Message app (qksms) - no backup possible

Hi,

I am running latest /e/ having issues to generate an sms backup in the message app. The blue button “backup now” is there, but nothing happens when clicking on it…I think it is quiet important for people trying out /e/ to be able to backup their conversations…any idea what the issue is?

Thanks!

Hi, welcome in our community :slight_smile:

In QKSM > Settings > Delayed sending, the “No delay” can’t be changed. Those 2 features are normaly for the Premium version of the app (that we should have).
I will open an issue on the gitlab.

https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/apps/Message/issues/35

Hi,

sorry, I should have introduced myself first :slight_smile: thanks for the welcome and for raising the issue…

I tried silence, but backup didn’t work there, too. I believe being able to easily backing up / transferring a message db would be a pro argument for testing /e/

Hi.

I think so, to. Import/export at least a plaintext file, while installing /e/… Using Silence since years, I deleted a lot of messages and export just the ones I needed and… installed Silence on /e/ :confused:

Hello I’m new to /e/ I also noticed that QKSMS that is built into /e/ won’t backup so I download QKSMS from the /e/ App store and that allowed a backup.

@ SWEBkM
And did the already existing messages remain? In other words: It is possible to backup messages sent/received before App store’s QKSMS was installed?

Thanks, P.

It seems the problem persists.
At least I run into this problem with e-12-q-20201010. But I haven’t tried a clean install yet, hence I don’t say “the problem does persist”. But appearantly, the linked issue yields 404, so may I ask what was the conclusion of this issue?

Here is the issue. Sadly no conclusion at all. You could also add a comment under it.

I don’t understand what is meant by “premium”. As far as I understood, it is FLOSS. “Premium” sounds like a Freeware with a Shareware companion, adding paid features. Or a fork of a OSS with added paid features.
What is meant by “premium”?
What is meaning of “should have”? Promised to be delivered with? Or desireable to have (but out of reach for whatever reason)?

Like SWEBkM, I also installed QKSMS, and it likewise has a clickable “backup now” button (not just a lookalike background graphics). But it doesn’t seems to share the SMS messages, instead it starts with an empty message board. Of course, this means, the working backup feature currently makes a backup consisting of 0 messages. There is an option in its Preferences menu (at the bottom, the next to last entry above “about”), saying “synchronise messages; matches messages with Android SMS-database”. (UI text translated back to english by me.)
Choosing it let the message board remaining empty.
What is meant by synchronising messages with Android SMS-database?

QKSMS asked to become standard SMS app. I agreed.
The build in message app (QKSMS fork) asked to regain standard app upon next start. I agreed. What a crap! Now both apps are “synchronised” on the lowest common ground, meaning ALL MESSAGES SEEMS TO BE LOST. Doh!

This leads me to the final topic: Where are the messages saved? I looked for directory names with “QKSMS” in its name (done before installing not-forked-QKSMS) and found two:
/sdcard/QKSMS
/data/media/0/QKSMS
Both of them contained no data (except an empty folder named “Backups”).
How to locate folders where this/an app stores its data? Maybe I could scrape together some residuals from TWRP …

To clarify: Sadly I wasn’t aware of that I have no backup of SMS data, when I updated from Pie to Q the same way as updating a monthly minor release – i.e. only reset dalvik cache from within TWRP. This went not so smoothly (UI boots up, but phone calls doesn’t work anymore). So I tried to go back to Pie – but this works even worse (UI doesn’t boot up, but instead after some minutes leads back to TWRP). So I flashed Q again, working as well as before.

Regards, P.

Have the same problem; I’m attempting to export SMS from another phone and import in a Fairphone 3+ SMS standard application.
Found the same problem that backup button is not clickable.
Using QKSMS as standard application I can do backup, that are stored as json files under QKSBS backup dir.
But most of backup generated on Android by any SMS backup app are in XML, so no way to try to import their backup file under QKSMS.
I stopped here now; any useful experience to share?

Sorry, got no experience. But googling for “sms xml-to-json convert” seems to give hope – at least there is a hit at sourceforge. Even online services seems to exist, if privacy isn’t a concern. But didn’t try anything.

As far as I know, QKSMS relies on Android Messages database, like any other.
So you don’t need it to backup/restore messages, any Android-compatible app can do.

Exemple app, with also a good documentation on foreign import : https://synctech.com.au/sms-backup-restore/transferring-messages-from-your-old-phone/

Also, if you made an Nandroid (TWRP) backup before upgrading, there is a slight chance to manually recover Android database.

Ran into this problem today too. I needed to backup sms to keep Covid testing records that had been sent by sms, and wasn’t able to in /e/'s qksms. Really caused some problems. Is this something that will be updated in future? Is there another good way? (a thread suggested using backup and restore, but that seems to have a few trackers)

If you are using Windows, MyPhoneExplorer can easily backup SMS to your computer (How To and FAQ), I’m using this myself for years now.

(On Linux, it might work with Wine and the phone connected via WiFi … or not, in which case you could try a Windows virtual machine. But I didn’t try any of this myself on Linux yet.)

I believe that /e/ are working on a sync / backup SMS solution that will backup tour SMS messages to your /e/ account. I understand that the feature is still being beta tested and is therefore restricted to developers only. Also, a couple of issues are raised which may cover this see #759 and #1351

Until the backup feature makes it into /e/, I am using SMS Backup and Restore app from Aurora Store. I’m fairly relaxed about the trackers in that app, but they can probably be blocked somehow if that matters to you.

Indeed, would be great if SMS/MMS backup (& restore…) could be made to work in /e/. My preference would be to at least have the option to backup to a file on the phone.

Automated SMS/MMS sync to eCloud was initiated a year ago, but was never publicly activated :frowning:
For the reference : v0.9-pie · e / os / releases · GitLab , e / infra / selfhost / nextcloud-apps / Esms · GitLab (running just fine on a self-hosted eCloud).

SMS backup and restore does work in the QKSMS app, available from F-Droid. /e/'s Message app is a fork of QKSMS, but does not yet include the backup/restore functionality. So at the moment there are two ways you can get SMS backup and restore working in /e/

  1. Install QKSMS from F-Droid, and use the ‘Backup and restore’ option in the ‘Three lines’ menu
  2. Install SMS Backup and Restore app from Aurora Store. which allows you to setup scheduled automatic backups of messages and call logs. (I’m fairly relaxed about the trackers in that app, but they can probably be blocked somehow if that matters to you.)

I use QKSMS as my default messaging app, but currently use SMS Backup and Restore for automated backup - to my external SD card - so that I di’t have to remember to do a manual backup.

TrackerControl detected some ad & tracking libraries. However, after disabling analytics & ads in app’s settings, no traffic was shown :slight_smile:

https://f-droid.org/de/packages/com.simplemobiletools.smsmessenger/

What I like about the Simple Tools is that you can set the colors globally across all apps via the Thank you app.
Beautiful, fine, small, stable apps.