Asus Transformer Pad Infinity
Upgrading to CyanogenMod 10.2.0

This is the last CyanogenMod version based on Android-4.3 Super Jelly Bean and should be considered a bugfix release. I upgraded both the TF700T (Mica) and the Galaxy S III (Selen) in parallel.

• I made a directory to store backup and image files: /home/jimc/upgrade/mica/files/cm-10.2.0 and /home/jimc/upgrade/selen/files/cm-10.2.0

• I made backups in TAR format.
  ssh mica "cd /data ; tar czf - app data" > mica-bku-20131231.tgz

  Speed on Mica: about 8.5e5 bytes/sec (compressed), total size 371Mb (compressed), 540Mb (uncompressed). 60% of the material is APK files which are already compressed. Took about 8 minutes.

  Speed on Selen: about 2.36e6 bytes/sec (compressed). Total size 362Mb (compressed), took about 3 minutes.

• I made backups using ADB.
  adb backup -f ./mica-bku-201301231.ab -apk -obb -all -system

  These command line arguments select both app data and APK files. You do not want the -shared option which dumps the SD card also. The tablet goes through several security steps:

  • When you do adb devices it reports unauthorized and the tablet pops a dialog asking if USB debugging should be authorized. Tell it yes.
  • When you do adb backup … it runs an app on the tablet which asks for a password and requests confirmation.
  • On Mica I gave it the standard commercial low security password, probably a bad choice. On Selen I left the password blank.
  • It reports the apps it is backing up, one at a time.
  • On the destination I changed the mode of all four backup files to 600 owned by jimc.

  On Mica, took 6.5 mins; output file size is 331Mb (compressed), speed 8.38e5 bytes/sec (similar to TGZ).

  On Selen, took about 3 minutes. File size is 323Mb (compressed).

• Downloaded Google Apps; you need the version that goes with the upgraded OS version. See http://goo.im/gapps for a link. (I got http://goo.im/gapps/gapps-jb-20130813-signed.zip, 91.7Mb; check the page to see if the correct one has been changed.)

  And copied it to /sdcard. The same file serves on both devices.

• The OS package itself is downloaded with the CyanogenMod installer directly to the tablet. Go to Settings - About Tablet - CyanogenMod Updates. For the desired version (cm-10.2.0) click on the download symbol. Watch the progress bar. Took about 4 mins, size 180Mb (compressed), speed about 7.5e5 byte/sec. It ended up in /sdcard/cmupdater/cm-10.2.0-tf700t.zip . When the download finishes it offers to install the image. I always decline, and review to make sure I have everything ready. In particular I want to retrieve the image to the host computer. Why? Because I'm anally retentive.

• This upgrade is within the same major version, so I'm not going to need to wipe the data and cache. KitKat will be another story.

• We're now supposedly ready to do the upgrade. Exit from shell sessions. Stop Dropbear. Unplug USB. Repeat the download procedure, except instead of the download symbol it's an open door icon or something like that. Hit it.

  For Selen I just rebooted into Recovery and flashed first the OS and then Google Apps in one operation.

  Timing for the upgrade on Mica:

  • Shuts down.
  • Reboots into recovery.
  • The update process begins automatically.
  • Flashing takes about 2.5 mins
  • It reboots again into Cyanogenmod (not having updated Google Apps).
  • New CM boot animation plays for 115 secs (I liked the old one better).
  • Now it's recompiling 128 APK files,takes 184 secs.
  • Back to the CyanogenMod boot animation for 42 secs
  • And the login screen finally appears. No reboot was needed on Mica; it was on Selen.

• Super-quick checkout: Kitchen Timer starts and can play its alarm.

• Next step is to install Google Apps.

  • Reboot into Recovery; hold down Power and pick Recovery.
  • This is ClockworkMod Recovery (touch version) by Koushik Dutta. Click on a row to activate it.
  • Install Zip from SDcard.
  • Choose Zip from Internal SDcard. That's where /sdcard is, but in Recovery the path is /emmc/0/ . Files, like gapps, are listed at the end after the numerous directories.
  • Click on gapps-jb-20130813-signed.zip . The one for CM-10.1 differs by one digit in the date; make sure you get the right one.
  • Confirm installing it.
  • It's labelled Google Apps for Android 4.3.0.
  • Flashing takes only 35 secs.
  • Go Back; Reboot Now (in the main menu).
  • 273 secs (4.5 mins) for the whole boot process. Recompiles 82 Google Apps.
  • It asks your permission anew to collect location data. (I agreed.)
  • Kitchen Timer checkout: it still works.
  • Reboot again to get the timing: 62 secs.

  On Selen flashing goes about twice as fast, but the icosahedron in the belly of the android does not spin as it does on Mica's version. Timing: Initial boot took 180 secs (3 mins) up to the reboot; it recompiled 154 apps. One reboot occurred automatically and it took only 15 secs.

• An annoying item that they warn you about: the Phone app's name got changed, so your desktop icon points nowhere. You end up with a picture of a generic android and if you click on it you don't get voice chat. Remove the icon from the home screen, then drag the real phone icon out of the app drawer to its original location.

• The whole upgrade process on Mica took 27.5 mins from when I activated the installer, about 1.5 hours from when I started making backups, or about 3 hours including reviewing notes and checking the CyanogenMod wiki.

Application Checkout

(Legend: NT = not tested; NI = not installed; WT = wimpy test.)

A nasty little app problem on Mica (but not Selen): The Play Store (Android Market) app reported error RPC:S-3 when trying to update an app. Forum postings suggested that corrupt data may be the problem. My combination of destructive steps was to force stop Play Store and clear its data. Didn't cure the problem. Then I removed my Google account and re-added it. That did cure the problem. However, the default is to auto-update all apps. Make sure to get into Play Store's settings and clear that option, before fixing the error, if you cleared app data.

Before the upgrade, Apollo decided to start shuffling all my playlists, which is a no-no for classical music. How do I turn it off? Thanks to my skill in Dungeons and Dragons (and a forum post from darkierawr, 2012-05-27), I learned that if you swipe the player controls (bottom row) to the left, the shuffle and repeat icons will be revealed. An icon in blue is activated; in white is disabled. Swipe right to bring back the normal play-pause-skip controls. This behavior occurs when the track title is being shown, as on an index page. If you click on the track title it will show you a track-specific page, and there is room for all the icons at once.