Why can't I log into the wechat site with a QR Code?

[VCWechatter]

Hi,

I'm trying to backup my wife's Wechat images into a Windows 10 hard drive, in preparation for clearing the images on her android phone.

But, whether I try to log into the wechat website on my PC, or whether the WeChat PC application tries to login, the QR scan generates a url that isn't found.

In other words, after the android QR Code app scans the QR Code from the website https://web.wechat.com (or the QR Code from the Widows PC application), the QR Code android app generates a url (the weixin site. I can't copy it here, because this webboard will mark the message as spam), and I click OK on the phone app.

But then it says that the site isn't found.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding how to do this. Should I be able to log into the wechat website on the PC, using the id and password ; or the phone number and password ; or the email and password? Or do we absolutely have to use the QR Code? How?

Heck, why is the QR Code app trying to log into the Wechat site via the phone, anyway? I want to log into the Wechat site in my Chrome browser on my PC, not on my phone.

So, to summarize - I just want to backup all of my wife's image files to the PC.

Should I just copy that image and image2 folder, from ..\tencent\MicroMsg\1b........\..? Or is there some other official way?

 

[SpookDroid]

The QR Code shouldn't be scanned using a generic QR Code reader, it's meant to be used IN WeChat.

 

[VCWechatter]

Spook,

Thanks, that's what I thought. But I wasn't able to locate the QR Code scanner in Wechat.

Btw, in case anyone can off suggestions related to this -

AT&T was able to backup and restore the chats, on a new phone that my wife purchased.

But now I have to try to backup and restore the images and videos. I'm starting that, by copying the entire Tencent folder and subfolders to a PC. Then the plan is to copy those folders - or maybe just some of the subfolders like image2 and video and such - back to the new phone.

Would that be a valid way of restoring the images and videos associated with the chats? Or are those links between the chats & their associated images/videos forever gone, on the new phone?

The QR Code shouldn't be scanned using a generic QR Code reader, it's meant to be used IN WeChat.

 

[SpookDroid]

What phone did you get? If you got a Samsung phone you should really give SmartSwitch a try. I believe it supports WeChat transfer of everything.

Your method should work IF the contents aren't encrypted and linked to a specific hardware ID (no idea how WeChat works in that regards, I always start from scratch because only use WeChat for quick China messages).

 

[VCWechatter]

What phone did you get? If you got a Samsung phone you should really give SmartSwitch a try. I believe it supports WeChat transfer of everything.

Your method should work IF the contents aren't encrypted and linked to a specific hardware ID (no idea how WeChat works in that regards, I always start from scratch because only use WeChat for quick China messages).

Yes, it is a Samsung. And we used SmartSwitch earlier today. It copied a lot of things, and we restored them. But the Wechat/Tencent subfolders were not among them.

Looking at the actual folder structure that SmartSwitch created, it does include the Tencent parent folder, but not much else. It doesn't include, e.g., that cryptic-looking folder that stores the images and videos and other stuff.

Well, we have most of what my wife needed, including the WeChat chats. So we'll just keep the old phone around, until we can figure out how to backup the images.

I tried a straight copy of the tencent folders, but during the copy Windows reports something about an invalid file (something like that ; I forgot the exact verbiage).

It's insane, that the Wechat backup option, which works fine for the chats themselves, doesn't have an option for backup up & restoring images. Wechat has been around for a while, so you would think they would cover this, by now.

Oh well, thanks for your assistance. If we figure out how to get the Wechat images over to the hard drive and/or linked with the proper chats in Wechat, I'll report back here.

 

[SpookDroid]

For what it's worth, if you're looking at alternatives, Whatsapp does have the backup/restore option for all chats AND media,and it's all saved to your Google Drive (and encrypted), so the restore is pretty seamless. Downside is it's pretty much tied to a single device all the time (you can use the web interface, but the phone is still the main device and it must be connected).