Whatsapp not restoring photos from backup

Has anyone found a solution to this problem without using an old iPhone? My backup was done before sending my iPhone 6s to repair service so I can't do a new backup with the newest version of whatsapp since I'm only trying to recover my old iPhone to its pre-repair state. Everything else restored perfectly except the photos.

Hi,

I encountered same problem. I tried all methods - as suggested by many on this forum, and also couple of my own experiment, but to utterly vain. Not to mention loss of ~5 GB data in total.

Kindly notify me if you come across some useful solution.

Email; **** @gmail.com

Regards,

Deval
<Email Edited by Host>

I have the same problem. I recently upgraded from an iPhone 5 to an iPhone 7. I transferred the data via iTunes backup and restore and everything worked quite smoothly. It was only a week later that I realised that all the older whatsapp media files (photos & videos) have not fully restored on the new phone and show as question marks (similar image to what others have shared on this thread).

I already reset the older phone and gave it away, so I have to now depend on the iTunes backup to retrieve these files. Any tips on how this can be done?

I've tried resetting the phone and again syncing with iTunes but these have not helped.

I don't want to again restore from the beginning as I've done many other things on the new phone (new apps, new configuration, etc.) besides the messages, etc. that I've received since using the new phone.

hi thing is that same thing happend with me but i have a same mobile which i used i m using 7 plus i want to back my all those question mark picture can you help me out please

I've got two iPhones:

iPhone 7 Plus

• iOS 11.1.1
• 256GB
• Backed up iOS locally and via iCloud
• Backed up Whatsapp manually to iCloud (via in-app option to backup whatsapp chats & media)

iPhone X

• iOS 11.1.1
• 256GB

When setting up my new iPhone X, I chose to restore from the most recent iCloud backup (from iPhone 7 Plus).

Everything went smoothly, however, in Whatsapp all media was gone and only showed empty thumbnails.

Two things are weird:

1. The chat backup size on iPhone X is still 8.2GB (as on my iPhone 7 Plus)
2. When using Whatsapp Desktop, all media is accessible and visible in the chat

Then, I wiped the iPhone X clean, put the simcard back into the iPhone 7, backed up everything again (iOS & Whatsapp), put the simcard back into the iPhone X and restored from the brand new backup (& let everything download overnight).

This morning I woke up to see, that Whasapp resotred alongside all other apps, all charts are there, backup size is still 8.2 GB, but all media is still gone (empty thumbnails).

==> What can I do to get back all of my medai in Whatsapp? There must be a way!

I would even pay for someone to help me restore my media. Can please someone help me?

Were the photos you loaded into Whatsapp from your Photo Stream? If they were, then they would not have been backed up as Photo Stream is a separate iCloud function and does not use any of your iCloud Storage. However, Photo Stream photos are only kept in iCloud for the last 1000 photos or the last 30 days, whichever comes first, so when the phone is reset, only iCloud Photo Stream photos are re-downloaded.

You may have many more Photo Stream photos on your individual device prior to a reset, but again, Photo Stream (which is housed in iCloud), will only have the last 1000 or last 30 days of photos to download.

Photo Stream is not an archival album. It is a sharing album, with the only intention being that it provides a common source for that 1000 or 30 days of photos to be temporarily stored so that they can be shared with all other devices signed into the same iCloud account.

Best of luck,

GB

OK, a few things to try:

1. Are you certain you have enough room on your device to fully restore your backed up data?

2. Have you closed the Whatsapp app completely and then re-opened it to see if it is resolved? Double-click the Home button and slide up the Whatsapp thumbnail to completely close it. Open it and check again to see if the issue is resolved.

3. Have you tried signing out of Whatsapp and then back in again to see if that will resolve the issue?

4. Have you tried resetting your device to see if that clears things up: Hold down the Home and Power buttons at the same time and continue to hold them down until the Apple appears (up to 30 seconds). Once the slide to unlock screen displays, see if the photos now show up.

5. If none of those work, then try erasing the phone again, and restore from the backup again to see if that resolves the issue: Go to Settings>General>Reset>Erase All Content & Settings, then when setting it back up, select the most recent iCloud backup to restore it to

Best of luck,

GB

Same problem here!

I backup the whatsapp on iCloud and it showed about 2.7GB of backup with media. It took about 15 min to backup. Afterwards, I installed the whatsapp on my iPhone again and restore the backup, it showed all backup save down to my iPhone. Then I found most photos are ???. The most shocked now showing is my backup is now only 80MB on iCloud (I didn't choose any delete) that means all gone....without anymore backup..... anyway to find out the backup and restore the backup properly?!

The same exact thing happened to me, had a backup on icloud for 4.5 gb and did a restore - it said chat restore is done- media restore will be done in the background and nothing happened- NOW my whatsapp on iCloud shows 15 mb. Were u able to solve this

Follow the Whatsapp website's instructions for doing backups. The application requires that you turn on settings within the app in order to get the messages saved: https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/iphone/20888066

This is what they say about Photos and videos: https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/wp/30034176

If you are having issues, you should contact Whatsapp support.

Cheers,

GB

I had the same problem but I didn't see a single image.

SOLVED:

By restoring the iPhone from backup that was backup up to my computer rather than from iCloud which is what I did before.

It installed an older version of whatsapp that was saved to my computer in the backup and when I launched the app it said the version was expired and I had to update.

After updating, it worked.

I think its something to do with the whatsapp versions. My iOS version is the same throughout.

Hope this helps.

Remember that all the media in your WhatsApp conversations are in your iCloud backup and NOT your WhatsApp backup. So if you're getting ? in place of the photos/videos, you need to re-restore from your iCloud backup.

Well, again, did you also have iCloud Drive turned on? Because according to that article, you needed to have that turned on in order for the data to be backed up.

Did you set up your iPhone X by restoring from the backup of your previous device? If so, I'm a bit confused about your comment about "installing Whatsapp on the new device". If you restored from a backup, then the backup would install Whatsapp, you wouldn't be doing that.

Can you clarify the two points above?

Cheers,

GB

Many thanks Chunkygump!

So far, both iPhones have the latest Whatsapp version installed, HOWEVER, my iPhone 7 Plus it's 2.17.71. However, on my iPhone X it's 2.17.80! Do you think that's gonna have an impact or is it due to the iPhone X always having a different version number than "regular" iPhones?

SOLVED: I took the sim card back into my iPhone 7, continued using WhatsApp for a day or so, made sure to have iOS 11.1.2 installed on both the iPhone 7 and iPhone X, made sure I had the very same WhatsApp version installed on both devices, made a fresh chat back up in WhatsApp on my iPhone 7, made a local back up of my iPhone 7 on my MacBook, then I put the Sim card back into my iPhone X wiped it clean and locally restored from the iPhone 7 back up. Now it works and I’ve got all my ***** pictures back. Thank god!!