I've made an apparently successful upgrade of the rom and radio stuff but I'm missing two programs. The promised upgrade of o2's Active ui is non-existant as is the Multimedia Messaging composer. :shock:
Anyone had similar problems? Anyone know what I can do to get hold of them?
thanks
I think somebody said it appears after another reset.
bit vague
cruisin-thru said:
I think somebody said it appears after another reset.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ok, anybody going to firm this up - kind of vague really and a bit of a pain if it doesn't really do the job
..?
I had this problem as well but it all started working OK again after I'd hard reset for the third time!
same for me, but working fine now. Just do another hard reset.
hard reset worked
how bizzarre. it does the job alright.
bit strange but who cares
- and all the other bits and pieces are working properly now like the bluetooth com ports
thanks for the tip
But doesn't a hard reset involve a full restore from your PC ... and doesn't that take about an hour :-(
After discussing why the BT headsets won't work properly, the O2 people suggested I upgrade the ROM. I had assumed that since I only bought the XDA2 from them 3 weeks ago that the ROM would be up to date. But it seems to be 1.03.00 USA and the radio version seems well behind. tch tch ! My question though is .... if I do a full back up via active sync then do the ROM upgrade, and a hard reset as instructed. Can I then restore everything from my PC and all the programmes and data will work OK. and a secondary question - does this work for the SD card too, or should I simply remove it and reinsert it once the upgrade is complete?
Mike
A hard reset is done by holding down the power button whilst inserting stylus into reset slot. It reboots immeddiately just like a soft reset, but the XDA is set back to factory default settings (losing all your data).
You can't restore a backup from one ROM to another. You will have to re-install all your new apps. If you've only got data on your SD card it won't matter, but if you've installed apps to it, you'll have to re-install them for them to work properly.
All your contacts should be backed up to outlook using active sync before you upgrade, then just dock the XDA with upgraded ROM and all your contacts should be restored from your PC.
....... but I thought the backup/restore function within activesync (and which takes about an hour first time you use it) backed up all system files and program apps that you had installed, so that it's relatively painless after a hard reset and restore.
..... now I am confused :-(
Mike
mikesands said:
....... but I thought the backup/restore function within activesync (and which takes about an hour first time you use it) backed up all system files and program apps that you had installed, so that it's relatively painless after a hard reset and restore.
..... now I am confused :-(
Mike
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
alright clever cloggs, I haven't experimented with that to be honest. the question is - what's so special about a second hard reset? why can't it just be ok the first time
and incidentally - if you were confused you should have used :? - :lol:
I genuinely am confused .... and you ain't necessarily wrong even if you haven't tried the restore via activesync. Other posters on other forums and various faqs seem to indicate that whilst you can get the contacts, appointments etc to restore after the ROM upgrade, you then have to re-install each program application manually. Or rather just the apps you've bought or downloaded rather than the ones that are inbuilt.
If true, it seems a complete pain, and I think I will just download the Bluetooth toolkit rather than the ROM upgrade.
..... what's the emoticon for 'decisive'?
Regards,
Mike
So I have installed the new ROM every time dcd has shared it, let's face it, he and many others do a phenomenal job of helping us make the most of our PPC.
My problem is that I am tired of losing my settings, emails, texts, and installed applications. I sync my PPC to keep my contacts, calendar, and tasks so that is not an issue, but everything else is.
Does anyone know of a software solution or any other may inwhich I can switch to the newest ROM and still maintain everything else as is or even create some sort of backup that would reinstall everything that I have the way it was right before I upgraded?
maskedlion said:
So I have installed the new ROM every time dcd has shared it, let's face it, he and many others do a phenomenal job of helping us make the most of our PPC.
My problem is that I am tired of losing my settings, emails, texts, and installed applications. I sync my PPC to keep my contacts, calendar, and tasks so that is not an issue, but everything else is.
