Why has android 11 ruined my phone and what is android going to do to resolve it?

[Android Central Question]

This pathetic service has cost me all of my contacts, all photos including ones of my son, I can't screenshot anymore, can't open files in WhatsApp, can't send or receive messages on Snapchat and pretty much all other apps won't work either. This is an absolute joke and this will be the last android I ever use if this can't be resolved

 

[belodion]

All phones, Android or otherwise, need to be backed up as a safeguard against loss of personal data if things go wrong.
Google, or the device manufacturer, will normally try to fix problems once they learn about them. Users have to play their part however.

You haven’t given us details about device, so we can’t really help further. Given those details, members may be able to suggest a fix. Otherwise, probably not.
https://forums.androidcentral.com/ask-question/409154-join-android-central-community.html

 

[hallux]

All phones, Android or otherwise, need to be backed up as a safeguard against loss of personal data if things go wrong.

So true. I work in IT support, we used to have a guy on our team that would have us laughing every time the topic of a failed drive came up with a user.
"I'm sorry, it seems your drive has failed. No, I'm not able to access your data. Oh, your data is critical, surely you can restore it from your backup then. Oh, you don't have a backup? I guess it wasn't critical data then."

For the OP - I've been through MANY Android updates over the years (been using it since the first Motorola Droid came out) and I don't think I've ever experienced the issues you're having. This is likely something related to your device specifically, not Android as a whole (if it was Android as a whole this forum would be FILLED with complaints similar to yours).

 

[spARTacus]

This pathetic service has cost me all of my contacts, all photos including ones of my son, I can't screenshot anymore, can't open files in WhatsApp, can't send or receive messages on Snapchat and pretty much all other apps won't work either. This is an absolute joke and this will be the last android I ever use if this can't be resolved

What are you talking about? What "service" is causing you problems? Did you try to update to Android11 and did that wipe your phone and now doesn't let you work with the normal suite of apps you use?

 

[mustang7757]

This pathetic service has cost me all of my contacts, all photos including ones of my son, I can't screenshot anymore, can't open files in WhatsApp, can't send or receive messages on Snapchat and pretty much all other apps won't work either. This is an absolute joke and this will be the last android I ever use if this can't be resolved

Sounds like Andriod webview app issue 2 months Ago..have you updated that and which phone do you have?

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Be aware that this is an independent community forum, without any direct affiliation with Google, any major phone manufacturer, or any other company.

Where did you have your contacts saved? If you only had them saved in the local Phone account, they don't get backed up or synced anywhere automatically, which is why I always strongly recommend saving contacts to your Google account (or Samsung account), because those will get synced automatically to the cloud.

Regarding your photos, try using a file manager app and looking directly in the /DCIM/Camera directory to see if the actual photo files are still there. Just because a gallery app no longer shows photos doesn't necessarily mean they're gone, because gallery apps are simply for viewing -- they don't actually store anything. If something glitched where the gallery app no longer knows where the photos are, it may seem like all the photos were lost.

Also, are you sure you didn't' have Google Photos automatically backing up your photos? Go to photos.google.com on your computer browser and see if they're there. The free unlimited backup feature is going away in June, but until then, you can still back everything up at almost the original quality (assuming you don't have a Pixel phone up through the Pixel 3, which can still back up photos at original quality). Another good option is Amazon Photos, which is unlimited original quality as long as you're an Amazon Prime subscriber.

You should still be able to screenshot by pressing Power and Vol Down together for about a half second. Depending on the phone, there may be a couple of other ways to do it, but we'd have to know which phone you have. What happens when you try to do the Power/Vol Down press?

I'm not sure about WhatsApp or Snapchat, because I don't use those apps. But it's worth clearing the app cache and data for those apps and doing a Force Stop, then opening them again, signing back in, and seeing if the same thing persists.

Depending on the phone, it may also be worth wiping the cache partition, which can be helpful after a major system update.

Threatening to move to iPhone doesn't faze us -- you do what you need to do. But it's still worth trying to troubleshoot. (iPhones are excellent devices, but they are not without their glitches as well.)