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If I break forum etiquette in some way please excuse the lapse - this is my first post to any forum. Honestly, it's a bit intimidating but I'm more than a little desperate right now. Near panic would be a better description of my state.
My Droid Incredible is stuck in a continuous boot loop. 24-48 hours after downloading a sleep sound generating app (if this is relevant), I was trying to use a different app and a pop-up stated "internal error" and would not load the app. I tried another and same result. I tried to kill all running apps with advanced app killer and same result. I turned off the phone thinking that it would correct when turning it back on but no luck. Now it just power cycles in a continuous boot loop. There has been no solution through tech support or a store visit. I don't care about the phone. At this point I would like to strap it to a steak and throw it in a lion cage. I do care about the data its holding - none of which is backed up in any way. There is no sd card and no back-up in my gmail account. I need to try and rescue the following data: voice memos from the HTC app, notes from the 3bannana (catch notes) app, photos, videos, apps, bookmarks from the dolphin HD browser and the Android browser, pdf downloads, text messages, call log settings, etc.
I have tried to boot the phone with a sd card installed. I have tried to view the data from a Celebrite machine at the Verizon store - it sees the drive but not the data. I tried to get into a "safe mode" menu by depressing down volume+center click+menu. Nothing has worked.
Is there any desktop software (or any other solution) that would enable me to restore (rescue) the data from the phone while it is in this state?
If there isn't, please just make something up so I can continue for a while in a delusional state of hope and get over this gradually.
Thank you for your wisdom and mercy.
Kandinsky1 said:
If I break forum etiquette in some way please excuse the lapse - this is my first post to any forum. Honestly, it's a bit intimidating but I'm more than a little desperate right now. Near panic would be a better description of my state.
My Droid Incredible is stuck in a continuous boot loop. 24-48 hours after downloading a sleep sound generating app (if this is relevant), I was trying to use a different app and a pop-up stated "internal error" and would not load the app. I tried another and same result. I tried to kill all running apps with advanced app killer and same result. I turned off the phone thinking that it would correct when turning it back on but no luck. Now it just power cycles in a continuous boot loop. There has been no solution through tech support or a store visit. I don't care about the phone. At this point I would like to strap it to a steak and throw it in a lion cage. I do care about the data its holding - none of which is backed up in any way. There is no sd card and no back-up in my gmail account. I need to try and rescue the following data: voice memos from the HTC app, notes from the 3bannana (catch notes) app, photos, videos, apps, bookmarks from the dolphin HD browser and the Android browser, pdf downloads, text messages, call log settings, etc.
I have tried to boot the phone with a sd card installed. I have tried to view the data from a Celebrite machine at the Verizon store - it sees the drive but not the data. I tried to get into a "safe mode" menu by depressing down volume+center click+menu. Nothing has worked.
Is there any desktop software (or any other solution) that would enable me to restore (rescue) the data from the phone while it is in this state?
If there isn't, please just make something up so I can continue for a while in a delusional state of hope and get over this gradually.
Thank you for your wisdom and mercy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you have a custom recovery image and the partitions aren't corrupt you should be able to recover everything with adb.
If you don't have a custom recovery then it might be impossible to recover anything.
Have you rooted the phone and installed a custom recovery?
With respect to backups - GMail for example is stored in the cloud - so the data on your phone is just a clone - you won't loose your mail - other apps I don't know, you'll have to check each.
If you can't get stable adb access you will need to research a factory reset for your phone which should fix it (but will wipe your data).
djmcnz said:
If you have a custom recovery image and the partitions aren't corrupt you should be able to recover everything with adb.
If you don't have a custom recovery then it might be impossible to recover anything.
Have you rooted the phone and installed a custom recovery?
With respect to backups - GMail for example is stored in the cloud - so the data on your phone is just a clone - you won't loose your mail - other apps I don't know, you'll have to check each.
If you can't get stable adb access you will need to research a factory reset for your phone which should fix it (but will wipe your data).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately, I have not rooted my droid, have no custom recovery image and don't even know what adb is. As you can tell, I am a complete novice - but a novice in serious trouble if I can't recover the data. When you say stable adb access, what do you mean?
I was hoping to find some type of desktop recovery software that may be able to recognize the drive on the phone and then view and copy the data. Is it possible that this might exist. By the way is there a more appropriate sub-forum to place this post?
Thanks for your help,
Caleb
Kandinsky1 said:
Unfortunately, I have not rooted my droid, have no custom recovery image and don't even know what adb is. As you can tell, I am a complete novice - but a novice in serious trouble if I can't recover the data. When you say stable adb access, what do you mean?
