copy db file with adb pull results in permission denied error

Question

I just rooted my Nexus 5 using this method  http   www phonearena com news How-to-root-Google-Nexus-5 id49014  I also enabled USB debugging in the developer options   Then I tried to pull a database file from my device using this command     adb pull  data data path to package databases data  sdcard test   I get permission denied error   I don t have the debugged flag set in that app I tried to access  Is that the reason I can t access that file  If yes  are there any workarounds to access an apps files

User · Answer

This answer ended up working for me  https   stackoverflow com a 15559278 53001  Backup to a file  pull the backup  and then convert it to a tarball and extract it   adb backup  -f myAndroidBackup ab  com corp appName  dd if myAndroidBackup ab bs 1 skip 24   python -c  import zlib sys sys stdout write zlib decompress sys stdin read        tar -xvf -

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When executing adb commands  by default  a limited privileges user is used  the same kind of limited privilege user that is assigned to an app  and you have requested for all privelages to use all features of the device   This kind of limited user helps protect your phone from malware  by restricting the access between apps  and the system  This is the reason you are unable to access app data and system data on an unrooted phone  The act of rooting means becoming user 0  the super user of the system  capable of any action  and is the highest privilege  Your apps however  are still secure in that they can not talk to eachother   Now when accessing secure files  note that you do not want to change the permissions of the file when you access it  which may allow for vulnerabilities   An option that you could use instead  is to make a copy of the file on the sdcard as root  modify that as a standard user  and then move it back into the filesystem as root  while preserving the file permissions of the original file

User · Answer

The pull command is    adb pull source dest   When you write   adb pull  data data path to package databases data  sdcard test   It means that you ll pull from  data data path to package databases data and you ll copy it to  sdcard test  but the destination MUST be a local directory  You may write C  Users YourName temp instead   For example   adb pull  data data path to package databases data c  Users YourName temp

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If you get could not copy and permissions are right disable selinux   Check if selinux is enabled      adb shell  su   getenforce Enforcing   Selinux is enabled and blocking enforcing  Disable selinux     setenforce 0   do your stuff and set selinux to enforcing     setenforce 1

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This is a bit late  but installing adbd Insecure worked for me  It makes adb run in root mode on production   secure   devices  which is what you likely have   A paid version is also available on Google Play if you want to support the developer

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I had just the same problem  here s how to deal with it    adb shell to the device su ls -l and check current access rights on the file you need  You ll need that later  go to the file needed and  chmod 777 file ext  Note  now you have a temporary security issue  You ve just allowed all the rights to everyone  Consider adding just R for users  open another console and  adb pull  path to file ext c  pc path to file exe Important  after you re done  revert the access rights back to the previous value  point 3    Someone mentioned something similar earlier   Thanks for the comments below

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Since I ve updated to Android Oreo  I had to use this script to fix  permission denied  issue   This script on Mac OS X will copy your db file to Desktop  Just change it to match your ADB PATH  DESTINATION PATH and PACKAGE NAME      bin sh ADB PATH   Users xyz Library Android sdk platform-tools  PACKAGE NAME  com example android  DB NAME  default realm  DESTINATION PATH   Users xyz Desktop   DB NAME   NOT PRESENT  List of devices attached  ADB FOUND    ADB PATH  adb devices   tail -2   head -1   cut -f 1   sed  s      g   if      ADB FOUND       NOT PRESENT      then     echo  Make sure a device is connected  else        ADB PATH  adb exec-out run-as   PACKAGE NAME  cat files   DB NAME   gt    DESTINATION PATH  fi

User · Answer

I had the same problem  My work around is to use adb shell and su  Next  copy the file to  sdcard Download  Then  I can use adb pull to get the file

User · Answer

You can use run-as shell command to access private application data   If you only want to copy database you can use this snippet  provided in https   stackoverflow com a 31504263 998157  adb -d shell  run-as com example test cat  data data com example test databases data db   gt  data db

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Create a folder in sdcard    adb shell  quot su 0 mkdir  sdcard com test quot    Move your files to the new folder    adb shell  quot su 0 mv -F  data data com test files   sdcard com test  quot    You can now use adb pull    adb pull  sdcard com test

User · Answer

guest-418 tips works well  adb -d shell  quot run-as com example test cat  data data com example test databases data db quot   gt  data db  However  if you want to use a GUI  use Android Studio s Device File Explorer   Launch Android Studio  Click on Device File Explorer at bottom right-side Navigate to your app s file   data data path to package databases data  Right-mouse click select Save As and save to a local folder   I have been having Android Monitor hang on me lately on macOS  Device File Explorer works well for this purpose

User · Answer

adb shell  su   getenforce Enforcing   now try  adb shell su chmod 777  path to yout file   exit from shell  open new CMD and try adb pull  path to yout file  It will work fine now   you ll have security problems because of this any application will be able to access your database

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Did you try adb remount after giving adb root

