Replicant

I tried some methodes which could be walkthrough.

"Contacts" app: by selecting any contact, Contacts briefly show the contact and then crashes before I can select the sms button, with the message: "Unfortunatly, Contacts has stopped"

I tried changing back rights to rw-rw-rw, it does not change anything (and I doubt changing back owner to root changes anything ;)).

You will find attached the logcat I got when Contacts crashes.

I saw that some user succeed into keeping their SMS & MMS (https://redmine.replicant.us/boards/21/topics/12057?r=13803#message-13803), I'm curious to understand how. :)

This is already addressed in the wiki. The database formats are incompatible. And if you keep your Replicant 4.2 data, you will likely run into similar issues with other apps.

Sorry, I've seen this but I've also seen some people which seem to have kept their SMS so I had hope...
I did not interest myself to SMS backup/convert app since a long time, do you have any idea what I could use?

And for contacts, do you have any idea why it does not work?

Regarding the Contacts issue, it's possible that the import actually works well, but the crash is caused when the Contacts app does a lookup in the incompatible SMS database:

06-22 16:35:04.495  4243  4243 V SmsInteractionsLoader: SmsInteractionsLoader
06-22 16:35:04.505  4243  4264 V SmsInteractionsLoader: loadInBackground
06-22 16:35:04.585  2854  3065 E SQLiteLog: (1) no such table: sms_restricted
06-22 16:35:04.585  2854  3065 E DatabaseUtils: Writing exception to parcel
06-22 16:35:04.585  2854  3065 E DatabaseUtils: android.database.sqlite.SQLiteException: no such table: sms_restricted (code 1):

Wolfgang Wiedmeyer wrote:

Regarding the Contacts issue, it's possible that the import actually works well, but the crash is caused when the Contacts app does a lookup in the incompatible SMS database:
[...]

Oh, I didn't though about this since I did not opened sms. Thank you.

I'm not sure anymore if Replicant 4.2 had an option to export SMS in a same way as the Contacts app. I'm using Silence since a long time. You could try to do an import of your SMS into this app. AFAIK it is superior in handling such issues compared to the default SMS app. By the way, you can use Silence as a regular SMS app as well without the encryption.

Hi, I installed again Replicant 4-2 and installed Silence app, make an export sms and installed again Replicant 6 to import contacts and sms.
It worked.
If you do not choose Silence as default app for SMS, you can import then new SMS/MMS into silence without loosing former ones.

One issue: when opening clock app, it crashes. It seems even if I wiped out data and cache, data are still into the phone and so it is probably the cause.

However, there is one black point to this app: I did not find how to convert silence SMS back to SMS basic app. It is far away from the philosophy of GNU since it significates loosing all your SMS if app support stops or if this app does not work under your new phone.
So it seems to me this app represents more a last resort than a real solution...
edit : it seems one can go back to sms/mms default app (https://github.com/SilenceIM/Silence/issues/584)
However, since my phone can't be set in USB keystick mode, I can't import/export data to my computer. I am not sure if this is linked to silence installation even if it seems so.

By the way, Silence crashes when beginning a crypted conversation.
Does anyone has the same problem?

After 10 days of normal use, Signal crashes every time it is launched, after entering passphrase. It is then only possible to watch sms for one second sometimes.
In this case, it is not possible to export sms and so changing default app for sms will make loose sms received since signal is used.

edit : It is seems there are some cases where it is impossible to use last version (unstable) in a stable way. Moreover, it seems impossible to manually export/import from Silence.
I strongly advise to avoid installing Silence.

• Silence does not allow to get back to another app with SMS & MMS (https://github.com/SilenceIM/Silence/issues/394)
• Silence seems to not allow MMS import. MMS import/export are only available by encrypted import/export (https://github.com/SilenceIM/Silence/issues/140 and https://github.com/SilenceIM/Silence/issues/184)

I conclude using Silence to convert MMS and SMS messages from replicant 4 to replicant 6 is a very bad idea.
Has anyone found another method?

Currently, there is no solution at all to keep MMS and SMS when changing from Replicant 4.2 to Replicant 6.

SMS application Silence does not manage MMS and keep user captive.