I was hoping to find some type of desktop recovery software that may be able to recognize the drive on the phone and then view and copy the data. Is it possible that this might exist. By the way is there a more appropriate sub-forum to place this post?
Thanks for your help,
Caleb
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol ADB is the Android Debugging Bridge - in layman's term, it's a way to gain terminal access to your phone and do several other things with your phone. Mostly for debugging, but can be used for these purposes if you're rooted/installed a custom recovery.
That said, it would be at this point in time, virtually impossible to save your data that hasn't been backed up. Even if you had root, this might have been a bit more accomplishable (though usually a custom recovery never hurt ). If you're REALLY desperate, there might still be a way, though the chances of it working and providing good results is a mixed bag of results.
I'm assuming that if you didn't have an SD card in there in the first place that it has some built-in memory, right? Well, If not, then Catch notes would not have worked as it depends on an SD card to hold backups and (if i believe correctly) notes. Also, I'm assuming that you had some accounts set up on your phone (HTC/Google). If not, then I don't know how you've gone this long without it, but I'm almost positive you did have at least those two. In that case, the voice memos might be saved as well as the call log settings. Contacts might also be synced, so its more of the physical stuff we need to worry (texts/pdfs/bookmarks/pictures/videos)
Now, there are ways to recover using a computer. It all requires that you get your phone to work again (don't throw it to the lions yet!) So, we'll need to try and unbrick it. Follow the instructions here to try and get your phone back into factory state. It's true this will delete all your data, but as you are now, you have even less of a chance of recovering it.
From here, you're going to just skip past the setups and everything. After that, you're going to mount the phone as a disk drive. Now, this is where things can either go really good or really bad for you.
Get a recovery software for Windows, Linux, or Mac here. I honestly prefer Recuva as it has worked well for me in the past and this other program I had to pay for (can't remember the name. Search google and you might find it ;P), but Recuva should serve these purposes well.
The reason why these things work very inconsistently is that when you delete stuff in your phone/computer, they don't actually get "deleted". Rather, they are flagged as "not needed" and is left there until the phone/computer needs more space. It'll search out any flags, then overwrite them. In our case, that will work for and against us. Since we have to rewrite about 1 GB of data to reinstall the system (or was it +- 500 MBs?) we'll have to assume that about that much will be lost to us. That's why usually videos are unrecoverable. They are large and usually take up the most space, so they will be hard to recover if anything.
However, this works out for us as we can recover things like texts, contacts, your color note files, bookmarks, pictures, and whatever else you can dream of with a very high success rate. This is because they are small enough and if they don't get touched, you can probably get them in their original form. However, if parts of it is overwritten (i.e. texts, video) , you'll know cause the texts will have funky characters that dont make sense and the video wont load. Use this to your advantage and recover only small things first. Rule of thumb: if its small and seen by the software, most likely untouched. Grab these first.
I apologize for this really really long post. I just wanted to explain every part to you so you can understand the thinking behind why I'm asking you to do something as delete your precious data. However, like I stated earlier, there is almost 100% chance you won't get everything back and you could still possibly lose all your data should the software not see it. However, I feel this is much better than not having any chance at all and just staring at your phone waiting for it to grow brains and spit out the data in a conveniently-hidden SD card. So, I hope this works for you and if things go well, let me know! =]
~jojojohnson7410
In case hard reset didn't work...
You can follow the following section by clicking here:
How to revert to factory (stock, S-ON, no root):
Get S-ON by flashing THIS FILE (218.5kb) via recovery the same way you would flash a ROM. If you're not on the stock radio, you'll first need to FLASH THE STOCK RADIO. If you don't know how to do this, then you've never flashed off the stock radio, so you're good.
Revert your phone back to the stock, unrooted ROM. You have two options.
Option 1: Download HTC Sync and run the RUU. You can download the RUU HERE (180MB).
Option 2: Download THIS FILE (172.5MB) and place it on the root of your SD card. Reboot your phone into HBOOT (Bootloader, NOT RECOVERY!!!). Once the bootloader checks the image, it will ask you if you want to update. Select Yes and let the update run. After the phone reboots, you will have a stock, factory Droid Incredible running the November update.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's all the way at the top. Do this only if the hard reset didn't work. If you need help using this or encounter any problems, let me know =] (oh, PM me cause sometimes I forget to check >.>)
~jojojohnson7410
So i upgraded to 7.10.8773.98 aka Tango without realizing i would lose inter-op unlock capabilities. So now, i cant have homebrew apps anymore which i really liked. is there any way that i can go back to an older version? i dont have a backup anywhere either.
