Errors backing up contacts - help!

Help Fairphone 1
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Hallo everyone! I see there are some other posts about sync-ing fairphone with gmail however I’m not finding directly transferable advice, so I’m posting again and my sincere apologies if this is repetition for any of you (I’m a single mum with a little baby and very very short of time and trying to solve this is taking more time/concentration/brain juice than currently available ;-)).

Basically, I urgently need to back up my contacts as alas I have to transfer to another phone as my Fairphone is riddled with problems and it’s become unviable for me to use it :frowning: A friend has donated me her old iphone and so I’m in the process of backing up info from Fairphone so I can make the move. I’m relocating city in the next week (probably moving saturday 7th nov), and I really need to sort this before I go.

My understanding is that iphone won’t take Android sized sim card (or microSD card), so I have to find another way to transfer my contacts to the new phone.

As per this link about how to backup the Fairphone I’ve followed up a couple of options, neither of which are working (ah!)

  1. Copy contacts to google account

However in the Fairphone Account Settings for google it says “Sync error” and “Sync is currently experiencing problems. It will be back shortly.”

I’ve restarted phone, waited, checked my device access setting in my gmail account… but no change.

[I also tried copying contacts to outlook but first attempt didnt seem to work - I checked my outlook account on my laptop and my mobile contacts didnt show up]

  1. Backup using third party apps

I tried this but i get an error message:

“Error downloading ‘G Cloud Backup’. There is insufficient space on the device”

I deleted all my photos and videos from the phone … but no change.

–

All advice welcome!

I’m in London at the mo and I understand there is somekind of London Fairphone gathering/community. If there was anyone from that group who felt like lending a helping hand and meeting in person to help out that would be amazing.

warm greetings :smile:

CRIS

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Although I am not a fan of IPhones at all I will help you :wink:
With the app “MyPhoneExplorer” you should be able to backup all your data from the phone to your computer. You might need to install some drivers for that.
You can import the contacts into iTunes and upload them to your iPhone then.
I am in Germany. If you would like me to help you in person, you need to get here :grin:
If you need more help regarding MyPhoneExplorer, I can help you with that. Of iTunes I have no idea.

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Thanks Vinni :sunny:

However, unfortunately I worked out today that one of the problems with the phone is due to a swollen battery, and therefore I have to take the battery out of the phone immediately as apparently this is dangerous. So actually at the moment I can’t even get the phone on! I posted another message to see if there are any people in London who could maybe meet and lend me their battery long enough to complete the backup process.

I’m having a quick look at MyPhoneExplorer now. I was half way through installing Kola when the phone died and I discovered the swollen battery issue.
Which drivers are you referring to?

Warm greetings :smile:

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If there is no operating system on your phone it might be an issue to back it up properly.
I do not own a FP1 but for my phone it works that you remove the battery and still use the phone while it is plugged in.
If your phone works without a battery being just plugged in, you can read yourself [into this][1]. That might help you getting your data from the phone. MyPhoneExplorer might not work for your case if you have no working OS. Your phone is then “soft bricked”. The phone is called “hard bricked” if (for you) it is not possible anymore to install an OS. Maybe [this][2] will help you installing a working OS after you backed things up. However be reminded that trying to mess with the OS of your phone might void warranty. If you still have warranty, send it in after you backed things up.

PS: Did you read this: Fairphone does not boot anymore
[1]: http://www.yodot.com/android-data-recovery/from-bricked-android.html
[2]: http://´http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1560117

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thanks for your time vinni. i will read into this as soon as possible and let you know how i get on. abrazos

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If I recall correctly from another thread you’ve sent the phone in for repair. I’m hoping it comes back repaired! If I misremembered and you’re just getting a new battery (should still be on warranty), then report back on whether the phone is still starting normally, or whether you need help getting it to start. Either way - step one is getting a safe battery.

Meanwhile, some quick comments that may help out anyway:

First of all, you’ll need to figure out where your contacts were stored in the first place. If they weren’t stored on the SIM (which few phones do by default these days, transfering the SIM won’t be much use). That being said: Some operators give you a SIM that starts off as normal SIM, but allow the core to be broken out of the SIM to go to a micro or even nano SIM format (see below for an example; other carries are available…). I’m not sure which the iPhone uses, and note that once you switch to the smaller size it can be difficult to go back to a normal format for the same SIM, depending on the way the breakout works (some types are more reversible than others). Anyway, it may be worth checking out your SIM to see it can be adapted for use in the iPhone. If desperate, some phone repair shops can cut your old SIM into the smaller format.