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This generic solution should work on all rooted devices    adb shell  su -c cat  data data com android providers contacts databases contacts2 db   gt  contacts2 d   The command connects as shell  then executes cat as root and collects the output into a local file    In opposite to  guest-418 s solution  one does not have to dig for the user in question   Plus If you get greedy and want all the db s at once  eg  for backup   for i in  adb shell  su -c find  data -name    db     do     mkdir -p    dirname  i       adb shell  su -c cat  i   gt     i   done   This adds a mysteryous question mark to the end of the filename  but it is still readable

User · Answer

I had a similar problem to yours on windows as the following   D  ProgramFiles Android gt  adb pull  data local tmp com packagename dumped 1766 dex D  ProgramFiles Android com packagename dumped 1766 dex adb  error  failed to copy   data local tmp com packagename dumped 1766 dex  to  D  ProgramFiles Android com packagename dumped 1766 dex   remote Permission denied   My solution   At first I also made an attempt to use cat as ansi lumen answered  but I got into trouble about CR and LR   r n  characters  And then I just had to change those file permisions by chmod and pulled again to this problem was solved without introducing other problems  After that  may   we need to restore their original permissions as Goran Devs answered   So just pay a little attention   TL DR  My story   Firstly  I used the cat to download all files from android to my windows    echo off cd  d   dp0      dp0   D  ProgramFiles Android  SET ThisBatDir   dp0    adb shell ls  data local tmp com packagename dumped    gt    dp0 dump file list txt FOR  f  delims     a in   adb shell ls  data local tmp com packagename dumped     do call  processline   a    nxa  goto  eof     https   stackoverflow com questions 232651 why-the-system-cannot-find-the-batch-label-specified-is-thrown-even-if-label-e  processline SET RemoteFullPath  1 set FileName  2    echo   RemoteFullPath   ThisBatDir   FileName   call adb shell su -c cat  RemoteFullPath   gt   ThisBatDir  FileName  goto  eof   eof   However  those downloaded dex files were broken because of CR and LR   r n  characters on windows  We can use hexdump to inspect its content in Hex ASCII form  or Notepad   with  View   Show Symbol   Show All Characters  checked   Note  the 5th and 6th byte  0d 0a     ssfang MONITO     hexdump -C -n32  cygdrive d ProgramFiles Android com packagename dumped 1448 dex   a bad dex 00000000  64 65 78 0d 0d 0a 30 33  35 00 f7 8e e4 b5 03 c6   dex   035         00000010  29 22 98 55 21 e9 70 49  fe c8 e4 cc fa 94 cd 63      U  pI       c  00000020  ssfang MONITO     hexdump -C -n32  cygdrive d ProgramFiles Android classes dex   a normal dex 00000000  64 65 78 0a 30 33 35 00  b5 73 03 3a 0b 9d a2 47   dex 035  s     G  00000010  a8 78 a4 f0 bb e1 64 3f  e5 b9 cb a0 bd 1b e2 71    x    d        q  00000020   Versions   adb version                  to check adb client version in your desktop adb shell adbd --version     to check adbd s version in your Android  Please note that some users reported error with this if executed without root access     D  ProgramFiles Android gt adb version Android Debug Bridge version 1 0 41 Version 29 0 6-6198805 Installed as D  ProgramFiles Android Sdk platform-tools adb exe  D  ProgramFiles Android gt adb shell adb version Android Debug Bridge version 1 0 32   Even if restarting adbd as root  it was still the shell user after    D  ProgramFiles Android gt  adb root restarting adbd as root  D  ProgramFiles Android gt  adb shell id uid 2000 shell  gid 2000 shell  groups 1003 graphics  1004 input  1007 log  1011 adb  1015 sdcard rw  1028 sdcard r  3001 net bt admin  3002 net bt  3003 inet  3006 net bw stats  context u r shell s0   So I first viewed its file permision   D  ProgramFiles Android gt  adb shell ls -l  data local tmp -rwsr-sr-x shell    shell      589588 2017-09-14 15 08 android server -rwsr-sr-x shell    shell     1243456 2017-09-14 15 08 android server64 -rw-rw-rw- shell    shell        1536 2020-03-28 17 15 com packagename tar gz -rw-r----- root     root        57344 2020-03-28 17 45 com packagename dumped 1766 dex drwxrwxr-x shell    shell             2018-08-12 09 48 device-explorer -rwsrwsr-x shell    shell       13592 2019-02-04 17 44 drizzleDumper -rwxrwxrwx shell    shell     5512504 2018-05-06 01 27 lldb-server -rwxr-xr-x shell    shell       12808 2020-03-26 22 16 mprop   then  changed its permision   D  ProgramFiles Android gt  adb shell su -c chmod 777  data local tmp com packagename dumped    D  ProgramFiles Android gt  adb shell ls -l  data local tmp -rwxrwxrwx root     root        57344 2020-03-28 17 45 com packagename dumped 1766 dex   As a result  I made it   D  ProgramFiles Android gt  adb pull  data local tmp com packagename dumped 1766 dex D  ProgramFiles Android com packagename dumped 1766 dex  data local tmp com packagename dumped 1766 de    1 file pulled  0 skipped  3 6 MB s  57344 bytes in 0 015s    Now  jadx-gui-dev exe or sh d2j-dex2jar sh -f   path to apk to decompile apk could properly enjoy them

[adb] copy db file with adb pull results in 'permission denied' error

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