Thanks
PS: I have a Samsung Focus Flash so it worked with WPH's windowbreak project
Question 1: what happened to your backup?
Question 2: did you not read the info on how to preserve your until on Tango?
That said, if you really did nuke your backup, you're SOL. We don't yet know of any other way to downgrade a Samsung gen2 phone, nor of a way to interop-unlock a fully up-to-date one. It's possible to carry an unlock forward, but that's it.
Q1: So for like a month, i switched from windows phone to android to try it out. i was using the s2 but didnt really like it much. but when i switched, i deleted zune thinking i wouldnt need it. so i uninstalled zune. so since i uninstalled zune, my backup is now gone.
Q2: Question 1 answers it lol. but i had resetted my windows phone after i came back to it because the sim wouldnt be recognized. thats where i lost my interop-unlock
if i deleted zune, is there any way of getting my old backup back? like is it laying on my computer somewhere or no?
yj121 said:
if i deleted zune, is there any way of getting my old backup back? like is it laying on my computer somewhere or no?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
had you done it straight away its possible that you could have "undeleted" it, however it would have been a pure pain in the arse even if you did it straight away as its hundreds of files, all of which would have lost their name. leaving it for any length of time would have more than likely let the OS overwrite some of it.
Sorry mate, your stuck
thanks anyways
Actually, I'm not certain that deleting Zune will also nuke the backup image. It's stored in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows Phone Update. Reinstalling Zune, or re-connecting your phone to Zune, may have wiped it though.
If you're running Vista or Win7, you may be able to recover the backup folder using the "Previous Versions" feature. Check for Previous Versions of your %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft folder, and see if you can find the Windows Phone Update folder. If so, restore it (just the WPU folder, not everything else) and see if it works.
A month is a longish time for that many files to sit undisturbed in the volume shadow copy stash, but if you have a very large hard drive or don't do a lot of disk writes, it's quite likely they're still there. I have Previous Versions of some files that go back for three or more months.
its empty
lol can some1 give me their backup? without any person stuff on it? i just need the old firmware, nothing else
Also, is there any way i can trick zune into thinking that i have an older version on my windows phone thus upgrading to like 8107 or 7740 or something? or is there any way that i can get the firmware online (instead of from the appdata thing on my computer) and download it and use that?
You can't use backups from other devices, the backup is device specific, your device your backup.
I'm not exactly sure how the updates work but I suspect it checks file version numbers an since we can't mess about with system files unless we have custom roms, which would negate this problem in the first place, I don't think it is possible to fool it to install an older firmware
Sent from my Lumia 900 using XDA Windows Phone 7 App
I beleive the version info for updating actually comes from the registry (DeviceTargetingInfo). I've been meaning for some time to try messing with that, and since I need to re-flash my phone anyhow, I might just do so (I have an HTC, so this is possible for me). It's a dangerous registry key to mess with, though, and of course editing it requires interop- or root-unlock.
Don't worry, it's a security question alright.
I live in Eastern Europe, which is on the far side of the Samsung support network and I have samsung galaxy s3 phone (GT-9300 i guess). My repair options look a little bit bleak. I must either ship it back to France, from where it is bought, or I must seek help of non-licensed technicians. Thank God, there are quite a lot around here and for problems like this they do wonders.
I am worried though that the technicians may try to meddle with the software of my phone and do something nasty with it while the phone is in their possession. I use the phone quite a lot to access various servers trough ssh and the servers contain semi-sensitive information about customers, phones, the equivalents of social security numbers in my country and etc. Of course I will delete my present information, but how about the future. If someone has hacked versions of the firmware, it will be a child game to get the passwords for my servers.
So I need to secure the software of my phone somehow and I'm not sure of my options, so I'm asking for advice which is better. I have experience with Linux, but about Android I'm a quite noob. I had my Amazon FireHD Tablet rooted and installed with CyanogenMOD, so I know a little bit about ROM images. The phone itself is unrooted with original software and is not locked to a carrier.
Should I:
1. Try to back up my entire ROM image?
There are various questions here. It looks that I cannot download standalone original ROM image directly from Samsung so I must back up mine. But in the bootloader (which opens with volume up/down + home + power) it seems that there are no options for backing up rom image, only for restoring trough ADB of SD card. Should I try to root, install alternative bootloader and then back up everything.
There is one very important sub-question here: Will the phone signal me somehow If someone replaces the original bootloader with say, non-signed one? What If someone changes the bootloader as well as the system image?
2. Should I try to ecrypt my phone.
I cannot get easily information about what exactly is encrypted. Pretty sure that the bootloader itself cannot be encrypted anyway. How about the system image. Is it encrypted ?
