Backup Restore on Android Fails silently

[domsch1988]

• I have searched open and closed issues for duplicates
• I am submitting a bug report for existing functionality that does not work as intended
• I have read https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/wiki/Submitting-useful-bug-reports
• This isn't a feature request or a discussion topic

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Bug description

I needed to reset my phone. I did a Backup beforehand and moved that to my PC. After reset now, i installed Signal again and moved the Backupfile back. On First start i say "Restore", choose the file and enter the Restore Code. It the starts counting up number of messages. Around 7000 or so it stops and just throws me back to the First launch screen. On that, clicking "Next" does nothing. I can tap on Restore and do the same process again. Closing the App and Relaunching reopens the first setup screen and clicking next works. I can set up my account, but no messages are restored.

I initially tried this on GrapheneOS with the Signal APK from the official website. After that failed, i installed Signal through the Playstore on GOS. Now i'm back to the official Pixel Firmware and the regular Signal app from the Playstore, as i was before this whole thing.

Steps to reproduce

• Create Backup
• Factory Reset
• Restore Backup

Actual result: Even after the restore, signing in works but no messages are restored
Expected result: Full restore of all chats

Device info

Device: Google Pixel 7
Android version: 14
Signal version: 7.9.6

Link to debug log

(https://debuglogs.org/android/7.9.6/80b2326ac50fd399988a59208ef10daed367fb217e559c591a23bfcfe66cb3de)

[steelowheel]

There's certainly some problems going on with Chat Backups. I'm having trouble with a similar sounding situation, but for me it throws me back to chats screen in backup process ( #13418 ). I'm glad to see you were actually able to create a backup file!

[domsch1988]

Having a Backup File i can't restore only helps me so far. As the Restore Process HAS to be done from a reset state, i will loose every communication between that backup and the point i'm able to restore. So, i can use Signal at the moment, but even if the restore works at some point, I'll loose everything else in the process. Which, honestly, is a major turn off atm. I'm now waiting for Molly to catch up in Version so i can maybe try to restore there, having that as my "old Signal".
But at this point, i will loose data either way. And with no other way to export chats and images, i'm not sure how to deal with this in the future tbh.

[steelowheel]

Having a Backup File i can't restore only helps me so far. As the Restore Process HAS to be done from a reset state, i will loose every communication between that backup and the point i'm able to restore.

Oh, yes, indeed. What a horrible situation.

I've been wanting to switch to a new phone (I was actually thinking about Pixel + Graphene OS and using Signal APK from the official site) but I've come to realize that I might have to start from zero. And in that case I can browse my old backup file with bepaald's signalbackup-tools but yeah, there's still months of lost chats and media. Five months and counting, in my case.

Good luck!

[cody-signal]

Hi @domsch1988, sorry to see backup restore is crashing for you. It looks like there is memory allocation crash which usually implies bad data or incorrect parsing. I'll raise with the team to see if this is something we can address for you.