Hey all, a few days ago I started setting up a new Android device (Android 14). My old Android device (Android 11) I’ve been using Brave Browser for years. I want to transfer everything from my old device, to my new one.
I am using the same Brave Version (Brave 1.62.162, Chromium 121.0.6167.164) on both devices. The only thing that has synced through Sync Chain are bookmarks. Passwords, settings, history, etc have not synced. I’ve been waiting for days now. Is there any way to either manually force a sync, or manually copy the profile from one Android device to another? Devices are not rooted and cannot be rooted as they are paid for by work. I technically have full control (no management), but I’d rather not as there’s a line in the terms of work paying that specifically goes against rooting devices.
When using Sync Chain, I have Sync All selected on both devices and have for 3 days now. Both devices have basically been on, connected to the same WiFi, the entire time and nothing.
@Wafflemonger I’m going to ask a couple questions, some of them will seem incredibly basic and common sense. Hopefully you won’t get upset or offended by any of it and keep in mind it’s just helpful for me to kind of start off at the beginning and make sure I’m on the same page as other people.
If you go to Sync, do you see all devices listed on the sync chain on both devices? (You’d be shocked how many times people create multiple sync chains on accident and don’t realize it)
Can you check versions again? I’m especially asking as 1.62.165 released on February 14, meaning you’re just that one small version behind if you are indeed on 1.62.162. Might be good to update and see if that helps.
Also going to ask for some information from brave://sync-internals (If you share screenshots, make sure it doesn’t include the username or anything)
What does each show for entries? To give an example, screenshot of what I’m speaking of is below (though I’m doing from desktop)
@Saoiray thanks for your reply. I have good news and potentially (very) bad news. See below for your answers.
Yes, the Sync Chain was proper.
When selecting Check for Updates on Google Play, I wasn’t getting anything. However, going directly to the Brave Browser page in Play Store showed an “Update” button. I updated. This is where the (very) bad news comes into play.
After updating, I load my Brave Browser on my old phone and see that Brave Sync appears to have worked… but everything from my new device overwrote everything on my old device. I now have 6 URLs for history, 1 bookmark, 0 saved passwords, all my settings are reset.
Is there any way to get that data back, or is it gone forever? Why would the new device that was just added to the sync chain overwrite the data on the device that made the Sync Chain. Doesn’t make sense to me.
This is not how it’s generally designed. Sync is programmed to pull everything from all devices and collectively adds them together. So if A had 5 passwords and B has 6different ones, then after synced they’d both have 11. Then once that sync is in place, anything you do to one device is replicated.
Meaning if you had 11 on each and then deleted all passwords, that is when it would be erased from the other. But it would first have to collectively gather all data. So it’s possible that in your prior attempts at syncing it had hit as if it was synced, then saw the update and it triggered as a new action. But that’s just theorizing and I’m not sure how to really look to find out overall.
As far as I know, it’s gone forever if you didn’t have a backup.
It shouldn’t.
At this point about all I’m able to do is tag in @Alexey (sync dev), @Serg (one of the devs who works on Android) and @Mattches (browser support) to try to help. Just keep in mind we’re in the middle of the weekend and they tend to be more active on the weekdays.
As a fellow user, I know I’m limited on anything I can access or try to do. And as Brave doesn’t really have access to our data, I don’t think they can pull from an older sync or something. Actually, I may go ahead and tag in @fmarier from the privacy/security team as well just in case he might have some insight on that.
NOTE
Sorry to tag the three of you. But different questions and not sure who was best on each. So hoping can guide based on what each of you know. Thanks!
@Saoiray and for everyone else pinged (sorry about this…), I’ll attach a screenshot of my old device’s Brave Browsing Data. Note that while it says “Clear Browsing Data”, I did not, I just did this to show the data there easily.
As you can see, there are no more passwords, the browsing history has only 17 items (previously it had hundreds) and while not in the screenshot, the settings are back to default (which is what is on my new device). However, there is still Cookies/Site Data and Cached images & Files. This still does not sync, which based on the Sync Chain, I don’t think that stuff syncs, correct? I know it’s off topic, but is there any way to get this to my new device? Any way to transfer my Profile manually without rooting the device?
Hey all, I’m going to assume by the lack of responses that there’s nothing for me to do and Brave Sync deleted/overwrote all my data. It’s unfortunate, but it is what it is. Thanks anyways.
@steeven@Mattches wanted to tag someone again since no real follow-up since initial tag. Any thoughts on what might have happened? Also confirmation nothing able to be done to fix anything?
Will post under here, since I’m having a similar issue.
I have 260+ tabs (lol) open on my Android S21U, but have now upgraded to an S24U, I would like to transfer those tabs over. I’ve created a sync chain, and for the time being I have added my PC & S21U to it, to have them on my desktop as well.
I don’t see any of the tabs under history, figure this is because they’re opened/not typed in.
Anywho, are these tabs supposed to transfer over as well? I haven’t seen any of them on my PC, only the ones that I actively view on my S21U.
@pancakes
Not sure if you are aware, but Open tabs type means that tabs from other device will not be automatically open on all devices, it means the open tabs will be disaplayed at certain place.
On Android this is App menu => Recent tabs
On Desktop this is App menu => History => Tabs from other devices on the left side.
So I hope this is the reason for you.
Note about the history sync: only those history entries are synced which ewre created after enable history sync. So if you had huge history on the device which just joined to sync, other devices in the chain will not see it, they will see only new site visits.
Your situation is strange, sync should not delete bookmarks on synced device. @Saoiray mentioned that.
As I remember this is the second mention of Sync wipes data. So the problem exists though it is ahrd to reproduce.
@Wafflemonger, I’d like to understand what may cause that.
Do you remember something unusual when it happened? Slow internet connection or app crash before/during?
@Alexey
I was having sync issues where nothing except bookmarks were syncing for multiple days. I was then advised to update in this forum and while Google Play Store didn’t prompt for an update, when I searched Brave Browser manually in Google Play Store, updates appeared.
I first updated on my newer phone, then updated on my older phone. After this, I immediately opened the app on my older phone and discovered everything was overwritten with my new phone’s data.
That’s the entire sequence of events I took, no errors, app crashes, etc.
Thank you, and yes, on PC I did look through App Menu - History → Tabs from other devices.
The last bit you mentioned, about history prior to joining is exactly it.
To get around this for now-- I selected all Tabs (thank you for THAT option)-- and saved them all as bookmarks. I’ll open them up on PC and just have them sync that way. It will take care of what I need.
Was hoping I could have added “Session Buddy” but not an option on mobile.
