Unexpected Results When Restoring my iPhone (1 Viewer)

Some of you will recall my post saying I couldn't make calls on my iPhone. That was fixed when I took it to an apple store and they removed some debris that was in the headphone jack.


Before that I called tech support and they had me backup and then restore from that backup. That didn't fix the problem. What I didn't know was that the restore actually wiped out some of my data.


I had albums of photos on the phone that were being synced from my iMac. I also had spent some time entering data into my Health app medical id info. The photo albums were gone and so was the medical id info after the restore.


When I called apple, after some research they told me there were some things that don't get backed up by design. I get not backing up the photos. I can even understand not backing up the medical id info since it's sensitive.


But why do they get wiped out in a restore? If you haven't backed them up, don't touch them on the restore. But nooooo! You gotta wipe them out. The pics were easy enough to get back but not the medical id, I which I don't have backed up on the cloud.


I was informed by the tech (after he had to go ask someone) this is expected behavior unless I select the encrypted backup. If I had done that I wouldn't have lost my data. The tech that had me do the backup and restore didn't mention this and the tech you informed me of it didn't know about it. He had to research it.


I just tested it out. Backed up encrypted and restored and the stuff is still there. Be nice if they could make a mention of that on the page where you select the backup type.


After the restore, the phone acted like I had upgraded, had to go thru some of the setup process to get up and running.


And what's with this requirement to turn off Find my iPhone when backing up (oh, crap was that backing up or only when I restored, I forget.)? I just noticed that Find my iPhone is back on, even though I didn't do it.

Interesting, never heard that before (encrypted backup required to backup everything). I appreciate you passing that along.


-KeithP

I strongly caution against using encrypted backups unless you absolutely know what you are doing and why.

From the terms you are using Johnny I'm not sure you know just what a restore means. Restore is a snapshot, not an additive process. This means that yes, files will be removed or changed to match a moment in time, not to add stuff that's missing.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203790
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204136

The problem with encrypted backups is that if you lose your key there is nothing Apple can do to help you get your data back, be very careful using this.
http://www.macworld.com/article/2864237/private-i-lock-your-cloud-backups-away-with-an-encryption-key.html

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2154792/backups-via-icloud-or-itunes-the-crucial-differences-that-affect-your-data.html

Been there, done that. I'm usually excellent about keeping passwords. But I lost my iPhone backup password and so lost all data moving from iPhone 4 to 5s. Take great care with encrypted backups.

Sam Posten said:

I strongly caution against using encrypted backups unless you absolutely know what you are doing and why.

From the terms you are using Johnny I'm not sure you know just what a restore means. Restore is a snapshot, not an additive process. This means that yes, files will be removed or changed to match a moment in time, not to add stuff that's missing.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203790
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204136

The problem with encrypted backups is that if you lose your key there is nothing Apple can do to help you get your data back, be very careful using this.
http://www.macworld.com/article/2864237/private-i-lock-your-cloud-backups-away-with-an-encryption-key.html

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2154792/backups-via-icloud-or-itunes-the-crucial-differences-that-affect-your-data.html

Click to expand...

I guess I didn't write very clearly. I wasn't complaining that missing data was not recovered. I was complaining that existing data was wiped out by the restore. The unencrypted back and restore wasn't done to recover data, but in hopes of fixing a problem I was having (it didn't). I did the backup and restore on the advice of an apple tech. I expected that when I did a backup, that that backup was a complete representation of the phone. It wasn't. Parts were missing.


It seems to me that if a company intentionally omits items from a backup, a couple of things should happen: 1) Make this obvious to the user up front, not in some document on your website that you have to search for; and 2) If item A is not in the backup, when using the backup to restore, don't wipe it out. Leave it on the phone. If that second item had been done, I wouldn't have been missing data.


You point out the backup is a snapshot of the phone at a moment in time. That snapshot is like a family photo, except the camera automatically omitted cousin Mortimer. He died the following week, and now I don't have a family photo with him in the picture.

DaveF said:

Been there, done that. I'm usually excellent about keeping passwords. But I lost my iPhone backup password and so lost all data moving from iPhone 4 to 5s. Take great care with encrypted backups.

Click to expand...

Yeah, gotta hang on to the PW. However, if you don't use the encrypted backup and have to restore, you will be missing data.

You're going to have to be more specific: what wasn't restored? Everything in a snapshot should come back.

You're going to have to be more specific: what wasn't restored? Everything in a snapshot should come back.

Click to expand...

See third paragraph in my OP. Once again I'm not saying everything in the snapshot wasn't restored. I'm saying that the normal backup (not encrypted) did not backup everything. See my original post.