I'll be thanful for any help about these two ideas as well as any others?
If you are paying to have the repair done by an entity other than Samsung then you have a great option available. Just out of curiousity, what version of android are you running? If I were in your shoes, I would root the phone and install a custom recovery (either TWRP or Philz). This will allow you to take a complete nandroid backup of the phone to the external SD Card. Confirm the nandroid backup has been saved to the SD Card then remove the card from the phone and store it somewhere safe. Then perform a factory reset to completely wipe the phone and have your phone sent out to be fixed. When you get your phone back, insert the SD Card and restore from the backup. It will be just as you left it and the possibility that anyone has been able to access or tamper with your phone is almost nil... Apart from possibly large national security agencies whom are known for having catalogs of common electronic items that have been compromised in various ways.
I can't speak for your exact phone, but I am quite familiar with encryption as well as the US-model Galaxy S3's. Unfortunately Samsung is known for running their own encryption schemes with are different and most often weaker than the stock. Custom ROMs with generally have an implementation based on AOSP sources. A 4 digit PIN or common passphrase can be easily broken with either, but a sturdy encryption passphrase will almost certainly provide sufficient protection.
Without knowing the specifics of your phone and whatever TouchWiz it's running, I can say this much. If you enable encryption on your phone, it will encrypt /data (application data) at a very minimum. This will almost definitely not include /system. It will probably not include the external SD card or any of the actual applications (the .apk files). The encryption would keep your data secure at rest, but it wouldn't prevent a motivated attacker from installing a hidden malicious application in the system.
You are correct in that the bootloader cannot be encrypted.
84598432951
fadedout said:
If you are paying to have the repair done by an entity other than Samsung then you have a great option available. Just out of curiousity, what version of android are you running? If I were in your shoes, I would root the phone and install a custom recovery (either TWRP or Philz). This will allow you to take a complete nandroid backup of the phone to the external SD Card. Confirm the nandroid backup has been saved to the SD Card then remove the card from the phone and store it somewhere safe. Then perform a factory reset to completely wipe the phone and have your phone sent out to be fixed. When you get your phone back, insert the SD Card and restore from the backup. It will be just as you left it and the possibility that anyone has been able to access or tamper with your phone is almost nil... Apart from possibly large national security agencies whom are known for having catalogs of common electronic items that have been compromised in various ways.
I can't speak for your exact phone, but I am quite familiar with encryption as well as the US-model Galaxy S3's. Unfortunately Samsung is known for running their own encryption schemes with are different and most often weaker than the stock. Custom ROMs with generally have an implementation based on AOSP sources. A 4 digit PIN or common passphrase can be easily broken with either, but a sturdy encryption passphrase will almost certainly provide sufficient protection.
Without knowing the specifics of your phone and whatever TouchWiz it's running, I can say this much. If you enable encryption on your phone, it will encrypt /data (application data) at a very minimum. This will almost definitely not include /system. It will probably not include the external SD card or any of the actual applications (the .apk files). The encryption would keep your data secure at rest, but it wouldn't prevent a motivated attacker from installing a hidden malicious application in the system.
You are correct in that the bootloader cannot be encrypted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank You for the informative answer!
I had to do this once and what I did was:
- Root phone (which I always wanted to do)
- Perform a full backup to SD card
- Remove SD card and perform a factory reset of the phone
Then off to repairs.
Once back, I did again a factory reset (just in case) and then restore the lot
Seems a lot to do, but I have some sensitive data on it and didn't want to risk it too much. Besides during the restore I took the opportunity to upgrade to 4.3 (at the time)
glass
why dnt you buy a chinese glass and change it yourself its so easy and cheap, around 10 euros or so? i did the same for my old phone
I'm actually in a very serious problem as I have a problem with restoring my whatsapp messages please help me asap I uninstalled my whatsapp on 16th July and last I backed up it on 7th July. Now when I try to restore the messages after reinstalling it shows my google account but it doesn't show the size of backup and also it says no Internet connection please help me. Also my whatsapp images and whatsapp videos folders have disappeared. I really want to get back my chats. Hope someone will really help me as it means alot to me now
Connect to a wifi or a hotspot, or get better signal then H+
Kenora_I said:
Connect to a wifi or a hotspot, or get better signal then H+
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm already using WiFi and I tried using mobile data as well both didn't help and I tried reseting network settings and all still it didn't work out
ruinaaaa said:
I'm already using WiFi and I tried using mobile data as well both didn't help and I tried reseting network settings and all still it didn't work out
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you check your google account the backup.
It could be app problem, try resetting and other stuff.
Kenora_I said:
Did you check your google account the backup.
