How do I transfer my Call Block list from my Galaxy Note 2 to Galaxy Note 4?

[exogenous]

Transfer "Call Block" list from Galaxy Note 2 to Galaxy Note 4

I love the 100-number Call Block list Samsung allows.

Just upgraded from Galaxy Note 2 to Galaxy Note 4 and Samsung tells me that there's no way to transfer the list--"they can be added manually," gee thanks.

It's just a list of numbers--couldn't be much more digital. Is there any way to get at it and copy it over? I'm willing to root the Note 2 if necessary.

 

[AZgl1500]

Re: Transfer "Call Block" list from Galaxy Note 2 to Galaxy Note 4

whew boy......... that is a lot.......

I used to have quite a "following myself", and I fixed it permanently by changing my phone number. Now only my friends and family know of my new phone number.... and when working with a vendor, I get real picky about letting them have it.

I think you are going to have to re-enter them manually, but I also use an app to do it for me called Reverse Lookup.
For me, it is a lot easier to Ignore the incoming call, then open Reverse Lookup and select the last incoming call, and then send it to the Block List.

Far simpler than Samsung's method.

=> * Reverse Lookup - Android Apps on Google Play

 

[Rukbat]

Re: Transfer "Call Block" list from Galaxy Note 2 to Galaxy Note 4

I'm just guessing - I haven't looked - but the list is probably kept in a SQLite database file. If so, copying that file to the Note 4 (on the SD card, maybe), then SELECTing all the records INTO the Note 4's equivalent database file, would take maybe 5 minutes (including the time it takes to copy the file from one phone to the other.

You'd have to find the database file in each phone, install a SQLite editor and learn how to SELECT INTO in SQL (probably 30 minutes of study to really learn it well). It would look something like

SELECT * INTO Note4File FROM Note2File;

(Where Note2File and Note4File are the full paths and names of the respective files.)

(If the fields in the two files are different, the statement would look a little different.)

 

[exogenous]

Re: Transfer "Call Block" list from Galaxy Note 2 to Galaxy Note 4

Finding the database file is the question. Samsung claims that they are not visible from the user's computer.
My friend Google says SQL databases are .mdf or .ldf files and I can't locate any on the phone's memory.

Hidden partitition? Anybody have practical experience?

 

[AZgl1500]

Re: Transfer "Call Block" list from Galaxy Note 2 to Galaxy Note 4

oh yes, hidden folders/partitions until you root the phone.

 

[Rukbat]

Re: Transfer "Call Block" list from Galaxy Note 2 to Galaxy Note 4

From a rooted SQLite editor. They're right, you can't see them by connecting the phone to the PC - that's basically just for transferring media and document files.

As far as practical experience, not with that database, but I added MobileData to my notification toggles by adding it to the record in one of the system databases (I forget which one). And, of course, using SQL since it came out in the early 70s. (And if you write website backends, you write SQL - it's kind of like bacon comes with fat - website backends almost always come with SQL. I'm betting, although I've never seen the code of this site, that all the posts are in a table in a MySQL database.)

Some SQLite editors will list all the databases on the phone, and you can look through them for key numbers like 800* if your call blocker takes wildcards, or a number you know you have blocked. Then figure out the record structure (what fields go where) and insert the records from the old database into the new database in the correct field order.

@AZgl1500:
They're not hidden, they just don't give read access to the user "everyone" (which means any app, rooted or not), and the user "root" has all access to the entire file structure. A hidden folder would be one that starts with a dot (in Windows that would be no name, just a dot and an extension).

A hidden partition? We used that trick back in the 90s, but root access wouldn't show it - it's hidden from the computer (by not being in the partition table). And the part of the drive that was visible had a used area that, for some strange reason, couldn't be accessed (and happened to be the same size as the hidden partition) The only way to see it is to rewrite the partition table, listing that area of storage as a partition. (Or using a raw editor that can access physical locations [like track and sector on a hard drive] in storage without regard to what partition they're part of - or not part of. Peter Norton's [not to be confused with Symantec, which just bought the right to the name] Diskedit did that, and let you manipulate hard drives to do things that fall into that class "can't be done". Like having 40MB free on a 20MB hard drive that was just about full. [At least that's what any normal program would tell you the situation was - you didn't really have 40MB free, used or anything else.])

 

[exogenous]

Re: Transfer "Call Block" list from Galaxy Note 2 to Galaxy Note 4

Props for your experience....

But what I'm asking is, has anyone had experience finding the blocked call numbers list in a Galaxy Note 2? Does anyone know the actual path? If someone has a rooted one, can you take a look around? TIA.

Seriously, I can't understand why they don't make this as simple as transferring contacts.

 

[Rukbat]

Re: Transfer "Call Block" list from Galaxy Note 2 to Galaxy Note 4

Or someone can write a trivial app. (I would - I know the programming and the SQL - but I don't know the Android environment well enough to write Android apps. Maybe some day ... (It takes a few months to learn an environment well enough to write an app I'd put my name on.)

As far as experience goes, if you live long enough it just comes with the territory. Writing softwware for a living for 40 years it doesn't take anything special to have written a lot of software and learned a lot of environments (especially when a lot of that work was done on network servers with such small, slow processors that no one would use them as cheap cellphones today. 96MB of RAM? A 90MHz CPU? That's like comparing a laser-guided missile to a stick as a weapon of mass destruction. When you have to make stuff like that run Windows networking to support 400 workstations, you learn to "program on the bare metal" and write directly to hard drives, sector by sector. It was the only way it could be done then. Don't give props to a caveman for being able to track a deer. When I write a universal bootloader unlocker/rooter, I'll accept an "attaboy".)

 

[exogenous]

Re: Transfer "Call Block" list from Galaxy Note 2 to Galaxy Note 4

Well, I typed 'em all in. Interesting, though....the Galaxy Note 2 had a 100-number limit, and showed x/100 used. The Galaxy Note 4 does not show how many are in the list or present a limit.

 

[Yirg]

I'm facing the same problem (moving from Note 2 to Note 4 Edge). Has anyone found a solution?

Thanks!