May 17th, 2010
Update October: As you can see in the comments this solution works for most users with iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. Please leave a comment, which App causes the slow backup.
Since months I searched for a solution to fix the slow iPhone sync without restoring my iPhone or needing to reinstall my Apps. Finally I found a surprisingly easy solution, covert and buried in the Apple support forum thread So I decided to write this down here, and to better remember how you can fix it the following time… ;)
Note: If you're wondering, this can be still a development blog for Flash. I just thought this might be an important information for the people out there.
What causes the slow backup,
It's the Apps! Apps for the iPhone might store data to operate properly. Some do store a whole lot, some don't. For instance a game saves some highscore data (not very much), where a newspaper App or possibly a rss reader might save updated data (can be quite much). I believe plenty of iPhone users, that experiencing slow backups, end up having one or many Apps which are leaking with regards to saving a great deal of tiny files on the iPhone, specially when they have a good deal of Apps and when they did backups cross devices (i.e. iPhone 2G to iPhone 3GS).
First try the straightforward fixes
However, many folks got the sync problem fixed with relatively simple solutions. You want to check them first.
Make sure the most recent iTunes version is installed.
Find the evil App
When the solutions above doesn't work for you, it's probably an App (or many Apps) resulting in the backup problem.
First it's generally a good idea to remove Apps you do not need anymore. I know, iPhone users (including me) usually leave unused Apps on the device. Removing those apps saves you space around the device, accelerates the backup process (whether or not the app it not evil) and keeps the backup folder within iTunes small. So tidy up!
Didn't work, Ok, let's go hunting…
1) Find the backup folder giving you hard drive
Windows XP:
Windows Vista / Windows 7:
Mac:
USERNAMELibraryApplication SupportMobileSyncBackup
The folder features a strange long name like 6de624828c9d586e1f088f932798039e57e2af7c. To find the right folder (if you discover more than one) open the settings in iTunes, visit devices and discover the list Devices backups”. Match the date of the last backup as well as the date in the folder.
2) Connect the iPhone and sync
First the backup progress bar in iTunes should move normally”. After a while the progress bar stops. Probably this can be the moment, where iTunes is burning an App that is creating the endless loop.
3) Find the app
Get into the backup folder. Sort after date, so the newest files are stored on top. Every file iTunes backups actually includes two files. The file using the data (.mddata) and an info declare that (.mdinfo), both again with a strange long name. While we cannot look to the actual data (is an image, a html file, a plist file or whatever), we can have a look into the info file to see at least which App the file is owned by.
Start a text editor and open themdinfo file. It's a binary file, and we all see a good deal of crap, however, you also should go to a string similar to this AppDomain-com.kayak.travel. There you go, the app iTunes is trying to backup could be the Kayak app (Note: This is just an example, Kayak did NOT result in the slow backup in my case).
Wait some seconds. As you can see inside the folder, themddata files a comparatively small, so iTunes should move on for the nextmddata/.mdinfo file soon. iTunes still tries to backup exactly the same file, Wait some more seconds. Still a similar file, Well, there exists a hit! The file iTunes attempts to backup is corrupt.
In my case however, iTunes continued to backup files. So again, open the newestmdinfo file. Same app as before, Wait another minute and open the newestmdinfo file. Still a similar app, Well, you will find there's hit! Although iTunes didn't stop to backup, it carries a hell of a good deal to do by copying all files with the app from your device to the backup folder.
Note: Maybe iTunes is constantly on the another app before long and gets slow again. Then you have more and another evil” app.
Let the sync explain to you (should it be stuck, cancel it).
Do a clean backup
Unplug the unit.
We want iTunes to generate a clean backup. Copy the backup folder to elsewhere (will take some time). After this is finished, delete the backup in Settings” -> Devices” -> Device Backups”.
Now delete the evil apps from the device.
Connect the product. Start iTunes (if it doesn't start automatically). Start a sync (when it doesn't automatically). Since iTunes does not find a backup file, it'll do complete backup, which may take a while.
After that is finished do another sync, it should be super fast. Yeah!
Happy!
For me the App that caused the problem, would have been a newspaper app, that gave the impression to keep all (old) articles about the files system of the iPhone. After treatment of app everything went back on track.
A unwanted effects was that the size my backup folder went from 1GB to 100MB.
May 17th, 2010
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