All,
As my phone will go to a service point today where it will be erased due to a new firmware load, I decided to actually test the backup and restore process upfront.
I created an on-device backup (using the backup tool in the file manager) to a 16Gb memory card, and I made a full backup using Nokia Content Copier.
I then resetted my phone using *#7370# which cleared out most of the menu settings, contacts, messages, etc.
I restored the full backup on the memory card, including settings etc. At the end the phone asks to reboot. After rebooting the home screen comes up partially, but the keyboard is locked and doesn't want to unlock. Taking out the battery returns it to this state everytime I boot the phone. Opening the slider doesn't allow me to press keys either. The home screen still doesn't look like my old home screen, so the restore probably failed.
Ah well, most people advise to take backups with NCC anyhow. So I resetted the phone (which I now had to do with the Shift + Spacebar + Backspace trick) again. I connected the phone to NCC (installing the Nokia PC Suite software on the phone first), and did a full restore of my previous backup. At the end the phone again needs to restart.
BUT!!! When it came back, it behaved EXACTLY the same as restoring the backup on the memory card.
My conclusion: the backup tools provided are completely useless. I have used the backup tool on the N95 8Gb previously and this restores the phone very nicely to the state at where the backup was taken. The N97 however becomes completely useless after restoring the backup, either through the backup tool on the phone, as well as with NCC.
Are there other people with the same experience? If yes, what was your alternative to create a solid and usable backup?
Thanks!
Gerco
Before jumping to conclusions... has it occurred to you that one of the app's you are restoring is causing the problem?
I normally use either PC Suite or Ovi Suite beta for Backup and Restore with no problem on the N97.
I would suggest reinstalling just Contacts, Calendar, Notes, Bookmarks and texts from Backup. Then if your phone doesn't lock you can start installing your app's, one by one. That way you will see if any "lock" your phone up.
It may not "lock-up" this way as they are being individually installed.
Well, as I said, this was the way I backed up and restored my N95 previously without problems, and without crashes.
When the phone is 'clean' after the *#7370#, it starts up fine. Even when I then only restore the Contacts, Calendar and Notes, Messages and Bookmarks, it still locks up.
I use the latest Nokia PC Suite on my PC, running XP...
Gerco wrote:Well, as I said, this was the way I backed up and restored my N95 previously without problems, and without crashes.When the phone is 'clean' after the *#7370#, it starts up fine. Even when I then only restore the Contacts, Calendar and Notes, Messages and Bookmarks, it still locks up.
I use the latest Nokia PC Suite on my PC, running XP...
Are you restoring Settings by any chance?
Can I ask about any applications that may have been set as "System Applications" so that Symbian doesn't take them out of service if memory is getting low.
I noticed in the documentation for Active Call Manager that it advised turning that setting off before performing any backups, and I have always done so.
I thought the reason for this was to avoid the backup locking up, but maybe its because the restore will fail if your backups weren't with the "System Application" setting turned off.
Regards
Neil
I did indeed initially restore settings, but even without restoring these, the phone locked up. Eventually, I think it was because of RoadSync and restoring messages. When installing Roadsync, this prepares some message locations which were probably not there when restoring. The weird thing is that this problem had never occurred when using my N95.
However, my phone is now updated to version 12 by a Nokia Care Point, and restoring the backup in this new version fully worked, though it did not restore my menu layouts etc...
Anyway, no real important things are lost and my phone looks pretty much like it did before, so for now I'm ok...