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rilayne

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 30, 2011
14
1
Hi Guys,
So I lost my iphone today and luckily was able to find it back by marking my phone as lost and eventually someone got it back to me. Now it is asking me to set it up like a new phone but when I select the most recent backup (yesterday) to restore I keep getting this message:
Your iPhone cannot be restored because there is a problem with your backup data. Choose a different backup to restore from.
I forgot to mention that the phone was in lost mode, but when I try to stop lost mode it just says "stopping" for ages and never actually does anythbing. It says it will stop once the phone is connected to the internet but it is connected...
The previous backups give me the same message. What am I doing wrong? Please help!!!
 

joeblack007

macrumors member
Nov 23, 2023
65
40
What changes do I make?
Hi Guys,
So I lost my iphone today and luckily was able to find it back by marking my phone as lost and eventually someone got it back to me. Now it is asking me to set it up like a new phone but when I select the most recent backup (yesterday) to restore I keep getting this message:
Your iPhone cannot be restored because there is a problem with your backup data. Choose a different backup to restore from.
I forgot to mention that the phone was in lost mode, but when I try to stop lost mode it just says "stopping" for ages and never actually does anythbing. It says it will stop once the phone is connected to the internet but it is connected...
The previous backups give me the same message. What am I doing wrong? Please help!!!
Hello. Skip restoring from the backup and setup your phone as new (don’t transfer anything, option). You can still sign into your phone when prompted, you will just be skipping any restore options. Anything you have synced to iCloud such as contacts, calendar, notes, photos, even messages if using iCloud messages feature will still sync back to your device, you’ll just be missing downloads and app data. Once this is finished, sign into iCloud on a computer and try disabling Lost Mode again. If this is successful, you can then quickly erase the device inside the device settings and try restoring from that previous backup. You can also look at the most recent backup inside the iCloud backup settings in your phone prior to erasing, just to verify that you have one from that phone. Hope this helps.
 
Last edited:

rilayne

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 30, 2011
14
1
Hello. Skip restoring from the backup and setup your phone as new (don’t transfer anything, option). You can still sign into your phone when prompted, you will just be skipping any restore options. Anything you have synced to iCloud such as contacts, calendar, notes, photos, even messages if using iCloud messages feature will still sync back to your device, you’ll just be missing downloads and app data. Once this is finished, sign into iCloud on a computer and try disabling Lost Mode again. If this is successful, you can then quickly erase the device inside the device settings and try restoring from that previous backup. You can also look at the most recent backup inside the iCloud backup settings in your phone prior to erasing, just to verify that you have one from that phone. Hope this helps.
Thank you so much for this. Can you clarify what you mean by missing downloads and app data? What does this mean. I back up my phone to icloud daily so are you saying that, despite this, I will lose the data from apps such as whatsapp, FB, IG etc?
 

joeblack007

macrumors member
Nov 23, 2023
65
40
Those apps typically store your data on their servers. I don’t know about WhatsApp because I’ve never used that but Facebook and Instagram will have all your data once you download the app and sign in. I was just trying to give you the alternative approach so you can get your phone up and running and attempt to end Lost Mode.
 
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