pardthemonster

Q: iCloud Restore for iPhone 6s - Missing Messages/Recent Calls Missing

Day one my wife and I got our new iPhone 6s (with iOS 9.0).  We did an iCloud restore from our iPhone 5s with iOS 9.0.1 and it was successful bringing all our data including Messages and Recent Calls.  The phones were then updated to iOS 9.0.1.  Everything was working fine...

 

My phone had an issue which ended up getting me a replacement iPhone 6s (iOS 9.0).  From here I tried restoring from the past iPhone 6s (with iOS 9.0.1) iCloud restore.  Unfortunately, Messages and Recent Calls did not come over from the past iPhone 6s backup and I even tried various of the iPhone 6s time stamped backups.  I also updated the new iPhone 6s to 9.0.2 and still no difference with the restore.  It wasn't until I reverted back to my iPhone 5s backup (iOS 9.0.1) that it would bring the Messages and Recent Calls over.  Note that the inclusion of the Messages and Recent Calls is evident immediately after the initial restart from restore (when the phone starts downloading apps).  This has me worried going forth and here is why!

 

I've done a new backup and a little digging.  I've noticed that both my new backup for the iPhone 6s and wife's are both smaller than our iPhone 5s backup was.  Example for my device backups: iPhone 5s: 18 GB, iPhone 6s: 17.1 GB.  Note that this seems backwards as if there was any difference for whatever reason, I would imagine that it be on the larger resolution device.  Also, this difference in size would seem reasonable for not including Messages (includes messages, videos, audio, etc.) and Recent Calls.  There may even be other data that this did not bring over as I did not see it benefit in losing years of messages for a week of new data, i.e. I did not research the loss to the full extent.

 

Has anyone else experienced this issue recently with an iPhone 6s or maybe there is a known issue I just have not stumbled across.

iPhone 6s, iOS 9.0.2

Posted on Oct 3, 2015 5:37 AM

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Q: iCloud Restore for iPhone 6s - Missing Messages/Recent Calls Missing

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  • by Tawkers,

    Tawkers Tawkers Nov 1, 2015 7:16 AM in response to pardthemonster
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 1, 2015 7:16 AM in response to pardthemonster

    Wow - Finally found others with this issue. I have been able to soften the blow tremendously, hopefully this will be helpful to some.

     

    First, same exact issue. Apparently the iCloud back up FROM a 6S is the issue, because as we have all reported, when we restored TO the 6S originally, from the 6 backup it worked fine and messages were all there. But when all of us got a second 6S because of a genius bar swap,  it didnt work. So ok, we all know that, just clarifying.

     

    Restoring from the 6S backup gets you to a point of a white screen with black apple logo, where you are stuck (left it for 2 hours there during one attempt just to be sure). The only way out is a hard reset of device. This finishes the restore, but leaves you with no messages and no call history. So it seems that white screen / black logo is where the phone is either having a problem with some corrupt Messages and/or call History backup, and the reset jumps over it. I would love to think there is a way to fix that, but for now let's assume there isn't anytime soon and move on with our lives.

     

    Here is how I turned 10 years of deleted text conversations into 30 days of deleted texts.

     

    1. My iCloud shows 2 backups, 1 from my 6s and one from my 6. Since it is a different device it should be there for most of you. This backup shouldnt be older than September, since thats the earliest you all got your 6S.

     

    2. First with the bad 6S restore on your phone, make sure to export all photos (at least the ones from September through today, to a computer.

     

    3. Now if you erase the phone again and restore, this time choosing the 6 backup from September 25th-ish. This WILL have all of your texts up until Sept 25. Presumably, your mail and contacts are all non local, your apps haven't changed THAT much, maybe that game of sudoku you were in the middle of is reset to last months game.

     

    4. You should now have a phone that is only missing your texts since you got your 6s (last month at the longest)

     

    OPTION B

    Restore the Sept backup, grab an desktop app called iExplorer, import all of your text conversations. Then erase again, restore to the 6S backup with no texts. And now you have your phone as it was yesterday photos and all, except no texts. BUT now your texts are all on your desktop, searchable exportable etc. (nope, don't work for iExplorer, just found it).


