Sent Messages Missing

[Wyman]

Hello. I just upgraded to the S9 from the S7 Edge. Everything seemed to transfer over fine except my sent messages. All messages from the receivers are there. I used the backup from the Samsung Cloud and also the Smart Switch app and neither of them are transferring over the sent messages. This is very frustrating.

Am I missing something or is there a setting I need to enable?

Regards,
Wy

 

[Hadron]

Try a third party message backup app and see whether that works better? I've never met this problem, but I've never used Samsung tools (though I imagine they work for most).

 

[Wyman]

Try a third party message backup app and see whether that works better? I've never met this problem, but I've never used Samsung tools (though I imagine they work for most).

Hi Hadron - I tried SMS Backup and Restore and got the same results. Not sure what the issue is. Do you think I need to post this question to my network carrier?

 

[Hadron]

SMS Backup and Restore saves the backup as XML if I remember right, so you could open that in a text editor and check whether the outgoing messages are in there (may be more comfortable on a computer). That would narrow the problem down, i.e. tell us whether it's the backup or the restore that isn't getting the messages.

But before going to such efforts, are these just regular SMS? I found one discussion elsewhere where other Samsung users were having problems backing up outgoing messages and someone suggested that a feature called "advanced messaging" is the problem, which I think is a marketing name for RCS. Certainly SMS Backup and Restore can't handle such messages, so that sounds plausible, though you'd expect Samsung's own tools should be able to (but never rule out the power of oversight or lack of communication between software teams). So I'd check whether you are using a feature called Advanced Messaging, because if you are that might be the cause.

 

[Wyman]

SMS Backup and Restore saves the backup as XML if I remember right, so you could open that in a text editor and check whether the outgoing messages are in there (may be more comfortable on a computer). That would narrow the problem down, i.e. tell us whether it's the backup or the restore that isn't getting the messages.

But before going to such efforts, are these just regular SMS? I found one discussion elsewhere where other Samsung users were having problems backing up outgoing messages and someone suggested that a feature called "advanced messaging" is the problem, which I think is a marketing name for RCS. Certainly SMS Backup and Restore can't handle such messages, so that sounds plausible, though you'd expect Samsung's own tools should be able to (but never rule out the power of oversight or lack of communication between software teams). So I'd check whether you are using a feature called Advanced Messaging, because if you are that might be the cause.

I'll check the XML code when I get home. BTW, what is RCS?

I saw something in another post about advanced messaging and I turned it off. It was on. Even after I turned it off, my sent messages still weren't showing up. These are SMS and MMS messages. Pics and gifs are showing up fine.

 

[Hadron]

RCS is Rich Communication Systems. It's supposed to be a next-gen replacement for SMS and MMS, bringing in the sort of features people have in internet chat apps but as a standard that can be used between all phones rather than just between 2 people who have the same app.

That's the theory. In practice only a minority of networks support it at present, only a few Android apps, and Apple have set their face against it (something like iMessage that works between operating systems is a threat to them, because it would remove a barrier to switching), so it may be a while before it delivers what it promises.

If these were RCS messages I'd have thought you'd be able to see them if advanced messaging was on, even if most backup apps can't access them (I don't know why, but I've not looked into how they work in any detail since my network doesn't support it anyway).

 

[Wyman]

Well I couldn’t see the XML code to verify if the sent messages were there. It’s a huge file (3.4gb) with over 100K messages. I thought I had it see it set up to delete anything after 30 days. Oh well.

I only see a handful of sent messages and those are from recent days (since Sunday). Perhaps they are only showing up because I turned the advanced messaging off. Now I’m left to wonder how does sent messages and advanced messages tie together.

I might have to bite the bullet and just start over. Ughhh...