Phone only half-restored

[Nermal]

I just got my new SE. I plugged the old phone into my Mac and did a backup, then plugged in the new phone and restored that backup. However, it only seems to have half-worked. All my apps are there, and some of them have the correct 'state', but others are acting as if I've never used them before.

Does anyone know what could be going on here? Should I try restoring a second time, or is there some other way to restore on a per-app basis?

 

[Apple_Robert]

Are you sure that the apps in question have completed the installation process from the backup?

 

[Nermal]

After I restored the backup, it said something like "installing apps in the background" and at that point every third-party app was grey and still installing. They all appear to be completely installed now, and some have their data but others don't. Force closing and reopening any of the apps doesn't seem to help.

Do I need to re-restore now that all the apps are installed, or is that just going to wipe them all again?

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

Congratulations on getting the new iPhone SE.

I have a feeling the update did not finish completely. Have you tried manually updating the app by going to the App Store and hitting update? My friend had the same exact problem. She fixed it by restoring it over and over ☹️

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

Try going to the App Store and tapping the download button on each app that's greyed out. Very tedious process. See if it does anything. If you are able to update it all your data should show up within the app.

 

[Nermal]

The two problematic apps I've noticed so far are both showing as up-to-date. It's also unclear how to restore the whole phone again; Finder is now saying there are no backups of the new phone (true) and has the Restore Backup button greyed out. I'm not sure how to 'point' it to the backups of the old phone now that I've already restored it once.

 

[Nermal]

Try going to the App Store and tapping the download button on each app that's greyed out. Very tedious process. See if it does anything.

They're not grey any more. They downloaded in the background after I did the restore, and are no longer grey.

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

The two problematic apps I've noticed so far are both showing as up-to-date. It's also unclear how to restore the whole phone again; Finder is now saying there are no backups of the new phone (true) and has the Restore Backup button greyed out. I'm not sure how to 'point' it to the backups of the old phone now that I've already restored it once.

They're not grey any more. They downloaded in the background after I did the restore, and are no longer grey.

Are you able to restore the iPhone SE via iCloud?

Restore your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch from a backup

Find out how to restore your device from a backup in iCloud or on your computer.

support.apple.com

 

[Nermal]

I've just been through every app. Only two are missing data. One of them is Microsoft Authenticator, and I'm wondering whether they've possibly done something dodgy to stop it from being backed up. Does anyone know whether that's a 'thing' in iOS?

The other is Element Messenger, which is just a chat app. I can't imagine they'd deliberately break backups for that...

 

[Apple_Robert]

After I restored the backup, it said something like "installing apps in the background" and at that point every third-party app was grey and still installing. They all appear to be completely installed now, and some have their data but others don't. Force closing and reopening any of the apps doesn't seem to help.

Do I need to re-restore now that all the apps are installed, or is that just going to wipe them all again?

It is not uncommon for some apps to have not retained previous data. I don't see a need to try and reinstall from backup. I would start from scratch (data wise) with the 2 apps in question.

 

[Nermal]

I've set up Element again. Authenticator is the tricky one because it won't let me go through the setup process until I authenticate... but I've made that my IT department's problem

I'm still not sure whether this is a bug or whether it's some form of "by design", but thanks for the tips anyway.

 

[chrfr]

I've set up Element again. Authenticator is the tricky one because it won't let me go through the setup process until I authenticate... but I've made that my IT department's problem

I'm still not sure whether this is a bug or whether it's some form of "by design", but thanks for the tips anyway.

It’s by design that Authenticator needs to be reconfigured.
The chat app may just not back up its data.

 

[ElioLugaru]

Yeah, i had that problem when i restored my icloud backup when i setup my 13 Pro Max last week, some apps were restored correctly, some i had to re-log into as if they were just downloaded.

Which is fine by me since its was only a few select apps i had to do that on.

 

[ian87w]

I've just been through every app. Only two are missing data. One of them is Microsoft Authenticator, and I'm wondering whether they've possibly done something dodgy to stop it from being backed up. Does anyone know whether that's a 'thing' in iOS?

The other is Element Messenger, which is just a chat app. I can't imagine they'd deliberately break backups for that...

Microsoft Authenticator has the option to backup to iCloud. Did you turn that on previously? If not, yes it will lose the data, presumably for security reasons.

Any chat app might have their own backup procedures. Eg WhatsApp has its own backup process to iCloud. Ideally they should transfer over, bust maybe there’s incompatibility issues that forced the app to reset.

 

[Nermal]

Microsoft Authenticator has the option to backup to iCloud. Did you turn that on previously?

No, I hadn't turned that on because I assumed that a backup of the phone would be a backup of the phone.

I've submitted feedback to Apple suggesting that it warns you if specific app data isn't being backed up, so that you don't get a false sense of security like I did.

 

[ian87w]

No, I hadn't turned that on because I assumed that a backup of the phone would be a backup of the phone.

I've submitted feedback to Apple suggesting that it warns you if specific app data isn't being backed up, so that you don't get a false sense of security like I did.

I feel the issue should be brought up to Microsoft as well since they did change how the app works. I got bitten as well, when Microsoft updated the app. Suddenly all my 2FAs were all gone. Really annoying.

 

[Isamilis]

In my case, all banking apps need to reauthenticate / reinstall. Even whatsapp requires reauthenticate too.

 

[w5jck]

Yeah, i had that problem when i restored my icloud backup when i setup my 13 Pro Max last week, some apps were restored correctly, some i had to re-log into as if they were just downloaded.

Which is fine by me since its was only a few select apps i had to do that on.

That is likely app related. Banking apps are often specific to the device, and so are some other apps, so moving an app like that to a new device sends out warning signals to the app's server, so you have to re-login since it is on a different device than before. That is a security feature.

 

[NoBoMac]

Will ditto app specific/related comments.

Per this developer page, and with how Apple documents what goes into backups, I read it as developer can say "no" to backing up the data in their app(s).

If your app creates nonpurgeable data that isn’t appropriate for backup, you can indicate which files and directories the system can exclude by setting their isExcludedFromBackupresource value to true

Though page is talking about iCloud, always assumed that same for backup to computer (one option/switch to rule them all).