New Lumia 950 Dual SIM - How to restore text messages?

[Windows Central Question]

Had a Lumia 920 on Windows 10 build 10586.164. Cracked the screen

Bought new Lumia 950 Dual SIM from Microsoft, set it up restored from backup, but old text messages aren't coming. Sync is turn on both phones and set to any time. Is there some was to initiate manually?

 

[Maurizio Troso]

Had a Lumia 920 on Windows 10 build 10586.164. Cracked the screen

Bought new Lumia 950 Dual SIM from Microsoft, set it up restored from backup, but old text messages aren't coming. Sync is turn on both phones and set to any time. Is there some was to initiate manually?

Put sync in One Month first on new phone

 

[rytomi]

That's hasn't seemed to make a difference.

I've been doing some searching to see if there is any way to do it manually, and found this app in the store called "Contacts+Message Backup". It's made by Microsoft and adds a settings applet to backup to a file which can be restored. Of course, that won't work, it crashes while trying to backup MMS messages. You'd think in 2016 and a brand new phone doing something as simple as backup/restoring SMS/MMS messages would be easy.


Any ideas?

 

[RicaChero]

Actually, me and my girl both had this issue, with her I bit the bullet and gave in to doing a Contacts+messaging backup manually, but didn't have the opportunity to do it on mine. And with her I had her extra Windows Phone 8.1 restore that always works fine, and moved those into her Lumia 950.
But right now I just did what the gentleman above said, Month backup triggered all my messages. Coincidence? No idea. Now loaded all the ones over the year. Thanks!

 

[ACF1]

I have done a hard reset on my phone after each of the last 3 OS/Firmware updates before .164 update. I decided not to do it for that one, however, cortana had some issues, so I said, let's do a phone reset once again. I didn't have a problem with text syncing up until this last hard reset. I reset once again, not a single sms had synced at all. Only a couple of handful of skype chats. Using contacts+messaging backup wouldn't work for me because I've been using my L950 for a while so I have recent text messages that wouldn't be on my L920.

What in the world!!!!! I believe MS is working on the SMS integration with PC, so that may be at fault, but now I just wonder if all my SMS are still backed up, or just lost. Anybody else had found a solution?

 

[GrayW0lf]

What in the world!!!!! I believe MS is working on the SMS integration with PC, so that may be at fault, but now I just wonder if all my SMS are still backed up, or just lost. Anybody else had found a solution?

Search on Twitter and you'll see that there's a "radio silence" on this topic. Use the feedback app and upvote all related reports (and file one of your own). If you search these forums, you'll see that I've posted in a couple ot threads on the same topic.

Simply put: SMS "sync" is non-functional and there is no way to be sure that your text messages are being backed up.

2 apps worth calling out for desktop/laptop/tablet versions of Windows 10:

"Windows Phone Message Backup" -- this seems to give a partial backup copy of my older SMS messages (which my WP8.1 devices successfully restore after hard resetting (and staying on) WP8.1.
"Messaging" (or "Messaging Everywhere"): This app is only available on the latest Insider build of Windows 10 for PC. It shows more recent text messages but I'm still missing several weeks' worth of texts in my cloud-based "backup".

Bottom line: It doesn't matter if you're on the Production build of 10585.164 or the Fast/Slow Insider for Mobile rings (14295).. Text message backup/restore is broken at this time. Some very lucky few claim to have had text restoration happen. I haven't been one of them.

 

[Firefly74940]

"Messaging" (or "Messaging Everywhere"): This app is only available on the latest Insider build of Windows 10 for PC. It shows more recent text messages but I'm still missing several weeks' worth of texts in my cloud-based "backup".

Could you say what's the date of lastest sync message ? ( 26/03 here )

there should be a way to check messages actually backedUp on outlook.com so i would not worry if messages is actually saved or not ( i prefer download needing a fix than Ulpoad/backup broken )