Hi everybody!
The case:
While I was listening to music on my iPhone 5s (64 Gb, iOS 7.0.4, no other app running), the music suddenly stopped playing and the Music app said "No content available".
1. After rebooting I checked again, found all music gone. "Settings -> General -> About" showed I had 0 songs and 0 videos on my device.
2. Tried syncing with iTunes on same MacBook Pro I always use, didn't solve the problem, still 0 music files.
3. Did a "restore from backup", using a backup prior to the music crash. No success, still 0 music.
4. After quitting iTunes on the MacBook, I ran iMobie's PhoneClean Pro. The Media Repair function of the app told me there's nothing to repair, but the Media Clean function actually returned a list of my ENTIRE music library, all mp3 files. So...they were still on the phone, but in the status column of that list in PhoneClean Pro, each and every mp3 file was stated as "Damaged". Clicking the 'Clean' button obviously wiped all the damaged music files from the iPhone.
Conclusion:
Probably due to a serious bug either in iOS, or in the Music app, apparently the entire music library can get damaged under certain circumstances, to the point that the iPhone doesn't recognize the music anymore and tells you that there is none, despite the fact that the music files in reality are actually still on the phone. In my case, every trick I could think of, involving iTunes and the MacBook I always sync with, didn't solve the problem. In the end I lost 30 Gb of music.
There are other similar cases on the net (e.g. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1562031/), and some of them date back more than 3 years. This means this problem already existed with iOS 6 and iPhone 4, so it can't be a new problem. If it's been around for such a long time, why hasn't Apple addressed this and fixed this bug?????
Question:
Has anybody found a way to recover such a crashed music library without wiping the damaged files and going through the hazzle to start all over again transfering the music to the iPhone? If any Apple engineer reads this, are you guys aware of this bug and actually working on fixing it??
Cheers,
Volcanohopper
The case:
While I was listening to music on my iPhone 5s (64 Gb, iOS 7.0.4, no other app running), the music suddenly stopped playing and the Music app said "No content available".
1. After rebooting I checked again, found all music gone. "Settings -> General -> About" showed I had 0 songs and 0 videos on my device.
2. Tried syncing with iTunes on same MacBook Pro I always use, didn't solve the problem, still 0 music files.
3. Did a "restore from backup", using a backup prior to the music crash. No success, still 0 music.
4. After quitting iTunes on the MacBook, I ran iMobie's PhoneClean Pro. The Media Repair function of the app told me there's nothing to repair, but the Media Clean function actually returned a list of my ENTIRE music library, all mp3 files. So...they were still on the phone, but in the status column of that list in PhoneClean Pro, each and every mp3 file was stated as "Damaged". Clicking the 'Clean' button obviously wiped all the damaged music files from the iPhone.
Conclusion:
Probably due to a serious bug either in iOS, or in the Music app, apparently the entire music library can get damaged under certain circumstances, to the point that the iPhone doesn't recognize the music anymore and tells you that there is none, despite the fact that the music files in reality are actually still on the phone. In my case, every trick I could think of, involving iTunes and the MacBook I always sync with, didn't solve the problem. In the end I lost 30 Gb of music.
There are other similar cases on the net (e.g. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1562031/), and some of them date back more than 3 years. This means this problem already existed with iOS 6 and iPhone 4, so it can't be a new problem. If it's been around for such a long time, why hasn't Apple addressed this and fixed this bug?????
Question:
Has anybody found a way to recover such a crashed music library without wiping the damaged files and going through the hazzle to start all over again transfering the music to the iPhone? If any Apple engineer reads this, are you guys aware of this bug and actually working on fixing it??
Cheers,
Volcanohopper