Christopher, thanks so much for your detailed post and I think you hit on the issue as to why our restore from the iTunes backup made the day before did not include her apps. I'm sure that a sync between iPhone and computer from within iTunes was not done before we started her upgrade. Therefore, the backup we made would not have included her apps and any other related data that wouldn't get from the phone to iTunes without a sync. I mistakenly assumed that anything on the phone would be backed up to iTunes when connecting to the computer using the cable and running an encrypted backup within iTunes. So now I'm left being the ass as stated in that old adage about assuming.
For the couple of others who posted, we did do the restore twice but still had no apps. As she is reinstalling her apps, her customized folders do appear to be coming back as the apps they held are being reinstalled so that is good. I would urge anyone using iTunes to back up their phone or other iDevices to the computer to make sure you've synced it a time or two to make sure everything on the phone is indeed in your iTunes library and being backed up. Alan Lemly -----Original Message----- From: viphone@googlegroups.com [mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Christopher Chaltain Sent: Saturday, March 15, 2014 8:19 AM To: viphone@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Disenchanted with itunes Backup and Upgrade I'm not as smart as an Apple tech, and I can't explain why you can't see the backup you made prior to the upgrade, but here are a few thoughts. I consider upgrading your iPhone from iTunes to be the normal and safe way to do an upgrade. This used to be the only option available before Apple implemented over the air updates a few versions ago. This is typically how I do an update. I've had to go through the restore to factory settings path and restore from a backup on my phone and my wife's, and other than taking a while, it was completely successful. I've also had problems on my iPhone after doing an over the air update that was resolved when I restored my phone, and I've seen reports on this and other lists, that others have had the same experience. I'm sure over the air updates are fine, and I've done them myself with smaller updates, but they do and will take more resources on your phone and thus in my opinion are more likely to lead to issues. I assume you've tried powering off her phone and restarting it. I've seen my phone come up with the original factory look and feel after a restart, even when not updating my phone, and it was resolved by powering off and restarting my phone. Note that your apps are not stored in the backup. To recover your apps, you need to let iTunes go through the process of syncing content (data and apps) to your phone. this will take a while, but it will copy the apps back onto your phone. The whole process of restoring to factory settings and restoring from a backup takes a while and goes through multiple steps. It should all just happen automatically, but it will take a while. Is it possible you interrupted the restore and sync before it was all complete? Before I start an update through iTunes, I get a message that there are purchases on my iPhone which are not stored on my PC, and I need to go into the File pulldown to have these transferred. I'm sorry I don't recall the exact wording of this dialog, but did you see something similar and perform the requested step? I'm not sure if this has any bearing on what you're seeing or not. In addition to performing a backup prior to an update, you also want to make sure your phone is synced with your PC/Mac, since there is data stored on your phone which will not be captured in your backup. Note that as part of the update process through iTunes, a backup should be made, so again, I'm not sure why you aren't seeing this backup. Finally, although you saw this problem performing an update through iTunes, there's no way of knowing if you would have seen the same issue performing the update over the air. On 03/15/2014 12:03 AM, Alan Lemly wrote: > I realize in the world of computing most anything can happen a lot of > which is inexplicable. But my recent experience convincing a friend to > use iTunes to back up and upgrade to iOS 7.1 and the abysmal results > experienced have left a very bad taste in my mouth. The worst of it is > that the results we got seem to make no logical sense. Here are the > steps we followed: > > 1. We backed up her iPhone 5 to her computer using an encrypted iTunes > backup Wednesday night. > 2. Thursday night she started the upgrade to iOS 7.1 from within iTunes. > 3. Her phone was placed into recovery mode for some reason and had to > be reset to factory defaults before the upgrade could proceed. > 4. The phone was upgraded and restored using the encrypted backup made > Wednesday night but none of her apps were restored. > 5. We've determined to the best extent possible that the right backup > was used for the restore but we are confused because the backups > shown by iTunes under Edit, Preferences, and the Devices tab don't > list any dated with Wednesday's date. I find this most perplexing > because only one manual backup was made to her computer and that was > Wednesday night. > 6. The iPhone Tech Support guy I spoke with tried explaining that if > the backup was made to an unauthorized computer while using iTunes, > the apps would not be backed up. We determined that her computer is > authorized. > > So, I convinced someone to use iTunes to upgrade her phone instead of > her doing it the normal way by running the upgrade from the General, > Software Update option as I expect most do. Now she's left with having > to re-download close to 100 apps and reconfigure them and re-download > any related content such as books, etc. And this comes at a time when > she is very busy and doesn't have the time to devote to it. > > The final insult is that our results don't make logical sense. The > backup was encrypted to her computer using iTunes and she had to provide > the password before restoring. Everything I've read says that this is > the only way to get a complete backup of everything yet it did not work > as advertised for us. And I guess I'll be cured of my tendency to > attribute as operator error snafus posted by others since I know for a > fact that we did all the steps correctly but still got bitten badly. > > I'm mainly posting this to help get closure with the incident but also > to warn others that you really can't be too careful backing up your > devices. And the next time you upgrade your iOS, you might consider > making an encrypted backup to your computer using iTunes but running the > upgrade from the phone. > > Alan Lemly > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VIPhone" > Google Group. > > Post a new message to VIPhone by emailing viphone@googlegroups.com. > > Search and view the VIPhone archives by visiting > http://www.mail-archive.com/viphone@googlegroups.com/. > > Reach the VIPhone owner and moderators by emailing > viphone+ow...@googlegroups.com. > > Unsubscribe and leave VIPhone by emailing > viphone+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > > More VIPhone group options can be found by visiting > http://groups.google.com/group/viphone?hl=en. > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "VIPhone" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send > an email to viphone+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > <mailto:viphone+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com>. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- Christopher (CJ) chaltain at Gmail -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VIPhone" Google Group. Post a new message to VIPhone by emailing viphone@googlegroups.com. Search and view the VIPhone archives by visiting http://www.mail-archive.com/viphone@googlegroups.com/. Reach the VIPhone owner and moderators by emailing viphone+ow...@googlegroups.com. Unsubscribe and leave VIPhone by emailing viphone+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. More VIPhone group options can be found by visiting http://groups.google.com/group/viphone?hl=en. --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "VIPhone" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to viphone+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VIPhone" Google Group. Post a new message to VIPhone by emailing viphone@googlegroups.com. Search and view the VIPhone archives by visiting http://www.mail-archive.com/viphone@googlegroups.com/. Reach the VIPhone owner and moderators by emailing viphone+ow...@googlegroups.com. Unsubscribe and leave VIPhone by emailing viphone+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. More VIPhone group options can be found by visiting http://groups.google.com/group/viphone?hl=en. --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "VIPhone" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to viphone+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.