[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Dutch078:
Hi Everyone,

After several try outs, I finally succeeded to restore my local backup of Whatsapp. I also discovered and tested some tricks to find out what really works. I hope this information will help you to solve the 24, 31, 35 or 100% backup restore stuck problems of Whatsapp efficiently.

Before starting the whole process: On several websites is given the advice to delete all your Google accounts on your new phone and to delete all your WhatsApp backups made with Google Drive. In my case I did NOT. Probably, this had no important effect on restoring of my local backup of 1,9 GB with Whatsapp.

During the whole process it’s also important that your new phone is always in the active mode. Therefore, in the Settings of your new phone you have to disable the sleeping mode. Your battery should also be charged to 100%. With an adapter your phone could also be connected to an electrical wall socket.

To restore my local backup successfully, my steps were:

I deleted my Google Drive backup on the internet with my personal computer. Then I made a new local backup and a new backup with Google Drive with my old HTC Desire C phone of all my chats, documents, images, video’s and other media, etc. without deleting anything.

On my (new) Samsung Galaxy A5 phone I deleted all the Whatsapp folders and files.

With Play Store I installed the most recent available version of Whatsapp (= 2.21.20.20) on my new phone and opened it only a few seconds. Without pressing on the button Agree & Continue in the Welcome screen of WhatsApp, I closed Whatsapp immediately.

With a USB-connection I copied the whole Whatsapp folder of my old phone to my personal computer. Additionally, I copied the same Whatsapp folder of my personal computer to the internal storage of my new phone. This second step took about 45 minutes.

With a File Manager on my new phone I went to the map WhatsApp/Databases and kept only the 2 most recent local backups. These files were: msgstore.db.crypt12 and msgstore.2021-10-18.1.db.crypt12. All other (backup) files in the folder Databases were deleted.

Via Settings and Apps on my new phone, I went to the app(lication) of WhatsApp and opened the screen App-info of Whatsapp. Being there, I opened the Storage display of WhatsApp. It’s important to monitor the data shown in this display. By frequently sweeping to the Restoring screen and sweeping back to the Storage screen you could monitor what is happening during the restoring process. Earlier, I had noticed, that immediately after the start of restoring my backups the amount of MB’s was quickly increasing and decreasing several times. Without any new actions WhatsApp resulted in a very low amount of MB’s (in my case about 14,75 MB) and an endless during restoring process.

With this new insight, I started (again) to activate Whatsapp on my new phone. After entering my phone number, activation code and confirming the 2 questions of WhatsApp about using my contacts, documents, media, etc., Whatsapp started to search for backups. Sometimes Whatsapp started with my Google Drive backup. But most times with my local backup. It did not matter, as I found out that I could interrupt this process with step 12.

As Whatsapp found my local backup for the first time, I confirmed, that I wanted to restore this local backup. By frequently sweeping to the Restoring and the Storage screen, I discovered what the maximum peak of MB’s of my local backup was, before Whatsapp was decreasing this amount of MB’s. In my case my peak was nearly about 312 MB’s. But on my old HTC phone the amount of data in the internal storage of WhatsApp was only 215 MB’s. It’s an indication that WhatsApp tried to read my (local) backups. The extra temporary MB’s on my new phone were probably necessary to process the whole (local) backup.

After reaching it’s lowest point of MB’s and without reaching the 100% restoring level (= it stopped restoring my messages at 24, 31 or 35%), Whatsapp was showing the message: “Sorry, your backup can not be restored. Would you like to restore another backup?”

After pressing on the buttons “Yes” and “Restore”, WhatsApp started to restore the next backup.

As WhatsApp tried to restore my Google Drive backup, I saw it succeeded to download it. In my case this was 41 MB’s. That’s the same amount of MB’s, that was uploaded with my old phone to Google Drive. But Whatsapp did not succeed to get my Google Drive backup into the internal storage. Finally, this process was endless going on without showing how much % of the messages were restored.

After reaching the endless restoring stage, I interrupted this process in the Storage and Data screen of Whatsapp by pressing on the button “Manage storage”. You could repeat this step every time when you reached the endless restoring process. Please, do not do this in an earlier stage. Otherwise WhatsApp could finish the whole process.

Avoid also pressing on the pop-up of Whatsapp telling you that the Whatsapp App will start again. Too often pressing on that button could also finish the whole process and then you have to start all over again with a new activation code. Instead, just change your screen by sweeping to the Restoring screen.

As a result of step 12: Whatsapp will ask in the Restoring screen to agree to restore another backup. Before confirming that choice, it’s important to clear the cache in the Whatsapp App-info display.

In my case Whatsapp also tried to restore a backup that Whatsapp had never found. Despite this curious message WhatsApp started directly at 24% and continued to 35% and 100% restored messages. But without any result Whatsapp also stopped restoring the never found backup by asking me again to restore another backup.

Now again Whatsapp showed me the information of my local backup (including the time that it was made). After first cleaning the cache in the Whatsapp App-info display again, I confirmed that I wanted to restore this local backup. But now something different happened. In this step Whatsapp started from the beginning directly showing me that 100% of my messages were restored. So everything was there, but Whatsapp could not transform it into it’s own (storage) system. Without any new actions this would also result in an endless restoring process.

Finally, my solution was: “After the start of restoring my local backup, just a few seconds before Whatsapp will reach it’s highest peak of MB’s (= in my case nearly 312 MB’s) shown in the WhatsApp Storage screen, I quickly went to the WhatsApp App Info screen and pressed on the button “Force Stop” (= in my case when the amounts of MB’s were in between 280 to 312). In the following pop-up, I confirmed that choice immediately.

Next I went quickly to the Restoring screen. There was WhatsApp showing me the screen where you have to fill in your (WhatsApp) name.

After typing and confirming my name, WhatsApp started the initializing process. After a few exciting moments Whatsapp showed me all my chats, media, etc..

After checking everything, I found out that all my chats, documents, images, video’s and other media, etc. were 100% complete. Nothing was changed, lost, damaged or corrupted.