Related
Carrier: Verizon
Phone: Samsung Galaxy S3 4gLTE 32gb
Model Number: SCH-I535
OS: stock
My friend entered the pattern-swipe password too many times, which made my GS3 lock up and force me "To unlock, sign in with [my] Google account". So, I did that many times to no avail. I tried all 3 of my gmail accounts even though I know which one specifically that associated with the google play account as I had bought an application a few weeks back and found the receipt of that app in my main email. Next, I changed the passwords to all the accounts and tried them again. Then after that I changed all my passwords to strictly numerical passwords so my passwords had no letters in them as I thought perhaps my phone was auto-capitalizing the first letter of my password -- didn't work. I've turned my phone on and off multiple times, taken out the batter and sim card multiple times as well. Also, it's important to note that I attempted to log in with and without the domain name: "emailaddress" and "[email protected]" and that I assume the Wi-Fi is turned off due to the fact that manually turned it off since I was on a cruise at the time that was charging $23 per every half hour of internet... I also turned off the data inside the scroll down menu and then turned on airplane mode; however, I was able to turn off airplane mode via holding down my power button and clicking on the airplane mode button. I'm pretty sure that the data is on now, at least when I try to type in my password.
I called google: the woman told me to turn my phone on and off and to make sure I had the right password -- she was clueless
I talked to Samsung online: they told me that Verizon had unlock codes...
William: As you are unable to unlock the device with the Google account details , please contact the carrier for assistance
William: As the unlock codes are provided by the carrier
William: You can contact Verizon support at 1-888-466-4646.
I called Verizon and they said they can do a factory reset and don't have any such "unlock codes"
I've tried to access the phone with Samsung Kies, but it says that I need to unlock the phone first.
I tried accessing the phone through the my computer folder, but there's nothing inside the SCH-I535 folder.
I right clicked and looked at the properties of the SCH-I535 folder and there was no information provided (not even the file size of the harddrive).
I right clicked and tried to import movies and photos and I couldn't do that.
I tried having someone call me (I can receive calls) and quickly pressing the menu button to try to get into the phone -- that didn't work.
So yeah, I can't get into my phone.
I want to at least be able to retrieve my photos/videos from the family vacation I just went on. Is there a way to salvage them? (I didn't set up dropbox or any backup service for that matter) Does verizon backup assistant plus backup information on your phone without you having to set it up? Is the password that I need to supply the same one as my gmail password?
How can I fix this?
Someone save me.
not sure if doable, but I'd try booting into the recovery menu. It usually is done by holding a combination "volume-down + home +power" or "v-up+-home+_power". Once you get there, one of the options should be factory reset.
ricecracker96 said:
Carrier: Verizon
Phone: Samsung Galaxy S3
Model Number: SCH-I535
My friend entered the pattern-swipe password too many times, which made my GS3 lock up and force me "To unlock, sign in with [my] Google account". So, I did that many times to no avail. I tried all 3 of my gmail accounts even though I know which one specifically that associated with the google play account as I had bought an application a few weeks back and found the receipt of that app in my main email. Next, I changed the passwords to all the accounts and tried them again. Then after that I changed all my passwords to strictly numerical passwords so my passwords had no letters in them as I thought perhaps my phone was auto-capitalizing the first letter of my password -- didn't work. I've turned my phone on and off multiple times, taken out the batter and sim card multiple times as well. Also, it's important to note that I attempted to log in with and without the domain name: "emailaddress" and "[email protected]" and that I assume the Wi-Fi is turned off due to the fact that manually turned it off since I was on a cruise at the time that was charging $23 per every half hour of internet... I also turned off the data inside the scroll down menu and then turned on airplane mode; however, I was able to turn off airplane mode via holding down my power button and clicking on the airplane mode button. I'm pretty sure that the data is on now, at least when I try to type in my password.
I called google: the woman told me to turn my phone on and off and to make sure I had the right password -- she was clueless
I talked to Samsung online: they told me that Verizon had unlock codes...
William: As you are unable to unlock the device with the Google account details , please contact the carrier for assistance
William: As the unlock codes are provided by the carrier
William: You can contact Verizon support at 1-888-466-4646.
I called Verizon and they said they can do a factory reset and don't have any such "unlock codes"
I've tried to access the phone with Samsung Kies, but it says that I need to unlock the phone first.
