For the fourth time, my iPhone has lost all the music files on it, for no readily apparent reason.  I just decided to listen to my music, and it wasn't there.  None of it; not the stuff bought from Apple, not the stuff loaded on my PC.  Nada.
The same behavior seems to plague all iPhones and all versions of iOS.

The official fix is to sync the unit to whatever desktop has my copy of iTunes on it.

Unfortunately, these amnesia attacks always occur when I am not near my desktop, as in 1500 miles away.

Has anyone heard of a fix that does not involve a sync with iTunes?

 

Nope, although powering it down and back up again solved the one time I had this issue on my original iPhone.

Hopefully the 'over the air' syncing of iOS5 (due next month) in combination with iCloud will give a solution when away from your desktop machine.

soi là, soi carré

Thanks for responding.

Given that the iPhone is descended from an iPod, you'd think the music-handling core code would be mature by now, and not subject to odd behaviors.

I should note that at no time did the phone completely lose my podcasts, though it does on occasion lose track of which ones I have heard.  Maybe that will provide a clue for some future archaeologist.

 

It is more common for the music database to blow up than to actually lose music files.

You might check under settings->general->about to see the available space on the device. If it does not look empty then you probably still have your music.

I use gtkpod on Linux which has a feature to find 'lost files' and put them back in the database. There might be other google-able apps that can restore a database.

Space available did not change, so indeed, the music database lost track of the music, but the music was still there.  

There's really no defensible excuse for the behavior.  No database should 'blow up', ever.  

There's no indication that Apple is using even an infinitesimal fraction of the montly 'tax' they extract from me to fix any of this crap, or to provide an app to restore their stupid database.

So what are you gonna do?

 

I guess I'll be trying to select an Android.

 

"There's no indication that Apple is using even an infinitesimal fraction of the montly 'tax' they extract from me to fix any of this crap, or to provide an app to restore their stupid database."

I can appreciate that you're annoyed at the inconvenience; I, too would be. However, your comment doesn't jibe with the continuing development of iOS by Apple. Sure, it would be useful to have a 'rebuild iTunes DB' utility for situations of corruption and inability to restore from desktop, but I suspect that the OTA syncing expected in iOS 5 will negate the need for such.

There's always sjobs@apple.com for answers...

soi là, soi carré

I would question the cause for the DB corruption, not the apparent effect.

I have never experienced a 'random' DB corruption. The only times I have corrupted a database are when I have done so purposefully.

Corruptions can happen when syncing over a bad cable or when using a security software (ie: ZoneAlarm).

As the corruption happens away from a computer, I would question your podcasts. Are you updating on the road? Could one of those feeds employ non-standard characters in file paths or show descriptions that confuse your device?

I'm sure that over the air sync will offset the problem. ... provided you're willing to pay Apple yet more tax for using their cloud.

Got yet another symptom.
Bought a couple of tunes through iTunes, maybe a week apart.
After the second one was downloaded, I looked at my library on the iPhone.
All of the older music was gone; just the most recent two files were there.
Rebooted.  No joy.

Synced with a desktop.  Now it's all back, old and new.

Yeah, I could update iOS.  
I'm sticking with 3.x software until there is some indication that 4.x software doesn't turn my 3G(non-S) into a useless brick.
So far, no joy there.

Yeah, I could endure another 2 year contract and get a newer iPhone.
They are not without their problems, and I'm intrigued by reviews of the Samsung Galaxy S II.


 

Just to give you  a window of hope.  Im not a proponent of Apple, heel I have a droid.  My girlfriends iPhone 4 and 3 iPhone 4 and 4S models have behaved normally for quite some time.  My GF has a LOT of music on hers and it has not once made a hiccup.  My guess would be the new iOS on the new device so maybe coughing up a couple hundo for a new phone would alleviate your DB worries.   

"You don't know what you got, till its gone..
80's hair band Cinderella or ode to data backups???"

Quote (MikeHalloran):

The same behavior (sic) seems to plague all iPhones and all versions of iOS.

...

Unfortunately, these amnesia attacks always occur when I am not near my desktop, as in 1500 miles away.

I can categorically rule out your statement that all iPhones and all versions of iOS suffer from this problem when distance from home is "x". Although you don't give a threshold value, take my value for "x" to mean a very large number.

Neither my iPhone 3G or 4S, nor my original iPad 1 have ever had any issues with losing music, and they have 3 different iOS versions between them (4.x, 4.x, 5.x). My partner has an iPhone 4, with yet another version of iOS, also without any problems. So, that's 4 different models of Apple devices, with 4 different versions of iOS. We live in the UK, but are currently more than 11000 miles from our desktops, in New Zealand... a distance that makes your 1500 miles seem like a 5-minute walk.

