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iPad WARNING! update IOS 12.4 killed my music and messed my photos...

MrAverigeUser

MrAverigeUser

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 20, 2015
895
397
europe
Hi there,

updated yesterday both my iPadPro 9,7 and my iPhone SE from 12.3.1 to 12.4

Today, I realized that this update killed ALL MY MUSIC (now ZERO Titels indicated) but added the infamous U2-"Album "Songs of Innocence" that was forced into iTunes years ago (and that I deleted at hat time instantly, also years ago). IIRC, this album was forced onto the Macs coming with a new OSX about 5 years ago...

But this is not all what happened:

the update messed around all my photos. For example, a series of about 100 photos I took many years ago in just 3 hours one evening in 2011 has now been spread all around with time stamps between 2006 and 2018!!!! Also, it seems that OI have lost a lot of photos...

Since I learned some years ago the hard way round to backup EVERYTIME before updating, I still have a backup on my MacBookPro.... BUT before using the backup to get back my order on my iPad I want to be sure that this procedure will not destroy even more...

To be sure I renamed my iPad Pro - so there should NOT be any chance that the "old" backup from the same device could be overwritten - is this correct?

I´d like to know if there is anyone who made the same or similar experiences that I did?

A quick look at my iPhone SE showed that at least not ALL Music has been deleted, but also there the update did manipulate the music: As on my iPadPro, also on the Iphone SE, there appeared the infamous Album of U2 "Songs of innocence"...

So - since the U2 album appeared on BOTH devices, this cannot be a hardware problem of my macbookPro, it MUST be a bug instead!

Who made similar experiences?

any comments?
 
Last edited:
There must be a bug...

I am not the only one who has lost lots of data...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ios-music-app-doesnt-show-my-songs.2189879/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/updated-to-12-4-1000s-of-photos-gone.2190945/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ios-12-4-broke-my-gps.2191491/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/after-12-4-all-homekit-accessories-gone-from-home-app.2191329/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/updated-to-12-4-alarm-didn’t-work-this-morning.2190927/

Just tried to restore the backup I made just before updating to 12.4

IT DOES NOT WORK !!!!

the music stays deleted, the U2-album reappears again as the only one (although it was deleted years ago)
and now there are even less photos on my iPad than before !!!

As the backup is dependent from the serial# of the device, changing the "name" of the IOS-device does not allow to have several "old" backups at all: There is just one single backup for every IOS-device.

So, i am asking myself, if there is already a bug in processing the backup BEFORE the update (which would be the first time ever all the years since using apple devices) ---> excluded.

Or, the update-processing has a big, big bug at least for several specific circumstances or specific devices (iPhone SE or technical similar devices?) - becausee I am not the only one experiencing loss of data!!

what to do now???
 
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I know this sounds like old school. But could you sign out of any cloud service like iTunes Match or Apple Music and sync an iTunes library using songs from other sources and see how it goes? I missed the chance to get U2 album “for free” but I don’t see your “music being deleted” issue either. I am not an iTunes Match user or Apple Music user, which I think counts something.
 
Shirasaki said:
I know this sounds like old school. But could you sign out of any cloud service like iTunes Match or Apple Music and sync an iTunes library using songs from other sources and see how it goes? I missed the chance to get U2 album “for free” but I don’t see your “music being deleted” issue either. I am not an iTunes Match user or Apple Music user, which I think counts something.
Click to expand...


Thank you,

but Me myself, I am also "old school" enough to not even use iCloud or any other cloud service. Because I like privacy a lot... ;) :D

The only "cloud" in which I have enough confidence is the encrypted "cloud" in my apartment.
But I looked already if there has been a non-voluntary transfer of my pics and music in my (not even used) apple-cloud-service... there are just some kb of data - so, unfortunately in this case, there exists just nothing. neither on my iPad ("0 albums") nor in any cloud service.

So, believe me, the music and at least 1000 photos are gone, the resting ones have now false timestamps and therefore are very hard to find !