It could be app problem, try resetting and other stuff.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey yes I checked it as well in google drive it shows the backup I can't restore it locally because I deleted the whatsapp databases like or two months ago will it affect this
Try clearing the data and cache of whatsapp or reinstall it.
Kenora_I said:
Try clearing the data and cache of whatsapp or reinstall it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried this too and tried so many things.I watched so many youtube videos and searched a lot in google as well still couldn't find any possible way to recover
Albert83BCN said:
Hi guys!
I have been facing this issue this whole week while trying to move all my chats to a new phone I just bought as with the old one the charging port was dying and I could not bear it anymore. So almost everything restored smoothly from Google Backup and it was like being in my phone again with a few wizard steps but then I Installed WhatsApp (WA) and gone through the typical activation and restoring process and. as many, I got stuck at the 24% sometimes, some others 31% and 39%, and never got past the 39%.
I Tried almost everything: restoring from Google Drive, transfer all WhatsApp directory to internal storage and trying to restore from there, etc. Going back to the old phone to create fresh backups just in case they were corrupted as many people suggests, getting every time more delay to be able to activate WhatsApp again up to 12h for both SMS and call activation... just to mess again and feel back at square one, I guess you all feel the pain.
Well, the good news is that I finally managed to restore all the chat history!!! (well, cannot be certain that 100% was restored but I do not miss anything ATM and I can go back up to 2012 chats so I guess that qualifies as "everything" hehe).
So, I'm posting here because I've been searching a lot on the forums and the reddit and for all the people that is having this issue recently, almost no body came back to report success and I know it feels really discouraging It certainly gives the impression that this issue has no fix at all, and that you should accept losing all the chat history and starting from the start again. But from all the data I've been gathering during this week, at least two or three people reported to eventually being able to restore the chat; they fell in one of these two categories: they either transferred to a different phone where the backup seemed to restore okay, and then exported and restored in the target phone with success (something like a "bridge" restore mode, most of the cases I've read did it this way) or they finally succeeded by sheer brute force by trying again and again and again.
I fall in this 2nd category. In the most recent attempt I was doing what I've been doing again and again and again with just minor variations in the workflow and finally succeeded. TL; DR; I think in reality in many cases attempts could succeed by just letting the phone restore the backup endlessly, by not giving up and assuming the restore process went wrong when it has been stuck forever at either 24, 31 or 39% and force closing..
But I know in the midst of desperation OCD kicks in and you want step-by-step success case scenario reproduction so I will tell you all the steps that I followed that I can remember that got me to finally have the backup to end successfully:
0. First of all, in the winning attempt I had already uninstalled WA from the new phone and removed totally the WA folder in the internal storage / sdcard storage. Not sure this is mandatory but just to tell this was the case.
1. Since I got WA working perfectly on the old phone at every moment, I backed up locally for the Nth f%!?&ยท( time. This left me with the latest local backup plus a few others in the databases folder as a result of keep messing up.
2. I copied the full WhatsApp directory from the internal storage of the old phone to a safe place. This could be the PC or whatever, but PC transfer via USB seems too sloppy. You maybe could do it via ADB, whatever, I went by the route of coping it to the external SD with some random explorer utility like ES File Explorer. It does not matter, the point is to be able to backup the full WhatsApp folder in order to restore it as similar as possible as the original. What we are more interested right now is in the database folder but having all images, videos etc in place will help in getting it like before the easiest way. (Disclaimer: Ok guys sorry if some steps are too obvious to XDA users which usually are highly educated in the matter, but I was thinking of sharing/linking this text on the reddit and others, so please bear with it).
3. I installed latest WA in the new phone, opened the app (I intended to not open but I somewhat forgot) and got to the welcome screen, immediately closed the app at that step.
3. I restored the full folder to the new phone internal storage, pure copy/paste style (as said, in my case via the SD since both phones have SD slot and was very convenient, but via USB, cloud, etc. can be done).
4. I went to the databases folder and only kept the msgstore.db.crypt12 file and the latest backup with a date (ie: msgstore-2019-11-21.db.crypt12), deleted the rest. Honestly I do not think this is crucial but I somewhat wanted to make it easier for WA to know which one to target, I thought about keeping only the msgstore.db.crypt12 but some random dude pointed that the one with the date was needed. I was under the assumption that file structure is identical in both but just wanted to get done with this and keep both, just in case.
5. Before opening again the WA to try to activate and restore with this full local copy, I opened the Android settings app and went to applications > whatasapp > storage, as suggested by user redweaver, thanks for the tip! by keeping looking at the storage usage of the app during the restore process we could get insight about if it was really doing something or the app was really stuck. Keep open for now. In my case, I saw also on the old phone that my data used for the app was 780+ MB, so I had an idea of what should be on the new phone by the time it finished (if it did!).
