I'm getting quite a few apps now (maybe need a cull), and generally full wipe before before installing any new ROM or changing Android bases. I know it can be long winded method, but have the procedure 'down pat", but I prefer this way as I have nearly no issues ever, and probably saved much more time than wasting it on troubleshooting problems.
[Q] Is there a method to restore the ONLY app drawer folders together with the restored apps that were in each folder at time of backup?
I realise that this is a system app and could possible cause problems,
but just for future reference, do I use TWLauncher 2.3.6 restore data only, or is there some other way or setting to do it. If this is the way, I also assume this will retore home pages shortcuts and widgets etc. I don't really need that.
Edit : For trouble free restoration, I've normally not restored system apps or system data (red in TB).
Cheers
UpInTheAir said:
I'm getting quite a few apps now (maybe need a cull), and generally full wipe before before installing any new ROM or changing Android bases. I know it can be long winded method, but have the procedure 'down pat", but I prefer this way as I have nearly no issues ever, and probably saved much more time than wasting it on troubleshooting problems.
[Q] Is there a method to restore the ONLY app drawer folders together with the restored apps that were in each folder at time of backup?
I realise that this is a system app and could possible cause problems,
but just for future reference, do I use TWLauncher 2.3.6 restore data only, or is there some other way or setting to do it. If this is the way, I also assume this will retore home pages shortcuts and widgets etc. I don't really need that.
Edit : For trouble free restoration, I've normally not restored system apps or system data (red in TB).
Cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I think restoring data only will do the trick. You are risking FC's though, but it's impossible to tell without trying.
Another solution could be to use a different launcher and backup that launcher. This way you can restore without problems. It's not the solution your want, but maybe you haven't thought about it.
Thanks, might give or a go next time I flash, could be a while tough as this current CheckROM and DK kernel are pretty smooth.
Of course will nan-backup immediately prior, just in case of any FC's.
Never tried any other launcher for SGS2, other than TW, when i'm in the experimenting mood, might definitely give it a go.
Cheers
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium
I recently rooted my revo and never really done a lot to it but uninstalled a lot of bloatware that I had found in these forums as being safe to remove. My problem is that the other night I went to download a new runner game and noticed that it wouldn't work, just sound no screen. So I tried to play Temple Run 2 which had worked previously, now it no longer would play. Naught no longer played either, I just then downloaded several of the 100 series games and they won't play as well. Can someone help me and tell me what I may have uninstalled that is causing this to happen and how I can fix it?
Still looking for a possible answer to this question, any running game I try doesn't work, yet it will play Angry Birds or games like where's my water.
I'll be honest: I have no idea what went wrong.
But, some useful debugging ideas, maybe?
1) Happen to have a Nandroid of pre-root/pre-debloat? It might be one of the things you thought was bloatware. Maybe, then, debloat and test after a few?
2) How did you root? Did you install a new ROM (which could be causing issues) or some root injection method like CF-Auto-Root, which is less likely to cause a weird issue like this.
3) Just games? No other apps? Do all of your apps that don't work have a commonality? Like they use OpenFeint or something?
ikjadoon said:
I'll be honest: I have no idea what went wrong.
But, some useful debugging ideas, maybe?
1) Happen to have a Nandroid of pre-root/pre-debloat? It might be one of the things you thought was bloatware. Maybe, then, debloat and test after a few?
2) How did you root? Did you install a new ROM (which could be causing issues) or some root injection method like CF-Auto-Root, which is less likely to cause a weird issue like this.
3) Just games? No other apps? Do all of your apps that don't work have a commonality? Like they use OpenFeint or something?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No I never installed a new ROM, I actually used a one click method, it took me days to find one that actually worked. I don't have none of the things you have listed. No other apps appear to be harmed, the only games that are harmed the infinite runner type games and Naught. The runner games load with sound but no video, Naught begins to load and then it just stops. I did do a restore with clockmod. I had set up a back up after I had uninstalled a few basic things such as bing, the games on it and things like that. My girls actually played the games after my first round of uninstalling bloat. I never noticed the problem until I got bloat freezer and began to experiment, I actually froze the sync program and google+ and then I noticed that my contacts was deleted and I lost them all, after I went back thru my numbers and renamed them, only after I unfroze both, did I start checking things and those games where what I found that never worked anymore. Where could I find a debloat program for my revo, it's the v9 one. Was hard enough finding a root program, as I am not very inclined in programing. Wondering tho if I where to do a factory reset it should fix it shouldn't it, but will I lose my root, synced emails and other thing, I know I can move my programs to the SD.
Right. Titanium Backup is a very reputable debloater. Maybe try that instead and maybe others remove things that don't cause issues for them, but for you?
