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Backup to Gmail only backing up one half of conversation #1055

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DlWebb2 opened this issue Feb 3, 2021 · 41 comments · Fixed by #1097
Closed

Backup to Gmail only backing up one half of conversation #1055

DlWebb2 opened this issue Feb 3, 2021 · 41 comments · Fixed by #1097
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half-missing semi-consistent omission of sent or received messages; this MAY be related to misattribution

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@DlWebb2
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DlWebb2 commented Feb 3, 2021 •
edited by kurahaupo
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Expected behaviour

My SMS back on my Android phone used to send a grouped one-line entry per message to my gmail showing my text with the respondent's text with a message per line

Actual behaviour

Now I am getting ONLY my message sent to my gmail account without the respondent's text.

  • Android version : 10
  • Phone model / brand : Samsung Galaxy S10e
  • SMS Backup+ version installed : 1.5.11
  • Messaging app : Goggle Messages 7.1.084 (Hickory_RC10)
@kurahaupo
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  1. Are you sure that your incoming messages aren't being backed up, but just not grouped with your outgoing messages? Does searching in Gmail for some text that's only in an incoming message find anything?
  2. Does this apply to everyone, or only some respondents? If only some, are those respondents perhaps sending RCS (or AM) messages, rather than plain SMS or MMS? RCS is not supported yet, because there's no published API for dealing with them.

@DlWebb2
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DlWebb2 commented Feb 8, 2021

Prior to getting a Samsung S10e phone in March SMS Backup+ backed up text messages as an alternating conversation with both sides. March to October my side of the conversation is grouped and the other side of the conversation is grouped together. October to now, only my side of the conversation is backed up.

I primarily only back up the conversation with one person. His phone status, server, and way of sending texts has not changed over this time period. I tried backing up a few other conversations and got mixed results. The first time I tried to back up a different conversation it seemed to work correctly with both sides of the conversation, but the next time I tried that same conversation it would not back up the new messages. I have also tried two other conversations that did not back up at all. I got the message "There were no items to backup," even though there were new texts in those conversations.

Before submitting the help ticket I deleted the cache and data for SMS Backup+, uninstalled the app, restarted my phone, reinstalled the app, and redid the IMAP password with my Gmail account. I have carefully gone through the settings for the app and don't see anything I've missed, but I'm wondering if there's something there. Any other ideas?

I'm attaching two screenshots one just lists me in the conversation and the other lists me and the respondent in the conversation.

Screenshot_20210208-074544_Gmail
SmartSelect_20210208-102444_Gmail

@kurahaupo
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Your correspondents would not necessarily have to change anything for their message sending format to change; various things could trigger that, including:

  • updating their messaging app or phone OS might suffice
  • receiving an MMS or RCS from you and hitting "reply" on it (when they hadn't done so previously).

To confirm that their sending format is still plain SMS, you would have to inspect the details of a received message, in order to see which format it's in.

There may of course be a different explanation, but ruling this out first would be helpful for diagnosing the problem.

@dto-r
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dto-r commented Feb 22, 2021 •
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Confirming I have this same problem. I actually posted here about it in September 2020. I was advised to turn on debugging and report back, but I failed to do that :)

it used to work as described above, now I only get my side of the conversation unless the other individual sends me an attachment. Would love to resolve this as this app is very useful. FYI, in my instance, I am on an android and the other individual is on iphone, not sure if that matters.

@ellenb2319
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Hi - I just found this thread and I am having similar issues with my glaxy S10e...

I have been using this app for several years, using a few different brands of android phones, and it's just starting to act strange with my new phone.

The difference is that the app will backup messages from all of my contacts, and even group them per conversation, but my responses aren't included. Every now and then I'll see my response pop up but it's mostly the other person's replies. It's odd because the conversations in my gmail will say 'SMS with so and so' and it says 'their name, my name' but my responses are more often than not omitted. The app says that I've backed up all messages but it's definitely missing my responses. I've been successfully using the imap workaround and it has been working until now.

I would appreciate any help with this!

@DlWebb2
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DlWebb2 commented Apr 8, 2021

Your correspondents would not necessarily have to change anything for their message sending format to change; various things could trigger that, including:

  • updating their messaging app or phone OS might suffice
  • receiving an MMS or RCS from you and hitting "reply" on it (when they hadn't done so previously).

To confirm that their sending format is still plain SMS, you would have to inspect the details of a received message, in order to see which format it's in.

There may of course be a different explanation, but ruling this out first would be helpful for diagnosing the problem.

Yes, we have ruled out all these and several other online possible solutions including a complex process to reconnect to the gmail account and refresh the connection, etc. None of these steps or recommendations have worked.