5b. I don't think this is really necessary but I did it just in case. I was planning to go to work and let the thing running as long as it would need, and I would make sure that the process would get maximum uptime and nothing would get in the way. So I went to Applications > WhatsApp > Battery usage (or something like it) and disabled the battery optimizations for this app. I also went to the developer mode settings and enabled do not lock the phone while it is charging and everything that looked like it might be relevant. Again, most likely this has nothing to do, but reproducible steps, right?
6. Now open WA and activate it as usual, but when it seems that the activation step ended and you go to the next screen, immediately put the phone in air plane mode or disable data/WiFi, whatever. The goal is that it cannot reach Google Drive to look for the online backup. Honestly maybe in the end is not the culprit of GDrive but many people states that the GD backup is broken at this time and suggests going the local route, so we will do it like this.
7. WA should tell you that looking for the backup is going too slow and to skip this step (sorry to not have exact message, I have it in Spanish, but something in these lines, BTW excuse my somewhat limited English ). The point here is to click on the link that says skip the step and when you are prompted with a popup, click also on Skip.
8. WA will display the typical restore / transfer-like screen where the process starts. At this point you have to enable again data plan / WiFi at least or exit air plane mode, don't know really but even if restoring from local it complains about not having internet connection, maybe needs it to encrypt with the key or something? don't know.
9. Now is the feared moment! Even this time, I got somewhat stuck at 31% again. I left it do its thing, and some time later, it prompted for the popup that has a progress-bar from 0 to 100 (honestly, what is the difference between both?!) which also got stuck at 31%. If you let it be, it starts going back and forth many times, I guess maybe its going chat per chat and the progress-bar represents each one? Dunno. Thing is, even in the prior attempts I got at this point and the backup did not finish successfully. But this time I was decided to let it do its thing as much time as it would take, until the end. In the process the phone might display a pop up saying that WA does not respond. I clicked a few times in the 'keep waiting' option, then I just forgot because I did not have time to mess with it and hoped that it was still working on the background, which bring us to step 10.
10. While we are contemplating the backup process, we can go to the settings app again and look how the internal data is going for the WA. In my case, after some time under the restore process, when I went there I saw WA had occupied 0.91 GB of data space. After going back and forth again between WA and settings, the usage keep growing: 0.96, 1.03, 1.10... I thought it was on the right track, and encouraged me to keep waiting. Maybe in the end the process is too slow for old databases. Note that some people speculates that having messages from very long ago might be the culprit here due to changes in the table structure and that this might be the reason breaking the restore process. And maybe it is the case, but even if it is, in my case I finally succeeded where previously I didn't and without deleting anything, so this does not seem to be a deal-breaker or I would have never succeeded. I say it because some people reported that deleting old conversations and trying again finally made them succeed. Now I suspect the true reason was simply that by making the database smaller the process finished earlier, but YMMV.
11. Cannot be totally sure, but in my case, I noticed that leaving WA on the background and clicking on the WA icon again might stop the process for true and bring a message about not being able to recover the chats, I got this previously, do not try to open the WA normally, only leave it temporally to look to the space usage in the settings to get back to it by swyping between recent apps to keep the same instance open and working, this was a key point in my success trial that did not happen during the previous ones.
12. And finally, while I kept switching between WA and the settings and when I last saw like 1.30GB of space used (almost twice the space compared to the old phone, maybe it leaves a lot of temp data) I don't know if I either messed with the app-switching or it really finished, but then I got prompted to the screen where you enter your name or nickname. And when I completed this step, I finally got to the chats screen and everything was like in the old phone! Where previously I would get to a lot of empty chat rooms with maybe 40 total messages restored according to WA. Hurray!
Notice that in my case it was still reporting 31% on the WA background screen under the progress bar popup when it finished!! so it seems that is not really mandatory to experience the 100% complete to have it work in the end, but YMMV.
OK, maybe not the most elegant "guide" out there but I wrote it in a hurry and my english sucks, I just hope it might help someone to not lose their WA chats forever.
Good luck!
