Any way I can get my “Special” Apple Watch Challenge achievements back? Lost due to a backup issue

[Benz63amg]

Hey guys, so I had my iPhone X since launch day and it’s been working great up until 2 days ago where it started experiencing non stop springboard crashes and system crash reboots so I took it to Apple and they said it was a hardware issue and they replaced it for me, The only backup I had in iTunes on my computer was an encrypted backup I created the day before I got my iPhone X on Nov 3rd which is about 3 weeks old now and that’s the backup I used to restore the iPhone X Apple gave me as a replacement.


Since I restored from a 3 week old backup I lost about 3 weeks of health data progress which isn’t a big deal as all my prior won achievements badges are there but during the month of November there were 2 “Special” Apple Watch Activity challenges during this month that happen on rare occasions, one was the Veterans Day challenge and the second one was the Thanksgiving challenge and I succefully completed both during this month and I had the achievement badges under the “Achievments” section in the Activity App to show for it,


Needless to say, Now that I’m on a 3 week old backup, The achievements section does not show any Veterans Day challenge or badge nor a thanksgiving challenge or badge as if they were never offered nor completed by me.


Is there any way I can recover these 2 Special achievement badges into my Activity app or are they lost?

 

[tabscott]

I had a similar experience with my iPhone 7 Plus upgrade last year - lost all my history due a dumb Apple Care phone rep. About 1.5 years of data - fortunately I didn't have any other Apple Watch friends till last fall - so I've built it back since. I was more diligent with my iPhone X upgrade - ensuring I backed up my iPhone immediately to iCloud (or encrypted iTunes) - made sure Apple Health was turned on for back up as well. My phone restored slowly especially the achievements - all came back except for the 2016 Thanksgiving and Mother's Day awards. However they reappeared on November 11th after the Veteran's Day award appeared - weird I know. Makes sure your watch is set to American English though!

 

[Benz63amg]

I had a similar experience with my iPhone 7 Plus upgrade last year - lost all my history due a dumb Apple Care phone rep. About 1.5 years of data - fortunately I didn't have any other Apple Watch friends till last fall - so I've built it back since. I was more diligent with my iPhone X upgrade - ensuring I backed up my iPhone immediately to iCloud (or encrypted iTunes) - made sure Apple Health was turned on for back up as well. My phone restored slowly especially the achievements - all came back except for the 2016 Thanksgiving and Mother's Day awards. However they reappeared on November 11th after the Veteran's Day award appeared - weird I know. Makes sure your watch is set to American English though!

Yes it’s set to American English.

So here’s the thing with iCloud, when my initial iPhone X (the one that was replaced by Apple due to hardware problems) started acting up 2 days ago, I imediateley turned ON iCloud backup for HEALTH in specific to possibly get my health data(which included the 2 completed Special Veterans Day and Thanksgiving achievements) to upload to iCloud, I’m not sure if it backed it up to iCloud or what the deal with it was. I don’t like to use iCloud in general as I prefer doing a local encrypted iTunes backup instead.

Should I got into the iCloud Menu on my current iPhone X and enable iCloud for HEALTH in hopes of it restoring the 2 special achievements back? I have 2 years of health data that was restored to my current iPhone X from the encrypted backup and I wouldn’t want to mess up the health data somehow just to get these 2 darn Special achievements.

 

[ftaok]

I don't have an answer for you, but whenever I bring my iPhone into an Apple Store for service, I always bring my MBA with me. I always back it up right before they have me turn off FindMyiPhone and the passcode.

That way, if they have to wipe it during the repair, then I have the most recent backup of everything possible. I usually download all of my photos to my MBA the night before as well.

Honestly, would it kill Apple to have some sort of backup device that they can use at the store to quickly backup everything prior to service? Maybe have some sort of special iCloud that allows users to completely back-up their iphone without going over their storage tier.

 

[Benz63amg]

I don't have an answer for you, but whenever I bring my iPhone into an Apple Store for service, I always bring my MBA with me. I always back it up right before they have me turn off FindMyiPhone and the passcode.

That way, if they have to wipe it during the repair, then I have the most recent backup of everything possible. I usually download all of my photos to my MBA the night before as well.

Honestly, would it kill Apple to have some sort of backup device that they can use at the store to quickly backup everything prior to service? Maybe have some sort of special iCloud that allows users to completely back-up their iphone without going over their storage tier.

I went ahead an enabled the iCloud HEALTH setting In hopes of it restoring the data I lost from the previous backup’s date till this present day(about 2 weeks of health data) and my activity rings actually were restored from iCloud from that 2 week period but my 2 lost special achievements never came back

Do you think if I roll back the date on my iPhone X to the day the special challenges were offered it might somehow restore the finished achievements to my Activity App? I really would love to get the Veterans Day and thanksgiving day badges back

 

[ftaok]

I went ahead an enabled the iCloud HEALTH setting In hopes of it restoring the data I lost from the previous backup’s date till this present day(about 2 weeks of health data) and my activity rings actually were restored from iCloud from that 2 week period but my 2 lost special achievements never came back

Do you think if I roll back the date on my iPhone X to the day the special challenges were offered it might somehow restore the finished achievements to my Activity App? I really would love to get the Veterans Day and thanksgiving day badges back

I tell you what ... rolling back the date to fill rings and get achievements is a dangerous thing. I had to do it because I lost a legit Move streak when I did a clean/reinstall on my iPhone. The AW gets re-paired as a new AW. I had 675 calories after the re-pair and about 50 before. So overall, I had 725, which would be enough to close the Move ring. But for whatever reason, I didn't get it, so I rolled the clock back to add 25 calories to the 675 to close the ring.

