Backing up iPhone 3G

[AnDi86]

Does the backup of your iPhone 3G whenever you plug it into the PC/Mac take a long time?

I am using a Mac running 7.7 itunes and it seems to take quite a while to back up!

[ubersalad]

Syncing has been taking a long while...I think you are syncing.

[AnDi86]

i am not syncing i just got the sync done... i then restarted the phone and its saying backing up iphone and its just over half way through and i have been sitting 5 mins

[zaney]

I've been having the same problem with my original iPhone, after upgrading to the new firmware.
The backup before it syncs used to take a second or two, now it takes 10 minutes or so. Something weird is going on.

[Auzburner]

Yes, this problem appears to be the biggest issue thus far (was discussed yesterday). For those, including me who used the leaked version - we have noticed that it back's up every time one plugs the iPhone into the computer. Hopefully we will see a fix, because it is EXTREMELY SLOW!!!

[ph0rce]

anyone know if downloading the official software released today cancels out this issue of long backup times?

[zaney]

anyone know if downloading the official software released today cancels out this issue of long backup times?

Hasn't solved it for me, still takes an age. Also, when I changed to the official firmware, iTunes told me my iPhone backup was "Corrupt or incompatible with the current software," and I lost all my messages (not a big deal for me, but it may be for some people, so just a heads up)

I can't understand why the back up is taking so long. It takes longer to do the backup than it does to sync. I shall be relying on the MobileMe over-the-air sync from now on, until this issue is resolved, the backup is making docking my iPhone impractical.

[greenmymac]

Hasn't solved it for me, still takes an age. Also, when I changed to the official firmware, iTunes told me my iPhone backup was "Corrupt or incompatible with the current software," and I lost all my messages (not a big deal for me, but it may be for some people, so just a heads up)

I can't understand why the back up is taking so long. It takes longer to do the backup than it does to sync. I shall be relying on the MobileMe over-the-air sync from now on, until this issue is resolved, the backup is making docking my iPhone impractical.

Im stuck at 2 hours

[byron_hinson]

I've been having the same problem with my original iPhone, after upgrading to the new firmware.
The backup before it syncs used to take a second or two, now it takes 10 minutes or so. Something weird is going on.

Probably backs up the Apps each time as each apps saves settings and games etc.

[zaney]

Probably backs up the Apps each time as each apps saves settings and games etc.

That's a good point, and probably why it's taking so long. But even so, the average app is only a few meg, most of the ones I have installed are less than a meg. Actual data stored by the app isn't going to amount to much more than login details, and possibly cached content, along with scores and saves for games, so it's doing it all extremely slowly.

[beergeek]

For me it's taking just over 2 hours. If I look in the backup directory

/Users/.../Application Support/MobileSync/{GUID}

it's only 250 MB total and 3,400 files. (large, but shouldn't take 2+ hours to back up)

Hate the thought of it doing this every time I hook up to sync!

Something isn't right.

[drainyoo]

Same here. Backup is taking much longer. Is this happening to anyone who didn't install the leaked 2.0 software? I'm wondering if that has anything to do with it.

[zaney]

For me it's taking just over 2 hours. If I look in the backup directory

/Users/.../Application Support/MobileSync/{GUID}

it's only 250 MB total and 3,400 files. (large, but shouldn't take 2+ hours to back up)

Hate the thought of it doing this every time I hook up to sync!

Something isn't right.

I checked mine, it came out as 38.3 Mb, 1,564 files. Certainly shouldn't take 15-20 minutes to back up.
I'm assuming this is a side effect of a new backup system, possibly of backing up App settings like was said earlier. I've restored to the official firmware and still have the problem.
I wonder if Apple will fix this, or if it's something we're just going to have to put up with.

[tjleeland]

It's not just the pre-release firmware, or even the official firmware on the original phones. I have the 3G, and I'm forced to backup everytime I connect my phone as well. I really hope this gets fixed. It's extremely annoying!:mad:

[Lexoticstylez02]

My initial backup lasted around 5-10 minutes but now it's done within 10 seconds and my phone syncs like it should.

[Cudadown]

My initial backup lasted around 5-10 minutes but now it's done within 10 seconds and my phone syncs like it should.

Mine don't. Added 2 ringtones to itunes since last backup this morning and I needed a new full 15+ minute backup from just doing that.

[ChazDaSpaz]

Personally I don't think it's worth backing up, if it says backing up and it's taking too long and you can't be bothered just press the small X button next to it, it'll stop backing up but will continue to sync your music and videos etc.

[digduggler]

Hmm, same here on original iPhone. Every time I connect it backs up for 10+ minutes. Highly annoying. Only installed officially released firmware.

[distortedloop]

It's not just the pre-release firmware, or even the official firmware on the original phones. I have the 3G, and I'm forced to backup everytime I connect my phone as well. I really hope this gets fixed. It's extremely annoying!:mad:

Yep, same here. Horribly long time to backup a 3G iPhone.

[drainyoo]

For what it's worth my most recent backup didn't take as long as the first few.

[tjleeland]

Personally I don't think it's worth backing up, if it says backing up and it's taking too long and you can't be bothered just press the small X button next to it, it'll stop backing up but will continue to sync your music and videos etc.

That might work with music, but not with apps. It loads the app after it backs up. I'm assuming that this whole backup thing is to protect us from bad apps. It sucks though. I guess the up side is that after I play with all the free apps I won't be installing apps very often.

Still, you'd think they could set it up just to backup the files that have changed, but based on the times I'm experiencing, they're not doing that. I've been on this backup for 20 min. on a brand new (two weeks old) computer! It's not even half done.

[beergeek]

And now here is even more bad news.

I waited for over 2 hours for my iPhone 3G to backup the 20+ apps I had downloaded.

Then one of those apps decided to restart my phone -- and when it restarted it didn't come back up. Just stuck on the Apple logo. Tried a reset, still nothing.

Had to try and restore the phone. And then, even after waiting for hours for the backup, the backup failed to restore.

So I had to start over with a fresh, clean phone. All prefs gone.

It's doing another backup now (going on 1.5 hours now). I don't know why I don't just kill it.

[DiamondMac]

Yes but the backup has gotten faster the more I sync

It still takes a little while but I am just dealing with it

[Xenious]

Original iphone, my backup wasn't slow at all until I bought some applications. Installing Super Monkey Ball has slowed it down more than YP and Remote.

[drainyoo]

Seems like it's an app thing. My syncs were getting faster until I added new apps. Now it's slow again.

[Modano]

Me too! Backup takes about 20 minutes. More here: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1605898&tstart=0