iTunes Removed Apps on Sync without asking!!

[redman042]

I plugged in my iPhone yesterday for a normal sync. The first sign of trouble was the bar at the bottom of iTunes that shows how much RAM is used up. Normally it shows a bunch of space taken for music, video, some for apps, and a sliver for "other". But this time, the "other" bar took up most of the space, and music wasn't shown at all. I figured it was just a display glitch, so I let the sync continued. After the backup portion of the sync, I noticed iTunes was removing a bunch of apps. I let the sync continue, figuring that interrupting it would make things worse. After a very long time (over an hour), the sync was done and I checked my phone. Everything was there, but many of app icons were in different places, and about 3/4 of the apps had lost all their saved data! This includes all of my games and a few other apps. But some were ok, as were all the native apps. WTF??

So basically, iTunes uninstalled and reinstalled a number of apps without any prompting from me, and as you know, when you remove an app, you trash all its data.

I plugged the phone back in for another sync. Of course this started with a backup, which overwrote my previous backup, so now I'm committed. I don't fully understand how backups work, so I didn't know better. Then I tried a full phone restore, which worked fine, but it put me back to where I was after the faulty sync, ie. everything was there but saved data was lost.

Can anyone shed some light on how this glitch happened and how I can prevent it (or recover from it) in the future?

I've had my phone since August and it's been relatively problem-free until now. I have about 6 pages of apps.

 

[bjobes]

Same thing happened to me a few weeks back (about chit my pants). You should have an app folder on your local computer (My Music\iTunes\Mobile Applications)that you are synced with. I recall clicking on the apps or something to reinstall them.

 

[Interstella5555]

Funny, I didn't know that the amount of RAM was shown in iTunes. Does that mean it's showing my computers RAM as well?

 

[firewood]

Make sure the iTunes you synced with is authorized to the same account you purchased and loaded the apps with. Some people have recommend deauthorizing iTunes, quitting, restarting, and reauthorizing your iTunes account.

.

 

[redman042]

Same thing happened to me a few weeks back (about chit my pants). You should have an app folder on your local computer (My Music\iTunes\Mobile Applications)that you are synced with. I recall clicking on the apps or something to reinstall them.

My wife and I each have phones synced to the same account. We were logged in. The apps reinstalled automatically and everything still works, it's just that the settings are gone due to the uninstall/reinstall process.

Because of this error and another weird one previously (don't remember the details), I get the feeling that sometimes iTunes just doesn't read the phone correctly when you first plug in the USB cable, and that starts the sync off on the wrong foot. I should have unplugged it the second I saw the weird info on the memory bar.

 

[Acronym]

i experienced the same problem my mothers account on our computer was deleting all my apps so i simply coppied the oapps from my account to her account on itunes it fixed the problem.


make sure all accounts have the same app folder as the account you normaly use, simply manualy manage the app folders for each account to match your accounts app folder

 

[Ivan P]

Funny, I didn't know that the amount of RAM was shown in iTunes. Does that mean it's showing my computers RAM as well?

Yeah, I noticed that mistake right away too...

@the OP: the bar you're talking about displays the memory of the iPod, but this is totally different to RAM. Think of the bar as displaying the equivalent of your computer's hard drive; the RAM is a totally different piece of hardware, and the RAM on the iPod touch is only a mere few megabytes.

 

[redman042]

i experienced the same problem my mothers account on our computer was deleting all my apps so i simply coppied the oapps from my account to her account on itunes it fixed the problem.


make sure all accounts have the same app folder as the account you normaly use, simply manualy manage the app folders for each account to match your accounts app folder

This isn't the problem I had. The apps were there. They uninstalled, then reinstalled, automatically. So in the end I still had all my apps, but lost all my saved app data (saved games, settings, etc.) in the process.

My questions are:

What would have triggered iTunes to remove apps on its own?

Is there anyway to choose a past backup to restore, or is only the most recent backup saved?

 

[mentalworx]

Itunes removed my apps as well

Grrrr ! Similarly - I bought 3 new apps yesterday - Galaxy on Fire, Jaadu, and something else which I've forgotten for the moment. I bought them on the ipod (touch 2.2.1), and sync'd to my home computer (itunes 8.1.1). I went to work later that day, and set up itunes on it for the first time - I wanted to operate Jaadu on my work computer (Jaadu is a brilliant remote operating application), and it requires itunes to be installed. I then had 3 computers and the ipod under my Apple account. All was ok up to now.
Today I re-sync'd (well, ugged to charge) my ipod on my home computer, and it removed yesterday's new applications. I didn't stop it - it stopped itself at these.
Any of you wonderful people have any idea what's going on ?