I tried accessing the phone through the my computer folder, but there's nothing inside the SCH-I535 folder.
I right clicked and looked at the properties of the SCH-I535 folder and there was no information provided (not even the file size of the harddrive).
I right clicked and tried to import movies and photos and I couldn't do that.
I tried having someone call me (I can receive calls) and quickly pressing the menu button to try to get into the phone -- that didn't work.
So yeah, I can't get into my phone.
I want to at least be able to retrieve my photos/videos from the family vacation I just went on. Is there a way to salvage them? (I didn't set up dropbox or any backup service for that matter) Does verizon backup assistant plus backup information on your phone without you having to set it up? Is the password that I need to supply the same one as my gmail password?
How can I fix this?
Someone save me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow! You've done everything. Possibly changing the password made the situation worse? It wasn't letting you in regardless. Wow... sucks about your pictures and videos... god damn thing. God damn friend.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
If you're completely stock, factory reset from settings, privacy should get you back to the set up wizard or whatever its called. If rooted and custom recovery is installed, boot in to recovery and do a restore or data factory reset. Anything on your SD card should be safe.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium
Also, I should note that my goal here is to recover my pictures/videos. I do know that the factory reset is an option; however, that wouldn't allow me to retrieve my photos/videos as my 32g stock verizon galaxy s3 didn't come with an sd card, nor did I insert one, so all the pictures and videos are saved onto the harddrive.
Do you guys know if the harddrive is partitioned so that photos/videos are saved in the event of a factory reset?
ricecracker96 said:
Also, I should note that my goal here is to recover my pictures/videos. I do know that the factory reset is an option; however, that wouldn't allow me to retrieve my photos/videos as my 32g stock verizon galaxy s3 didn't come with an sd card, nor did I insert one, so all the pictures and videos are saved onto the harddrive.
Do you guys know if the harddrive is partitioned so that photos/videos are saved in the event of a factory reset?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When you connect it to your computer it should bring up a "Phone" drive, Inside that there should be a folder with all of your pictures and videos. Are you not seeing that at all?
And no, if you factory reset you will lose everything on the internal sdcard
Check your Google accounts. Every now and then, they get hacked or spammed and Google will lock them. Check the account online and perhaps re-set your password. If that doesn't work... you may be hosed.
Sccrluk9 said:
When you connect it to your computer it should bring up a "Phone" drive, Inside that there should be a folder with all of your pictures and videos. Are you not seeing that at all?
And no, if you factory reset you will lose everything on the internal sdcard
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is a "phone" drive that pops up as "SCH-I535", and inside of this drive there are 0 items. When I look at the properties the only info it gives me are:
model name
manufacturer
firmware version
serious number
battery life percentage
Yeah, nothing really useful in there.
Thanks for the clarification on the factory reset; I have a feeling that's what I'll have to end up doing :[
can you odin CWM in then backup stuff through there?
xrock80 said:
Check your Google accounts. Every now and then, they get hacked or spammed and Google will lock them. Check the account online and perhaps re-set your password. If that doesn't work... you may be hosed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I already changed the passwords multiple times to test that out :[
Did you happen start start Google + ? If so, then it should have stored your photos/videos in your Google + account.
Otherwise; I think you have to reset...
con247 said:
can you odin CWM in then backup stuff through there?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Looking into it right now. If you have any threads you know about for my phone please let me know. Thanks ^^
con247 said:
can you odin CWM in then backup stuff through there?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't. For some reason I cannot find 2 files I need:
Blank System.img.tar
or
Rooted System.img.tar
Does anyone know where I can find these files?
ricecracker96 said:
I can't. For some reason I cannot find 2 files I need:
Blank System.img.tar
or
Rooted System.img.tar
Does anyone know where I can find these files?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I originally did my phone I used the rooted stock image image (root66) found here. The original non-rooted images are available in a different thread in the same forum.
Ok just to clarify a few things that have been mentioned in the thread:
If you don't have usb debugging enabled then your phone cannot communicate with your pc so ALWAYS enable that as soon as you get your phone even if you never plan on using it (just in case). Without usb debugging enabled you cannot use any of the backup functions in the S3 ToolKit.
You cannot access internal storage if you are locked out and cannot get past the lock screen for security reasons. If you do not have any security set then you can access internal storage by turning the phone on.
