All backups gone including APPS I paid for!

[morethanslightlyannoyed]

Went back to WP8 just to get Cyan and when the phone rebooted it installed a limited number of apps. As far as I can tell these are the standard ones installed on any new Windows phone. Checking my backups it told me I had zero backups! So this means that everything I had before has gone. Start screen settings, apps etc. A lot of those apps were paid for and as far as I can see there is no way to get them back!

Never had a problem like this on Android...didn't matter how many times I wiped a phone...my apps were always available in the store.

Microsoft....this sucks big time! Anybody else see this...have a solution?

 

[David P2]

Anything you have downloaded/purchased will be in your Purchase History, ready to download again at the press of a button.

If you downgraded then the whole phone gets wiped. The restore apps list thing doesn't work in 8.0 so they wouldn't show anyway. But they are still there in purchase history/my apps in the store.

 

[roni09riku]

Make sure you're signed in to your Microsoft account.

 

[RaRa85]

You must be new to Windows Phone. All your paid apps will be there for you buddy. You just have to reinstall them. Everything will be waiting for you.

 

[mrkylee]

Your purchased apps are still available in the store. Go to your purchased app, press "buy" and it will prompt you that "you have already purchased this app" and will ask you if you want to install again.

 

[morethanslightlyannoyed]

Hmmm...thanks for that. Seems a bit of a faff to be honest. A simple restore that the phone should do automatically is now going to take me a couple of hours. Still...as long as they are there!

 

[Ed Boland]

No worries, just go to the store app, hit the three dot menu (...), and click "my apps". All your apps that you ever purchased with the microsoft account you're currently signed in with will be listed here.

 

[morethanslightlyannoyed]

Apps are showing in the store on my laptop but clicking on the three dot menu within the store app on my phone shows precisely nothing! No idea why.

 

[WDavis4692]

I backed up for cyan as well, and went back to 8.0. You cannot restore from backup when doing a hard reset until 8.1. If your backup is indeed wiped then you'll have to set it up all again. If not, then disable backups until you get 8.1 - You don't want your 8.1 backup being overwritten. After installing 8.1, do a hard reset and you will be prompted to reboot from your saved backup.

Truly, I do not know how WP succeeded so well before 8.1, as it was lacking such basic features.

 

[David P2]

Are you logged in with the same MS account? If so, I would try reinstalling from the website version of the store and see what happens.

 

[Im_Q]

Went back to WP8 just to get Cyan and when the phone rebooted it installed a limited number of apps. As far as I can tell these are the standard ones installed on any new Windows phone. Checking my backups it told me I had zero backups! So this means that everything I had before has gone. Start screen settings, apps etc. A lot of those apps were paid for and as far as I can see there is no way to get them back!

Never had a problem like this on Android...didn't matter how many times I wiped a phone...my apps were always available in the store.

Microsoft....this sucks big time! Anybody else see this...have a solution?

First, take a breath. I dare say that your post is coming off a bit dramatic. I'm not trying to offend you but let's focus on working out a solution before saying anyone sucks or anything like that.

So, I'm assuming you were on either 8.1DP or 8.1Update DP and you reverted your phone back to 8.0 on Black firmware so you can update to 8.1/Cyan. One thing to note is that most of 8.1's backup data is not compatible with 8.0 restore process so if you signed into your account while on 8.0, things might not go well. A lot of the back up data like start screen layout were introduced in 8.1. Ideally, you would revert to 8.0, update to 8.1/Cyan, then hard reset (this does not remove any OS updates, only your personal information) so you can be presented with the first-sign-on-restore option.

Here's how I did it:

1. On a phone with the Dev Preview, unable to get Cyan, revert it back to 8.0/Black.
2. Once that's done, on the first reboot, do not sign in with your account. You're only here at this point to apply your carrier's 8.1/Cyan update.
3. Once you've updated the phone to 8.1/Cyan, you must then go to Settings>about>reset your phone. This is the only way to get the backup restore prompt. The OS will not restore to an in-use phone, only a clean-slate phone.
4. After the reset, the phone will boot to a clean 8.1/cyan state. Here, you can sign in with your account.
5. Following the prompts after you sign in, you can pick a back up and it will restore it to your phone.

Now, please provide information on the steps you took so we can determine what state your phone is in and we can go from there to get it back to fully restored.

Notes:
-Your installed apps will be automatically downloaded and reinstalled if done properly and any tiles on your start screen will also show up like in your last back up if done correctly.
-Any 8.0 and earlier apps will not restore its app data because that feature was implemented. Apps must be retargeted to 8.1 or written in the new WinRT framework for its data to be included in back up.
-This revert/update/reset scenario is not supposed to be a likely scenario since the dev preview issue is not meant for the general public.

 

[morethanslightlyannoyed]

A Ha! So the OS version is the key. Updated to 8.1 update 1 using the developer preview app, did a hard reset and on rebooting I was presented with two restore points. Picked one and it is now restoring. Funny though...I had done a hard reset after installing 8.1 but the phone did not find any backups. The backups seem to be tied into the version of the OS on the phone when the backup was made.

Many thanks for the answers to my slightly deranged question...my only excuse is toothache!

 

[aschaps]

So this usually works for me (did it when I replaced my 920 with another, and again when I upgraded to my 1520), but this time I replaced my 1520 and I've got nothing in my Myapps folder. After checking apps that I know I've previously purchased, they're showing as never having been owned.