Edit: I almost forgot but, for the sake of completeness. I also tried a certain script that can backup WA from the phone and retrieve the encryption key, it will also leave an unencrypted copy of the chats database that can later be viewed with a WhatsApp viewer like this. The script is called WhatsApp Key/DB Extractor, and it still works as of 2019, just look at the latest posts in the thread. Guys here on XDA most likely know about it but if not, you might give it a try. I tried it because I assumed that maybe I could circumvent the restore issues by going that route and pushing the backup via ADB, but turns out the legacy WA won't prepare the database due to the time out of sync issue, or at least the data seemed to be lost after performing the restore process, and the unencrypted database on the PC cannot be digested by WA latest versions by just putting it into the internal storage directly according to what other users commented. But, if you finally give up trying the restore process, it still could be relieving to know that you keep a local copy in the PC that can be viewed with another PC tool, at least you get a backup and the conversations are there, in a different way though. Maybe in the future there's a process that can restore them again to a different phone, and you could then merge the new chat database with the older backup with tools like Merjeapp.
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This has the solution
Kenora_I said:
This has the solution
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Thank you but today I read this in the afternoon. This guy has solved it through whatsapp databases but I don't have a way go backup locally as I deleted my whatsapp databases two months ago. All I can do is recovering from google drive but the thing in this guy's scenario his chat was actually being restoring but I can't even do that since it says that I have an Internet connection problem
Hello. My Pixel 7 pro had some dust under the selfie camera, so I had to send it back to google for RMA, I then got a Samsung A03 as a loner phone, really low end, but I got a loaner and that was better than nothing, I then proceeded to erase my Pixel 7 pro as I knew everything was backed up by default as I had sync on in the settings under account and they said I had to do that so they could test the phone, now when I logged into the samsung phone after starting it, it did not restore my data, I just tought the phone was too low-end, but now I was looking to restore SMS messages and saw a bunch of internet post mentioned about google drive backup for phones and now when I look at google drive on my phone I see an option to start backup and I have never seen that before, so now I am wondering if I really did not do a backup on my Pixel phone and some data is lost or not.
Think that's sort of typical on Samsung's. Even when you turn off Google Google backup Transport it seems to retain the data it previously saved.
That said I don't trust it and back up everything redundantly to multiple drives. I don't use cloud in part because it's a huge resource hog.
In your case I be tempted to error on the side of caution and wait to restore the data on the original phone... and hope it works.
That's one reason I keep a backup phone, ready to go in case my primary phone needs service or whatever. In addition to backups to flash and hdds I also use my phone's unencrypted SD card as a data drive. All critical data goes there. That way I can do a full reload using just the card. Not having or properly using expandable storage is a handicap.
blackhawk said:
Think that's sort of typical on Samsung's. Even when you turn off Google Google backup Transport it seems to retain the data it previously saved.
That said I don't trust it and back up everything redundantly to multiple drives. I don't use cloud in part because it's a huge resource hog.
In your case I be tempted to error on the side of caution and wait to restore the data on the original phone... and hope it works.
That's one reason I keep a backup phone, ready to go in case my primary phone needs service or whatever. In addition to backups to flash and hdds I also use my phone's unencrypted SD card as a data drive. All critical data goes there. That way I can do a full reload using just the card. Not having or properly using expandable storage is a handicap.
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No I dont think you understand me, I am wondering if the data on my google phone is lost or not, when I switched from my Samsung Galaxy S10 to my Pixel 7 Pro all the data came back including the apps and so on, so I tought ok, when sync settings is turn on in account settings then I am all good and also tught that google had all thease backup things on automatically, but now when I switched to the loaner Samsung Galaxy A03 non of the data came back and even the apps did not restore, on all my other phone (they have been high end tho compared to this one) there was the nromal google menu when you started the phone for the first time and it logged in and presented me with my apps list and asked if I wanted to restore them.
Now the problems is that I see in google drive that there is a backup option that I Have never used before and did not know that it was there, so I am wondering if the data on my Pixel 7 Pro is lost like SMS, apps list and so on.
When I started the Samsung A03 there was an option to use the Samsung Smart transfer, but skipped that and now that I think of it, that might have been the method to transfer things, tho I have never used that on any of my other samsung phones that I have owned.
thomashacked said:
No I dont think you understand me, I am wondering if the data on my google phone is lost or not, when I switched from my Samsung Galaxy S10 to my Pixel 7 Pro all the data came back including the apps and so on, so I tought ok, when sync settings is turn on in account settings then I am all good and also tught that google had all thease backup things on automatically, but now when I switched to the loaner Samsung Galaxy A03 non of the data came back and even the apps did not restore, on all my other phone (they have been high end tho compared to this one) there was the nromal google menu when you started the phone for the first time and it logged in and presented me with my apps list and asked if I wanted to restore them.
Now the problems is that I see in google drive that there is a backup option that I Have never used before and did not know that it was there, so I am wondering if the data on my Pixel 7 Pro is lost like SMS, apps list and so on.
