Post-Experiment Analysis

This optional section shows how to inspect data collected from the Android application after the experiment.

It assumes that you have already run the updated experiment from Automation and Reviewing Outputs and that the collected Kiwix data exists at:

/scratch/firewheel/transfers/android-phone/data/data/org.kiwix.kiwixmobile.standalone

The analysis here is intentionally lightweight. The goal is to show how to confirm that the application loaded the staged ZIM file and persisted useful state during the experiment.

Inspecting the File Tree

Set a shell variable for convenience:

export APP_DATA=/scratch/firewheel/transfers/android-phone/data/data/org.kiwix.kiwixmobile.standalone

Start with a directory listing:

tree "$APP_DATA"

If tree is not installed, use find instead:

find "$APP_DATA" -maxdepth 4 -print | sort

A typical Kiwix data directory from this tutorial contains:

/scratch/firewheel/transfers/android-phone/data/data/org.kiwix.kiwixmobile.standalone
├── app_webview/
├── cache/
├── databases/
│   ├── KiwixRoom.db
│   ├── KiwixRoom.db-shm
│   ├── KiwixRoom.db-wal
│   ├── LibGlobalFetchLib.db
│   ├── LibGlobalFetchLib.db-shm
│   └── LibGlobalFetchLib.db-wal
├── files/
│   ├── icu/
│   ├── logs/
│   ├── objectbox/
│   └── profileInstalled
└── shared_prefs/
    ├── AwOriginVisitLoggerPrefs.xml
    ├── clickedNoThanks.xml
    ├── kiwix-mobile.xml
    ├── org.kiwix.kiwixmobile.standalone_preferences.xml
    └── WebViewChromiumPrefs.xml

The two most relevant areas for this tutorial are:

databases/: Contains SQLite databases used by the application.
shared_prefs/: Contains XML preference files. These often record application configuration and recently selected state.

Setting Up Python Analysis

Create or use a Python environment with pandas available.

source /opt/firewheel/fwpy/bin/activate
python -m pip install pandas

Discover the SQLite Databases

The following script lists SQLite database files and their tables.

Listing 26 discover_databases.py

import sqlite3
from pathlib import Path

import pandas as pd


data_dir = Path(
    "/scratch/firewheel/transfers/android-phone/data/data/"
    "org.kiwix.kiwixmobile.standalone"
)

db_candidates = sorted(
    path for path in data_dir.rglob("*")
    if path.is_file() and path.suffix in {".db", ".sqlite", ".sqlite3"}
)

print(f"Found {len(db_candidates)} database candidate(s).")

for db_path in db_candidates:
    print(f"\n{'=' * 80}")
    print(f"Database: {db_path}")
    print(f"{'=' * 80}")

    conn = sqlite3.connect(db_path)

    tables = pd.read_sql(
        "SELECT name FROM sqlite_master WHERE type='table' ORDER BY name",
        conn,
    )

    print("\nTables:")
    print(tables.to_string(index=False))

    conn.close()

Run it with:

python discover_databases.py

Expected output should be similar to:

Found 2 database candidate(s).

================================================================================
Database: /scratch/firewheel/transfers/android-phone/data/data/org.kiwix.kiwixmobile.standalone/databases/KiwixRoom.db
================================================================================

Tables:
                  name
    DownloadRoomEntity
     HistoryRoomEntity
       NotesRoomEntity
RecentSearchRoomEntity
  WebViewHistoryEntity
      android_metadata
     room_master_table
       sqlite_sequence

================================================================================
Database: /scratch/firewheel/transfers/android-phone/data/data/org.kiwix.kiwixmobile.standalone/databases/LibGlobalFetchLib.db
================================================================================

Tables:
             name
 android_metadata
         requests
room_master_table

Inspect Kiwix History State

The main database of interest is usually:

databases/KiwixRoom.db

We will inspect two of the tables:

HistoryRoomEntity: Records Kiwix reader history, including the ZIM identifier, page URL, page title, and related metadata.
WebViewHistoryEntity: Records WebView navigation state.

Use the following script to inspect those tables.