Does anyone know of a software solution or any other may inwhich I can switch to the newest ROM and still maintain everything else as is or even create some sort of backup that would reinstall everything that I have the way it was right before I upgraded?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sprite Backup or PIM backup.....plus there are others...these are the most common.....Sprite is superiror for custom settings....
The sprite backup image bricked me, not sure why.
So I will be re-installing everything again this time...
full backup programs often cause problems when updating rom. You should try something like uc or sashimi to backup settings. I prefer sashimi, but may prefer uc. In any case, you can use cregeditor to find your settings by changing the settings, backing up registry, and then change settings back to what you want. Next compare new registry to saved registry.
I use PIM backup, you can find it here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=299705
I also use this AutoInstall program that helps me install all the cabs and stuff i want with a single click.
Find it here: http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=20753&highlight=autoinstall
I prefer this method instead of making OEM's.
maskedlion said:
So I have installed the new ROM every time dcd has shared it, let's face it, he and many others do a phenomenal job of helping us make the most of our PPC.
My problem is that I am tired of losing my settings, emails, texts, and installed applications. I sync my PPC to keep my contacts, calendar, and tasks so that is not an issue, but everything else is.
Does anyone know of a software solution or any other may inwhich I can switch to the newest ROM and still maintain everything else as is or even create some sort of backup that would reinstall everything that I have the way it was right before I upgraded?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The best way to do this is to learn a bit about User Customizations (aka UC, read about it here). I have all of my cabs on my SD card and those files that I copy over, so when you finish running DCD rom it looks for a file called sdconfig.txt that descibes what you want to happen to further customize your phone. You can also have xml to change all of the registry keys to change your today screen, assign your buttons and most anything else you can do manually.
After running the RUU and then activesync, it takes me about five minutes to get my phone EXACTLY how it was. If I spent more time customizing XML and so forth, I would have no time getting all the settings and preferences exactly how I like it. This is the solution that works so much better than Sprite or SPB backups when upgrading ROMs. It is much easier than it sounds.
maskedlion said:
The sprite backup image bricked me, not sure why.
So I will be re-installing everything again this time...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This happened because drivers and other dependent files changed from ROM to ROM when DCD upgraded various things. This is why this is a bad solution.
P.S. Bricks are paperweights that go back in for a replacement. You just caused enough problems to necessitate a hard reset.
What I find annoying is every time i upgrade to a new ROM i have to make new bluetooth partnerships and setup my wifi access points again.
cleanser said:
What I find annoying is every time i upgrade to a new ROM i have to make new bluetooth partnerships and setup my wifi access points again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is the price we pay for having shiny new things. If newer ROMs don't offer you any noticeable upgrades, you should stay where you were. Some people are still at 2.3.x and happy.
serfboreds said:
This is the price we pay for having shiny new things. If newer ROMs don't offer you any noticeable upgrades, you should stay where you were. Some people are still at 2.3.x and happy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Stay where I am? Where's the fun in that
Hi everyone. It's been two days since the process com.google.process.gapps has started crashing, "stopping unexpectedly" whenever i use the browser on my tab.
Reading the error report, it seems (not 100% sure about that) this is somehow related to the bookmarks sync with Chrome, but i can't find a way to disable this.
Has anyone exprerienced the same issue? Any known solution? Thanks
Go to settings > accounts and sync, click on your account then uncheck everything, then manually sync everything one by one to see what is causing the error.
Then go to manage apps and clear the cache of all the problem apps and re-sync them once you're done. It might take a few tries but it should take care of that error.
I'll try that as soon as possible, thanks!
browser sync was causing this for me
I believe that bookmarks sync no long works with galaxy tab. Google changed something on their end that should have worked fine(it still works on the xoom, transformer, etc.) but since samsung changed a bunch of stuff for no apparent reason, it is now broken. samsung is so stupid sometimes..
