Whatsapp restore data 2014?

Question

I've tried finding an answer to this one but haven't had luck so far.

My phone was playing up, so I went into recovery mode and cleared the cache partition. I've since worked out what the problem was and I didn't need to clear the cache.

The problem is that when I loaded whatsapp, it was going through the install procedure again. It found a backup, but the restore is from December 2014.

I've had a look at whatsapp/databases/ and all the files are the same date of 2014, so It appears it wasn't storing them there.

My question is this: If it wasn't storing the chats in whatsapp/databases, then where does it store the current chat data? Is there a way it can be recovered?

Answer 1

AFAIK, WhatsApp does an automated backup every day around 2AM as seen in "How do I backup, restore or transfer my WhatsApp data?". However, it is sometimes confusing for users as some are opted to use WhatsApp's new Google drive backup feature while others have not. Even then, a local copy is stored on the device regardless.

Looking at your statement I can only assume;

Your device is either connected to a computer source, or low on storage space or even set to sleep with no background data (maybe switched off on a regular basis) at the said time. If so, WhatsApp will not be able to backup your chat history.

Again this statement is debatable as there can be other reasons (such as version, OS... etc). But I can only think of this as a cause.

I'd suggest you check for the recent date/timestamp of the msgstore.db.crypt12 file or maybe msgstore-YYYY-MM-DD.1.db.crypt12 file and rename back to msgstore.db.crypt12 as WhatsApp only identifies the one without the date on it as the main file.

Hope this helps!