SMS Backup Not Working

[shanelthiggs]

I'm using a Lumia 920, SMS backup is turned on and always has been.

If I log in to Outlook (live.com), I cannot see any of my backed up SMS, which then leads me to believe that they aren't being backed up. I have seen various posts to suggest going to the "Messaging History" folder (which is empty!), and changing certain sections of the URL, but any changes I make to the URL just takes me back to the Inbox folder or gives me the "Can't connect to outlook" message.

Does anyone have any suggestions? How can I see that the messages are/have been backed up online? If they haven't been backed up, what can I do to resolve?

If you need any further info just shout.

Shane

 

[montsa007]

It is backed up on MS server, if you have to format or switch a phone and you sign in to your live account, your sms'es will be pulled up from MS Server

 

[shanelthiggs]

I appreciate that, but how is that others are able to view them via their outlook on live.com?

I also presume that it can only pull them from MS servers when you sign in when first setting up the phone, rather than setting up the phone then adding your microsoft account at a further time? This is what I did, and it didn't pull them down to the phone, so I've since assumed all my messages between mid-April (when I got the phone and sms backup has always been on) and a couple of weeks ago (when it had to be flashed at a Nokia CP) had been lost, and would now be overwritten with what's on my phone now (assuming the backup is actually working)

 

[Pete]

The outlook.com url manipulation method doesn't work all of the time. Using the trick, I was able to see SMS messages for my account. When I tried to do the same thing a week or so later, it wouldn't work.

It's inconsistent.

When I had to hard reset my phone a couple of months ago (forgot my wallet PIN code), all of my messages came back again. I'm not sure why your ones have been lost.

 

[shanelthiggs]

Makes sense, thanks for that.

My thinking is that you have to add your MS account and pull them down as part of the initial phone set up, rather than setting the phone up then adding in your MS account which then takes your SMS as they are on your phone at that point and overwrites what's on the server. I could be wrong though, but it's the only logic I can apply to it!

Weirdly, my contacts all came through fine, but even my calendar didn't populate any previous items (they are visible via live.com) and yet anything I add to it via my phone now syncs straight up to the live.com version. I'm not too fussed about the calendar though, the main one was SMS but it's not a major problem for me, just a novelty feature that would have been nice to make use of!!!

Thanks for your reply though, definitely puts things into perspective!