Trying to set up mom's new Pixel 8 Pro, can't communicate with Samsung Galaxy Core Prime (Android 5) to transfer data.

[PianoPlayer88Key]

Hi all ...

 

My mom recently bought a new phone (Pixel 8 Pro) to replace her old phone (Samsung Galaxy Core Prime), which is getting to be too slow for her to use, and has other issues as well. 

I was just trying to set up the new phone, intending to connect the old one and transfer data with the Pixel utility, but I can't seem to get anything working right.   (I was trying a couple guides, including one on Google's support page, and a reddit post and a youtube video, but nothing worked.)

 

When I started the setup process on the Pixel 8 Pro, somewhere during that, I got a popup on my Pixel 6a about set up new device.  That's not the phone I want to set up, though, it's my mom's Galaxy Core Prime.  On that phone, I wasn't getting any kind of popup, not even when I connected it to the Pixel 8 Pro using the quick-switch adapter and a micro USB cable.

Also, while they're both connected to the same wifi network, I can't get them to talk to each other, and the GCP doesn't have any way to scan QR codes that I'm aware of.  (The camera app just takes a picture when I try, and it doesn't seem to be compatible with the Google Lens app.)

 

I'm aware of a portion of the setup where if you tap an image 5 times on the Pixel 8 Pro, you get the option to use a USB cable transfer instead of wireless, but, I can't even get TO that point.  (And if I try to skip past the QR code screen, it just basically continues with setup as if she was a first-time Android user, not migrating from an older device.)

 

My mom really needs to start using the new phone soon - as I said, it's not exactly new - counting back the same number of Windows versions vs Android versions, she's on the equivalent of Windows 3.1 with her phone.  

Spoiler

Android 14 ~ Windows 11

Android 13 ~ Windows 10

Android 12 ~ Windows 8

Android 11 ~ Windows 7

Android 10 ~ Windows Vista

Android 9 ~ Windows XP

Android 8 ~ Windows ME/2000

Android 7 ~ Windows 98

Android 6 ~ Windows 95

Android 5 ~ Windows 3(.1)

 

She does have until sometime in January to return the phone to Best Buy, due to extended holiday returns, if we can't get it working or the data transferred.)  I could consider taking the two phones to T-Mobile (her carrier), and had originally thought of doing that anyway.  Turns out, though, that her old SIM card would physically fit in the new phone, just without the adapter.  (Taking them to Best Buy would also be an option, since she ordered it from there around Black Friday.

 

When I set up my dad's Pixel 4a a few years ago, from the same model older phone (Samsung Galaxy Core Prime), I didn't have nearly the problems with that, that I'm having with my mom's phone.  (I did have to redo it once cause of something not going quite right, but I was still able to get the phones to communicate.  Also there were a couple apps that didn't transfer, and I think the open browser tabs and some other things didn't transfer either; I had that same issue when going from my Pixel 3a to my 6a, and on my PC, from my i7-6700K laptop to my Ryzen 9 5950X desktop.)

 

We also at the same time (as my mom) got my dad a Pixel 8 Pro, to replace his 4a, although I want to make sure I get my mom's phone set up before I start on my dad's.

 

I'm kind-of lost for what to do at this point.   I really want them to be able to start using their new phones, since they're now unsupported, and my mom's phone is getting almost unusable, but ... they're getting up there in age (and dad has Alzheimer's), so if they have to re-learn anything at all or can't retain all their existing data, etc, it's a deal breaker, and we might have to just send the phones back (and the Otterbox Defenders) and have them continue using their old phones.

[whispous]

Can you list what exactly NEEDS to be transferred? I would immediately give up on any hopes of transferring apps with their settings given it's such an ancient source phone.

 

Contacts can be transferred over bluetooth with a little patience, Photos can be pulled off onto a computer and then piped onto the new phone manually.

[PianoPlayer88Key]

On 12/15/2023 at 3:23 PM, whispous said:

Can you list what exactly NEEDS to be transferred? I would immediately give up on any hopes of transferring apps with their settings given it's such an ancient source phone.

 

Contacts can be transferred over bluetooth with a little patience, Photos can be pulled off onto a computer and then piped onto the new phone manually.

Sorry for the delay, have a lot going on.

Well it would be nice to be able to transfer the apps / data for ones that are supported on the new device.  (I'm not sure what all she uses though.)
Of course, I'm sure she'd want her media (music, photos, videos) to be transferred, 

as well as any Google or other accounts she's signed into.

Also she can't go without her contacts or her text / SMS/MMS messages, and the mutlimedia in those.

Also I would prefer to not have to re-enter wi-fi credentials either.