When I started the Samsung A03 there was an option to use the Samsung Smart transfer, but skipped that and now that I think of it, that might have been the method to transfer things, tho I have never used that on any of my other samsung phones that I have owned.
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I do understand. I would avoid switching the data from phone to loaner phone with Google backup Transport if there's any doubt. SmartSwitch has it's own issues and can lose data. I don't trust either.
Try this...
blackhawk said:
I do understand. I would avoid switching the data from phone to loaner phone with Google backup Transport if there's any doubt. SmartSwitch has it's own issues and can lose data. I don't trust either.
Try this...
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ok, but my question is still there is my data lost from my Pixel 7 Pro as I did not use any specific backup funktion other than the standard account sync options on my google phone, but yes only time will tell when I get the phone back from repair.
thomashacked said:
ok, but my question is still there is my data lost from my Pixel 7 Pro as I did not use any specific backup funktion other than the standard account sync options on my google phone, but yes only time will tell when I get the phone back from repair.
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It looks like some of the backup functions are limited to Pixel phones. Since I only use Samsung's I may not be aware of some of Google backup's advanced functions. Maybe they should of given you a Pixel loaner...
blackhawk said:
It looks like some of the backup functions are limited to Pixel phones. Since I only use Samsung's I may not be aware of some of Google backup's advanced functions. Maybe they should of given you a Pixel loaner...
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I was looking at this site https://support.google.com/drive/answer/6305834?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform=Android and that was what got me concerned that I had lost a lot of stuff as I had never seen that backup funktion before.
Yes they only had that Samsung phone in the electronic store that I went to.
thomashacked said:
I was looking at this site https://support.google.com/drive/answer/6305834?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform=Android and that was what got me concerned that I had lost a lot of stuff as I had never seen that backup funktion before.
Yes they only had that Samsung phone in the electronic store that I went to.
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Time will tell. If you value your data in the future always backup critical data redundantly and regularly to at least 2 hdds that are physically and electronically isolated from each other and the PC. OTG flashsticks can also be used but if they fail there's no tangible recovery option unlike hdds.
blackhawk said:
Time will tell. If you value your data in the future always backup critical data redundantly and regularly to at least 2 hdds that are physically and electronically isolated from each other and the PC. OTG flashsticks can also be used but if they fail there's no tangible recovery option unlike hdds.
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Yes time will tell, I will see when I get the phone back.
You can look to see if you still have a backup(s), by going to drive.google.com, click Storage on the left, and then Backups, in the upper right. This will show you a list of whats-what, at the given time point (backups expire after 2 months if the phone isn't (cloud) connected).
I use SMS-backup-and-restore (app), before I do ANY phone migration, or similar (any reset, root or wonky adb things that are iffy, on recovery), at least that saves all your SMS and call history, which you can restore to any phone, using the same (app).
Additionally, if you backup your pics (Gdrive, OneDrive, whatever...), and other non-replaceable data, then if the backup isn't usable, you have most of what you'd want, it's just a hassle to sift-sort.
There are tools to restore your installed apps (list, XML), but this is almost more of a hassle then just doing it, IME/IMHO.
On the A3 restore, was it running Android 13, BEFORE you went to restore? Down-level restores generally don't work. If this is the case, you should see your backup in the first suggestion, above, and it should be there, as long as you get your P7P back, before it expires (or you restore it to an equivalent or up-level device).
pgrey2 said:
You can look to see if you still have a backup(s), by going to drive.google.com, click Storage on the left, and then Backups, in the upper right. This will show you a list of whats-what, at the given time point (backups expire after 2 months if the phone isn't (cloud) connected).
I use SMS-backup-and-restore (app), before I do ANY phone migration, or similar (any reset, root or wonky adb things that are iffy, on recovery), at least that saves all your SMS and call history, which you can restore to any phone, using the same (app).
Additionally, if you backup your pics (Gdrive, OneDrive, whatever...), and other non-replaceable data, then if the backup isn't usable, you have most of what you'd want, it's just a hassle to sift-sort.
There are tools to restore your installed apps (list, XML), but this is almost more of a hassle then just doing it, IME/IMHO.
On the A3 restore, was it running Android 13, BEFORE you went to restore? Down-level restores generally don't work. If this is the case, you should see your backup in the first suggestion, above, and it should be there, as long as you get your P7P back, before it expires (or you restore it to an equivalent or up-level device).
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Ok yes I can see some backup in there, so I think I am all right, lets hope it worked.
The A03 was running android 13, so I dont know if it should work or not, I was not presneted with the normal android menu with all my apps and if I wanted to restore them, but that might be due to the phone having the samsung skin on it.
I will see once I get the phone back, it should only take 2 weeks max they said.