Performing a NAND backup in cwm will not back your data/media folder as it could potentially require a 16/32/64GB backup file if your whole internal storage was used up. For this reason you could not recover any data from internal storage using this method.
Performing a wipe in recovery will NOT format the data/media partition so you will not lose any data on there. I just tried it to make sure and the system is reset but everything on internal storage is still there. This was tested on a custom rom and using cwm recovery 6.0.1.0.
As you dont have usb debugging enabled then your only option to get the phone working again is to wipe from recovery. If it wipes your internal storage then I apologise but there is really nothing else you can do.
Mark.
Just in time, I think this may solve your problem:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1800799
caslca said:
Just in time, I think this may solve your problem:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1800799
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He has stated that his phone doesn't have usb debugging enabled so adb commands will not work.
Mark.
mskip said:
Ok just to clarify a few things that have been mentioned in the thread:
If you don't have usb debugging enabled then your phone cannot communicate with your pc so ALWAYS enable that as soon as you get your phone even if you never plan on using it (just in case). Without usb debugging enabled you cannot use any of the backup functions in the S3 ToolKit.
You cannot access internal storage if you are locked out and cannot get past the lock screen for security reasons. If you do not have any security set then you can access internal storage by turning the phone on.
Performing a NAND backup in cwm will not back your data/media folder as it could potentially require a 16/32/64GB backup file if your whole internal storage was used up. For this reason you could not recover any data from internal storage using this method.
Performing a wipe in recovery will NOT format the data/media partition so you will not lose any data on there. I just tried it to make sure and the system is reset but everything on internal storage is still there. This was tested on a custom rom and using cwm recovery 6.0.1.0.
As you dont have usb debugging enabled then your only option to get the phone working again is to wipe from recovery. If it wipes your internal storage then I apologise but there is really nothing else you can do.
Mark.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you so much for the help, good sir. Yeah, I made a big mistake not turning on usb debugging or setting up dropbox/google+/something of the sort. Though, I guess it's somewhat of a good thing that this happened since I was never interested in understanding how android works before. Now, I'm planning on playing around with it once I wipe it. Hopefully, it'll work. Anyway, thanks again
ricecracker96 said:
Thank you so much for the help, good sir. Yeah, I made a big mistake not turning on usb debugging or setting up dropbox/google+/something of the sort. Though, I guess it's somewhat of a good thing that this happened since I was never interested in understanding how android works before. Now, I'm planning on playing around with it once I wipe it. Hopefully, it'll work. Anyway, thanks again
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah it always takes a disaster to bring you closer to your phone lol.
Let us know how it goes
Mark.
Won't a stock Odin flash fix this?
Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda premium
SOLVED THE PROBLEM; SEE BOTTOM OF POST FOR SOLUTION
Here's the deal, kept short:
Wife's Nexus S just updated to Android 4.1.2
Wife disabled the stock keyboard, because SwiftKey was disabled whenever she restarted her phone
Password on lockscreen
No keyboard for entering the password, only voice input (wtf)
Phone is not developer, so I cannot use ADB; [adb shell input text <password>] followed by [adb shell input keypress 66] is not an option
Phone is not rooted, running stock Android 4.1.2 from Google
and, yes, my mom agreed: I'm special
What can I do? Resetting/wiping the phone to factory defaults is just as much an option as entering the password.
Update:
Tried speaking the password, did not work
Tried following a hard factory reset-guide, did not work
PM me if you have the same problem.
Alrekr said:
Here's the deal, kept short:
Wife's Nexus S just updated to Android 4.1.2
Wife disabled the stock keyboard, because SwiftKey was disabled whenever she restarted her phone
Password on lockscreen
No keyboard for entering the password, only voice input (wtf)
Phone is not developer, so I cannot use ADB; [adb shell input text <password>] followed by [adb shell input keypress 66] is not an option
Phone is not rooted, running stock Android 4.1.2 from Google
and, yes, my mom agreed: I'm special
What can I do? Resetting/wiping the phone to factory defaults is just as much an option as entering the password.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How could she disable the stock keyboard? You cannot disable it unless you're rooted.
polobunny said:
How could she disable the stock keyboard? You cannot disable it unless you're rooted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is entirely possible with Android 4.1.1, apparently. See attached image. My phone is in Danish, but the marked button is the Disable-button. Also, 'Android-tastatur' means 'Android Keyboard'.
