I recently uninstalled ARC.
After I reisntalled ARC, it only restore data about a week back. (Reinstalled last week, and it only shows log up till Sep 26)
I clicked the “Open File Importer” and all listed as zero.
I have data logged since last Dec and have iCloud backup enabled since then.
Please help me get all my log back. I can only see all the export in the Export folder.
In the moves_export folder. There is only one file named 2021_JANUARY.json
Please help, as the log are critical for me.
Thanks
J
Look for a folder (or folders) with names like “Previous Backups ABCD1234” in the Arc App folder on iCloud Drive. Inside that folder, look for the “LocomotionSamples” folder, then see what’s in there.
There should be one file per week of the year, for all weeks that you have recorded data. The filenames are named by week of the year (ie W01 to W52).
There might also be a copy of that folder named “Restore”, inside the “Import” folder.
Do you see all the correct week files inside there?
Copy that folder into the “Import” folder, and rename it to “Restore”. Then inside Arc you should see a pink bar at the top offering to restore from backup. That gets you into the managed restore flow, which will import the contents of the “Restore” folder.
You can also do a manual import/restore, by going into the Settings tab, then “Backup, Import & Export”, then “Open File Importer”, wait for it to finish loading the file lists, then tap “Import All” at the top of the Sample Files list.
Doing a manual import/restore gives you more visibility on what’s going on, so it’s sometimes more appealing, if you want to keep a close eye on the process.
Though the managed restore process (from the pink bar at top of timeline view) is effectively identical to just tapping that “Import All” button, so it’s same same. The managed restore process just takes care of all the button tapping for you.
the pink bar shows up after I moved all the *.json.gz files to the folder “iCloud\Arc App\Import\Restore”
I clicked restore, and it shows restoring.
I left my iphone 12 pro max on charger whole morning, and nothing imported. (screen auto off after a minute as usual)
The progress screen is completely empty even I have my screen on.
I opened settings > backup, import & export > Open File Importer. All row show zero files…
Ah, you will need the complete folder structure. Arc identifies the file types by the folder name. So it looks for sample import files in “LocomotionSample” folders, etc. Otherwise it would need to open every file and read part of it, to know what’s inside, which would be a very slow process.
Just copy the entire “Previous Backups xyz” folder into the Import folder, then rename it to Restore. Then you’ll have all the appropriate folders and files within - LocomotionSample, TimelineItem, etc.
After copied everything. Arc imported two more week of data and then the rest are not imported.
I then opened the manual import in setting, I saw a lot of files listed but when it started import, a red exclamation showed up beside each file for one second and then everything is gone. The list became zero. Even worse, it looks like arc auto removed all the files i copied over once these happened.
The managed restore process (the one started from the Restore button at top of timeline view) will delete files from the Restore folder once the file has been successfully imported. So the deleted files aren’t needed anymore.
A red exclamation mark means there was an error importing that file. Tap on the red icon and it will open a details view, which will list the error (or errors). It will probably be an error about a missing dependent file, which means the backup was incomplete in some way. But that’s okay - as long as the LocomotionSample files are there, the rest of the data will be recreated automatically by the timeline processing engine.
The error will tell you which file is missing. So step one is to make sure you’ve definitely copied that file across with the rest - the Restore folder does need to be a complete copy of the Previous Backups folder.
If the missing dependent file definitely doesn’t exist anywhere, you can tap the button on the import task’s details view, “Retry import ignoring missing dependents”. That will redo the task, but import all the samples even if they have missing dependant files. That’s fine to do - the timeline processing will create the rest itself. It just means there might be some cleanup to redo, such as correcting a visit’s place assignment, or a trip’s activity type assignment.
The sample, notes, and day summary seems import ok if I don’t click the pink bar and manually start the import. There were some errors during first try but all got a tick after second attempt. Seems like the pink bar doesn’t work reliably.
Arc stops responding and stopped itself when i click timeline items. Also there is no import button for the places files. Anyway to fix? Many records were confirmed before but now all unconfirmed.
There are also two more backup folders and i found the following inside location samples
2022-W39.json.gz
2022-W40.json.gz
I found the same files with the same name in the folder being imported.
Should i copy them and replace as well?
Will it over write the imported ones?
That’s great to hear! Well, not the part about the managed restore not being reliable. Heh. But the important thing is all your data is restored!
Oh that’s not a worry. No need to manually import TimelineItems. Those get imported automatically, as dependents of sample files, as needed. Ditto Place files.
The ability to manually import TimelineItem files is there for people who are manually editing their data to make changes to the Arc database outside of the app. Importing them manually isn’t a necessary step of a restore from backup.
You could check the “last modified” dates of the files, to see which are newer. Though it’s fine to import older files if you want, because Arc’s importer will also check each import object’s last modified date, and won’t import it if it’s older than the object already in the database.
You can see this on the import task details view for LocomotionSample file imports, listed as “Existing samples skipped”.
Hmm. This is the one thing that sounds wrong. That shouldn’t happen. Though it’s not a scary thing - as long as you got the LocomotionSample files imported, the data is all there and safe. But the confirmed state of timeline items shouldn’t get lost.
I have a hunch that if you tap on the “x unconfirmed items” button and go into the confirm flow, most of those items will actually automatically self correct, and skip on to the next item without you needing to do anything. It might be that they already do have the correct confirmed states, it’s just that an extra flag in the database for “this needs confirming” hasn’t been set correctly after restore. I’ll make a note to look into that in the code.
