SMS Backup & Restore doesn’t write messages directly into your messaging app. It passes each message to Android’s built-in message storage, which every messaging app reads from. Before saving a message, Android also has to find or create the conversation it belongs to. If Android’s message storage refuses either of these steps partway through a restore, the app has to stop and shows one of the messages below.
“Restore failed. Please make sure the device is not blocking any permissions for this app and then restart the device. If the problem persists, contact the developer.”
Android was asked for the conversation a message belongs to and returned nothing, or it reported an error while saving a text message. Android normally always finds or creates the conversation, so this means its message storage has stopped working properly. This is more likely during very large restores or when the phone is low on storage. The app can’t reset Android’s message storage, but restarting the phone does.
On some phones the same thing can happen because the phone maker has added its own permission, security or battery-saving controls on top of Android. These can quietly stop an app from saving messages, even when Android’s own settings show the permission as allowed.
“Restore was interrupted due to an error. Please restart your phone and resume the restore.”
Android accepted a message but did not save it. This usually means Android’s message storage has stopped responding, or that another messaging app took back the default SMS app role while the restore was running.
How do I fix it?
- Restart your phone.
- Make sure SMS Backup & Restore isn’t restricted. Check Settings > Apps > SMS Backup & Restore > Permissions, and also check any security, phone manager or battery optimization app that came with your phone.
- Make sure your phone has free storage space.
- Open SMS Backup & Restore and run the same restore again, and set it as the default SMS app when asked. Messages that were restored before the error won’t be added a second time, because the restore skips messages that are already on the phone. This only works if Disable duplicate check in the restore options is left off, which is the default.
- If the restore keeps failing, open Help and feedback from the app menu and tap Send app logs to developer, so we can see where it stopped.