Alrekr said:
It is entirely possible with Android 4.1.1, apparently. See attached image. My phone is in Danish, but the marked button is the Disable-button. Also, 'Android-tastatur' means 'Android Keyboard'.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh boy she really went out of way to disable it haha! You're not supposed to disable a keyboard like that, rather uncheck it from the input section in the settings. I have no idea myself, I was just curious. :/
Unless you're going to factory reset, which should leave data in the storage alone, then I guess you'll have to speak the password.
eksasol said:
Unless you're going to factory reset, which will leave data in the storage alone, then I guess you'll have to speak the password.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, but it is a random collection of letters and numbers, similar to xxxXxXX##X; x'es are letters, #'es are numbers. Also, it doesn't work. We've tried. As soon as I've waited 5 minutes, I will update the description.
I may be wrong, but maybe someone else can help me out.
Try going into download mode and downloading a keyboard from you computer?
Just a thought. Not sure if it would even work.
But then again you said you don't have ADB or whatever. :/
EDIT: Try going to your carrier. :f
He is running stock with no Debugging enabled it won't work. Also download mode is for Odin, not recommended with Nexus devices.
If the device has data and logged into a Google account, then apps can be installed remotely from accessing PlayStore from a webbrowser, though I do not know if it install while in lockscreen mode. Unfortunately, when a keyboard is installed it is not enabled by default until the user select it.
I don't have a Nexus right now but I wonder if one can fastboot boot cwm.img without flashing it thus not requiring a complete wipe via fastnoot oem umlock, I think I'm wrong though. Then you can either clear data, then the keyboard would be reenabled. But since it looks like you do not want to clear the data, I don't know. Probably find a signed update.zip that work with regular recovery, if there is one.
I don't have a solution beside a factory reset.
I wonder if phones thieves find all this useful.
Sent from my SGH-T959
eksasol said:
He is running stock with no Debugging enabled it won't work. Also download mode is for Odin, not recommended with Nexus devices.
If the device has data and logged into a Google account, then apps can be installed remotely from accessing PlayStore from a webbrowser, though I do not know if it install while in lockscreen mode. Unfortunately, when a keyboard is installed it is not enabled by default until the user select it.
I don't have a Nexus right now but I wonder if one can fastboot boot cwm.img without flashing it thus not requiring a complete wipe via fastnoot oem umlock, I think I'm wrong though. Then you can either clear data, then the keyboard would be reenabled. But since it looks like you do not want to clear the data, I don't know. Probably find a signed update.zip that work with regular recovery, if there is one.
I don't have a solution beside a factory reset.
I wonder if phones thieves find all this useful.
Sent from my SGH-T959
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wiping the data was an option, and that was what we did. I didn't think of the thief-dilemma. Will edit the original post in a few minutes.
Alrekr said:
Wiping the data was an option, and that was what we did. I didn't think of the thief-dilemma. Will edit the original post in a few minutes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From your post we assumed you didn't want to wipe your data, not that you couldn't figure out how to do it. Misunderstanding I believe.
polobunny said:
From your post we assumed you didn't want to wipe your data, not that you couldn't figure out how to do it. Misunderstanding I believe.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My English sucks sometimes, sorry. I see where the confusion came from. Allow me to be clear (pun intended): Wiping the phone was an option; entering the password somehow was also an option; as long as I could do it myself, without bricking the phone, and as long as I didn't have to buy a new phone it was an option.
Alrekr said:
My English sucks sometimes, sorry. I see where the confusion came from. Allow me to be clear (pun intended): Wiping the phone was an option; entering the password somehow was also an option; as long as I could do it myself, without bricking the phone, and as long as I didn't have to buy a new phone it was an option.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No problem, these things happen. At least you fixed your problem.
You may want to start the device in safe mode, I did it that way and was able to change the keyboard to the android stock keyboard. Google your device to find out how to start the device in safe mode.
Sent from my GT-N5110 using Tapatalk
Ok so I got stuck in a bootloop after applying a custom font in iFont. It requires a device restart, so thats what I did (which I have done many times before with no issues) and now I am in a bootloop. I don't seem to be able to get into stock recovery and I don't have a backup of my phone, either since I have the AT&T variant and custom recoveries aren't yet possible. Never had this happen before so I'm freaking out. How can I fix it?! preferably without losing all my ****. If there's a way. Any and all help is appreciated. Thanks =]
Did u try flashing back to stock?
