New iphone cannot see or restore backup from old iphone. No solution from Apple support.
I have an iphone SE running 12.4.1. I have the latest itunes on the mac. I can backup to itunes via usb (I dont use or have icloud) (encrypted of course). When I have my SE connected to itunes, I see my backups.
Now I am trying to setup my new iphone XS. This came with 12.1.x installed. So the "auto transfer" thing fails or course, and it says I have to manually setup the phone, then manually restore from backup.
The first hurdle is the error message saying it cant do anything with restore because find my iphone is on. 2 hours of googling and searching later I finally managed to switch off this feature on both phones. I'll never switch it on again and avoid this "bug" in the future.
So next step is to manually restore the SE backup to the XS. When I connect the XS to itunes via usb, it shows no backups, and the "restore backup" is greyed out. Above this is a "Restore iphone" which is not greyed out, but when I click on this the only option is to "restore" the XS to factory settings.
So I called apple support. I went round in circles for 5 hours straight. We reset the phone to factory settings and did the whole process again, which her watching every step. Same issue. Then I upgraded the XS to ios 13, something I didn't want to do. Same problem. Finally, we put the phone in rescue mode, and tried that route. Same issue.
So there seems to be a bug where a new iphone cannot restore any backups.
The support person had no more options. She escalated it to her manager, who also had no more ideas.
So I can now choose between:
- bining the XS, sticking with the SE (and for me the SE is a better phone as it fits in my pocket, has good battery life, and better wifi signal than the XS),
- Manually installing and configuring everything, which will take days as I have 13 email addresses, each with a different provider, about 20 accounts in google authenticator, and hundreds of critical apps.
iPhone XS