So you're basically suggesting that bookmarks sync should stay off to avoid problems like that?
well I don't really know. I never used bookmark sync in the first place. I'm just going by what is said in this article.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/perlow/br...gle-or-the-oems/17840?tag=mantle_skin;content
It turns out that at some point Google started making some changes to the backend systems that handle Google’s user account data. There’s nothing wrong with them doing this; it happens all the time. In fact, no other Android 3.1 tablets had any issues at all with the changes, and their bookmark sync continued to work without a blip on the radar.
Not Samsung, however... I did some digging around the internet, and it’s become somewhat well-known amongst Android developers that Samsung actually modifies core source code in the Android operating system that handles communicating with Google’s backend data services.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, that's a pity. I had just started to think it was a useful tool to keep track of unread web pages between work, home and outside...
Let's hope Samsung somehow fixes that.
PS: disabling bookmarks sync actually stops the process from crashing, I think I've solved (if we could really say so...) the issue. Thanks to all!
Thanks, disabling auto sync for browser has stopped the error. Samsung developers need to fix this - I can't auto sync my gmail
What am I missing here?
Ok be prepared, this post may be rather long winded however I will try my best to prevent that. I have a Tmobile G2x I purchased on launch date. Ive not attempted to Root, change roms, or anything of the sort. (as much as I always wanted to, I always felt that my skills were not good enough to attempt these ideas no matter how easy they may seem. I just did not want to be the cause of screwing up my phone that I paid dearly for)
So I have a friend who claims to be the master (of disaster so it turns out) of rooting androids and such. He stops by my house just to hang out and eventualy convinces me to let him root my phone and install CM7. Within a few minutes the phone was rooted (super1click) and was running CM7 release candidate. (I really dont know what all these things truly are but I drilled him for answers once he jacked up my phone and left me with a half-bricked phone) So he installed Rom manager and convinced me to upgrade to the premium version via marketplace so I did. He was then showing me how easy it was to flash new roms at the touch of a few buttons. He put on some other rom which looked like CM7 but claimed to have extra tweaks. It worked fine. A few minutes later he put on some Faux Rom which gave a boot up screen like my old Nexus One did. (Multicolored X) It seemed to work fine as well. Then he said lets check out the nightly CM7 Rom so he put it on. (however I dont think it ever actually put CM7 back on.-still on Faux?) Thats when things got crazy.
Now I get the com.google.process.gapps force close message all the time. He tried to fix it for 4 hours and finally gave up. Here is what I know he/we tried: After searching the internet for hours we tried everyone elses ideas. Clearing calenders cashes, un syncing, etc. We did about 40 factory resets. We have tried to install my backup (which was from BEFORE he even touched my phone) and upon holding both volume rockers and plugging in USB (no battery installed) and it still does nothing. Windows recognizes device but phone screen stays black. Tried Debug mode while doing this as well. If we hold the volume down button and power the little install bar comes on the screen and it does its thing (whatever that is) and goes right back to the way it was. I keep getting the gapps message all the time. After factory reset I cant even type in my gmail address to start the initial setup of the phone. The force close keeps cutting me off. If I type fast, I can sync the account but I cant use market whatsoever. Tried installing Rom manager to re-flash but just sticks at starting download and gapps pops up again.
My son is starting school tomorrow and he has a medical condition. I NEED this phone to communicate with the school nurse via emails and such. As of now I can only text, call, or surf web all while dodging force closes. If ANYONE out there can please help me get my phone back to normal Id greatly appreciate it. Im sure its something easy but as I said before, Im not good at this thing and thats why I never attempted it myself. Your welcome to submit answers here or PM me your phone # if you want to walk me through it on the phone. (I have a landline phone to talk to you on) Thanks in advance for everyones time and Im sorry this ended up being so long.
Hello,
Based on your post, I would suggest that you search your phone's development forum on XDA for a compatable clockwork recovery mod which will install a custom recovery on your phone. The thread will give you instructions on how to do so and how to enter recovery mode.
