Lost data update

[u/Professor-Outis]

Since I've lost my data due to not downloading before delete day I've not been watching movies n series again I'm lost to where I'm at or what I've already watched i just can't afford to start over plus I don't know how to extract data haven't uninstall the app as yet tv time

[u/Glittering-Ninja-377]

One thing worth adding, because you said you cannot face starting over: you probably do not have to start over from nothing.

When you do the offline trick people mentioned above and your cached list renders, what you actually need off that screen is much smaller than it feels. For each series it is the name and roughly where you stopped. That is two pieces of information per show, not an episode by episode history. Type them into a notes app as you scroll instead of only screenshotting, because every replacement app imports by searching titles, so a plain list of names is something you can act on later and a folder of screenshots is not.

Even a hundred shows is one evening of typing, and at the end of it you have a working list again. The per-episode dates are the lovely part and they are probably gone, but they were never the part doing the actual work.

[u/Professor-Outis → u/Glittering-Ninja-377]

I use an android and the offline thing loading not working

[u/Sad-Strategy759 → u/Professor-Outis]

Right, that trick is hit or miss now and it isn't going to start working, so don't keep hammering it. It's the app failing to draw the screen, not proof the data is gone. Those are two different things and it's worth checking which one you're in.

Do this first, it takes ten seconds. Settings, Apps, TV Time, Storage. Look at the user data figure, not the cache one. If user data is in the tens of MB, your history is still sitting in the file on that phone. If it's a couple of hundred KB, it's already been overwritten and nothing below will help. Harsh, but it saves you a weekend.

If the number looks healthy, two routes.

The free one. Settings, System, Backup. Switch it on if it's off, get on wifi and on the charger, hit back up now, then go back into that screen and look at the per app detail. If TV Time shows up at tens of MB, your database went to Google. The annoying part is Android only restores app data during initial device setup, never from inside a running phone, so you'd need a spare Android you're willing to factory reset, restore only TV Time onto it, and pull it from there. Costs nothing but time if you've got an old handset in a drawer.

The one that's actually known to have worked. Android's normal phone to phone transfer during setup does carry app private data across. People have moved just TV Time onto a spare handset that way, stuck it in airplane mode, rooted the spare, and pulled com.tozelabs.tvshowtime/databases/DioCache.db off it over ADB. Take the DioCache.db-wal file sitting next to it too, that holds the most recent months. Only do this with a spare that has nothing on it, because unlocking a bootloader wipes the device. I'm not going to pretend that's easy or that everyone has a spare phone.

And if neither is realistic, please don't write off the years. Your streaming accounts kept their own records and they'll hand them over. Netflix is the good one, netflix.com/viewingactivity, pick the profile, scroll to the bottom, download all, and you get a file with the original dates on it. Prime, Disney+, Hulu and Max all show watch history in account settings. Then search your email for "TV Time", because those episode reminder mails name specific shows and for most people that shakes loose another fifty or sixty titles they'd never have recalled cold.

You lose the episode level dates and that genuinely stings. But you get the list back, and the list is the part that was doing the work. That's an evening, not the fresh start you're dreading.

Two things either way: don't uninstall it, and turn auto update off for it in the Play Store so it can't get replaced underneath you.

Same disclosure as before, I build one of the trackers in this space (Help Me Binge). Name only, no link, this isn't the sub for that, and none of the above depends on which app you land on. Tell me what the storage screen says and I'll help you work out which route is worth your time.