I was an early adopter, back when the first jolla phone hit the stage.
There where many problems, but everything felt fresh and new.
Nowadays it is just exhausting.
Just had to reinstall my Xperia III because of my own stupidity.
Here is my journey.
tldr; rsync your COMPLETE home folder on a regular basis
Steps:
Recovery mode:
After several attempts, I was able to flash the recovery image to the phone.
Decrypted the home partition and copied all files to my Laptop.
Flashing:
USB3 Bug… I don’t have any USB2 Ports anymore.
After changing to USB2 protocol as mentioned in the doc and trying several USB - cables I was able to flash the device.
lspci -nn | grep USB | cut -d ‘[’ -f3 | cut -d ‘]’ -f1 | xargs -I@ sudo setpci -H1 -d @ d0.l=0
Yeah, the cut -d argument isn’t right. Single ticks don’t need an escape. cut -d expects one argument.
Here is the correct one:
lspci -nn | grep USB | cut -d ‘[’ -f3 | cut -d ‘]’ -f1 | xargs -I@ sudo setpci -H1 -d @ d0.l=0
So far, so bad.
Next step:
Set up my Nextcloud account and imported the latest backup.
Oh joy oh wonder!
I already knew, that there isn’t much “Backup” in the files but it is nice to not have to set up all accounts.
But wait there is more, or is it?
There where three f#*ing contacts in my backup. THREE!
Whatever, syncing the address book with my Nextcloud should do the trick.
Activated the sync and waited… and waited.
There were no new contacts!
Ok, have a look on my nextcloud directly.
There are at least 30 entries, but they are old. Ancient even.
So there where no syncs by the nextcloud account.
My Caldav synced worked. So the calender was synced.
Are the entries included in my backups?
Of course not
Were there an information regarding my incomplete backup?
Of course not
Were there notifications, about my not working sync?
Of course not.
Not even after my clean install. There is no import of my ancient contacts.
FYI: /home/defaultuser/.local/share/system/privileged/Contacts is the place…
Not to speak of “expected” behavior like not including my OTP database.
No photos, no documents (keepass db for example).
Hadn’t I copied my complete home folder …
There are bugs over bugs in Sailfish.
Bluetooth… works mostly…
Restart my bluetooth, remove the entry, reconnect and voila my LG TV connects.
Pioneer car stereo… only when the connection is made from the stereo. Obvious.
Maps sound on bluetooth devices? Only until a new update, which overwrites the default.pa.
Get a call when when using a headset, but not want to?
Good luck with deactivating the headset.
Videos on the “browser” works… for at least 5 minutes.
Yeah… the browser 
Sound and video on multiple apps are unstable.
Entering the decryption key at boot time, when the system asks for it? Just don’t do it. Wait for a couple of seconds or look at the nice circle, circling around. Obvious.
Ofono, mpris-proxy were major pains…
Most of the stuff not working reliable is not a deal breaker for me… but Backups and sync?
Without any hint, that it stopped working?
I am using sailfish for about 10 years now… do I want to continue?
I honestly don’t know. If my X III breaks, probably not.
After ten years as a paying customer I am not willing to tinker with my phone for basic functions any more.
If I want that, I could use my Mobian phone. At least they are more or less mainline.
.