As for the music, I was able to transfer all by synchronizing my iPad with my MacBookPro, but I get really afraid again in installing apple-updates again...

For 15 Years, I preferred to be at least "one step behind the others" (mostly even two or 3 steps) concerning updates of apple OSX or IOS.... and so I was one of the rare customers NOT serving as apple´s crash test-Dummies.

Because - surprisingly and exceptionally - apple has released several updates in the past WITHOUT catastrophic bugs, I began to reinstall a little bit of confidence on apple... and... BANG!!! ... there I was punished for my confidence at once.

just looked for the release of the U2-album released by apple "for free": This was on September 2014 !!! So, after nearly 5 Years, they arrived to install this already deleted album and deleted at the same time instantly ALL my music and at least 1000 photos... really WELL DONE, APPLE-experts !!!

I can nothing but recommend to anyone NOT TO agree to install updates automatically, but (as I did and did also this time) update nothing but manually. But even this act of prudence is not enough: If you upgrade 2 or 3 weeks after the release, it might be far too soon to be sure not to be fxxxxx by a major bug of apple´s ""excellent developers...
 
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MrAverigeUser said:
Thank you,

but Me myself, I am also "old school" enough to not even use iCloud or any other cloud service. Because I like privacy a lot... ;) :D

The only "cloud" in which I have enough confidence is the encrypted "cloud" in my apartment.
But I looked already if there has been a non-voluntary transfer of my pics and music in my (not even used) apple-cloud-service... there are just some kb of data - so, unfortunately in this case, there exists just nothing. neither on my iPad ("0 albums") nor in any cloud service.

So, believe me, the music and at least 1000 photos are gone, the resting ones have now false timestamps and therefore are very hard to find !

As for the music, I was able to transfer all by synchronizing my iPad with my MacBookPro, but I get really afraid again in installing apple-updates again...

For 15 Years, I preferred to be at least "one step behind the others" (mostly even two or 3 steps) concerning updates of apple OSX or IOS.... and so I was one of the rare customers NOT serving as apple´s crash test-Dummies.

Because - surprisingly and exceptionally - apple has released several updates in the past WITHOUT catastrophic bugs, I began to reinstall a little bit of confidence on apple... and... BANG!!! ... there I was punished for my confidence at once.

just looked for the release of the U2-album released by apple "for free": This was on September 2014 !!! So, after nearly 5 Years, they arrived to install this already deleted album and deleted at the same time instantly ALL my music and at least 1000 photos... really WELL DONE, APPLE-experts !!!

I can nothing but recommend to anyone NOT TO agree to install updates automatically, but (as I did and did also this time) update nothing but manually. But even this act of prudence is not enough: If you upgrade 2 or 3 weeks after the release, it might be far too soon to be sure not to be fxxxxx by a major bug of apple´s ""excellent developers...
Click to expand...
I am beta testing iOS 13 while also using high Sierra and iTunes 12.6.5. I wish I could use some sort of utilities to permanently block macOS or iOS upgrades (major version) like windows but well.

I think I am lucky enough to not have those “all gone” issue. But I totally agree to not use latest and “greatest” software from any company in day one, Apple included.
 
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I am old school too, and to avoid a horror story such as yours is why I am deliberately staying frozen on a Sierra Macbook Air, with iTunes 12.6.2.20, which syncs to iOS 10 devices, for as long as possible.

I do hope you can claw back to where you were, Mr..
 
throAU said:
Updated IOS on all my devices to 12.4 (ipad pro 10.5, iphone 7), did not see this issue.

gf did not see the issue on her ipad 6th gen either.
Click to expand...
Neither did I. And I didn't see any issues on the Mac after updating to macOS Mojave 10.14.6 either.
[doublepost=1565376561][/doublepost]
Shirasaki said:
I think I am lucky enough to not have those “all gone” issue. But I totally agree to not use latest and “greatest” software from any company in day one, Apple included.
Click to expand...
So am I. I usually wait at least a few days or maybe a week (iOS 12.4 I installed about a week after release, and then a week later I installed macOS Mojave 10.14.6). I think that's about enough time for comments about any major issues found on an update to appear in forums such as these.
 