It seems like the software developer has abandoned efforts at fixing this problem that many people are reporting. Is that a fair assessment?

@ellenb2319
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After reading the many conversations on this app, it seems like it may be the case. I am not a software person so I think I might cut my losses and download the app SMS backup and restore

@dto-r
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dto-r commented Apr 8, 2021 via email

@ellenb2319
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I'm trying 'SMS backup and restore' right now, I'll let you know how it goes!

@kurahaupo
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It's unfortunate that @jberkel seems to have dropped off the radar; I hope he's OK with Covid.

See my proposal to fork this project at #1059 .

@dto-r
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dto-r commented Apr 23, 2021 via email

@kurahaupo
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@dto-r which app are you talking about? SMS backup, SMS backup+, and SMS backup and restore are 3 separate projects.

SMS backup+ is a fork of SMS backup (which is now defunct), while SMS backup and restore is unrelated and is not open source.

@dto-r
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dto-r commented Apr 26, 2021 via email

@kurahaupo
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Would it be possible to do a search of "all messages" to see if perhaps the messages are present, but not included in the conversation thread?

There's a known issue with conversation threading, in some cases triggered because your own phone number gets misattributed as the "other party".

@kurahaupo kurahaupo added the half-missing semi-consistent omission of sent or received messages; this MAY be related to misattribution label May 29, 2021
@frogdoglog
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I'm really glad to see activity about this perfect app. I'm having an issue where all my incoming texts are being backed up, but none of my outgoing. I've tried restarting my phone, re-installing the app (multiple times), disabling two-step authentication and forgoing auxiliary passwords, and manually inputting the IMAP server name. None of it has worked. I transferred my SIM card to a new phone, but it was the same model as my old phone (Samsung Galaxy 7), which did not have this problem.

@DlWebb2
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DlWebb2 commented Jun 1, 2021

I'm trying 'SMS backup and restore' right now, I'll let you know how it goes!

Tried "SMS backup and restore" as well, it didn't work for me. Did that software work for you?

@DlWebb2
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DlWebb2 commented Jun 1, 2021

Would it be possible to do a search of "all messages" to see if perhaps the messages are present, but not included in the conversation thread?

There's a known issue with conversation threading, in some cases triggered because your own phone number gets misattributed as the "other party".

Yes, I've searched through "all messages" to confirm that one-half of my conversations are no longer being backed up.

@kurahaupo
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@DlWebb2 thanks for checking. That will significantly narrow down the search for the bug

@mrmin123
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In case this helps narrow it down further, I've noticed that this occurs for me when I select 'Contacts to backup' and filter on a group (specified via Google Contacts). It only backs up my messages from the convo.

@coreyhuinker
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I'm also experiencing this same issue, but only for certain conversations. I'm not 100% sure, but it seems that when the contact and I are both using RCS, then only their end of the convo is backed up.

@kurahaupo
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@coreyhuinker Thanks, but that's probably unrelated.

Last we looked into RCS messaging, Android had no published API for accessing RCS messages.

Chance are that if they're backed up at all, then something else is doing that, not SMS Backup+; in particular, Google Messaging (their service, not the stock Android app) is integrated with Gmail.

@radiant-tangent
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radiant-tangent commented Aug 28, 2021 •
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I just want to chime in here with my observation...

  1. When I and another user are not using RCS -- The message backups appear in the same gmail thread with the subject "SMS with Person A". (Thread 1)
  2. When I and another user are using RCS -- The other user's messages appear in a gmail thread with subject "SMS with Person A" (Thread 2). The "To" address for their messages in this thread are the email account I have configured for IMAP.
    My responses appear in a different thread with subject "SMS with My name" (Thread 3). The from and to email on these messages is is the email account I have configured for IMAP.

Update: Gifs sent during the text conversation in Thread 1 appeared in Thread 3 (instead of Thread 1)

@kurahaupo
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@gumaste Hi, thanks. That sounds like Google have added some sort of compatibility layer to make RCS appear to be MMS. However sorting out how the addresses within each message are presented clearly needs more work.

(Hopefully we can sort out both that and the MMS address swapping at the same time.)

@eexit
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eexit commented Jul 10, 2022

Hello, any update on this? Would a donation help to solve this issue faster?
Thanks! 🙏🏻

@Wistou
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Wistou commented Mar 18, 2023

Hello all,
Discovering the exact same issue here (only received SMS are backuped, not sent ones). I was using this app in the past without any problem, and would really appreciate it to be back to running flawless as before.

@kurahaupo
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@Wistou can you please confirm that you are sending messages using the SMS or MMS protocols, and not using the RCS (or AM) protocol?

