What's with corrupt Backups?

[TimothyB]

Well, since launch, my 3G finally crashed beyond a simple restart, and had to do a full recovery. But, when I chose my last backup to restore the iPhone, it ends up saying it's not compatible, or corrupt.

This is really pissing me off right now. Since July 11th I've been using Budget to add in my expenses day by day. Now I've lost it all. What I purchased and when I purchased, and my carefully thought out categories and budgets.

How are these type of apps suppose to ever be useful if you are guaranteed to eventually lose the data. So much for ever seeing a years graph report on my budget categories. And I don't sync my contacts with my PC because of the e-mails it syncs to the iPhone that I don't want cluttering up the iPhone.

Now my saved games like Vay are gone. This is almost like your PC regularly crashing beyond repair or backup.

Now I just remembered an hours worth of drawing in Flipbook is gone, thank goodness my other animations were already uploaded.

#%$@ #%$@ #%$@

How can this be so screwed up. For 2+ hour backups, and now they are worthless when you need them. This device is so messed up and on top of that they forced us into 2 year contracts for something that seriously needs work.

 

[TimothyB]

Well that's great, I tried reconnecting it, just to give the backup restore one more shot, but almost instantly it started a new backup, and in just a matter of seconds the backup I had is gone form this list, only showing the one it just attempted that I thought I canceled just now.

 

[Ntombi]

Every time you sync, iTunes makes a new backup of the iPhone. If you cancel the backup before it's completed, that's a corrupt file, and is useless for its intended purpose. iTunes only keeps the latest, so don't cancel backups, or you risk not having one when you need it.

It really sucks that you lost your data, but this has been known for weeks, and people still insist on canceling the backups. I don't get it.

 

[TimothyB]

Every time you sync, iTunes makes a new backup of the iPhone. If you cancel the backup before it's completed, that's a corrupt file, and is useless for its intended purpose. iTunes only keeps the latest, so don't cancel backups, or you risk not having one when you need it.

It really sucks that you lost your data, but this has been known for weeks, and people still insist on canceling the backups. I don't get it.

I did a full 4 hour back up before updating to 2.0.2, then it did another backup real quick before updating to 2.0.2. I think it probably backup again after. But real quick I suddenly was getting another long backup, so I canceled. So doing that tosses the previous backups and all I'm left with is that corrupt canceled one. Unless I misunderstood, that's crazy. They can't expect us to do a 2 hour backup every time we sync.

And what happens when a call comes during a backup, canceling it, does that mean the phone is instantly vulnerable until I get a new backup finished after the call?

 

[Night Spring]

I did a full 4 hour back up before updating to 2.0.2, then it did another backup real quick before updating to 2.0.2. I think it probably backup again after. But real quick I suddenly was getting another long backup, so I canceled. So doing that tosses the previous backups and all I'm left with is that corrupt canceled one. Unless I misunderstood, that's crazy.

Yes, exactly. I'm surprised we haven't seen more of an outcry over the totally broken backup function of the 2.0.x firmware.

They can't expect us to do a 2 hour backup every time we sync.

I know! What were they thinking... Oh, wait, it's obvious somebody WASN'T thinking!!!

And what happens when a call comes during a backup, canceling it, does that mean the phone is instantly vulnerable until I get a new backup finished after the call?

Yikes, you are right! At least with the Touch, I don't have *this* problem.

 

[TimothyB]

Yikes, you are right! At least with the Touch, I don't have *this* problem.

I suppose the iPhone users now need to go to airplane mode to make sure a call doesn't corrupt the only backup you got.

 

[threezero]

or you can can just disable the long ass backup process and manually backup.

 

[yetanotherdave]

Every time you sync, iTunes makes a new backup of the iPhone. If you cancel the backup before it's completed, that's a corrupt file, and is useless for its intended purpose. iTunes only keeps the latest, so don't cancel backups, or you risk not having one when you need it.

It really sucks that you lost your data, but this has been known for weeks, and people still insist on canceling the backups. I don't get it.

I find that when doing a restore I often get 3 or 4 previous backups to choose from. I don't know why.

I found out about this data corruption issue after losing all my data, fortunately the phone was only about 2 or 3 days old at the time. Since itunes 7.7.1 and 2.0.2 and doing a proper restore, deleting all my apps in itunes, then doing a backup (with no apps in the backup) restore and redownloading the apps (so it's a clean start with 2.0.2), backups only take about 30 seconds each time now. before they were taking hours.

 

[Ntombi]

Yes, the way it's set up isn't good, and I sympathize, but it's been discussed many a time on this board. Any time I have to cancel a backup, I make sure to do it again ASAP, just in case.

90% of my backups are less than 5 minutes, but tonight, I had one that lasted close to 3 hours. I got a phone call in the middle and had to start over, so the whole thing was close to 5 hours. That sucks, but I wasn't going to leave an incomplete backup in my iBook, even though I've never needed to restore and never had problems with my phone. Why take chances when this is a known flaw?

 

[Night Spring]

I've read about the "solution" of deleting all the apps, restoring, and starting "fresh" -- but that would delete all the data I have in my apps, wouldn't it? With no way of restoring the data to the apps after I reinstall them?

*sigh* What we need is to be able to selectively backup and restore data for each indiviudal app!

 

[yetanotherdave]

I've read about the "solution" of deleting all the apps, restoring, and starting "fresh" -- but that would delete all the data I have in my apps, wouldn't it? With no way of restoring the data to the apps after I reinstall them?

*sigh* What we need is to be able to selectively backup and restore data for each indiviudal app!

Yes, you lose all the data contained within the apps that way.

