Find my phone issues..

[Sario27]

I have been attempting to setup find my phone in the event something happens to my phone, and in doing that I am seeing some lacking features Windowsphone.com mentions:

To change settings for Find My Phone

You can set up Find My Phone to save your location every few hours or to use push notifications instead of text messages to send commands (and apps) to your phone faster and more cheaply. Change these settings on your phone, not on your computer.

In the App list, tap Settings Settings icon, and then tap Find my phone.

Select either or both of the following:
Send apps to my phone using push notifications (not SMS). The Find My Phone service and the Windows Phone Store on the web use text messaging to send commands and apps to your phone. Check this option to use push notifications instead. Why? Push notifications can be faster than text messages, and if your mobile operator charges you for each incoming text message, push notifications might also be cheaper. Also, My Phone can only send 15 text messages to your phone in a three-day period. With push notifications, there's no limit.
Save my phone's location periodically and before the battery runs out to make it easier to find. Microsoft can save your phone's location details every few hours so that if your phone is out of range or the battery dies, we can still show your phone's last known location on a map.

Not only that my phone seems to not be turning on find my phone: I was hoping the update today would solve my problem on both of these issues but it didn't.. Below are screen shots of my phone.
Outside in settings shows "OFF"

Inside the setting show "ON"

 

[vedichymn]

Sounds like you haven't gotten the Portico update yet? This is a bug that I believe is fixed in that.

 

[Mystictrust]

I was hoping the update today would solve my problem on both of these issues but it didn't..

Sounds like you haven't gotten the Portico update yet? This is a bug that I believe is fixed in that.

The OP already mentioned that the phone has been updated. I assume Portico.

That being said, my phone has always shown "off" in the menu when it is "on" in the setting. If you turn it off, there's a message in place of the "off". It will find your phone anyway (it always has for me) - only trust what you set the setting to and not what it says in the menu.

Oddly enough, I remember seeing those additional find my phone settings before - I was playing around with them, seeing how much battery drain would be caused if I had it save location every few hours... I can't find it now! Now I'm scouring settings to see if it's somewhere else for some reason... I don't get it.

Edit: You're not alone. The issues you mentioned, including my issue with "the settings used to be there" are in this thread: http://forums.windowscentral.com/no...hone-shows-off-settings-menu-but-appears.html

 

[vedichymn]

The OP already mentioned that the phone has been updated. I assume Portico.

Yeah, but Portico has more options under "find my phone" than that screen shot displays (at least my phone does).

 

[Mystictrust]

Yeah, but Portico has more options under "find my phone" than that screen shot displays (at least my phone does).

I have Portico and my only option is to turn Find my Phone on or off. This problem is mentioned in the thread I linked. It might be that I have multiple 810 restores from device exchanges so I deleted them all on windowsphone.com and I might try a hard reset. Perhaps the options are dynamically linked to the device on the website, and having multiple confuses it?

Before Portico I also had more options than that screenshot btw. Portico never added anything to or removed anything from Find my Phone at all. My question to the OP is now this: Have you ever exchanged your device or are you showing multiple on Windowsphone.com?

 

[Alex Rodriguez Jr.]

My sister just got a brand new 920, Portico installed from AT&T, her Find my Phone is nothing like mine, less options, on or off. Problem is, when you turn it on, it says off in the settings page, when you turn it off, the settings page says its on... Not sure which is which. I was actually just about to make a thread about this.

 

[Sario27]

....My question to the OP is now this: Have you ever exchanged your device or are you showing multiple on Windowsphone.com?

I have never exchanged, and windowsphone.com is not showing any other phones linked to my account. The Screen shot was taken before Portico but the results are the exact same now that I am updated to Portico. I never noticed more options in "Find my Phone" when I first Purchased my phone On December 30th.

 

[Sario27]

.......

Edit: You're not alone. The issues you mentioned, including my issue with "the settings used to be there" are in this thread: http://forums.windowscentral.com/no...hone-shows-off-settings-menu-but-appears.html

Read through the article seems like a solution is a factory reset? (Correct me if I'm wrong) - Now when doing a factory reset how do I ensure all my apps and everything is backed up. I am new to the windows phone world (coming from android - where I could backup everything from phone log to sms, to app data) Is that possible on a windows phone, not that I have much app data, but I would really like to keep my sms threads if possible..

 

[Mystictrust]

The solution MAY be a factory reset... I think I'll be trying that with mine tomorrow. But if you don't want to hassle with re-entering app passwords and re-setting up most apps, then you might just have to be stuck with this.

Go into the backup section in the settings and make sure SMS backup is turned on, and then manually press the backup button for apps+settings for a "right now" snapshot of all the apps and the majority of settings on your phone (take a screenshot of the way your home screen is arranged though, because that doesn't get restored). Make sure your photos all are auto-uploaded to skydrive (or just do it manually). All apps and photos are automatically re-downloaded upon restore and SMS conversations are all instantly restored exactly as you left them.

I've gone through three restores now. Maybe four. All of them are fairly painless... but unless an app saves data to the cloud (i.e. Words with Friends and Words by Post) your app data (including game saves) kind of disappears. Maybe one day this can change. Anyway, I created a thread documenting what I went through on my first restore: http://forums.windowscentral.com/nokia-lumia-810/206191-full-phone-restore-pictures.html

 

[Sario27]

......

Make sure your photos all are auto-uploaded to skydrive (or just do it manually). All apps and photos are automatically re-downloaded
.....

Does this have to be done if all my photos are on my SD card?

 

[Mystictrust]

Nope. It won't format your SD card. All the stuff I have on there has stayed on there

 

[Mystictrust]

FYI: A hard reset fixed the problem for me. Now, when entering the find my phone section, there is no on/off switch but instead the two options that should be there: "Send apps to my phone using push notifications" (I need this option enabled because it never works by sms) and "Save my phone's location periodically..."

 

[Alex Rodriguez Jr.]

I shouldn't have to hard reset a brand new phone to get this to work, my sister won't go for that

 

[Mystictrust]

Then don't. This isn't essential.

I have no idea why these options aren't coming up with a new phone... I believe my issue had to do with me having multiple exchanges and phones with the same name on windowsphone.com, but I don't know why it's happening in other situations as well :/

Alex, for your sister's phone, I'll bet that "on" from the settings menu is how you turn it on, despite what you see in the settings menu. Try using find my phone to verify.