Can't recover photos and videos from my whatsapp icloud backup (media appear as ???)

[Tic7878]

I had my phone stolen and had a 20gb icloud backup of my whatsapp.

Problem is, after downloading the whole 20gb file to restore my whatsapp on the new phone, 99% of my pictures and videos appear as question marks (????).

Tried googling and it appears to be a problem related to different whatsapp/ios versions of my backup to the phone i'm trying to restore and the solution involves upgrading everything on the old phone, making a new backup and restoring on the new phone.

Obviously i can't do that, since my old phone was stolen.

Is there anything else i can do? I dont want to loose my whatapp history and media. And it's even more frustrating knowing that everything is on icloud but i can't propely retrieve it.

 

[chscag]

If the backup was made by an older version of "WhatsApp", you should be able to restore it from WhatsApp on your replacement phone. Even if the original backup was made with an older version of iOS you should still be able to restore it. It almost sounds like the original backup you made to iCloud from the phone that was stolen was not a good backup.

It doesn't make sense that the solution involves upgrading everything on the old phone? Are you able to sign into iCloud with your Apple ID/password and view your pictures and videos that you made with WhatsApp?

 

[Tic7878]

Are you able to sign into iCloud with your Apple ID/password and view your pictures and videos that you made with WhatsApp?

Can you do that? Do I need a third party software or acess from a Mac?

I'm trying to acess from Icloud for windows and it doesn't allow me to see anything, it just lists whar's there.

 

[IWT]

Can you do that? Do I need a third party software or acess from a Mac?

I'm trying to acess from Icloud for windows and it doesn't allow me to see anything, it just lists whar's there.

Hi Tic7878

May I just ask a few questions for clarification purposes?

1. Was the stolen phone an iPhone?

2. Is your new phone an iPhone?

3. Do you own a Macintosh device of any kind - a computer for example?

4. Do you have an Apple ID? I presume so if you have things backed up to "iCloud".

To access your iCloud account you need to go to https://www.icloud.com - then sign into your account by entering the email address associated with your iCloud account, then your password for that account.

Once in, you will see all your Folders including WhatsApp. Click on it and view the contents.

Please post back with answers to the questions and tell us what you see once logged in to your online iCloud account.

Ian

 

[Tic7878]

1. Was the stolen phone an iPhone?

Yes, an iphone 7.

2. Is your new phone an iPhone?

Yes, an iphone 8.

3. Do you own a Macintosh device of any kind - a computer for example?

I have acess to an old imac that my brother gave to my mom. If it's needed i can hook it up and use it.

4. Do you have an Apple ID? I presume so if you have things backed up to "iCloud".

To access your iCloud account you need to go to https://www.icloud.com - then sign into your account by entering the email address associated with your iCloud account, then your password for that account.

Once in, you will see all your Folders including WhatsApp. Click on it and view the contents.

Please post back with answers to the questions and tell us what you see once logged in to your online iCloud account.

Ian

Yup i have an icloud account.

But when i log on it (i'm using windows) either with icloud for windows of using the web browser, there's not many options. There's not option to see whatsapp folder.

Do i need to log on it using a mac pc?

 

[chscag]

As Ian stated above, you should be able to view your WhatsApp folder by accessing your iCloud account. The Windows version of iCloud offers the same options as does the macOS version. Which again leads me to suspect that your WhatsApp backup may not be a good one. Sorry, but I do not know of a way to check that out except by trying to view its contents.

 

[Tic7878]

Is this whatsapp folder uner "pictures" on icloud.com? As i setup my whatsapp to don't save pictures on camera roll, i guess this folder is unrelated to my backup (20gb according to icloud).

There there's a whatsapp folder with just one picture.