 

[shane1994]

ipod touch stuff up

i had half ur problem as one day i synced ipod touch to itunes and i only had apps on the bar down the bottom (about 2gb) and then it had other (about 3gb) when it is normally only 100mb

someone please help

 

[shamshirha]

Repair iTunes Removing Apps

Right click on the device name under devices and select reset warnings. Upon new sync, it will ask you it you want to transfer purchases. If you ever say no, then you have to repeat this process.

 

[MacPC]

The iTunes is truly a piece of GARBAGE. I really, really, really hate it!!!
Today I updated my iMac to Lion, I re authorize the iTunes and do a sync on my iPhone, After a few minute, I noticed in the iTunes rounded rectangle window, (the one that shows the progress.) I saw something really bad, It kept showing that it was removing my app one by one, I did not want to interrupt the process
hoping after it finish it will restore all my apps. But not!! More then half of my appa were gone. ( I had over 200 apps). What a piece of crap iTunes is. Right now I am hoping I can restore everything from the back up on my Macbook, cross my fingers and wish me luck.

 

[MacPC]

The iTunes is truly a piece of GARBAGE. I really, really, really hate it!!!
Today I updated my iMac to Lion, I re authorize the iTunes and do a sync on my iPhone, After a few minute, I noticed in the iTunes rounded rectangle window, (the one that shows the progress.) I saw something really bad, It kept showing that it was removing my app one by one, I did not want to interrupt the process
hoping after it finish it will restore all my apps. But not!! More then half of my appa were gone. ( I had over 200 apps). What a piece of crap iTunes is. Right now I am hoping I can restore everything from the back up on my Macbook, cross my fingers and wish me luck.

Phew, I did a restore from back up to an older date of my last back up, all 3.3 G of >200 apps on my iPhone were restored, the key is to do a restore twicw, the first time iTunes only restore the stock app in the system partition, the second the iTunes restore all purchased apps to the User partition, correct me if I am wrong, but that's how it appears to me.

 

[beegie]

Old Boomer Terrified of iTunes BackUp

Sadly, I cannot offer any answers. *Have heard too many bad stories & Too chicken to every try backing up my OWN iPhone 3Gs 3.1.2 (w/2 years' worth of data & apps on it) to my 2006 PPC White iBook 10.4.11 w/iTunes version# I don't even know.

•I have about 45 home screens set up & I hear letting iphone connect to ibook will make a disaster of my organized homescreens.

•I have Reel Director app full of video creations; Video Ninja app full of edited video pieces; I have a Downloads app full of fav videos; I have Good Reader app full of pdfs & other files/photos, etc. etc.

•I have practically every notes app ever invented, all full of my content re different projects.

•I have numerous photo file storage apps full of photos (slowly began uploading all photos out of camera roll & apps to Picasa via MyPhotos app but never finished).

Etc. Etc.

The only time I ever connected my 3Gs to the iBook was about 2 years ago & it made 1000+ photos disappear from the phone's camera roll/photo section. *My fault probably, but that's why I'm too chicken to try a BACKUP again.

Also worried my iBook won't have enough space on it for iphone backup (32gig 3Gs). *iBook PPC is partitioned & low on space on the OS 10.4 side, which is why I never use it, too bogged down, & love using iphone anyway for internet, blogging, mail, as a PDA for my entire life, etc.

But it is time to change 3Gs battery, maybe soon get a new iphone (5?), maybe soon get a new iBook, etc., so was reading up on BACKING UP iphone 3Gs & heard since it's been so long, it might not even work, plus stories like this thread of iTunes erasing apps, etc.!

How can we trust iTunes? *Plus this seemingly contradiction at Apple Support site I found tonight... What is the truth?

8/13/10: *"iTunes: Backing up, updating, and restoring your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch software":
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1414
(...)
Although iTunes backs up most of your device's settings, downloaded applications, your audio, video, and photo content are **NOT** included in the backup.
(...)

-- VS. --

6/29/11: "iPhone and iPod touch: About backups" (works with iTunes 7-8-9):
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1766
(...)
iTunes **WILL** back up the following information:
(...)
•In-app purchases (isn't that the same as "downloaded applications"?)
(...)
•Videos in Camera Roll
(...)
•Camera Roll (Photos, screenshots, images saved, and videos taken. Videos greater than 2 GB are backed up with iOS 4.0 and later.)
(...)

So will iTunes backup/save all the text/photos/videos/notes/pdfs/ALL CONTENT that I have entered **INTO** all my APPS or not?

Thank you if anybody has a clue. *:-/

PS: This site logs you out if idle for a few minutes, when page refreshes, even though I checked REMEMBER ME. So what's with that? Annoying.