Listing 27 inspect_kiwix_history.py

import sqlite3
from pathlib import Path

import pandas as pd


pd.set_option("display.max_columns", None)
pd.set_option("display.max_colwidth", 120)
pd.set_option("display.width", 240)

db_path = Path(
    "/scratch/firewheel/transfers/android-phone/data/data/"
    "org.kiwix.kiwixmobile.standalone/databases/KiwixRoom.db"
)

conn = sqlite3.connect(db_path)

print(f"Database: {db_path}")

history = pd.read_sql(
    """
    SELECT
        id,
        zimId,
        zimName,
        zimFilePath,
        historyUrl,
        historyTitle,
        dateString,
        timeStamp
    FROM HistoryRoomEntity
    ORDER BY id
    """,
    conn,
)

print("\nHistoryRoomEntity:")
if history.empty:
    print("No history rows found.")
else:
    print(history.to_string(index=False))

webview_history = pd.read_sql(
    """
    SELECT
        id,
        zimId,
        webViewIndex,
        webViewCurrentPosition,
        length(webViewBackForwardListBundle) AS bundleBytes
    FROM WebViewHistoryEntity
    ORDER BY id
    """,
    conn,
)

print("\nWebViewHistoryEntity:")
if webview_history.empty:
    print("No WebView history rows found.")
else:
    print(webview_history.to_string(index=False))

conn.close()

Run it with:

python inspect_kiwix_history.py

A successful tutorial run should show something similar to:

Database: /scratch/firewheel/transfers/android-phone/data/data/org.kiwix.kiwixmobile.standalone/databases/KiwixRoom.db

HistoryRoomEntity:
 id                                zimId               zimName zimFilePath                         historyUrl     historyTitle  dateString     timeStamp
  1 21d71319-166f-c82c-f34f-b48739f38bc2 wikipedia_en_computer        None https://kiwix.app/Computer_science Computer science 11 Aug 2026 1786479864686

WebViewHistoryEntity:
 id                                zimId  webViewIndex  webViewCurrentPosition  bundleBytes
  4 21d71319-166f-c82c-f34f-b48739f38bc2             0                       0         1904

This confirms that Kiwix opened content from the staged ZIM file. In this run, HistoryRoomEntity recorded the page title and URL, while the selected ZIM file path was recorded in shared preferences.

The WebViewHistoryEntity table should also contain a row for the same zimId. Its WebView navigation bundle is binary, so this tutorial only prints its size rather than attempting to decode it.

Inspect Shared Preferences

Shared preferences are XML files under shared_prefs/. For this tutorial, kiwix-mobile.xml is especially useful because it records the current ZIM file path.

Use the following script to inspect preference files.

Listing 28 inspect_preferences.py

from pathlib import Path
import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET


data_dir = Path(
    "/scratch/firewheel/transfers/android-phone/data/data/"
    "org.kiwix.kiwixmobile.standalone"
)

pref_files = sorted(data_dir.rglob("shared_prefs/*.xml"))

print(f"Found {len(pref_files)} shared-preference file(s).")

for pref_file in pref_files:
    print(f"\n{'=' * 80}")
    print(f"Preferences: {pref_file.name}")
    print(f"{'=' * 80}")

    try:
        tree = ET.parse(pref_file)
        root = tree.getroot()

        for child in root:
            name = child.attrib.get("name", "<unnamed>")
            value = child.attrib.get("value", child.text)

            if name == "currentzimfile" or "zim" in name.lower():
                print(f"{child.tag}: {name} = {value}")

    except Exception as exc:
        print(f"Could not parse {pref_file}: {exc}")

Run it with:

python inspect_preferences.py

A successful run should show something similar to:

Found 5 shared-preference file(s).

================================================================================
Preferences: AwOriginVisitLoggerPrefs.xml
================================================================================

================================================================================
Preferences: WebViewChromiumPrefs.xml
================================================================================

================================================================================
Preferences: clickedNoThanks.xml
================================================================================

================================================================================
Preferences: kiwix-mobile.xml
================================================================================
string: currentzimfile = /storage/emulated/0/Download/Kiwix/wikipedia_en_computer_nopic_2026-06.zim

================================================================================
Preferences: org.kiwix.kiwixmobile.standalone_preferences.xml
================================================================================

The currentzimfile entry is a useful confirmation that Kiwix selected the offline ZIM file staged by FIREWHEEL.

Important Limitations

Keep these limitations in mind:

Mobile app schemas change between versions.
First-run application behavior may differ by environment.
The ZIM content file is large and was staged on Android shared storage, not inside the private app data directory.