Itunes deleted everything off my ipod for no reason. Why?

[Village Baka]

Hey, all. I've had a 4th gen ipod touch for a couple months now and while I think it's probably the greatest piece of electronic hardware I've held in my hands, conversely I find itunes to be probably the worst piece of software I've ever installed on my computer.

I've generally figured out how it works, I'm not having any problems getting my music on it or anything like that. The only problem I have is that the last time I plugged in my ipod to charge, I was sick of itunes jumping up every time I plug it in. So I unchecked the "Open itunes when I plug this ipod in" box and hit Apply. Itunes promptly copied a list of my music and all my apps onto my computer in itunes... and then for reason I cannot explain, completely deleted everything off my ipod. On top of that, when I told it to sync everything back, it synced all my apps but NONE of the data for them. All of my progress in Infinity Blade, Pocket Frogs, Dead Space, Peggle, etc was entirely deleted and none of the data I saved in any other app was kept. In addition, it apparently only copied a LIST of my music, and not the files themselves, so every time I try to sync my music back itunes just says it can't find the music.

Needless to say I'm absolutely FURIOUS about this. Itunes also did a backup before it inexplicably nuked everything, but restoring from this backup did not restore my apps' data either. I was however able to restore a backup I had done manually myself from two weeks ago when I bought a 64GB to replace my old 8GB ipod but as far as I can tell, all of my game progress and app data from when I did a backup myself up to the point it deleted itself is just gone. So I have two questions: One, is it at all possible to get back my saved games and data, or is it just gone forever and I have no choice in the matter? And two, why in the hell did it decide to delete everything I have without asking, and how do I make sure it never happens again?

I'm sincerely sorry if I sound angry about this, because well... I am. Imagine if the next time you turned on your computer, everything on your hard drive deleted itself for no reason and the only thing left is your desktop background. I just want to understand why the heck it blew up everything without asking, so many thanks for any answers I can get.

EDIT: I just found out that it apparently forgot about all the in-app purchases I had made to disable ads, etc. in my apps too, so I'm pretty steamed about that. Any help on that front would be greatly appreciated as well.

[jonrando]

App data is never saved.

"EDIT: I just found out that it apparently forgot about all the in-app purchases I had made to disable ads, etc. in my apps too, so I'm pretty steamed about that. Any help on that front would be greatly appreciated as well."

Just go into the app and redo them, it won't charge you.

[Village Baka]

Originally Posted by jonrando

Just go into the app and redo them, it won't charge you.

Oh, awesome. I was a little nervous about doing that since it acts like you're paying again until after you've already confirmed your "purchase" a second time.

Originally Posted by jonrando

App data is never saved.

So then from now on, all I can do is a manual backup every now and then? That's alright with me, it was mostly just games and I did get some of my progress back from the old backup I did.

That still leaves the question of why this happened in the first place, though. I'm guessing I must have just hit a wrong button or something, but I have no idea what. Thanks for the help so far, Jonrando, I appreciate it!

[jonrando]

Yes, you'll have to backup anyway, but either way, i'm 99.999% sure app data isn't saved. Every time I've backed up and restored for whatever reason or got a new device, my previous app data was never synced back.

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I've never seen a instance where iTunes deleted something off a device, so I can't say for sure why it happened.

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No problem.

[Intell]

Originally Posted by jonrando

Yes, you'll have to backup anyway, but either way, i'm 99.999% sure app data isn't saved. Every time I've backed up and restored for whatever reason or got a new device, my previous app data was never synced back.

The app data, stuff like high scores and documents, is saved. But is only recoverable when the iDevice is fully restored from a backup. Example: You finish restoring your iPod, iTunes asks if you want to restore it from a backup, select the proper backup, click apply/ok, wait for iTunes to finish, iPod will reboot, when iPod is done rebooting and appears in iTunes, click Sync. This will put all your apps (and accompanying data), music, movies, and settings back on the iPod.

[Tech Elementz]

Originally Posted by Village Baka

Hey, all. I've had a 4th gen ipod touch for a couple months now and while I think it's probably the greatest piece of electronic hardware I've held in my hands, conversely I find itunes to be probably the worst piece of software I've ever installed on my computer.

I've generally figured out how it works, I'm not having any problems getting my music on it or anything like that. The only problem I have is that the last time I plugged in my ipod to charge, I was sick of itunes jumping up every time I plug it in. So I unchecked the "Open itunes when I plug this ipod in" box and hit Apply. Itunes promptly copied a list of my music and all my apps onto my computer in itunes... and then for reason I cannot explain, completely deleted everything off my ipod. On top of that, when I told it to sync everything back, it synced all my apps but NONE of the data for them. All of my progress in Infinity Blade, Pocket Frogs, Dead Space, Peggle, etc was entirely deleted and none of the data I saved in any other app was kept. In addition, it apparently only copied a LIST of my music, and not the files themselves, so every time I try to sync my music back itunes just says it can't find the music.

Needless to say I'm absolutely FURIOUS about this. Itunes also did a backup before it inexplicably nuked everything, but restoring from this backup did not restore my apps' data either. I was however able to restore a backup I had done manually myself from two weeks ago when I bought a 64GB to replace my old 8GB ipod but as far as I can tell, all of my game progress and app data from when I did a backup myself up to the point it deleted itself is just gone. So I have two questions: One, is it at all possible to get back my saved games and data, or is it just gone forever and I have no choice in the matter? And two, why in the hell did it decide to delete everything I have without asking, and how do I make sure it never happens again?

I'm sincerely sorry if I sound angry about this, because well... I am. Imagine if the next time you turned on your computer, everything on your hard drive deleted itself for no reason and the only thing left is your desktop background. I just want to understand why the heck it blew up everything without asking, so many thanks for any answers I can get.

EDIT: I just found out that it apparently forgot about all the in-app purchases I had made to disable ads, etc. in my apps too, so I'm pretty steamed about that. Any help on that front would be greatly appreciated as well.

For any purchases you have made, you should be able to make them again without forking out any more money. As for the issue of losing all your app data, it is now lost. By the way, did you make any other changes before you hit Apply? As well, you do lose all your game progress when you remove an app. You should only retain the data once you make a backup before you do anything major (get a new iPod Touch, if you jailbreak, etc).

[Village Baka]

Originally Posted by Intell

The app data, stuff like high scores and documents, is saved. But is only recoverable when the iDevice is fully restored from a backup. Example: You finish restoring your iPod, iTunes asks if you want to restore it from a backup, select the proper backup, click apply/ok, wait for iTunes to finish, iPod will reboot, when iPod is done rebooting and appears in iTunes, click Sync. This will put all your apps (and accompanying data), music, movies, and settings back on the iPod.

Yeah, I'm having no problem at all getting my app data back from backups that I've done manually, but any of the automatic backups itunes does (including the one it did when it deleted all my files) backed up absolutely nothing but the settings; it doesn't restore any apps or files. Oh well.

And I think I figured out why it deleted everything; when I hit "Apply" to change the "open itunes automatically" setting, it did a sync without asking and since I did not have any of my files checked off, it assumed that I didn't want them on my ipod and deleted everything without backing any of it up. I'm REALLY not liking itunes.

Oh well, c'est la vie. Thanks for the help guys, I appreciate it!