Acquire a consistent file set
- Stop application writes and copy the database with any WAL, shared-memory or journal companions.
- Confirm SQLite signature and run integrity checks on a disposable copy.
- Inventory tables, indexes, triggers, views and schema version.
- Inspect encoding, declared types and application migration tables.
Copying only the main database while a live WAL contains committed pages can produce an incomplete snapshot. Do not delete journal artifacts merely to make the file open.
Recover semantics
Application code may define status codes, JSON/blob encodings, relationships not enforced by foreign keys and version-specific transforms. Validate exports against screens, reports and representative records. Physically overwritten pages may not be recoverable.
See obsolete-software recovery, SQL migration, migration services and the database pillar.