Those items that were not backed up (like data in the Health app ) were wiped out. Apple, if you are not backing up something, why are you erasing it? If it's not backed up, leave it be.

That's not how it works. There are no individual file checks. It's one big blob and pulls from cloud storage where applicable.


Again, specifics: what files and data were not backed up?

Sam Posten said:

That's not how it works. There are no individual file checks. It's one big blob and pulls from cloud storage where applicable.


Again, specifics: what files and data were not backed up?

Click to expand...

Johnny Angell said:

Some of you will recall my post saying I couldn't make calls on my iPhone. That was fixed when I took it to an apple store and they removed some debris that was in the headphone jack.


Before that I called tech support and they had me backup and then restore from that backup. That didn't fix the problem. What I didn't know was that the restore actually wiped out some of my data.


I had albums of photos on the phone that were being synced from my iMac. I also had spent some time entering data into my Health app medical id info. The photo albums were gone and so was the medical id info after the restore.


When I called apple, after some research they told me there were some things that don't get backed up by design. I get not backing up the photos. I can even understand not backing up the medical id info since it's sensitive.


But why do they get wiped out in a restore? If you haven't backed them up, don't touch them on the restore. But nooooo! You gotta wipe them out. The pics were easy enough to get back but not the medical id, I which I don't have backed up on the cloud.


I was informed by the tech (after he had to go ask someone) this is expected behavior unless I select the encrypted backup. If I had done that I wouldn't have lost my data. The tech that had me do the backup and restore didn't mention this and the tech you informed me of it didn't know about it. He had to research it.


I just tested it out. Backed up encrypted and restored and the stuff is still there. Be nice if they could make a mention of that on the page where you select the backup type.


After the restore, the phone acted like I had upgraded, had to go thru some of the setup process to get up and running.


And what's with this requirement to turn off Find my iPhone when backing up (oh, crap was that backing up or only when I restored, I forget.)? I just noticed that Find my iPhone is back on, even though I didn't do it.

Click to expand...

Not sure why I have to do this, since I had already listed the missing data in my original post and in my reply to you said it was mentioned in my original post in the third paragraph.


Also this didn't involve the cloud at all. I manually created the un-encrypted backup via iTunes and then manually restored using that just created backup via iTunes. There was literally maybe a minute between creating the backup and using it. Between being advised to do it this way by an apple tech and the fact that most people expect backups to represent the entire device, I don't think it's unreasonable for me to expect my phone to be 100% what it was before the restore.


When I did call apple tech to ask why my data was missing, the tech had to put me on hold and research the issue. He did not know that an un-encrypted backup omitted data from the backup.


In essence, this thread I started isn't intended to figure out why my data went missing. It's more of a vent on why apple would choose not to make a full backup in "one big blob" and then only inform the user of that in an obscure document. Why not have a brief comment on the iTunes screen that says "Warning: some sensitive data is not backed up in an un-encrypted backup and will be lost when using this backup to restore." Whew! My was that a lot of work to write that.

Sam, thanks for those links. Went to one and read that once encrypted backups is turned on, I have to have the password not only to use an encrypted backup, but also I need the password to stop creating encrypted backups. Holy crap, that seems very strict.

It's kinda the whole point. If an interloper on your syncing device could tell it to stop encrypting backups then.... It's a protective measure, we trade off convenience for security if it matters to us.

Sorry on making you type that out again, it was an error on my part.

You are correct in that iCloud only backs up your last 1000 pictures but photos and videos are handled differently during sync, they are designed to go to iPhoto / Photos app seperately and you need to turn that on in that app:
http://www.howtogeek.com/175416/no-icloud-isnt-backing-them-all-up-how-to-manage-photos-on-your-iphone-or-ipad/

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201302

https://www.apple.com/osx/photos/

You are correct that you can only backup your health data if you have encryption set up. This is due to the federal government's HIPAA requirements and not some bullshit logic on Apple's part:
https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT203037

Photos are considered ephemeral data and it's not 'content' that is synced with the rest of your data in iTunes, they need to be saved off device to iPhoto or Photos seperately. Yes this is a bit of a pain to have a seperate app but the alternative is to have HUGE chunks of garbage data saved in iTunes. Clearly the current process is better than that.

"Warning: some sensitive data is not backed up in an un-encrypted backup and will be lost when using this backup to restore."

Click to expand...

I don't use health so I can't say why it doesn't make it absolutely clear when using it that it won't be backed up unless encrypted.

The Restore operation absolutely does tell you very clearly that any data not backed up will be lost and it's on you to make sure you have backed it up first.