Eventually, it did give me the credit (that I legit deserved anyway), but it took away my rings for the two days after. Total mess!

Eventually #2, I kept moving up the day, one by one, until I got to the present day. Kept opening and force closing the Activity and Health apps on the phone to make sure I was getting credit. My Move Achievement badge is now up to date and I was able to get my October badge as well. We'll see if I get the November badge, but all signs point to yes.

In your situation, you're looking to get back the Special badges. I'm guessing it would work, but look out for screwing up your regular badges in your journey.

 

[Benz63amg]

I tell you what ... rolling back the date to fill rings and get achievements is a dangerous thing. I had to do it because I lost a legit Move streak when I did a clean/reinstall on my iPhone. The AW gets re-paired as a new AW. I had 675 calories after the re-pair and about 50 before. So overall, I had 725, which would be enough to close the Move ring. But for whatever reason, I didn't get it, so I rolled the clock back to add 25 calories to the 675 to close the ring.

Eventually, it did give me the credit (that I legit deserved anyway), but it took away my rings for the two days after. Total mess!

Eventually #2, I kept moving up the day, one by one, until I got to the present day. Kept opening and force closing the Activity and Health apps on the phone to make sure I was getting credit. My Move Achievement badge is now up to date and I was able to get my October badge as well. We'll see if I get the November badge, but all signs point to yes.

In your situation, you're looking to get back the Special badges. I'm guessing it would work, but look out for screwing up your regular badges in your journey.

How do these special achievements even work though? Are they pushed via the servers individually to each Apple Watch on their respective days?(thanksgiving etc) because if that’s the case than rolling back my clock to thanksgiving day won’t give me the thanksgiving challenge again right?

At this point I don’t Even see a thanksgiving or a Veterans Day challenge in the activity app like they never existed or offered by Apple at all

 

[ftaok]

How do these special achievements even work though? Are they pushed via the servers individually to each Apple Watch on their respective days?(thanksgiving etc) because if that’s the case than rolling back my clock to thanksgiving day won’t give me the thanksgiving challenge again right?

At this point I don’t Even see a thanksgiving or a Veterans Day challenge in the activity app like they never existed or offered by Apple at all

I can't say that I fully understand how the special achievements work, but I do know that when you roll back the clock, the regular achievements will show back up (in the event that you didn't get it the first time).

But be warned (or at least have an up to date backup ... and even that might not be enough) that rolling the clock back can/may have unintended consequences to your rings between the roll back day and present day. I don't know why, but it happened. All the data is still there, but the rings de-populated until I rolled the date forward, one day at a time, while reopening the Health and Activity apps and then force quitting them.

If you try it, good luck. I was really upset that I had made it worse, initially, but ultimately, I lucked out as it fixed itself.

 

[Benz63amg]

I can't say that I fully understand how the special achievements work, but I do know that when you roll back the clock, the regular achievements will show back up (in the event that you didn't get it the first time).

But be warned (or at least have an up to date backup ... and even that might not be enough) that rolling the clock back can/may have unintended consequences to your rings between the roll back day and present day. I don't know why, but it happened. All the data is still there, but the rings de-populated until I rolled the date forward, one day at a time, while reopening the Health and Activity apps and then force quitting them.

If you try it, good luck. I was really upset that I had made it worse, initially, but ultimately, I lucked out as it fixed itself.

I see, in that case I won’t mess around with changing the clock just because it might mess my other health data so I’ll just give up on getting these 2 special holiday achievements .

 

[ftaok]

I see, in that case I won’t mess around with changing the clock just because it might mess my other health data so I’ll just give up on getting these 2 special holiday achievements .

Lemme ask you a question. Is your data for Veteran's Day and Thanksgiving intact? Do you still have 11 minutes of workout on Veterans Day and a 5K walk/run/push on Thanksgiving?

Or were you going to roll back the date and do an 11 minute workout and a 5K?

 

[Benz63amg]

Lemme ask you a question. Is your data for Veteran's Day and Thanksgiving intact? Do you still have 11 minutes of workout on Veterans Day and a 5K walk/run/push on Thanksgiving?

Or were you going to roll back the date and do an 11 minute workout and a 5K?

Yes my workout data for the 23rd of November (thanksgiving day) actually shows that I did a 5k in the activity app and so does November 11 for Veterans Day (11 minute long workout challenge) but the actual achievement emblems for the thanksgiving challenge and the Veterans Day challenge are non existent under the achievements tab in the activity app on the iPhone as if there were never such challenges offered at all by Apple