4ndroid99 said:
Did u try flashing back to stock?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am downloading LG PC Suite right now to try to get rid of root and go back to complete stock. Hoping that solves the problem but I'm kind of confused as to how it would when a font through iFont caused the problem. Never had any problems with root or with xposed framework or anything else. It was a font. So not really sure how taking off root is going to solve anything =[
andddd... can't get a connection in the PC Suite to even do anything. Re downloaded drivers and everything but the computer isn't recognizing the Android MTP Device. Which makes sense.. So does the suite need that driver to work?, or is there another problem that is preventing it from recognizing my device?
Galaxy_S_ said:
andddd... can't get a connection in the PC Suite to even do anything. Re downloaded drivers and everything but the computer isn't recognizing the Android MTP Device. Which makes sense.. So does the suite need that driver to work?, or is there another problem that is preventing it from recognizing my device?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have a look at this thread.
4ndroid99 said:
Have a look at this thread.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Jesus Christ... nothing wants to work for me. Thank you for the link and advice. But my computer doesn't want to download the zip for the LG Flash tool that they have hosted on Mega. Want to make sure I'm getting the right flash tool so that everything works like it should. Is there another link to it somewhere else?
Just kidding. it was the browser. I was using Opera (don't ask). lol. I'm using firefox now and was able to get the files downloaded.
Couple more questions. I realized this computer is running Vista. I never use computers anymore so I don't really pay attention. haha. Could that possibly be the problem with the PC Suite? I've never used it before so I don't know if it would have worked before while my phone was working. However, I have plugged my phone into the computer before just to transfer files and whatnot and never had any problems with the drivers. But if that could possibly be the problem I have a laptop that has Windows 7 and it is downloading the PC Suite right now but it is taking FOREVER and for some reason keeps having network error issues and stopping the download so it is taking even longer. So the question is would it be worth it to wait for it and see what happens or should I just use the LGFlash method you posted above? Also with that method, will I lose all my data? I know it says at the end of the instructions to perform a factory reset through the settings menu once you get the phone back up and running, but at that point I would be able to save all of my data beforehand if it doesn't reset everything through the process. So does the process already reset everything?
I obviously have terrible luck with computers. lol. And phones, apparently. But mostly computers.
Galaxy_S_ said:
Just kidding. it was the browser. I was using Opera (don't ask). lol. I'm using firefox now and was able to get the files downloaded.
Couple more questions. I realized this computer is running Vista. I never use computers anymore so I don't really pay attention. haha. Could that possibly be the problem with the PC Suite? I've never used it before so I don't know if it would have worked before while my phone was working. However, I have plugged my phone into the computer before just to transfer files and whatnot and never had any problems with the drivers. But if that could possibly be the problem I have a laptop that has Windows 7 and it is downloading the PC Suite right now but it is taking FOREVER and for some reason keeps having network error issues and stopping the download so it is taking even longer. So the question is would it be worth it to wait for it and see what happens or should I just use the LGFlash method you posted above? Also with that method, will I lose all my data? I know it says at the end of the instructions to perform a factory reset through the settings menu once you get the phone back up and running, but at that point I would be able to save all of my data beforehand if it doesn't reset everything through the process. So does the process already reset everything?
I obviously have terrible luck with computers. lol. And phones, apparently. But mostly computers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, you will lose all your data after flashing back stock. That's why in the future it's important to make regular titanium backups and store your photos and media on an external sd card instead. I've never used the pc suite so I can't comment on that.
4ndroid99 said:
Yes, you will lose all your data after flashing back stock. That's why in the future it's important to make regular titanium backups and store your photos and media on an external sd card instead. I've never used the pc suite so I can't comment on that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you. I finally got fed up with the stupid PC Suite and used the LGFlash method. It was my last option so I didn't really have a choice. So I lost all my data. But luckily I haven't had the phone for too long. Only a couple months. So there wasn't too much to lose. I lost some pics and videos but memories are forever and photos are just mementos of the memories. So I'll get over it. Also lost all my hungry shark data. I had an almost fully maxed out Megaladon =[ lol. Oh well. Lesson for next time. I have Helium and a dropbox and I could have backed up all my pics just on my PC at some point, so I'm kicking myself for not doing that. But it's a lesson for next time. And this time I will definitely have the pictures save to SD instead. Thanks for the help, though!
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%!?&·( 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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Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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.