For several months now, a lot of users have been unable to make Android backups to Google Drive. And many don’t know that their data isn’t safe on the cloud
There are Android users who, for a good nine months, can no longer back up their data on their Google Drive space. What’s serious is that they often don’t even know it, and what’s even more serious is that Google has no answer to give these users.
And then there’s a third thing, perhaps more serious than all: by disabling the password prompt (or biometric unlock) on the lock screen everything goes back to working properly. It’s clear, then, that this is a bug and the fact that it occurs on smartphones from different manufacturers (even on Google’s own Pixel) suggests that it’s an Android bug, not of individual devices. The fact is that, for months, many users can’t automatically upload their data to Drive and this could be a big problem in case they need to reset the phone to factory settings.
No backups on Android: what is it
Reports about this problem have been posted by numerous users on Reddit, on forums and even on Google’s official forum that, therefore, knows very well that there is a problem with backups. Problems have been found on Motorola, OnePlus, Samsung, Huawei (obviously only on those that still have Google’s services) and even on Pixels produced by Google itself.
The bug doesn’t give any symptoms: to know there’s a problem you have to go to Settings > System > Backup, where the backup button is disabled and all fields related to “Active backups” (App data, Call history, Counted, Device settings, Photos and videos, SMS) are constantly “Waiting for backup”. Normally, if the backup succeeds, the user can read after a few minutes “Backup was performed X minutes ago”, followed by the time of the backup.
Backup problems on Android: the farce solution
Since Google doesn’t respond to numerous reports, savvy users have been scrambling to find a solution via a series of ADB commands (the ones you run from the prompt). Then there’s a solution to the problem that’s embarrassing to say the least (for Google, of course): if we disable the security options on the lock screen, amazingly it unlocks the backup. So we’ll have to disable all security options first, back up, and after we’re done re-enable security on the lock screen.