iPhone upgrade erased my entire collection

[sherm42]

Your new update for the iPhone just erased all my collection data. It took me hours to enter all the information and you have no sync capabilities with a PC. I didn't have a spare 12 hours to backup my iPhone before the update and so now everything is gone. No way am I entering in all that information again. Sorry, but I am done with this app.

[Conor]

We had hoped that this bug was fixed in version 1.0.2 of the iPhone OS. The way to restore your data onto the iPhone is by ctrl-clicking on your iPhone in iTunes and using a restore from backup option. If you haven't done a recent backup the information will be from the last time the backup was done. We have added a new preference to not download large covers in order to limit the size of the database for those with large collections and help with the sync and backup times. Both these issues are not with Pocketpedia but iTunes and iPhone OS and we are sorry they have caused you to give up Pocketpedia, but they are not in our control. It is true that we do not have a Windows application to complement Pocketpedia as we do on the Mac, and that is our issue. We do hope to someday have some kind of basic program to manage data from Windows, but we are not Windows developers so there is no current active work on that.

[sherm42]

Restoring would be nice, but the iPhone has a bug that corrupts all backups in many iPhones. I have not been able to restore from backup at all. Besides, even if I restored from backup, wouldn't I then still have to install the upgrade thereby causing me to lose everything again?

Quite frankly, the iPhone's backup is too unreliable anyway to rest hopes that the entire collection data will remain safe. Without an external sync option for windows, a PC based user's data will never be secure. For people with large collections like me, there is no point in spending hours re-entering the data.

[Conor]

Sorry to hear about your iPhone troubles. For us it would be ideal if Apple would allow access to iPhone data, via old iPod disk mode. Even if it's just limited to 3rd party application data, it would add a lot of flexibility for users and eliminate the total reliance on iTunes for backups. Backup restore seems to restore the data and not the application, we have heard this from several developers as we are not the only application where data is crucial. Also the bug is not always repeatable on a second upgrade, nobody seems to know what special alignment of planets is necessary; which at least makes the bug extremely rare. You are correct that Pocketpedia would benefit from a Windows application, we appreciate the feedback. We will be sure to drop you a private message to let you know if that application is created.

[weirded76]

Same issue as the guy above. Tried to restore iPhone (3G, firmware 2.0.2) but without success (I mean, iPhone succesfully restored but still no more data... ).
Any advice ? Backup data are still on the PC, there *should* be a possibility to recover them...
Otherwise, as sherm42 wrote, really nice software but *unfortunately* no use for PC people (too much risiko on each upgrade...).

[Conor]

If there are options for the backup date try to go a bit further back. The backups are lightly encrypted and there is a program for the Mac that can pull out the data. It's called mdhelper and is created by Erica Sadun. I do not know if there is something similar for Windows, if there is look for a file that ends in ".sql". We are really looking forward to todays 2.1 release of iPhone OS. I am positive Apple will be able to fix a lot of the first release bugs.

[bernard]

Personally, I find Pocketpedia a great app. And now, it's able to sort all my books by author, than title, a must to avoid having two or three exemplars of the same book over years !
Indeed, the update erased all my previous entries. I hope it erased them and did not leave them on my iPhone, preventing all attempts to recover the space on the flash memory.
But it's a minor bug since it took a few minutes to resync all my 500 books and 200 DVD.
I'm not giving up Pocketpedia like sherm42. It's a great job, the support is first class, all the features requests were taken seriously. The MacBook Pro camera problem has been fixed, the sorting by authors in Pocketpedia is here... que demande le peuple ??
B. Scherler
Switzerland

[weirded76]

Personally, I find Pocketpedia a great app. And now, it's able to sort all my books by author, than title, a must to avoid having two or three exemplars of the same book over years !
Indeed, the update erased all my previous entries. I hope it erased them and did not leave them on my iPhone, preventing all attempts to recover the space on the flash memory.
But it's a minor bug since it took a few minutes to resync all my 500 books and 200 DVD.
I'm not giving up Pocketpedia like sherm42. It's a great job, the support is first class, all the features requests were taken seriously. The MacBook Pro camera problem has been fixed, the sorting by authors in Pocketpedia is here... que demande le peuple ??
B. Scherler
Switzerland

Hallo, collegue (I'm writing from Switzerland too... .
The difference between you and us is that you, as a Mac owner, have your 'Pedias synced wit your Mac and so are able to resync and get your data back, while we poor "windows users" (I write poor as I'd seriously like to switch to Mac - and I will definitely do that, sooner or later...) inserted the data directly into the mobile device, and now would be forced to do the whole "dirty work" again, crossing our fingers and hoping that the accident would not occur again...

[Conor]

It's a serious bug, luckily for Pocketpedia it has only affected two users but the number grows when you take into account all the applications in the App Store since everyone is affected. Being such a big concern I am sure that Apple's 2.1 iPhone OS coming out Friday will address it. The iTunes backup times bug fix was mentioned by name, so that is a definite. A few days after Friday the internet news sites will be able to report if the data bug was addressed and we can put our worries behind us. We held this Pocketpedia update until iPhone OS 2.0.2. hoping that it had been fixed. Since reports on the Internet had diminished we hoped it had been addressed but obviously not completely. The iPhone is a new platform and it will undoubtedly continue to develop and get stable and become a great OS with the coming versions.

[weirded76]

If there are options for the backup date try to go a bit further back. The backups are lightly encrypted and there is a program for the Mac that can pull out the data. It's called mdhelper and is created by Erica Sadun. I do not know if there is something similar for Windows, if there is look for a file that ends in ".sql". We are really looking forward to todays 2.1 release of iPhone OS. I am positive Apple will be able to fix a lot of the first release bugs.

Hi !
Let's suppose I have the possibility to access a Mac and use mdhelper, which kind of command should I give in order to (try to) get my data back ? And then, if succesful, what should I do with the recovered data ?
Would not be thinkable to implement a sort of a "dump" function in order to save the Pocketpedia contents to an ascii file, and then reload the backup file in case of problems ?

Regards

[Conor]

You command would be (Pocketpedia misspelling included):

Code: Select all

~/Desktop/mdhelper -C pokectpedia

mdhelper automatically looks in /Users/name/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup so you would have to transfer the backup folder from the PC to the Mac at that location (not sure if the PC backup format is the same as the Mac format). That result should be an .sql file that is the Pocketpedia database. Pocketpedia 1.1 has a dump and replace function, it has never been used so there is nothing that triggers that function right now. If you're able to get the file we can get you a version of DVDpedia that can send it to your iPhone; you're going to need that Mac friend again.

[bernard]

Very sorry weirded76, but we know since more than 20 years that "IBM" really means "I Buy Macintosh"

[fogcityite]

I, too lost all my data. I followed the steps you outlined with mdhelper, and have the .sql file. How can I get ahold of software to attempt to restore the data onto my iPhone?

[Conor]

Please let us know as much detail as possible, if the bug was not fixed in iPhone OS 2.1 we need to report it to Apple once again. Is it an iPhone or an iPod? Did you upgrade using iPhone App Store or iTunes? Are you using the latest iPhone OS 2.1 version? Do a restore of your iPhone to the most recent iTunes backup. To do this ctrl-click on your iPhone in iTunes and choose "restore from backup". Also important is to cancel the sync when connecting the device so that a backup of the empty file does not replace your current backup.