    I have a spare phone so right now I have September restored to my old 5S, and latest backup (no texts) on my 6S. I haven't decided which Im going with. Im thinking it actually might be nice to have the phone clear of all those texts and attachments, and if I need to search my old convos I open iExplorer.


    Hope that is helpful!


    Blake


    <Edited by Host>

     

  • by thegreatrocco,

    thegreatrocco thegreatrocco Nov 7, 2015 11:17 PM in response to pardthemonster
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 7, 2015 11:17 PM in response to pardthemonster

    Same problem as everyone else, but I have a million other issues popping up as well.

     

    1) Bluetooth connections are messed up. They fail half the time, don't auto-connect to anything, etc.

     

    2) Many of my apps crash.

     

    3) Beyond all my old text messages being gone, new text messages also don't really show the normal way. No notifications, no organization.

     

    4) Still freezing occasionally and screen gets stuck in the wrong position constantly. That was the reason why I went to Apple in the first place so not only those problems are not fixed but now I have everything else.

     

    Ridiculous that this seems to be going on for quite some time and there is no solution. I was backing up my iCloud in the Store in front of the Apple Genius so annoyed that they are not made aware of something like this so he could have made me create a separate backup. Now I would have to go back to September 25 which is definitely a long way back in terms of lost texts and files.

  • by Nightrain1340,

    Nightrain1340 Nightrain1340 Nov 8, 2015 5:09 PM in response to MccJoe
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Nov 8, 2015 5:09 PM in response to MccJoe

    I am in Kinda the same boat, But all I did was upgrade two phones from a 6s 16gig to a 6s 64 gig...I backed up 16g's to iCloud before going to Apple store (keep in mind 2 separate iCloud accounts)....they sold me the 64g's and proceeded to restore in the store to new phones to latest iCloud back up..iMessage was messed up on that recent restore on both phones so we went back further and still no good (3 different iCloud back up points)  ....The only way iMessages cleared up was to restore from iTunes on my Mac which is over a week old...so, we got messages back but lost a week of info...At the end, after 4 hours of store time and another hour on the phone with engineers I am being told the iCloud restores are corrupted and they can't help....So the moral of the story...BACK UP TO iTUNES!!! especially if you plan on switching out devices...

  • by d4vinder,

    d4vinder d4vinder Nov 9, 2015 2:26 AM in response to Nightrain1340
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 9, 2015 2:26 AM in response to Nightrain1340

    RUNNING IOS 9.1 iPhone6s 64GB - UK

     

    Backed up to iCloud, Reset Phone Restored.

     

    Bunch of data lost, Apps became unsynced and watch lot all Activity data as well having to be re-synced,

     

    Big pain, big problem Where's the fix apple?

  • by paulelgin,

    paulelgin paulelgin Nov 9, 2015 2:31 PM in response to Tawkers
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 9, 2015 2:31 PM in response to Tawkers

    This is precisely what I'm currently going through, with the exception of the missing recent call logs. At first ( after the hard reset AFTER the white screen / black logo screen), my text messages,  call logs AND my Safari browsing data was missing. But after about 30 minutes into the restore, the recent calls came back, but not the messages or browsing history. What is weird about the recent calls however is that it seemed to stitch calls from 2014!! into the list of recent calls from the past few weeks. Its the weirdest thing ever. Hopefully Apple provides a fix for this immediately.

     

    Beyond that, I'm trying to figure out what I should do about my current back up that has the messages that I need. Is there another way to store that backup so another scheduled iCloud backup doesn't boot it out & it is gone permanently? How else can you save / store an iCloud backup?

     

    Any help is appreciated.

     

    -Paul

  • by soundslikebliss,

    soundslikebliss soundslikebliss Nov 9, 2015 6:22 PM in response to pardthemonster
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 9, 2015 6:22 PM in response to pardthemonster

    how has this still remained unaddressed by apple?  this is a huge issue.  and soon enough when more people are trying to restore from a backup on a 6s, those additional people will be upset.  how many people does it take before this issue is fixed?

