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iCloud Restore - Won't Restore iMessages

B

bgro

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jul 6, 2010
1,143
697
South Florida
Have tried this on 3 different 6S+'s. Have always backed up my devices to iCloud and have never had an issue restoring to the same or new device.

Now, when I do an iCloud restore, everything restores to my new phone except for iMessages. There is no setting to choose to back them up or not, it happens automatically as part of the backup.

Anyone else with this issue?

Edit: Backed up old device in iTunes and restored on new device and restore worked fine. Looks like there's an iCloud backup/redstore issue. Im going to attribute it to the new device release and retest an iCloud Backup/Restore in a few weeks.
 
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Having the same issue. Restoring from iCloud doesn't restore call history or messages on my 6s.
 
Hey guys, I am having the same issue. I got my 6S on the 25th and exchanged it twice today because I thought it was an issue with the phone.

So, on the last one since I kept restoring from the 6S that I have had for the last 2 weeks, the Messages and Notes and well as any voice recordings would not come up.
After that, I restored from my last iPhone 6 backup and the messages and notes seemed to come back. So it muust be an issue in backing up on the 6S.

Really sucks because I had extremely important voice recordings and notes saved within the last 2 weeks and now won't be able to get them back... or atleast it seems like that. Not happy at all.
 
I'm also guessing this isn't a widely known issue since people haven't been restoring their 6S's from a 6S backup since it's a new phone but it is a huge issue.
 
Ok. After 4 tries with the most recent backup and getting no messages I tried to go to the next most recent backup from Tuesday which was created from a 6s too and messages came over. I ended up just losing a few days of messages. Looks like my most recent backup was corrupted or something.
 
That would absolutely bite if you had texts from a loved one. Poof gone forever. I personally use Imazing to copy those text messages to my mac. I made sure to copy the voicemails as well with this app. You never know...
 
golfnut1982 said:
That would absolutely bite if you had texts from a loved one. Poof gone forever. I personally use Imazing to copy those text messages to my mac. I made sure to copy the voicemails as well with this app. You never know...
Click to expand...

If you really care about that data then you wouldn’t trust a cloud provider, especially not iCloud which is known to have issues like these. iTunes backups are a minimum, but additional services are good too. On the Mac, iMessages are directly accessible in your library folder, if you receive them there. That’s a good backup for messages too.
 
Kallt, I've seen those as well, but even restoring them from a backup takes some knowledge. Do you know how? Lets say you wanted to start fresh, and ALL you wanted were those iMessages (Jabber) back on your Mac. If you could explain, that would be very helpful!
 
KALLT said:
If you really care about that data then you wouldn’t trust a cloud provider, especially not iCloud which is known to have issues like these. iTunes backups are a minimum, but additional services are good too. On the Mac, iMessages are directly accessible in your library folder, if you receive them there. That’s a good backup for messages too.
Click to expand...
I completely agree with this. iCloud is so unreliabile.
 
bgro said:
Have tried this on 3 different 6S+'s. Have always backed up my devices to iCloud and have never had an issue restoring to the same or new device.

Now, when I do an iCloud restore, everything restores to my new phone except for iMessages. There is no setting to choose to back them up or not, it happens automatically as part of the backup.

Anyone else with this issue?
Click to expand...

i do. man i thought i was tripping. i got a 64gb and wanted 128 instead.. got my 128 gig did a restore from my 64gig iphone6S+ and the same thing happen to.. also some apps like mail and photo are not working for 3D touch
 
So it's not just me. I made a backup on Oct 15 and iMessages, Call History and Health data are all blank when I restore from that backup. I restored this morning from a Sept 25 back up and all the data is where it is expected to be.
 
how about 3D touch. along with my text messages being gone some of the stock apps dont work with 3d touch unless i erase and restore to new phone
 
paulfresh said:
how about 3D touch. along with my text messages being gone some of the stock apps dont work with 3d touch unless i erase and restore to new phone
Click to expand...
I've had the same problem. Even after talking to Apple support, the final solution was to restore as new. Obviously none of the iMessages were recovered, but at least all the 3D Touch apps work properly now. Things like contacts, photos (if you use iCloud Photo Library), and notes are stored separately with your iCloud ID so they aren't lost.
 
eagleglen said:
I've had the same problem. Even after talking to Apple support, the final solution was to restore as new. Obviously none of the iMessages were recovered, but at least all the 3D Touch apps work properly now. Things like contacts, photos (if you use iCloud Photo Library), and notes are stored separately with your iCloud ID so they aren't lost.
Click to expand...

This is really unacceptable imo. So basically Apple is saying that iCloud backups are unreliable. They've always sucked at cloud services so not really suprising.
 
bgro said:
This is really unacceptable imo. So basically Apple is saying that iCloud backups are unreliable. They've always sucked at cloud services so not really suprising.
Click to expand...
bgro said:
This is really unacceptable imo. So basically Apple is saying that iCloud backups are unreliable. They've always sucked at cloud services so not really suprising.
Click to expand...

yup. apple is still an amateur at providing world class services.
 
IOS 9.1 just came out and while it doesn't specifically mention iCloud backup issues I'm wondering if this may help fix the issue?

If anyone updates and is able to restore their 6s iCloud backup back onto their 6s please let us know.
 
A couple things you can try are restore to your last Icloud backup created by your IPhone 6 but keep in mind you will lose any data including text messages that were created after that restore date. I did that but lost three weeks worth of text messages and voice message history including any new apps I downloaded (just had to re-download.) While I was disappointed to lose so much information I was glad I was able to recover the majority of my text history.

Here is the only solution I have found that I have not seen posted anywhere that has worked for me to recover my lost text messages. I'm not sure if I can mention other companies software but if you google iphonebackupextractor by Reincubate they have a program that they recently updated which is able to download your Icloud backup for the 6s. You can download your entire backup or select different categories of information to download. The process was very easy and their support team is very quick at replying to questions thru emails. In fact when I initially downloaded their program about 2 weeks ago their software was not able to extract the Icloud backup for the 6s and their support team notified me of this issue and said their software developers were working on an update to address this issue and gave me an option to refund my money or wait a week for the update to roll-out. Within one week their support team emailed me and said the update was available and I downloaded the latest version and it worked great.

They have an option once you have downloaded your sms data to convert it to an html document and save it. This option works really well and the document looks like an actual text message conversation.

On their website they have a blog and also a youtube video which shows steps on how to take the recovered sms data one you have downloaded and how to get it back onto your phone. I have not tried this myself as I'm in a catch 22 where over the past three weeks I have created a bunch of new messages that I will lose if I decide to restore my old sms data backup.

I hope this helps anyone that has lost their messages :)
 
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Hookem09 said:
Just thought y'all would wanna know that there is now media attention of this problem. http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2015/11/18/iphone-6s-data-problems/
Click to expand...

This has worked for me, although it only helps if you held on to your old phone.

I was able to restore my 6S backup to my iPhone 6 (all messages restored normally through the 6S iCloud backup), then I backed that up locally to iTunes, and restored that to my 6S.

This is a major problem and Apple needs to address it asap.
 
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