PC Companion backup failure

[cadaliac]

Hello,

new be here - I have insatlled PC companion on teh laptop (Win 7 64 bit) and when I backup my Z1 - it stalls 3/4 of the way through. I thought it was the first time being slow yesterday and didn't have teh time to wait bit I had it connedted for more than 3 hours today with the same results.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

[Rickard]

Do you get any error messages from PC Companion when this happens?

Depending on your PC and how much data you have in the phone, the backup may take a long time. It needs to transfer all data from the phone and then PC Companion packs the data with zip.

What happens if you try to only backup for example contacts and messages?

[cadaliac]

Thanks for the reply - yes, I have also tried that and rebooted the pc. I have also reduced the backup even further by omitting all video, pics and other stuff that I thought would slow it down.

So, just contacts / messages and settings now.

I have tried again and its been hanging on the same position since 11:00 am this morning. Its now 13:00 and still no further than any of the other three attempts that i have made.

I am just worried that I cannot back up my phone  - its nearly 2 years old now and although a pain, it won't be the end of the world if it does fail. Still i would like to stay with Sony and re-populate a new phone with the old apps.

I tried all this two years ago when the phone was now with an older version of PCC and I failed on that occasion. I was using a different laptop, operating system etc and PCC was an older version.

I thought that I ddn't need to back up a new phone as it was new. Anyway, is there another way or backing up my phone settings / apps etc ?

I have all the photos I need already copied from my phone SD card to a file on my home laptop and backed that up again onto a removable falsh drive. I have my contacts saved to a .vnc?? file somewhere in Google (God ad Google only know where ). The only part that I need to really back up now is the appp data and phone settings.

Thanks.

[Rickard · Accepted solution]

I'm afraid it sounds like it may be the phone causing it in that case but there are other ways to backup the phone that you can try.

The phone settings can also be backed up to your Google account. This is on by default so you probably already have it on but you can check the setting under Settings -> Backup & reset. When you add your Google account to a new Android device, it will restore the settings and sync contacts, calendar and other data from the account to the new phone. This feature also takes a backup of app data. However, it's up to the apps to support this so not all apps are included. You can see backups made with this feature under "Android" on https://www.google.com/settings/dashboard

We also have an app in Google Play called Xperia Transfer which can transfer your data directly from your old phone to a new Xperia.

There are also 3:rd party backup applications in Google Play like "MyBackup".

When it comes to app data and settings, it's however not certain that everything can be saved. When you select "Other" in PC Companion, it will backup the files on the internal storage. You could do that manually using explorer in Windows. But depending on the apps, their data may be saved in a private folders in Android which even PC Companion can't access. If these apps doesn't use the backup method in the Google account or have their own backup feature, i'm afraid you can't make a backup of their data.

To see the contact stored on Google, you can go to google.com/contacts. Here you can also import the vcf-file.

[cadaliac]

Thank you Rickard. Very informative and helpful.

Yes, I have suspected the phone myself as it was a bit buggy from the start.

There was always an issue saving pictures to profile names in my contact list and I can only see SIM card details of a contact and not the internal phone contact details. Anyway, after two years and a few Andriod updates, I was able to add contacts to my contact list and now there is a mix of contacts (showing with the SIM symbol) and contacts (with the blue circle around a head symbol) if you know what I mean.

It didn't bother me too much then and certainly not now but this does indeed confirm my (and your) suspicion that the handset is the issue.

i'll check the Google solution.

Thanks Again.

[Rickard]

This could be related to the filter function in the contacts app. If you open Contacts -> [menu] -> Filter you can select from which accounts (SIM, phone, Google etc) you want to display contacts. Depending on which account a contact is stored in, you may not be able to add certain information or a picture.

If you want to transfer all contacts to the Google account so you have them in one place you could do the following:

- Make a backup to a vcf-file from the Contacts app (Contacts -> [menu] -> Export contacts -> Internal storage.

- Delete all contacts in the phone.

- Import the backup (Contacts -> [menu] -> Import contacts -> Internal storage)

When you import the backup, the phone will ask you where to import them to and you can select your Google account.

[adimian12]

dear All

till last week 12/1/ 2018 i was to backup my xperia z1 ( android 4.4.4) on my labtop windows 7 but this week i get error message .

please advise . and if i tried to use another computer with wndows XP the pc companion failed to update . i am using the only sony pc companion that works without update issues version 2.1  303

[adimian12]

why no feed after two weeks

[Qatrium]

@adimian12

PC Companion was discontinued long time ago, now there's Xperia Companion instead.