  • by Tawkers,

    Tawkers Tawkers Nov 9, 2015 6:43 PM in response to soundslikebliss
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 9, 2015 6:43 PM in response to soundslikebliss

    I was just thinking the same thing. The more 6S becomes the current standard model, this is going to be more than just an edge case. Forget fixing for now, how has Apple not at least ANNOUNCED this. There is a serious landmine just awaiting every 6S iCloud back up user out there. All that would have been needed for us to all avoid this is for the Genius at the store to say, "don't use iCloud, back this up to your laptop before I swap it, there is an issue that scrambles the restore"

     

    Noticing new issues every day, like my Camera roll shows all my photos in reverse chronological order with the oldest at the top, but the new pics taken after the restore showing above those. So it's newest, followed by oldest to newest before restore. Yuck!

     

    All that being said, I have decided that with the help of iExplorer to back up my text messages, and importing all my photos to my backup drives, I am going to start doing what used to be unthinkable and just wipe my OS, start as a new phone and download just my apps and login to iCloud for my contacts and calendar.

     

    It is better for any inherited bugs, and the phone will probably work lightning fast this way. I will just let go of my decade long habit of keeping everything in tact.

     

    B

  • by soundslikebliss,

    soundslikebliss soundslikebliss Nov 9, 2015 6:49 PM in response to Tawkers
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 9, 2015 6:49 PM in response to Tawkers

    wow that's crazy! ... but actually a good idea.  sounds scary, but I just may do it myself.  would be nice to just have a simple refresh in my life.

     

    but seriously, this could have been avoided if apple just announced to 6s users to just use iTunes backups.  (so ironic because this was my first time ever using an icloud backup...and last lol)

  • by Tawkers,

    Tawkers Tawkers Nov 9, 2015 6:54 PM in response to soundslikebliss
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 9, 2015 6:54 PM in response to soundslikebliss

    Yeah - But actually it does make more sense now than ever, since nearly all of my apps are cloud based now anyway, (Netflix, Contacts / Cal, Spotify, etc... )

     

    Even some games are using iCloud back up now so you can sign in and restore your game progress...

     

    The only annoying thing will be the folders and placement of icons, but I think you can keep that in iTunes and just sync your apps (not restore from backup)

  • by habitant1,

    habitant1 habitant1 Nov 10, 2015 12:43 PM in response to pardthemonster
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 10, 2015 12:43 PM in response to pardthemonster

    Same issue as described above for me.

     

    -Upgrade from iPhone 6 in October, backed up to iCloud and restored to new iPhone 6SPlus - no issues.

    -Yesterday needed to restore from backup (as part of troubleshooting a free Apple Music offer from my carrier). I'm using an iPhone 6S+ with iOS 9.1. Did an iCloud backup then 'erase all data and settings'.

    -When restoring, I noticed the latest backup was the night prior rather than the backup I had done immediately before 'erase all data and settings'.  This should've been my first clue something was up!

    -I restored from the latest (day prior) backup and all my messages (SMS and iMessages) were gone. Many Apps and App data were missing and all were located wrong on the grid layout. Including basic ones like Facebook!

    -Now to get my SMS/messages back I need to restore from that iPhone 6 backup in October, but that will be missing weeks of messages and other data!!

     

     

    From reading around forums/reddit, it appears backing up to iCloud from a 6S device (plus or not) produces a corrupt backup that doesn't restore properly. It appears backing up to iTunes may be unaffected (unconfirmed). There is nothing to indicate Apple is aware or working on this issue. Obviously more and more people will be affected by this now that many 6S devices are out in the world and people are backing up and restoring for whatever reason.

     

    My recommendation would be to backup locally via iTunes and to also use third party software to save photos/messages elsewhere.

    Best of luck to everyone!

  • by lmart,

    lmart lmart Nov 11, 2015 2:04 PM in response to pardthemonster
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 11, 2015 2:04 PM in response to pardthemonster

    Same issue here...

