It keep saying Downloading and after some time, it stop recovering… the number stop increase
and not sure why. it’s not ask me if I want to restore data any more. No all data is gone
There is a ‘‘Previous Backups D2FAF1F2’’ folder inside arc icloud folder, but arc just not pop up to show me restore option. How to manually choose this whole bavkup as restore??
hi,
according to matt, here are the instructions I’ve selected for restoring the data:
- Make sure you’ve got as much possible backed up, ready for restore. To do this, make sure the Settings → Backups, Import & Export view says it’s got a recent backup, eg “Last backup completed 1 day ago”.
If the last backup completed too long ago, we’ll want to get it up to date first before doing any delete and reinstall things. So to do this:
i. Turn off recording at the bottom of settings tab (it sounds like it’s failing to record clean new data anyway, and having no new data going in to the database will make it faster to catch up the backups).
ii. Plug the phone into power and leave Arc in the foreground. Ideally turn off screen lock in your phones settings, so Arc can stay in foreground uninterrupted until it finishes the backup. You can tell it’s actively backing up by checking the Settings → Backup, Import & Export view again, where it’ll say something like “Backing up now”.
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Once you’ve got that full recent backup, it’ll be safe to delete the app then reinstall. Note that if you also use Arc Mini you’ll need to delete that too, otherwise iOS will keep the database on the phone, because shared “App Group” data isn’t deleted until all apps in the group are deleted (in this case Arc App and Arc Mini share an App Group).
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Once you’ve got a fresh install of Arc App with no data in it, it’ll be able to record new data without problem. So we can then move on to restoring the backup week by week. To do this, don’t tap Restore on the pink bar at the top of the screen. That’s the “managed restore”, which will just put things back the way they were before, which isn’t where we want to end up. Instead to go the Settings tab → Backup, Import & Export, and open the File Importer.
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Oh I missed a step. On iCloud Drive, your Backups folder will have been renamed to “Previous Backups” when you reinstalled Arc App. What you’ll want to do is make a copy of that Previous Backups folder, then move that copy into the “Import” folder. The “File Importer” view looks for anything in the “Import” folder, so it’ll see all the backup files in there and allow you to import them one by one.
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In the “File Importer” view, don’t tap “Import All” on anything. That’s basically just what the managed restore does - it taps “Import All” for you and lets it run. In this case we don’t want that, we want to import the LocomotionSample files one by one. Each file is a week of data, so you can tap on one of the files, wait for it to finish importing, then go check on that data in the timeline view.
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Look over that imported data in the timeline view and make sure it’s sane. It’s likely that there’s going to be a mess somewhere in there that’s screwed up the database in such a way that the processing engine can’t recover. You’ll know it when you see it - it’ll probably be a mega visit, like a visit to one place that spans way too many days. To clean up a mega visit:
i. Tap into the visit’s details view from timeline view, then tap Edit, then “Edit individual segments”. From there you’ll want to tap on segments that you know should be other separate visits to other places, and correct them as appropriate. You can probably also do this by tapping on the circles on the map on details view, if you recognise obvious visit circles in there that can be assigned to more appropriate places.
ii. Just keep repeating that cleanup of individual segments until the mega visit is back to being a sensible visit of sensible size and content. Once that’s done, the messy data that was confusing/breaking the processing engine will be resolved and won’t get in the way of recording/processing new data. -
Keep repeating this week by week restore in “File Importer” for each LocomotionSamples week file until they’re all done. Tap to import, wait for import to complete, check the deta in timeline view and clean up as appropriate.
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In File Importer you can safely tap on “Import All” for “Notes” files and “Day Summary Files”. Those backup files are safe and easy to restore all in one go, at any stage of the restore process. If you use notes at all you’ll definitely want those restored! The “Day Summary Files” are less important - they’re pretty much just there to remember which days you’ve marked as favourite days.
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Note: Don’t try to tap on “Place” files or “Timeline Item” files in the File Importer. Those are imported automatically, as dependents of the LocomotionSample files, so there’s nothing gained by trying to import those files manually.
I read all you stuff. and I checked I have 789 LocamotionSamples. I cannot image I click each one and waiting for it. What’s the point of a ‘‘backup’’ if it need to restore so crazyly??
Hi @o1x! The restore process is slow because it is a massive amount of data.
You can use the manual restore process, to make sure you’re getting each week’s data back step by step.
- Copy the “Previous Backups” folder into the “Import” folder on iCloud. (Note to copy, not move, because you always want to keep a separate copy of backups)
- Go into Arc’s Settings tab → Backup, Import & Export → Open File Impoter
- Under “Sample Files”, tap on each file one at a time, to import it. That will also automatically import all dependent files (Timeline Item files and Place files).
This is really a lot work. And I found out a lot of data point is now marked as the street name, which should be the place name that I confirmed before. I now need to change each place. and the question is, I cannot remember the exact place/ store name any more.
This means the backup was either incomplete or corrupted in some way.
If you still have Arc installed on the original phone (assuming you’re doing the restore due to moving to a new phone), I recommend turning backups off on the old phone, wait a minute, then turn them back on, and then wait for a full fresh backup to complete. Once you have the fresh backup complete, delete Arc on the new phone then reinstall, and restore from the fresh backup.
I dont have the original phone and data anymore.
I have this problem too, arc didn’t complete the restore automatically, and now I apparently have to import 100s of files manually?
Hi @ptx! Possibly yes, though not certainly.
I don’t know why the managed restore would finish prematurely. It’s not something I’ve seen in any of my testing.
But yes, if it does happen, you will have to use the File Importer view. However the File Importer view does have an “Import All” button for the “Sample Files” section, which you can tap to queue up the import of all files. You can try that first, then see which files failed to import.
I generally recommend doing the files one by one because people tend to want to get their data restored cleanly, so if there’s a problem with an incomplete backup or corrupted backup, importing the Sample Files one by one will allow you to check and be certain which weeks are importing correctly before proceeding to the next. However if you’re in a hurry you certainly can tap the Import All button to queue them all up at once, then assess the situation afterwards.