Problem restoring my .ab backup file
Try looking at the logcat output. I had a similar issue with multiple devices (all of the same manufacturer, though not yours) -- and it turned out they obviously had a bug in ADB implementation (logcat showed a parse error for the backup file).

If your situation is comparable (some ADB bug on your device's firmware), you can forget restoring that backup using ADB. Still, there are alternatives:

As you can read in the tag-wiki or our backup tag, there are other apps which can read and restore from ADB backups. Such as e.g. Titanium Backup. I'm not sure if this feature is reserved for the Pro version, but it's at least worth a try with the free one. And even if, this app is worth buying. Note, however, that your device must be rooted for this.

Copy your nexus.ab to the SDCard of your Nexus (I know it has no microSD slot, but the internal SD should do). Then use TiBu to restore from that backup file. You might not be able to restore everything (I never tried, so I'm not sure how far it goes) -- but at least your apps and their data should be able to get restored.

A second way (to be used for the remaining things) is to manually unpack the backup archive. Details can be found here:


How do you extract an App's data from a full backup made through “adb backup”?
Is there a way to look inside and modify an adb backup created file?


You might also wish to consult other questions tagged "adb+backup" for additional information.