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Help SMS Restore/Duplicate Msgs and Out of Order on S6

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I tried restoring my messages from the S5 onto the S6, but seems every conversation is now out of order and there are countless duplicate messages. I used the SMS Restore app and am amazed there are so few options to try fixing this.

Does anyone have any suggestions? If I use Titanium and restore from the same XML file, would that be better?
 
Titanium is unlikely to be able to restore the xml from a different app. There is no reason why 2 apps should independently have decided to use identical formats.

But if both are rooted (required for you to use Titanium) then the paid version of Titanium can save SMS in its own xml format, and I've never had a problem with that.
 
I was under the impression that you can still make a backup from your old phone.

Which means delete all messages on the new phone, make a new backup and restore with helium.
 
It's really all a mess at this point. My old phone has the backup file. Both SMS Restore and Samsung Smart Switch are giving me issues ... so I will try Helium.
 
I paid for the premium version of Helium. Backed up from my S5 to Google Drive ... then tried downloading from the S6. Helium says restore is complete, but there are no messages in the Messages app...

Next suggestion?
 
I am trying this again - - seems to be working but taking long.

In any case, is there a reason timestamps would be restored correctly in Helium opposed to other methods?

Does anyone know how the timestamps become messed up in the first place? And why when using SMS Restore, it can create duplicate texts in multiples; 2, 4, 8 duplicates, etc.
 
There are an awful lot of SMS backup apps out there. I've used one called "SMS Backup and Restore" by Ritesh Sahu and "SMS Backup +" (which I think is a unique enough name not to need dev name as well), both without problems. SMS Backup+ backs up to a folder in a GMail account, so takes time to restore, but will also back up automatically in real time if that matters to you.

We'd need to know the internal details of the app you used to answer questions about how it went wrong (and even then it might be specific to the device or devices).

You mentioned Titanium Backup earlier - have you tried that, or is one or other device not rooted?

One other thought: does the Samsung message app have a backup feature itself?
 
Have not rooted and since this is a new phone, not going to just yet.

Have tried SMS Restore that you mentioned- which is what originally gave me issues. Messages were duplicated several times and timestamps were all off, or some messages did not restore altogether.

Moving from an S5 to S6 Edge.

Helium at least seems to remember where it left off, so any time it freezes I am just opening it again. Hopefully it will restore correctly.

I just don't get why simple texts, even if a lot, would be hard to transfer given tech nowadays. They are just text files- not photos or heavy files.
 
They messages are just text, but need to be translated from a database to a transferrable format and then back into the database (in this case, on a different device). It should still be simple, because the formats and APIs should be standard (as long as Samsung actually stick to them), so I could only speculate as to why it might go wrong. It might be that the developer would be interested to hear of your problem?

You are right that MMS are more difficult for backup apps - funnily enough they've always worked for me, even when the backup app doesn't claim to be able to restore them, but many apps do not claim to be able to do that. But I only have about 6 MMS in total, and they are all just simple pictures, so I may not be testing the system much.

Anyway, fingers crossed that Helium will be able to finish the job.
 
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