@AppLee @Keneda Many thanks - very helpful!

If anyone else has this issue, I think the adb push $HOME/Backup/phablet /home/ hit an error on a read-only folder and stopped before it hit those two crucial files.

Many thanks!

I can confirm that option 3 successfully (and quickly!) transferred contacts and SMS history to the new phone. Seems trivial to also migrate music, photos, and files. I'm not too worried about apps or settings. So I am good!

Not urgent, but I am confused as to why the other, heavy-handed, routes failed. Did they not transfer these folders? Was I sending them to the wrong path?

Re: Migrate data from device to device

Hi all,

I have a nexus 5 running ubuntu touch 16.04 with some hardware issues (cracked screen and broken headphone jack). I have another nexus 5 in better shape, on which I have successfully installed the same operating system. But I have not been able to migrate my contacts/text message history.

I have tried two methods (detailed below), to no avail. In both cases the new phone, after a reboot does not find the history data. I can check with adb shell that the /home/phablet/.local/share/history-service/history.sqlite (this is where call and text history are stored, no?) has been migrated. But for some reason it is not being read by the new phone.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks.

== Method 1 ==:

(on old phone)
adb pull /home/phablet/ $HOME/Backup/

(on new phone)
adb push $HOME/Backup/phablet /home/

== Method 2 ==:

(on old phone)

adb root recovery
adb shell
# tar -czpv -f /system-data.tgz /data/system-data/ >/system-data.out 2>/system-data.err 
# tar -czpv -f /user-data.tgz /data/user-data/ --exclude='*data/user-data/phablet/.cache*' >/user-data.out 2>/user-data.err
# exit
adb pull /system-data.tgz  $HOME/Backup/
adb pull /user-data.tgz  $HOME/Backup/

(on new phone)

adb root recovery
adb push $HOME/Backup/system-data.tgz /
adb push $HOME/Backup/user-data.tgz /
adb shell
# tar -xzv -f /system-data.tgz
# tar -xzv -f /user-data.tgz
# exit