You can then enter the 'Backup and Restore' part of the recovery and restore your backup manually without using ROM manager. If this doesn't work, I would suggest that you then download the ROM of your choice and install it from the clockwork recovery. Make sure you clear user data and wipe the cache before you install.
Any fix yet? This is really annoying me as I rely on my bookmarks tremendously.
try this:
Open stock browser and under settings choose clear cache and deletehistory
Hi All,
I have been trying to restore my whatsapp back up chats for few days. I have extracted them from google drive using the whatsapp extractor tool.
When i get to restoring it, the file continuously gets stuck at 24% then fails.
When restore the data from google drive, it will stuck at 24% and say that whatsapp unable to restore the message, try to restore the older backup? then click yes, it will show up success restore but end up only show the group with empty message. I had try local backup and google drive backup, all same.
Any ideas on a fix for this??
I really need the messages as they are very important.
Any help would be highly appreciated.
Stuck in the same situation as you friend! My phone is pixel 2xl, even though I don't think it is a phone thing!
Same problem, stuck at 24% as well. Tried everything, Google Drive backup, Local backup, no avail.
Celestias said:
Same problem, stuck at 24% as well. Tried everything, Google Drive backup, Local backup, no avail.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Due to trying so many times, i cant get my verification code already. it says wait for 36 hours.
Whatsapp needs to do something about this issue!
Same problem
Help!
Did anyone get it fixed? Facing the same issue
Same problem, Whatsapp support doesn't help
Same problem here. Contacted whatsapp support but i think they are aware of the issue and are just ignoring it as they doesnot have a fix. Got a reply "this might be due to corrupt backup database we cannot get your chats back."
i am trying to explain that i am still using my old device because its not being restored to a new one. Waiting for the reply.
But am sure that this is a software issue of whatsapp and i have cane across other forums also where the chat history is too long say 3 or 4 or 5 years this problem is there. Hope this reaches whatsapp and they can fix it.
Stuck
Same issue here. I reported this. Did a factory reset and all of sudden not able to restore messages anymore. I'm really annoyed, there was 4 years of message history backed up in Google Drive, no local backup
Hey all
I have exactly the same problem
I tried on 4 different device but no issues
Does anyone fixed that?
I have 3.5 gb and 150.000 messages that I will lose ?
Same problem how to fix this issues ? Please, there a thousands chat is important
I have same problem today. VVVimp chats restore stuck and failed at 24%. Please help someone.
Yes, I same too
Anybody for Help
same here, I am trying to restore from my Old Phone (XiaoMi Redmi 2) to Huawei P20, stuck at 24%, show "unable to restore from backup ...." , then can only choose to restore from "local backup", at the end completely no restoring from the actual backup. Been trying so many ways still not able to restore it.
But I found a trick, it seem it helps, the whatsapp back up can be restore from Samsung Android Phone, I am trying with Note 4, then only it can be restore to my new Huawei. Something wrong with the latest version of Whatsapp. Redmi2 > Samsung Note 4 > Huawei P20
Has there been a solution for this yet?
Trying to get my Mums phoen working. It is only 663MB of back up and it gets stick at 24%.
Frustratingly whatsapp blocks from reverifying for 3 days now.
Please Help guys!
What I do in this kind of instance is when i'm restoring, I open a file manager that gives me a view of my storage usage.
As whatsapp is trying to restore the usage will increase for a while. Once I see that it has stopped increasing and has started reducing, I just restart my phone.
I probably lose some chats, but i don't know for sure. What I do know is that i have most (if not all) of my messages back
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.
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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Many thanks ...
Flagging this thread just in case I need it. Hopefully, I will never need to go through such steps.
Tarek
@tarekahf there is a subscribe button, no need to post. if you have something to ask or post, use the reply button, no need to useless full quote. you can also edit your post
Hi, I got to step 9 and it got stuck at 31% as prev but now its asking to either skip or restore from older backup? The storage went up to 1.3gb at one point but is now back to 58mb. Do I skip or restore from older or just leave it idle until it prompts with something else