I spoke with the Samsung Support today, and as part of the troubleshooting process they asked me to do a backup of the phone and then reset it. I followed through and I've done that (the initial problem still remained). What they failed to tell me is that I won't be able to restore all my stuff to the phone. Because apparently, the Samsung Kies (version 2.6.1.13105_7) can only restore some parts of your data from a previous backup.
When you make a backup, it offers to include everything in the backup. Here's a list of the stuff it offers to backup.
- Contacts
- S Planner (Calendar)
- Call log(s)
- S Health
- Message(s)
- Videos
- Music
- Photos
- Miscellaneous content files
- Ringtone(s)
- Applications
- Home screen
- Wi-Fi
- Lock screen
- Email account information
- Other preferences
(Click on screenshots below for a bigger view.)
This is what it offers to restore after the reset.
- Contacts
- S Planner
- Message
- Videos
- Music
- Photos
- Miscelaneous content files
Obviously, it offers to restore less than half of the things it had taken a backup of. Why offer to backup something you know you can't restore?... This makes absolutely no sense! It's absolutely insane!!
The options that I can't select for restore are greyed out. There's also a small blue warning triangle icon with exclamation mark on the side of each of these options. If I hover over this icon I get a bubble message explaining the following.
This item cannot be restored to the connected device.
What the hell is that supposed to mean?... It's still the same bloody "smart" phone! It's not like I have switched to some Samsung Bada phone or something. It's exactly the same phone?... So what the hell!?...
How do I restore the rest of the stuff like apps, app data, messages, account settings, customized settings, widgets and app shortcuts on the home screens?
I can see it has taken a backup of more than it likes to admit! I can see a whole list of APK files in a subfolder of the backup location. I recognize some of them as the apps I had previously installed. So why doesn't it want to restore them then?
File locations...
Everything that has been backed up can be found in this location.
%userprofile%\Documents\samsung\Kies\Backup\GT-I9506\GT-I9506_\GT-I9506_20140108044055
Contacts, logs, messages, calendar events, etc. is stored in
.\Calllog.scl
.\Contacts.spb
.\LockScreen.sls
.\Message.sme
.\SHealth.ssh
.\SPlanner.ssc
.\Wallpaper.swp
.\WIFI.swi
Even the Wifi settings!
Apps are stored in
.\APPLICATION\_SamsungBnR_\Abackup
Some sort of settings are stored in
.\CONFIGURATION\BR\Configuration.bk
Email messages are stored in
.\EMAIL\BR\Email.bk
Music files are stored in
.\Music
App data seems to be stored in a folder named Others
e.g. the backup files from ColorNote are stored in
.\Others\data\colornote\backup
Pictures are stored in
.\Photo
Videos are stored in
.\Video
Photos and videos are stored as actual media files and they can be read without a problem. But all the other files (scl, spb, sls, sme, ssh, ssc, swp, swi, bk) are encoded in a format I can't read, and some might be encrypted. Is there a way I can open and make use of these files and have them imported to the phone? Or is it just garbage now?