(BTW I'm reading off the list at Transfer data from an Android phone to a Pixel - Pixel Phone Help (google.com) )

And of course phone settings, although there might be a few things I'd change later.

Wallpaper would be nice to have.

Call history is also a must-have.

Alarms, idk if she uses those, but probably.

Passwords from Google Password Manager -- she typically doesn't use those, writes them in a paper-and-ink book she keeps.

She doesn't use spotify or fitbit, but she does have amazon prime and other accounts.

 

Hopefully signing into the google account on the new phone would bring some of that up.  Her old phone is set to backup, although idk if everything is backed up or not.

 

Then of course we'll want to transfer any non-Google accounts and their data.  She doesn't use LINE or WhatsApp as far as I know.

 

Then from the "what won't copy during setup" ...
I'll want to make sure downloads get transfered.

I don't think her phone supports locked folders, and i doubt she'd use it anyway, also I doubt she has any non-Play-store apps.

I will want to transfer data from apps that don't use Android backup, if applicable.

Also other accounts and their data, we will want that as well.  Not sure what if anything she has synced to other services.

Ringtones might be nice, but idk how much if any customization she's done, likewise with "certain phone settings".

 

 

 

Anyway I briefly tried the auto transfer again a bit earlier this afternoon, cause I thought maybe I had forgotten an important step, like turning on bluetooh discoverability, or wifi or something on the source phone, but, that didn't help.

I'm thinking ... if I can't do direct transfer from my mom's phone to the pixel, maybe I could...

Sign into her Google account (same one as on the old phone) with the new phone

Let it sync whatever data  it has

Plug the old phone into the new one via USB cable,

use standard files utility or whatever to browse the files on the old phone and bring them over to the new one.

 

Something I don't understand though ...

A few years ago when my dad got his Pixel 4a, I was able to automatically do the transfer from his Galaxy Core Prime to the 4a, and pretty much everything worked mostly without a hitch (except having to restart the transfer process a couple times cause of user error on my part, and a couple apps he used not porting over, which is why he STILL uses the old phone for some things occasionally).

 

But, transferring from my mom's Galaxy Core Prime to her Pixel 8, I can't get anything to work, at least not like my dad's phones did a few years ago.  Both source phones are just as old, I thought it should work.

 

 

I was looking at Can't transfer data to a new Pixel phone - Pixel Phone Help (google.com) , and it says it might be able to transfer from source phones as old as Android 5, which is what my mom's and dad's Galaxy Core Primes have.  (As I said, transfer worked from my dad's GCP to his 4a, but not from my mom's GCP to her 8 Pro.)

 

One thing I maybe thought of, was doing some kind of intermediate transfer, as in, transfer from the Galaxy Core Prime to something slightly newer, then from that phone to the Pixel 8 Pro.

But, I don't really have a suitable phone that would work as an intermediary.

My Pixel 6a is my daily driver, and I don't want to reset that one.
I no longer have my Pixel 3a, traded it in when I got the 6a.
My Moto G4 Play was a previous daily driver, still has things on it that I don't want to remove.  And it's Android 7, which might still be a bit much of a gap between that and the Pixel 8 Pro.

My LG G4 essentially is close to factory condition except for signing into my Google account.  (I had sent it in for repair with the bootloop issue, but that was after I had another phone, and when I got it  back I still kept using the other phone.)  But, it runs Android 6, so probably too old.

 

Maybe that's a reason to go to a T-Mobile store, or Best Buy ... or would they not be able to help with that?

Too bad, after doing the transfer from my dad's Pixel 4a to his 8 Pro (although I wanted to do my mom's phone first), there's no way I could ...

Plug dad's 4a into a PC, boot up Linux

"dd if=pixel_4a of=backup_file_on_SSD"
factory reset the 4a

transfer from mom's Galaxy Core Prime to the 4a

transfer from the 4a to mom's Pixel 8 Pro

plug the 4a back into the PC

"dd if=backup_file_on_SSD of=pixel_ra"

and have them be ready to go on their new phones, with the 4a still available for my dad to use as he wishes.

 

 

Also my dad uses wired headphones quite a bit, and while I was thinking of having him get a pair of pixel buds (either A series or Pro), I'm thinking, with his Alzheimers, there's probably a non-zero chance of him losing them.  So, I'm thinking of getting an adapter that hopefully would allow simultaneous connection to 3.5mm wired earphones and usb-c charger / data transfer.  Anything I need to look out for on those?  I remember some site suggesting stick with known brands, like Anker, Belkin, or others, but I also vaguely remember quite a while ago some people mentioning issues with not being able to do both at the same time, but idk.

 

Heh ... thought I'd clicked submit a few hours ago but I guess I didn't, have a ton of things going on lol.

