Issues restoring from new backup

Arc App Support
1

Hi Matt,

Firstly, long time lurker of this project, recent backer and massive appreciator of this project. I have been collecting my location data off multiple apps over the past 8 years and this one is by far the most impressive in terms of potential. I look forward to seeing how it goes in the future. There are so many things I want to discuss with you about how this all works but let’s let my dreams just be dreams ;).

The many issues I have are nit picky and I won’t be focusing on them because they are mostly down to the fact that I use an old iPhone 6s with a horrible battery to log the locations - despite that, it does an amazing job still. There were issues on the old backup system, where it was taking months to backup my entire location data (it did so eventually after, no joke, 3 months and I understand why), but it did so and so I am in the process of moving to an iPhone 11 Pro Max as a dedicated capture device.

Rambling aside, I have recently acquired an old iPhone 11 Pro Max and am in the process of restoring from backup. The problem I am encountering is that this new phone doesn’t seem to be completing the backup. I leave it on and I will always reach the attached screen before it crashes and I have to start the process again. It always gets stuck at that number before failing.

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I’ve read through similar posts and I trawl through my Arc iCloud folder - there is nothing in the Imports subfolder - see screenshots at the end.

As an aside, I migrated years of Moves App data from 2013-2018 when I first got Arc and that seems to have slowed the entire process down a bit. In the backup folder, there seems to be no data from 2013-2018, but some of it is available in the Previous Backups. I don’t mind losing these from Arc because I have a backup of these anyway and if it helps to lose them from Arc, then so be it.

I was tempted to delete everything and start again from scratch because the Arc app running on the 11 Pro is running absolutely gorgeously, but it would be a shame not to use the backed up data that I have to look back at nostalgically.

I have taken some screenshots of the iCloud folder with subfolders, though not all - note that the Previous Backups are all populated as the screenshot showing it does but they have differing numbers of files/folders inside so I’m not sure which one, if any, has all the data.

[EDIT: OK I can’t put all screenshots in the post, but if you want them, I can send them]

I hope I’ve explained everything clearly. I’m happy to provide any further info, thanks again for your work and I look forward to seeing where it goes.

PS This project has inspired some ideas in me for a long time and I’m also keen to have a chat with you about those - not for you to implement (I don’t want to add to your workload!), and how one would go about making those ideas a real thing (feel free to ignore this last part if you want!).

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Hi! Sorry for the very late reply! I’d taken some weeks off work, but am back now.

That “Downloading from iCloud” count is the problem. Arc needs to get the files from iCloud Drive downloaded locally onto the phone before it can start the restore. It does that by asking iCloud to download each of the files it’s found, but there’s no way to expedite that request, and iCloud Drive can decide to take its time over it.

You can force the download of each file in the Files app, by tapping to open it. But that’s a lot of files, and an extremely tedious process.

What I ended up doing in my own testing was opening the restore view in Arc, waiting until it’d queued up all the files for download, then leave it for a few minutes to see if the number makes any progress (the count will go down, as it’s a count of remaining files still not yet downloaded). If it doesn’t make any progress for an extended period of time, then I’d swipe the app closed and start again. Effectively that means Arc again asks iOS to download the files, and eventually iOS / iCloud Drive will start complying with the requests. Tedious, I know!

For any ideas you have for the app, feel free to post them in separate threads! Regardless of whether they’re feature ideas for Arc itself, or ideas for third party projects, I enjoy hearing them! Though these days my own productivity is quite low, due to a combination of pandemic malaise and the mind numbing boredom of working on a travel recording app during a time when travel is greatly frowned upon. But I am still working through things and making gradual progress.

Cheers!
Matt