So that's the "all" part of "all phones" and "all versions of iOS" discounted, as well as the "always" part of "always occur when I am not near my desktop".

So I know how broad the scope of "all" and "always" really is, are you prepared to state how many iDevices have you owned over the years, and how many versions of iOS they have had between them? And, has every single one of them truly suffered from this same data loss when (and only when) you were away from home?

I don't generally buy into "I've done nothing and yet all my data is gone" theories, whether music on an iPhone, documents from a HDD, etc. I do understand that data gets corrupted occasionally, but usually it happens as a result of some action (or duff hardware); however, I don't believe that you've been unlucky enough to own faulty Apple hardware for every model you've had (however many that has been). So, whether it should have resulted in loss of music or not, I'd start looking at things you may have done around the time of the loss. Did you do *anything* with the phone between when you had music on it, to when the music was lost? For example, a soft reset, installing apps, deleting apps, using new software, using old software that hadn't been loaded for a long time, using any software that accesses your music library, etc?

Dan

 

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The Out Atheism Campaign
 

Allow me to amend my original assertion as follows:
The same behavior seems to plague all models of iPhones and all versions of iOS.  ... where 'models of' is now explicit instead of implicit, which also clarifies that the verb 'plague' applies to some unstated fraction of the population, not the entire population.

I will further admit that my personal data is limited to one example, so the population of people who have seen the problem could be as small as two individuals, me and the guy who is singlehandedly  generating the 1+ million Google hits for 'iPhone music disappearing' (without the quotes).

>Did you do *anything* with the phone..<  
Well, I answered some phone calls.  Is that allowed?

I'm not interested in some guy on Google. I'm interested in your scenario. To that end, I'm reading between the lines as you're still being vague, so please feel free to correct me on your actual problem if I've got it wrong. Do these points sum up your problem?:

- You've personally experienced this data loss only on a single iPhone (a 3G), only when running version 3.x of iOS (or earlier), and not on any other physical iPhone (whether the same model or not) or newer version of iOS.

- You've not tried upgrading to a newer version of iOS, as you're sure it'll brick your phone, yet you haven't tried it to know (much like Americans who claim the USA is the greatest country on Earth, without having left to find out).

Quote:

I'm sticking with 3.x software until there is some indication that 4.x software doesn't turn my 3G(non-S) into a useless brick.

My 3G is running iOS 4.2.1 just fine. It's not fast - but this is because it's a slow piece of hardware and I've got far too many apps installed on it. It also has music on it, which hasn't been lost in the time I've had it (since October 2010).

I don't know whether that is a suitable indication or not, but of course, my 3G is just one of millions of iPhones. Who knows, it might turn your 3G into a brick

Perhaps finding an Apple store in your vicinity might be the best bet. The staff are very helpful, even if you're in the middle of China right now (I don't know where "home" is for you... but I'm sure there are habitable places 1500 miles from somewhere in China)

Dan

 

Coedit Limited - Delivering standards compliant, accessible web solutions

@ Code Couch: http://www.codecouch.com/dan/

@ Twitter: http://twitter.com/SleepyDrunkDan

The Out Atheism Campaign
 

My iPhone also had the tendency to loose all the music files and text messages on it, for no readily apparent reason.  Then I went to the store, and I was lucky that the technician fixed my phone for a moderate price.

Quote (Me):

My 3G is running iOS 4.2.1 just fine. It's not fast - but this is because it's a slow piece of hardware and I've got far too many apps installed on it. It also has music on it, which hasn't been lost in the time I've had it (since October 2010).

Just to update you on my previous statement... I've just gone through and deleted many hundreds of apps from the phone as I'm donating it to my step mother-in-law. The OS version is still 4.2.1, but it has become incredibly snappy with only around 30 apps in instead of many hundreds.

So Mike, perhaps it's worth upgrading your phone OS anyway?

Oh yes... Even though I backed it up to a computer that it's never been synced with before (using iTunes), none of the music on it was deleted, and I'm back in New Zealand, over 11000 miles from home.

Dan

 

Coedit Limited - Delivering standards compliant, accessible web solutions

@ Code Couch: http://www.codecouch.com/dan/

@ Twitter: http://twitter.com/SleepyDrunkDan

The Out Atheism Campaign
 

I agree that an OS upgrade is a good idea.

So I bought a Samsung Galaxy Note from AT&T.
I love it.
Or, I did, until AT&T announced that I could get the newest Android as an upgrade, and I started doing so.