@Wistou
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Wistou commented Mar 20, 2023

Hello,
Thank you for reching out to me. I confirm I use the regular SMS/MMS protocol to send messages. One thing more I have observed is that it seems that NEW sent messages (ie: messages I send since I have installed the app) are properly bakuped, only the SMS/MMS I had sent BEFORE installing the app are not backuped, hope this can help.
Kind regards,

@eexit
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eexit commented Mar 20, 2023

Hi,

RCS messages backup does not work as intended, this is a limitation. As for the backup schedule, it's also broken, so you have to manually trigger the backup process.

See #758

@Wistou
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Wistou commented Mar 20, 2023

Thank you for clarification, however even when triggering the backup manually SMS/MMS which had been sent prior to installation are not backuped, only SMS/MMS received are backuped.
Regards,

@Wistou
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Wistou commented Mar 22, 2023

Update on previous post : I did a complete reinstall of SBackup+ and connected it to another mail account (orange) which appears to have corrected the issue mentioned. All messages, both ways, are now backuped. Regards, and thanks for your support.

@arnaudboub
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Update on previous post : I did a complete reinstall of SBackup+ and connected it to another mail account (orange) which appears to have corrected the issue mentioned. All messages, both ways, are now backuped. Regards, and thanks for your support.

Can you explain how to configure with Orange account ?

@Wistou
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Wistou commented Mar 22, 2023 via email

@arnaudboub
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Hello, Attached is a snapshot of the setup I have used @.*** can be replaced by @orange.fr depending on you own e-mail address, servers are the same. Regards. Le 22 mars 2023 20:03:12 GMT+01:00, arnaudboub @.***> a écrit :
…

Update on previous post : I did a complete reinstall of SBackup+ and connected it to another mail account (orange) which appears to have corrected the issue mentioned. All messages, both ways, are now backuped. Regards, and thanks for your support. Can you explain how to configure with Orange account ?

No file.

@Wistou
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Wistou commented Mar 22, 2023 via email

@arnaudboub
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Strange, file was attached. Here it is again : De : Arno #73 @.> Envoyé : mercredi 22 mars 2023 20:45 À : jberkel/sms-backup-plus @.> Cc : Wistou @.>; Mention @.> Objet : Re: [jberkel/sms-backup-plus] Backup to Gmail only backing up one half of conversation (#1055) Hello, Attached is a snapshot of the setup I have used @.*** can be replaced by @orange.fr depending on you own e-mail address, servers are the same. Regards. Le 22 mars 2023 20:03:12 GMT+01:00, arnaudboub @.> a écrit : … Update on previous post : I did a complete reinstall of SBackup+ and connected it to another mail account (orange) which appears to have corrected the issue mentioned. All messages, both ways, are now backuped. Regards, and thanks for your support. Can you explain how to configure with Orange account ? No file. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#1055 (comment)> , or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/A6SMQQOZAASW6F5VEGG5MADW5NJFLANCNFSM4XBV3ICA . You are receiving this because you were mentioned. https://github.com/notifications/beacon/A6SMQQP4RTKL76ZPZTNBHYTW5NJFLA5CNFSM4XBV3ICKYY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGOLA4WYPY.gif Message ID: @. @.***> >

sorry but no file is visible (tested on Edge/chrome/android)
GitHub has no private messenger.

@kurahaupo
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kurahaupo commented Mar 22, 2023 •
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@Wistou, please log into the GitHub web interface to comment on a ticket.

Submissions by email have all attachments discarded when they're converted into a ticket message.

Another reason to log in is because you're not notified by email when comments are edited or deleted.

There's a link to this ticket at the bottom of each email.

@Wistou
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Wistou commented Mar 23, 2023

OK then here it is, hope it works better this way.

1000038581

@arnaudboub
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Super !
Thx

@arnaudboub
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Hi
Orange server is ok, but always "Inactive" mode on SMS Backup +. Need to press "backup" button to do backup

@Wistou
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Wistou commented Mar 26, 2023

That's good to read ! And I confirm that I have the same behavior: triggered or scheduled Backup do no work, I also have to manually activate a backup. I remember having read in forums that this had been reported already, and not (yet?) fixed.
To be honest, it is not such a big deal for me, activating the backup once or twice a week is a no brainer, and the conveniency of having SMS backuped as mail by far outweights this minor limitation.
Kind regards.

@locofocos locofocos mentioned this issue Apr 23, 2023
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@locofocos
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I have fantastic news 🎉 The existing API this app is using to fetch messages, it pulls RCS messages just fine.

Before I made these changes, I was seeing the exact same issue in this thread: incoming vs outgoing RCS messages were lumped into a separate thread. I think all of the outgoing messages, from all people, went into a single gmail thread.

#1097

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Handle RCS messages properly, and improve group MMS locofocos/sms-backup-plus