Google sync: Wifi passwords not working

[Amicello]

I bought a Samsung S5 in October and had quite a bad time with this (ugly photo quality, power issues etc.) so I got me a OnePlus One now.

Both devices are working and linked to my Google account.
Sync is enabled for both devices.
The option to sync APP-data and Wifi passwords is also checked on both devices.

Problem: I've got quite a number of stored Wifi settings and I need them to be transferred to the new device.
Syncing works for Apps, contacts and all other stuff, but wifi settings and passwords do not get transferred.
I manually pushed the sync quite a few times on both devices (also device rebooting) without any success.

Rooting the S5 is not an option for warranty reasons.

The Samsung S5 has official Android 4.4.2
The OnePlus One is rooted and has Android 4.4.4

Any Ideas how to get the wifi settings from device A to device B?

 

[SpookDroid]

I'm assuming your OnePlusOne is new... have you tried factory resetting and re-adding your Google account to it? There really shouldn't be an issue with sync, I've done this quite a few times and it always transfers my Network configurations over.

 

[Amicello]

Yes.. I tried factory reset with my usual google account quite a few times.

Next thing I tried was to use a freshly registered google account for recovery on the S5. I've set it up and allowed all sync tasks to run until finished.
As I performed the factory reset with this new account on the OnePlus then it got me nothing. No contacts, No Apps.
I've checked the secondary account with my browser via gmail.com and indeed there were no contacts.

One interesting thing I came across is that the OnePlus got one single wifi connection recovered (from my office, wich I connected manually this morning). But all the important networks are still on the S5 only.

Is there a way to re-trigger the sync of apps and network settings, aside from the one from google accounts section?
-----
Next thing I tried was to create a new wifi connection entry on both devices and re-sync. Neither of the entries gets transferred to the other device... I give up here. No idea how I am supposed to get this working

 

[SpookDroid]

Honestly, I don't know... Other than rebooting and re-syncing via the Account settings, I don't see any other way of doing this. And I just tried this on a dummy phone (setting it up with my account) and it does restore my WiFi information... tried adding one to my phone, re-adding the account to the dummy one, and the new WiFi made it through... I'm really at a loss here :S

I know this one is tough, but do you have a non-OnePlusOne phone you could try? This would involve factory resetting that phone, so that's why it's hard for someone to have one extra phone laying around.

 

[Amicello]

I also got an issue with google contacts as when checking my saved google entries via browser there are old contacts I deleted time ago while new contacts are missing. Seemd like my google account db is messed up in some way.

I used Samsung tool Kies to backup my old S5 phone, did a factory reset on the S5 and initialized it with a new google account. Then I restored my contacts and wifi settings from the Kies backup. But in the end google does not synchronize anything with the new account at all. I guess google refuses to sync cause the entries may be connected to the old google account in some way. So I doubt it will synchronize saved wifi settings...

In chrome (desktop version) it was easy to sync bookmarks and settings with the new account.
I used MyPhoneExplorer to transfer my contacts and calendar.
Then I tried to pull the wifi settings file, performed a complete backup usind Android Debug Bridge commandline interface, but no chance to access the restricted wifi folder with default permissions.

In the end I think there is no way to transfer saved wifi networks aside from rooting the device...

Giving up.

 

[Rukbat]

In the end I think there is no way to transfer saved wifi networks aside from rooting the device...

Well ... you got one on the nose, at least. The file is hidden from non-rooted users. It's in /data/misc/wifi/wpa_suppliciant.conf. If you're not rooted, /data is a blank directory.

 

[Amicello]

I know.. but as the Galaxy S5 (although only 2 month old) had some defects rooting was not an option for me as it voids the warranty.
PS "you got one on the nose" german slang ;-) greetings from cologne !