SMS application LibreSignal does not manage MMS format since it is just a rebuild of Signal (https://github.com/xmikos/fdroiddata/issues/39#issuecomment-292017031)

SMS backup application SMS Backup+ (https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.zegoggles.smssync/) is again available on F-droid. It needs either to send private sms to gmail or to create our own's IMAP server, and recommand to not import/export more than 5000 messages which is the case when upgrading version (source: https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus#faq-restore-many-messages). It seems the only direction available currently.

Slight backup does not seem to manage MMS.

Fil, I know you already know this, but for other people that are following along at home, SMS Backup+ just was added back to F-Droid.

That's pretty lame that Silence doesn't backup MMS. I didn't know that. I just did an export and then an import of all my Silence messages and the process worked pretty well. I didn't look to see if I lost all my group texts and other MMS texts tho. I'm assuming I lost all those now, after reading this.

Hi Hanna,
it is very difficult to understand what is managed and what is not given the available documentation/information.
What I am sure of is MMS cannot be imported from another SMS/MMS manager. You can check this by reading on your phone a SMS thread with a MMS inside, and check that there is not anymore attachment inside.

For everything else, I based my conclusion on the public doc and the answers of the maintainer.
However, there is not really any doc and the maintainer does a great work but he seems to have been a bit busy these last months.
If you have any answer, for example to understand if you can export and then import again MMS, it would be interesting to know if it works in encrypted or non encrypted export.

Have you tried Nextcloud SMS? https://f-droid.org/packages/fr.unix_experience.owncloud_sms/

Based on the description, it looks like it might be usable for this. (I haven't tried it, since I don't use SMS.)

Hi Lupin,
I was just noticing that oandbackup wasn't mentioned in this thread.

Did you happen to try that?

I found this in their github issues:

sms messages are in mmssms.db of com.android.providers.telephony

https://github.com/jensstein/oandbackup/issues/95#issuecomment-87449614

Perhaps you could back that up with oandbackup in 4.2 and try to restore them in 6.0.1?

-Hanna

Hi Jeremy,
on the page of nextcloud SMS, it is written it is compatible with Android 4 and 5. However, my goal was to convert SMS to Android 6 so it seems this solution will not do it.

Hi Hanna, thank you for your message
In fact, I looked after some tips on the behaviour of oandbackup when you suggested me this soft (https://redmine.replicant.us/boards/21/topics/12057?r=14380#message-14380) but it saves and backups data.
It seems it is not able to convert SMS format.

Maybe I missed something, so do not hesitate to correct me if I'm wrong.
I'll be happy to find a solution! :)

Fil Lupin wrote:

Hi Jeremy,
on the page of nextcloud SMS, it is written it is compatible with Android 4 and 5. However, my goal was to convert SMS to Android 6 so it seems this solution will not do it.

The F-Droid app description says 4.0 to 5.0, but the F-Droid metadata says 4.1 or newer. Based on this upstream issue [1], it looks like the app works on 7.1.1, so I suspect that the F-Droid metadata is correct and the F-Droid app description is wrong.

If you can confirm that it works on 6.0, please consider submitting a bug report to F-Droid about the incorrect description.

EDIT: The app description on the Google Play page for the same app [2] says it works up to 7.1. So I think the F-Droid description is outdated.

[1] https://github.com/nerzhul/ownCloud-SMS-App/issues/141
[2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.unix_experience.owncloud_sms

Thank you Jeremy, I'll try this. Hope this will work ! :)

Hi there, after some months and a phone stolen, I made a few new tests:

- I confirm oandbackup does not work to convert SMS/MMS from Android 4 to 6 (even if it allows to save and restore SMS/MMS)
- SMSBackup + does not allow to restore MMS, exactly as Silence (https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/583#issuecomment-181022137)

Moreover, I undestand from https://github.com/nerzhul/ownCloud-SMS-App/issues/153#issuecomment-329143176 that Nextcloud SMS does not handle MMS neither...

Currently, I do not know any solution to keep MMS when upgrading from Replicant 4.2 to Replicant 6.

Hi,
reading https://redmine.replicant.us/projects/replicant/wiki/RestoreApplicationInternalData, I wonder if does anyone knew if there are any news about using Silence application to export and import MMS & SMS ?

• Is it possible to get back to stock MMS & SMS application?
• Is it possible to backup MMS in addition to SMS?