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iOS 4.2.1 update lost all my text messages

eriknba said:
Welcome to the club.

I've been trying to deal with apple on this issue since I first posted this thread, with no further luck. They keep wanting me to try upgrading to 4.2.1 again, to see if it'll work, but the problem is I won't be able to downgrade again(this apple employee didn't know that apple unsigns dated FW's after a week or so. He said to try creating a new user on your machine, blah blah etc etc

SINCE you are already screwed (sorry, I do feel for you), I was wondering I'd you could try something for me. I've been reading about manually "hacking" the apple backup to including the SMS history. If I were to send you the information and walk you through the process, would you be able to try that for me? For us? :D
Click to expand...

Manually hacking the apple backup doesn't work. I tried it. I presume you are talking about replacing the file with the SMSs wiped off in the backup with one containing the info. iTunes doesn't put that back on the phone. Apparently every file is marked for that particular backup and the files not belonging to it got ignored.

Apparently the "iPhone explorer" software is able to take data off and put data on the iphone. However, to access text messages you'd need to jailbreak the phone (I had my 3G jailbroken to use it on a different network but have no intention to do it now)

I'm still to try and restore my backup to a phone running 4.2.1 (obviously a spare one). I might get some time for this over the Christmas break. You could use your work phone to try this?
 
Lost all text messages on 4.2.1 update

Updated my iPhone 4 last night. Upon completion, I noticed all my text messages were gone. All the history was erased. Tried three more backups and even a complete 1.5 hour reset from factory. Nothing. All gone. Went to 2 genius bars to get different opinions. Both techs had never heard of the problem (yeah, right?) and said to try and backup again, but that was the only hope. The other guy it must have been some kind of fluke and all the data will most likely be lost. He suggested the computer softward, Phoneview, but it doesn't recover what's lost already. I'm bummed out and disappointed cause I had a lot of information in all my text history and it's gone forever. Beware of this fluke, as I see it's happening to other iPhone 4 users as well.
 
i'm still running 4.1 because of this issue, and sadly i can't even test any of my theories because theres no way to go back if i upgrade to 4.2.

i sure hope 4.3 fixes this issue...
 
eriknba said:
i'm still running 4.1 because of this issue, and sadly i can't even test any of my theories because theres no way to go back if i upgrade to 4.2.

i sure hope 4.3 fixes this issue...
Click to expand...

Erik, today I finally restored a spare iPhone 3GS running 4.2 with my backup. And the same thing happened - all texts gone as soon as it received a text. So no joy there. It definitely is an issue with the software and not the hardware.

Then I jailbroke the 3GS, copied off the text messages using iphone explorer and once wiped off I put them back on. This time they stayed on however the phone became unable to receive text messages at all.

So I guess I will be waiting for 4.3 as well :(
 
kaldemir said:
Erik, today I finally restored a spare iPhone 3GS running 4.2 with my backup. And the same thing happened - all texts gone as soon as it received a text. So no joy there. It definitely is an issue with the software and not the hardware.

Then I jailbroke the 3GS, copied off the text messages using iphone explorer and once wiped off I put them back on. This time they stayed on however the phone became unable to receive text messages at all.

So I guess I will be waiting for 4.3 as well :(
Click to expand...

and crossing our fingers hoping it fixes this issue, or else those who are running 4.1 still are royally F:mad::mad:ked
 
I recently encountered this problem as well, but have not reported the bug to Apple as you have to be a developer and I am sure others have already reported. Just hoping iOS 4.3 will address the issue.

Have any of you noticed or encountered that when you search for a message via Spotlight, the old SMS/MMS messages that are supposedly deleted, appear mysteriously? However when you click on the specific message with the deleted note (there may be two messages if you already created a conversation since the deletion) it will take you to the most recent message you had with the person and not show the history that is now deleted.

I also noticed that when you search for a text from a specific contact within the search function in messaging, you will not get a result. It only searches key words within the string and not the actual contact name.

Not sure if these two items are related or not.
 
4.3 is out.

is anybody willing to give it a go to see if it's fixed this issue?

i'm still running 4.1, so i can't turn back if it's still broken...
 
eriknba said:
4.3 is out.

is anybody willing to give it a go to see if it's fixed this issue?

i'm still running 4.1, so i can't turn back if it's still broken...
Click to expand...

I will update to 4.3 here shortly and let you know if it corrects my problem later today. I sure hope so. As I stated, they show up in my spotlight search, so I am hopeful that it will bring them back.
 
waytena said:
I recently encountered this problem as well, but have not reported the bug to Apple as you have to be a developer and I am sure others have already reported. Just hoping iOS 4.3 will address the issue.

Have any of you noticed or encountered that when you search for a message via Spotlight, the old SMS/MMS messages that are supposedly deleted, appear mysteriously? However when you click on the specific message with the deleted note (there may be two messages if you already created a conversation since the deletion) it will take you to the most recent message you had with the person and not show the history that is now deleted.

I also noticed that when you search for a text from a specific contact within the search function in messaging, you will not get a result. It only searches key words within the string and not the actual contact name.

Not sure if these two items are related or not.
Click to expand...

As far as I know spotlight indexes the messages and that's why they still appear in search. If you check the SMS file in the db you'll see that it's blank - the texts are gone
 
eriknba said:
4.3 is out.

is anybody willing to give it a go to see if it's fixed this issue?

i'm still running 4.1, so i can't turn back if it's still broken...
Click to expand...

I'm restoring the spare 3GS at the moment. Will keep you posted
 
waytena said:
I will update to 4.3 here shortly and let you know if it corrects my problem later today. I sure hope so. As I stated, they show up in my spotlight search, so I am hopeful that it will bring them back.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, my update to 4.3 did not correct the problem and it appears that the sms/mms are forever gone. They no longer show up in my spotlight search as well. The good news is that my issue with the search function within sms/mms now includes the contact name which previously it did not do as it would only search the text within the thread.
 
Well it's official - all my texts are gone as well.

I WAS able to use some gimmicky program to backup my texts to a CSV file beforehand, but unfortunately that's where they'll stay - there's no way to re-import them.

This sucks. But I knew I had to update at some point....
 
eriknba said:
Well it's official - all my texts are gone as well.

I WAS able to use some gimmicky program to backup my texts to a CSV file beforehand, but unfortunately that's where they'll stay - there's no way to re-import them.

This sucks. But I knew I had to update at some point....
Click to expand...

If it's a consolation the 4.3.1 update didn't change anything either. I managed to back them up as a CSV file and a PDF file. I also backed them up with iPhone explorer and after updating I put them back on the phone as I said before, but that stopped the text messaging from working completely.. I won't update until either the update is able to sustain my texts or I upgrade to a new device :(
 
Sorry I have no answer to the problems mentioned but a genuine question regarding text messages.

Why do people keep old text messages?

I clear all my old texts and such as part of regular housekeeping, anything important gets written down in a diary.
 
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