[whispous]

It's not going to work anywhere near as completely as you're hoping Unfortunately that ship sailed many years ago at this stage.

 

Apps are not going to transfer, or those that do run a significant risk of not working properly.

 

Transfer the photos manually.

Same with videos, downloads, documents.

 

It's simply not realistic.

 

Accounts will not magically transfer even between modern phones without at least requiring further security info (usually the password) from you.

[PianoPlayer88Key]

On 12/21/2023 at 12:35 AM, whispous said:

It's not going to work anywhere near as completely as you're hoping Unfortunately that ship sailed many years ago at this stage.

 

Apps are not going to transfer, or those that do run a significant risk of not working properly.

 

Transfer the photos manually.

Same with videos, downloads, documents.

 

It's simply not realistic.

 

Accounts will not magically transfer even between modern phones without at least requiring further security info (usually the password) from you.

Yeah, I figure some stuff isn't going to transfer.  Hopefully we can transfer the important things, though.

 

I went on Transfer data from an Android phone to a Pixel - Pixel Phone Help (google.com) and went over the list of data to transfer with my mom, to try to figure out what's important.  A lot of the things on there, she had really no clue what they were, so I'd presume they're unimportant.

 

There are a few things she definitely wants to keep, though:

• Music, photos and videos
• Contacts stored on the phone or SIM card (idk how much she uses the google account on her phone)
• Text messages (SMS and MMS) and their multimedia
• Call history

Among other things...

• Ringtones would be nice (if I could figure out how to do it manually, it's in the "doesn't automatically copy" section of the above link),
• W-Fi credentials would be nice as well
• she doesn't use a lot of custom apps, although she does use weather but I think that's already included, or something like that.
• There might be a few phone settings we may want to duplicate as well, but idk what, probably not a lot though.  (I did at some point in the past enable developer options on her phone.)
• Might be nice to transfer non-Google accounts, if possible, but idk what all she uses.  (She does have Yahoo mail and Amazon Prime, but I'm not sure that she uses any special apps on her phone, just the browser.  Also afaik she doesn't really use the built-in password manager, instead keeping her login info written in a paper-and-ink book.)

Pretty much most if not all the other stuff doesn't really matter afaik.

 

 

What I'm thinking of doing at this point is ...

• From her new phone, skip the automatic data transfer, then log into the same account that she uses on her old phone.  (btw I'd have to check her phone, but when I was looking up the pixel 8 transfer info on her PC to discuss with her, there was a banner saying that her (yahoo) email address had no recovery email associated with it.)
• Use a USB cable to manually transfer local data like photos, documents (if she has any, but doubtful), music, videos.
• Maybe use the option to restore from cloud backup?  (I checked the settings on her phone earlier and it is turned on, but idk what all is backed up.  (Her phone has 8GB total storage capacity, Google Drive afaik has 15GB, so it could theoretically hold a full "dd if, of" type image of the phone, not that it would work that well moving to such a vastly newer phone though.)

 

Her phone does have an SD card, I think most of the pictures from the camera are saved to that, afaik.

There's a few things I'm still a bit concerned about if we'd be able to transfer them or not, like the call history, text messages, contacts that aren't in her Google account, ringtones, etc.

 

I went into the accounts section of her phone settings, and there's a couple gmail accounts in there under Google, and with a logo that's an envelope with a red-background @ symbol on the flap.  Then one that looks like a Gmail logo, labed as personal (IMAP) is linked to the yahoo account I mentioned earlier.

I just want it to be as seamless as possible for her to get used to the new phone.  We bought it around Black Friday from Best Buy, and have I think until January 13 to return it, at least that's what the website said when we ordered it, unless it was a typo and they meant January 31 like the other places like Amazon or Google Store.  (It was out of stock everywhere else I think, at the time, in the color and capacity we wanted - my parents both got the 256GB version, mom got the blue one and dad got the black one.)

 

She'll be 80 the beginning of next month  and I hope that two things happen:

• support (at least bug fixes and security patches) lasts at least as long as she's still around (that's why I picked a Pixel 8 Pro cause of its 7 year support life, instead of some other phones, also she's approaching the possibility of outliving the 82 years that one of the oldest relatives on her side of the family lived to in recent memory), and
• SHE lasts long enough so that the phone's support lifecycle (if it was extended, however unlikely) would be comparable to how long the Linux kernel supported the 386 or 486  

 

At her age, and with her being less technologically advanced, it would probably be hard to get her another new phone several years from now.  Even when she was somewhat younger, big technological changes were not an easy adjustment for her, although she has gotten used to them after a while, in the past at least.  (She did relatively okay jumping straight from Windows XP on her previous laptop to Windows 10 on her current one almost 6 years ago.)