You could try reinstalling the games, too? Using Titanium Backup, you can keep your progress by backing up all the games' data.
A factory reset might work, but your root may remain as it is integrated into the system. The absolute fix is flashing the stock ROM.
ikjadoon said:
Right. Titanium Backup is a very reputable debloater. Maybe try that instead and maybe others remove things that don't cause issues for them, but for you?
You could try reinstalling the games, too? Using Titanium Backup, you can keep your progress by backing up all the games' data.
A factory reset might work, but your root may remain as it is integrated into the system. The absolute fix is flashing the stock ROM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I have restored everything that I can restore using TB and CWM I lost all the tweaking and custimizing that I had done but still the running games or Naught won't play, tried uninstalling and reinstalling all them more than once.
Was hoping that if I did do a factory reset that I did keep my root, don't want to lost it because I think my gf deleted the file from the desktop that it took me days to find LoL. Does a factory reset back up unistalled programs or do you know, I've never flashed a ROM but I can learn anything. I want my phone rooted and custimized the way I want plus as you may know the revo sucks in the processor, ram and battery life department, but I'm stuck with it for another 8 months cause I'm to tight to buy one that isn't free with my contract or cost less than $100. Wishing I would have just spent 80$ and got me a Motorola Razr Maxx HD like the one I got my gf. Rooted it and have had no problems with it so far:victory:
kriskurry3 said:
Well I have restored everything that I can restore using TB and CWM I lost all the tweaking and custimizing that I had done but still the running games or Naught won't play, tried uninstalling and reinstalling all them more than once.
Was hoping that if I did do a factory reset that I did keep my root, don't want to lost it because I think my gf deleted the file from the desktop that it took me days to find LoL. Does a factory reset back up unistalled programs or do you know, I've never flashed a ROM but I can learn anything. I want my phone rooted and custimized the way I want plus as you may know the revo sucks in the processor, ram and battery life department, but I'm stuck with it for another 8 months cause I'm to tight to buy one that isn't free with my contract or cost less than $100. Wishing I would have just spent 80$ and got me a Motorola Razr Maxx HD like the one I got my gf. Rooted it and have had no problems with it so far:victory:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Shucks, sorry to hear that! Hmm...restored everything = from a Nandroid backup? So, you're now at a Nandroid backup where the games used to work, but they don't? That's odd....what partitions did you back up? I'm curious if you somehow flashed a kernel that OC/OV'd your CPU or GPU and that is causing issues--but, one-click roots shouldn't do anything like that.
Check out this write-up on Android partitions (http://www.addictivetips.com/mobile...plained-boot-system-recovery-data-cache-misc/). It'll show that a factory reset wipes data, so it'll uninstall apps, but root is in /system, so you're OK there.
ikjadoon said:
Shucks, sorry to hear that! Hmm...restored everything = from a Nandroid backup? So, you're now at a Nandroid backup where the games used to work, but they don't? That's odd....what partitions did you back up? I'm curious if you somehow flashed a kernel that OC/OV'd your CPU or GPU and that is causing issues--but, one-click roots shouldn't do anything like that.
Check out this write-up on Android partitions (http://www.addictivetips.com/mobile...plained-boot-system-recovery-data-cache-misc/). It'll show that a factory reset wipes data, so it'll uninstall apps, but root is in /system, so you're OK there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well on TB I just restored some of the items that I actually did back up. Nothing fancy on those, and with CWM all it said was to restore from SD card saved backup. It's a version where I must boot into CWM and it appears as tho it's in terminal mode. Far as flashing or anything else the only thing that I really did that may have done anything was installed a cpu governer so I could overclock, nothing fancy there either just set it to 1.02 GHz ondemand and that's all. Tried turning it off, setting it to performance and lower cpu speeds and still got the same thing.
So a factory reset will basically just uninstall the programs I have put on it, delete my data that's not on SD but does it reinstall the bloat that I removed that I may have lost hmmmm.
turns ttlinko
ikjadoon said:
Shucks, sorry to hear that! Hmm...restored everything = from a Nandroid backup? So, you're now at a Nandroid backup where the games used to work, but they don't? That's odd....what partitions did you back up? I'm curious if you somehow flashed a kernel that OC/OV'd your CPU or GPU and that is causing issues--but, one-click roots shouldn't do anything like that.
Check out this write-up on Android partitions (http://www.addictivetips.com/mobile...plained-boot-system-recovery-data-cache-misc/). It'll show that a factory reset wipes data, so it'll uninstall apps, but root is in /system, so you're OK there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok I don't know if your still reading on this thread. But I just installed Dead City, it plays great, I also installed a shark evolution game. When it loads up the screen appears scrambled out. Do these games work from flash for some and another type of player for others?
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