assume that this wouldn't trip up you long-time fans of the device! But as a Johnny-come-lately (Eddie-come-wootly) I did stumble here for a moment.

On your donor device, where the gapps are coming from, Titanium probably backs up your stuff to the directory /sdcard/TitaniumBackup/. And as Titanium will tell you, on your PE (or my PE, anyway), Titanium restores from the directory /sdcard/TitaniumBackup/.

Oh, wouldst life be sweet if those actually. were. the same directories!

But no, the tiny chip of plastic that was /sdcard on your donor device has suddenly become /extsdcard on your (my) PE, and so like step 4 says, the files in /extsdcard/TitaniumBackup/ must be moved (or at least copied) to where Titanium will be looking for them, internal storage at /sdcard/TitaniumBackup/.

If you're an old command-line commando you can do this in a terminal emulator, but why not let a good file manager handle it for you? Root Explorer, suggested by kennyminot, is very handy (thanks for the tip!) because it can also change permissions and edit text. Which you could also do from the command line if only you could remember how to use the vi editor....

So everything went just fine for me, with one tiny issue remaining. When I was done and downloading apps with Google's Market, Market would crash two or three times ... for each file! It got the job done, but the process was a little ugly.

I'll look into that today. In the meantime, THANKS kennyminot !

-- Ed

I just added a thread to general as well as a few other sites on how to do this without another rooted phone... I hope you guys like it.

That did the trick! Thank you SO much for this!

NEVERMIND - Apparently an old/bad copy of root explorer.



Odd. I Get into "system" with Root Explorer, tap RW, the button blinks a bit, then Hold on Build.prop. I get a write protected message. Can't Hold and change Permissions either.

Do I have a bad Root Explorer version,or am I doing something else wrong?

There's a lock icon next to my Build.prop filename, and I can't remove it through any actions I can think of.