     

    I've been speaking with Senior Advisors and they haven't yet been able to come up with a solution.

     

    - Got a new iPhone 6s and restored from an iPhone 5 backup without any issues.

    - Unlocked my phone with my carrier

    - Tried to restore from my latest iPhone 6s backup and it hung-up on the white screen and black Apple logo.

    - Restarted the device and a partial restore occurred, but messages, app settings, some photos and more were missing.

     

    So I erased all content and settings again and I was able to restore from the older iPhone 5 backup without any issues.

     

    Any backup done with the iPhone 6s will not restore properly on the iPhone 6s.

    For now, I'm doing daily backups on iTunes, which is less than ideal.

     

    Apple support has had me:

    - Increase my iCloud account from 5GB to 50GB thinking my backup size was an issue (my backup is about 2.7GB)

    - Did a full firmware update, then restore from my iPhone 6s iCloud backup... still same issue.

    - Did a full firmware update, then restore from an iTunes backup, then delete all content and settings, then restore from iPhone 6s iCloud backup... no dice

    - Did a restore, then used a totally different iPhone 6s backup.

    - Ran diagnostic tests on my iPhone and no issues were found.

    - Did the first step again, but this time Apple was watching my screen with Bomgar to make sure I was doing it right. I was, and still could not restore from iPhone 6s iCloud backup.

     

    They wanted me to either go to an apple store and try with a new phone, or have one sent to my home. I'm a little tired of doing all their testing for them, so I asked them to test it with a new device on their end. We'll see if they're willing to do that as I'm waiting for a response.

     

    It has been about a week since my first call with Apple, and about 5 days of speaking with Senior Advisors.

     

     

    Curious if anyone has found a way to get iPhone 6s iCloud backups to restore properly?

     

    Or has anyone tried wiping their phone and starting from scratch, then do an iCloud backup, then try to restore?

  • by jmco173,

    jmco173 jmco173 Nov 11, 2015 2:12 PM in response to lmart
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 11, 2015 2:12 PM in response to lmart

    I Did just that.  After several fails restoring backups to my 6s plus I restored the phone and started from scratch.  I then made a brand new iCloud backup.  Wiped the phone and restored the new backup.  No dice.   Same issues.  Messages,app data ect nnot restoring. 

     

    I Have an open case with apple for going on  6 weeks now.  My senior advisor has no longer responded to my emails.  I started cc Tim Cook on all my emails. Doubt if he actually gets them but I figured it couldn't hurt.   If you get a better answer from Apple, please share.  Oh forgot to mention. Happened on two separate 6s Plus's

  • by lmart,

    lmart lmart Nov 11, 2015 2:27 PM in response to jmco173
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 11, 2015 2:27 PM in response to jmco173

    Thanks jmco173, that's really helpful information!

     

    I've also asked to speak directly with Apple engineers, but my senior advisor is having none of it. She claims that even her tickets take 24-48 hours to get an email response from an engineer.

     

    In any event, they're stumped on the support end of things. This doesn't make any sense as there are clearly plenty of people with the same issue and it has been going on for some time now. Surely the engineering team at Apple has some documentation on what is happening. This information must be shared with support staff.

     

    I'll update as soon as I hear anything new.

  • by Letapa,

    Letapa Letapa Nov 11, 2015 2:35 PM in response to lmart
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 11, 2015 2:35 PM in response to lmart

    At this point, the fix they need to give all of us is the ability to APPEND our old messages to our current threads. THat is the only way I'll ever be happy....

  • by Surfer01,

    Surfer01 Surfer01 Nov 11, 2015 5:04 PM in response to Letapa
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 11, 2015 5:04 PM in response to Letapa

    Well add me o this tread as well.  Same issues you guys are having. I have case open as well and one step they asked me to do was do a backup and restore on my iPad to eliminate it being a problem with my iCloud account.  My iPad Air 2 restored properly and had all my messages in it.  I left vm with my senior advisor today and am waiting for a call back. I hope this gets fixed. I thought i was leaving these types of problems in the past when i switched from android to iOS.

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