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iPhone PkgBackUp Help
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As far as I am concerned, it is hands down the best app to restore your Cydia sources, hacks, tweaks and apps and well worth $10. I have used it for probably 4-5 years.
Of course that depends on whether you plan to be restoring in the future and which firmware you have the option to restore to.
Of course that depends on whether you plan to be restoring in the future and which firmware you have the option to restore to.
I agree that the app has a lot going for it (I bought it too early last year). However, I either misinterpreted the feature list or the dev used some marketing sleight of hand. I say that because what ultimately got me to buy the app was reading the phrase "scheduled backups."
Coming from Windows Mobile at the time where I was using Sprite Backup that you could actually schedule backups with to occur in the am when your phone is sitting there on your nightstand, I ASSUMED the phrase "scheduled backups" meant that I could actually schedule backups and that the app would do it automatically according to the schedule I set.
What that phrase ACTUALLY means is that PkgBackup can set a schedule for you in Calendar.app. BUT, it's up to YOU to physically open the app according to the schedule and start the backup manually.
Note that "automatic" in the dev's mind only means the following…start a backup automatically when the user PHYSICALLY opens the app. That's all it means, nothing more.
In my research I was led to understand that early versions actually DID have an automatic backup feature where the app would backup according to a schedule with no interaction from the user. If that was truly the case it was a feature that was removed by the time I bought the app, but not removed from the online feature list. I questioned the dev on this and never received a reply. At some point the wording was either clarified or removed from the website.
Now, however, my problem is that PkgBackup will make a backup of my phone, but if there is an update to a tweak and I apply that update PkgBackup reports the UPDATE version number in the previous backup and will restore to the update and NOT the previous version that existed before I applied the update.
Despite all this I like the app, but I have not been using it lately because of this last, final problem I am having with it.
^^Let me begin by saying I respect you and your posts, they are fair and honest ! But in this case, your issue is a shortcoming of Cydia, not PkgBackup. Since Cydia does not offer older versions of tweaks once an updated version is added to a repo, it is your responsibility to "squirrel" away a copy of the .deb file of the tweak you have chosen not to update.
Thanks, I appreciate that. I try not to be a jerk or intentionally post misleading information.
Can you explain "shortcoming of Cydia"? Is it not "squirelling" away by using PkgBackup to backup my current tweaks?
Am I reading the purpose of the tweak wrong? Or maybe it's something like PKGBackup is simply storing a reference to the tweaks I have installed and then just merlely installing the latest from Cydia instead of actually storing a backup of what's already installed?
I have a feeling that I've just never understood completely how PkgBackup works.
You're right though, it is my responsibility. Thank you for the reminder! (that's serious, not sarcasm!)
That is correct, PKGbackup is normally only storing a reference to the tweeks. Then on restore, it queries Cydia for the current version and installs it. Nice if you are doing a restore on a newer iOS (so you get all the newest fixes), bad if you liked an older version of a certain tweek. However, it seems PKGbackup now saves packages as DEBs (see Settings), but I haven't tried it yet.
HTH
Ahhhh! That explains things then. Another bad assumption I made. Thank you for the clarification, I appreciate it!
It also means that if you install any deb file that is not available on cydia (e.g., some jailbreak dev's private beta that you install through iFile or using apt on the command line) it will not get backed up by PkgBackup (I also haven't tried the new option of saving deb files; that might change things).
All in all, though, PkgBackup is a handy tool for jailbroken iOS
All in all, though, PkgBackup is a handy tool for jailbroken iOS
When it works, it's handy. When it doesn't, not so much. For some reason it stopped liking using my Box account, but switching back to Dropbox saves and can restore ok. Shrug. If you have to do a lot of restores, it can be handy. Once a year, or less...YMMV.
I stopped doing cloud backups (was using Dropbox). Now I BU to internal storage. It's quicker, and the backups get backed up by iTunes as well.
I was not aware of any recent change in PkgBackup (as in actually saving .deb files).
I will check it out.
I will check it out.
Well I tried the DEB saving feature. Not bad, it saved them in the PKGbackup folder in Preferences (if you backup locally that is).. However, it didn't give me a deb for xcon or PKGbackup itself... Weird.
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Is your xCon version the one from GitHub (39beta7) ? If so. that is not on any repo yet, so that could be why.
I tried PkgBackup's DEB file feature today. Created DEB files for all my tweaks.
So, now I have an easy way to "squirrel" away a copy of the DEB file!