The upgrade can only be installed via a Win app called Samsung Kies. Context suggests that it should be pronounced 'keys'. My experience suggests only unprintable words for it.

Samsung Kies manages to make iTunes look good.

You may recall that iTunes for Windows does not work as seamlessly as iTunes for Mac does. It's slow and buggy.
It's orders of magnitude better than Samsung Kies, which so far has failed, roughly 8 times spread out over 24 hours, to complete what is alleged to be a 15 minute process to upgrade the OS on the Note.

I'm writing this so the story will have an ending. ... and in light of my Apple-bashing, in fairness I thought Samsung deserved some bashing too. If you do decide to buy a Samsung Android, insist that it be delivered with Android 4.0 preinstalled.

In fairness to the Windows community, iTunes for Windows is just as crap as iTunes for OSX. The pathetically small scrollable list you have to select apps from is just as small regardless of which OS you use.

The grass is never greener

Dan

I am pleased to announce that Samsung Kies version 2.3.2.12074_13 has (finally!) as of 12 August 2012, managed to upgrade my Samsung Galaxy Note to Android 4.0.4.

I am not pleased that it took more than five hours to do so.

I am _really_ not pleased about the 100+ hours I spent downloading a dozen (huge) previous Kies versions and having them take four hours or so to go as far as getting the target into 'Odin mode', and then being unable to find it again (over the required USB cable).

I.e., every prior version of Kies either went off to see God, or blamed me, the hardware, or some factor other than itself for its inability to do its own job, or to do just the tiny subset that I needed done.

I am perplexed that Samsung sent me a message with the new OS, inviting me to open a 'Samsung account', so I could get wonderful news from them. This from a vendor that actively discouraged any attempt to contact them from my side.

I sincerely hope that AT&T slipstreams all future OS updates without using Samsung's putrid Windows host software.

This just in: When the Note reboots without a connected PC, I get a dialog box telling me that it couldn't find the Kies host software. ... on a computer that is not attached.

What's the next step after putrid?

forum601: Smartphones ?


(http://www.tek-tips.com/threadminder.cfm?pid=601)

soi là, soi carré

Was that there before? If so, oops on me.

It's not without quirks, but the Galaxy Note continues to work okay.

This is about the iPhone 3G, non-S, which I have been using to check news and such over the local WiFi while the Galaxy is charging.

I figured what the hell, I'll accept the latest iTunes' offer to upgrade the iOS to 4.x, since an increasing number of iApps are unable to deal with iOS 3.1.3.

The upgrade started with a warning that the process was quite lengthy, and might take 'up to an hour'.

Ha. 24 hours later, iTunes was still thrashing, when I went away for the weekend.

When I came back, the computer had rebooted for reasons unknown and booted into CentOS, which it does by default. ... and the iPhone is still at iOS 3.1.3.

I'll probably try again someday.

After yet anotber failed upgrade I tried a mere sync of the iPhone.

It failed with the message:
"iTunes cannot sync Apps to the iPhone. ... because the apps installed on the iPhone could not be determined."

Don't you love seeing completely new error messages?

I didn't see it mentioned so I thought I'd ask...

Have you tried using the "Erase All Content and Settings" feature or restoring the iPhone to its factory condition? If not, then I'd say you're getting to that point!

Backing up data:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1766

Erasing content & settings:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2110

Restoring factory state:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1414


Just as with any operating system, iOS can suffer from corrupt libraries, frameworks, and app extensions over time. The more you install and uninstall, the greater the chance.

-Carl
"The glass is neither half-full nor half-empty: it's twice as big as it needs to be."

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Sp then I got a good sync, but all attempts to upgrade iOS seem to stall.
After a couple of hours, the 'Backing up iPhone' dialog box remains unchanged, except the progress bar bug stops moving. The iPhone itself continues to say 'Sync in Progress', and iTunes keeps cycling its advertising panels normally in the background.

I.e., I don't think I've got a problem within the iPhone, but instead a bug in the iTunes app. Behavior suggests that it's waiting for something that's not happening, and Apple's programming wizards didn't anticipate the situation and provide a timeout or a coherent error message.

.. as in "That OS call _never_ fails"...

Well, it could be a lot of things. Although the behavior is seen with iTunes syncing, the application itself relies on core components of iOS to function properly. One of those core components could be corrupted.

If you can't get the backup to process, then you'll want to get as much as you can off the phone using other methods such as email, cloud service, etc., and then try the factory reset option. That's probably your best bet at this point. Time consuming sure, but at least it might keep it from becoming a fancy paperweight!