If this was after an attempted upgrade of Fairphone OS, than it could be that google services had not been reinstalled. Up until then, your contacts may have synched. Check whether you have most/any contacts in your google profile anyway: https://contacts.google.com

Finally, and not of much use until you get a battery to test out the phone:

If you have a FP1 (as opposed to a FP1U), did you do the storage layout upgrade? If not, then you have only 1 GB for installing apps. It could be that the space for apps is full, or that the cache partition is full. This is why:

Doesn’t help, as they’re stored in a different part of the phone.

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hallo Johannes… thanks so much! :sunny:
i’m so rushed off my feet at the moment, i havent had a free second to digest your feedback but hopefully tomorrow i can free up some time. this is partly why i was also hoping to find someone in london who could meet up face to face to help out as i have such minimal “free” capacity at the moment that its really difficult to engage with new info. thank goodness that there are people on the forum willing to share knowledge virtually! :heart_eyes:

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Hallo again and first of all THANKS SO MUCH for the feedback and support. I really appreciate it :smile:

OK so v quick update…

If your phone works without a battery being just plugged in

Unfortunately the phone does not work just being plugged in (without a battery).

Either way - step one is getting a safe battery.

Via this Forum/Twitter I managed to meet up last night with a Fairphoner in London (who also happens to be friend of friends of mine!). He lent me his battery and together with a v techy friend we had a look at the situation.

If you have a FP1 (as opposed to a FP1U), did you do the storage layout
upgrade? If not, then you have only 1 GB for installing apps. It could
be that the space for apps is full, or that the cache partition is full.

Unfortunately we ran out of time as I had to get the last tube home, so there wasn’t time to charge battery to 80% and complete the “storage expansion process” https://fairphone.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/202478028-Manually-install-Fairphone-OS-software-update-version-Kola-Nut-1-8-7

…so we couldnt download apps to phone to try and copy notes.

My understanding is that iphone won’t take Android sized sim card (or
microSD card), so I have to find another way to transfer my contacts to
the new phone.
You can import the contacts into iTunes and upload them to your iPhone then.

It looks like Contacts backup is sorted. Yey! I’d already backed up the contacts onto a microSD card, so I put the microSD card into a SD converter, inserted it into laptop and dragged contacts in Apple Contacts. A friend has donated me their old iphone so presumably I will then be able to synch laptop with iphone and voila!

BTW Does it matter if I import contacts into Apple Contacts rather than iTunes?

Google not synched on phone. If this was after an attempted upgrade of Fairphone OS, than it could be that google services had not been reinstalled.

Tried to sort this out, as it would be ideal to have the contacts in google, but it didn’t seem to work, and the Fairphoner and techy friend were on hand to advise and observe I was following the correct process. This is what happened:
Reinstalled google (as had just upgraded to Kola OS). On phone it said that Google account synched, exported contacts to google, on phone it said contacts had copied, but contacts never appeared in gmail when I check on laptop.

So… in summary… still have to backup notes!

The Fairphoner who helped me yesterday @hackofalltrades was really helpful but he does have other commitments this week and needs to be able to use his phone as well. So if anyone in London around to lend battery again that would be great!

I have time this evening approx 9.30-11pm and at some point on Friday as well. I was already half way through copying notes manually when I discovered the battery issue, and it may well be easiest just to finish copying the notes manually. However still need battery to turn phone on.

Got to run as I’m packing/moving, but will be around online later.

Thank you @Johannes and @Vinni :sunny:

xxxxx

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p.s. The v techy friend was trying to access/copy the “Notes” using Android File Transfer (for mac) and Android Debug Bridge using Terminal but alas it didn’t work.

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If you mean the unified storage partition upgrade, be aware that does clear all the data from the phone. If you want to apply that update, finish backing up all your data first.

Probably true!

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If you mean the unified storage partition upgrade, be aware that does clear all the data from the phone. If you want to apply that update, finish backing up all your data first.

Ah ok… good thing we couldnt do that then!
… so there’s no point going down this route in order to back up the Notes then!

So that just leaves doing a manual copy of the Notes. I have about 200 notes left to copy, so that will be a little job there.

Cheers for the heads up @Johannes :wink:

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So the story continues here:

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