MrAverigeUser said:
There must be a bug...

I am not the only one who has lost lots of data...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ios-music-app-doesnt-show-my-songs.2189879/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/updated-to-12-4-1000s-of-photos-gone.2190945/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ios-12-4-broke-my-gps.2191491/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/after-12-4-all-homekit-accessories-gone-from-home-app.2191329/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/updated-to-12-4-alarm-didn’t-work-this-morning.2190927/

Just tried to restore the backup I made just before updating to 12.4

IT DOES NOT WORK !!!!

the music stays deleted, the U2-album reappears again as the only one (although it was deleted years ago)
and now there are even less photos on my iPad than before !!!

As the backup is dependent from the serial# of the device, changing the "name" of the IOS-device does not allow to have several "old" backups at all: There is just one single backup for every IOS-device.

So, i am asking myself, if there is already a bug in processing the backup BEFORE the update (which would be the first time ever all the years since using apple devices) ---> excluded.

Or, the update-processing has a big, big bug at least for several specific circumstances or specific devices (iPhone SE or technical similar devices?) - becausee I am not the only one experiencing loss of data!!

what to do now???
Click to expand...
No bug in processing the backup there. Your music being deleted by an update was indeed odd and must be a problem with the software update, but as far as I know music is actually never included in iOS backups whether they're made on iCloud or using iTunes and that's why your music doesn't reappear even after you restore from the backup made before you updated to iOS 12.4. If your music was purchased on iTunes, you just have to go to iTunes on your device and redownload everything (you should find the list of all the music you have ever bought from the iTunes Store in the 'purchased' section of the iTunes app). If your music was purchased elsewhere or ripped from CDs, then you need to sync it again from the computer using the iTunes software (or Music and Finder on a Mac running the MacOS Catalina betas).
 
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Yeah, not saying it didn't happen for you. Just saying it didn't happen for me. Sounds like a bug, but a bug that is either specific to your equipment or your configuration...
 
PorkPump said:
One great U2 CD for free can in many ways be better than 100 mediocre Cardi B. CDs.
Click to expand...
So does for any other CD that is actually awesome. This is a subjective call regardless.
And U2 album is not what the tread is for.
 
MrAverigeUser said:
Hi there,

To be sure I renamed my iPad Pro - so there should NOT be any chance that the "old" backup from the same device could be overwritten - is this correct?

I´d like to know if there is anyone who made the same or similar experiences that I did?
Click to expand...

To prevent an iTunes backup from being overwritten, right click on the specific backup, and "Archive" it, which puts a time stamp on when that action was taken. The next time that device is backed up, it will write a fresh one from scratch, but beware, if your photo library is large, it will consume that amount of space again as a duplicate.

No problems here with 12.4. Such anomalies can occur with any update, and if 12.4 was particularly vulnerable, or flawed, it would have generated more news.

throAU said:
Not a u2 fan and don't want it in my playlist.
Click to expand...

I recently helped some older technophobe relatives get set up with iTunes backups to their computer, since they don't have enough iCloud space, and don't want to pay for more.

Like many users, they never connect their devices to computers, and don't use iTunes. I though I'd have to install it, but it was already there. Fired it up and what do I see in the otherwise barren landscape? The U2 album. I got a chuckle out of it.
 
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TheIntruder said:
To prevent an iTunes backup from being overwritten, right click on the specific backup, and "Archive" it, which puts a time stamp on when that action was taken. The next time that device is backed up, it will write a fresh one from scratch, but beware, if your photo library is large, it will consume that amount of space again as a duplicate.

No problems here with 12.4. Such anomalies can occur with any update, and if 12.4 was particularly vulnerable, or flawed, it would have generated more news.


.
Click to expand...


Thank you, will follow your advice in future.
 
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