 

[TimothyB]

Yes, the way it's set up isn't good, and I sympathize, but it's been discussed many a time on this board. Any time I have to cancel a backup, I make sure to do it again ASAP, just in case.

90% of my backups are less than 5 minutes, but tonight, I had one that lasted close to 3 hours. I got a phone call in the middle and had to start over, so the whole thing was close to 5 hours. That sucks, but I wasn't going to leave an incomplete backup in my iBook, even though I've never needed to restore and never had problems with my phone. Why take chances when this is a known flaw?

I searched before posing this, and mostly found threads on long backups, nothing specific on corrupt backups, unless I missed them.

 

[Ntombi]

I'm on the iPhone, so I can't paste threads, but I've read it at least half a dozen times, mostly in threads about long backups, warning people not to cancel.

Anyway, it's done, and I'm sorry you lost your data.

 

[ayzee]

Ive cancelled backups, and im sticking with keeping all my data in the "cloud". Its sad to say but the iPhone is just not stable enough to keep important data on its hard drive. I use Google Reader, Evernote and MobileMe so it doesnt really matter if my iPhone suddenly decides to not work.

 

[Auzburner]

If you want roughly 10 second backups listen! When your iPhone is plugged in and on the left hand bar, right click it. Select "Reset Warnings". Unplug your iPhone at this point and then re-connect it. The "Send Bugs to Apple" box will then pop-up. THIS IS VITAL. Make sure you select "DON'T SEND". This is what is taking a backup SO long. Give it a try.

 

[rockinrocker]

If you want roughly 10 second backups listen! When your iPhone is plugged in and on the left hand bar, right click it. Select "Reset Warnings". Unplug your iPhone at this point and then re-connect it. The "Send Bugs to Apple" box will then pop-up. THIS IS VITAL. Make sure you select "DON'T SEND". This is what is taking a backup SO long. Give it a try.

i've done this several times, and though it does seem to help, it's not the only reason the backups take so long. i've not sent any error reports and still had 3-4 hour backups.

 

[mcdj]

Am I the only one who thinks backups are useless anyhow?

I use MobileMe, so my bookmarks, address book and calendar are synced. Even if they weren't synced, they come from my computer to begin with.

I have all my apps in iTunes. Who doesn't? And if even you don't, once you download an app once, you can download it again from iTunes, no charge. If you're worried that an app might get yanked from the store, like Netshare, back it up on your computer.

Music, obviously already on the computer.

Photos taken with the crappy camera...downloaded every time I connect to the computer.

SMS...who really needs to save these?

Notes. Ok, this might be the one thing it would be nice to have a backup of, but A.) you can email them to yourself if you're paranoid about losing them, B.) you can use a 3rd party notes app that syncs, C.) you can use a 3rd party phone "explorer" to copy the notes to your computer.

Misc. settings. Ok, so you have to rearrange your homescreen manually if you don't have a backup. No biggie. Wifi passwords? Shoulda written them down anyway. Mail settings should be a no brainer to remember, and/or be written down somewhere.

App data. I think we've learned by now not to entrust iTunes with app data. If you are so completely dependent on an app's data that losing it will destroy your world, you are asking too much from the phone at this point. Hopefully app data will get a different backup or sync scheme in the future.

With hour(s) long backups, and corrupt backups, the benefits seem to be outweighed by the problems. I have disabled backup and haven't looked back.

 

[Night Spring]

C.) you can use a 3rd party phone "explorer" to copy the notes to your computer.

I thought that is possible only with a jailbroken iPhone/Touch?

I have to agree that until the backup gets fixed, the iPhone can't be trusted with any important data. Even losing game progess can be extremely annoying -- I spent mulitple hours over several days playing MotionX Poker to unlock all the dice and gather most of the gems. If I lose that game data, I'm back to no gems and very limited sets of dice!

 

[rockinrocker]

I use MobileMe, so my bookmarks, address book and calendar are synced. Even if they weren't synced, they come from my computer to begin with.

just for the record, you can synch all that stuff without doing a whole back up.

 

[QuarterSwede]

If you want roughly 10 second backups listen! When your iPhone is plugged in and on the left hand bar, right click it. Select "Reset Warnings". Unplug your iPhone at this point and then re-connect it. The "Send Bugs to Apple" box will then pop-up. THIS IS VITAL. Make sure you select "DON'T SEND". This is what is taking a backup SO long. Give it a try.

The secret to always having fast backups is to not install apps from the phone. Let iTunes handle all that. Delete all your old backups, restore the phone and sync. After that only install apps/update them through iTunes. I did this last week and the longest backup I've had since was 10 minutes. Before that they were 50 minutes every time.

Does having to do this suck? Yes, but it is a fix until Apple fixes the horribly long backups.

 

[mavis]

It really sucks that you lost your data, but this has been known for weeks, and people still insist on canceling the backups. I don't get it.

What I don't get is how Apple expects us all to be able to be phone-less for two-three hours (I have lots of apps) every time we sync.

Fortunately there's iBaReS - no more wasting time with iTunes and corrupt backups for me.

 

[Ntombi]

What I don't get is how Apple expects us all to be able to be phone-less for two-three hours (I have lots of apps) every time we sync.

Fortunately there's iBaReS - no more wasting time with iTunes and corrupt backups for me.

I have a lot of apps too, but that has nothing to do with the length of backups. I have close to 60, but almost all of my backups take an average of 5 minutes. I've had maybe 3 or 4 that have taken longer than that since I got my phone, and I sync/backup every day.


Anyway, I'm not arguing that it's okay, I'm just saying that's the way it is until it's fixed. I'm glad you found a solution.