Bruce Johnson5

Q: iTunes could not backup iPhone because the iPhone disconnected

I've tried seaching for an answer for this problem and can't find one that works. I've tried the basics and even restored my iPhone 4S (and restarted it). Yet, I still keep getting the above message every time I try to back up even though my iPhone is hardwired to my laptop. Any other ideas out there to solve this one?

 

Thanks!

iPhone 4S

Posted on Jan 28, 2012 4:51 PM

Close

Q: iTunes could not backup iPhone because the iPhone disconnected

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

first Previous Page 18 of 23 last Next
  • by Frank Malloy,

    Frank Malloy Frank Malloy Sep 14, 2015 9:47 PM in response to fidnado
    Level 2 (355 points)
    iPad
    Sep 14, 2015 9:47 PM in response to fidnado

    Ok, I confirmed that if I remove the backup by manually deleting the backup files in the folder, I get thru a backup successfully. It takes about an hour and a half. However, any new incremental backups after that fail.

     

    I looked into the folder containing all the backup data and there are over 136,000 files in that folder. That seems like a really large number of files. Most of them are .plists and are small in size. Is this a problem?

     

    Can someone confirm how many files should be in the folder? I realize it will vary, but 136K files seems like an awful lot.

  • by kiwimacguy,

    kiwimacguy kiwimacguy Sep 15, 2015 1:42 AM in response to Frank Malloy
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 15, 2015 1:42 AM in response to Frank Malloy

    Frank, in my experience its completely normal to have that number of files, as freaky as it is. These files take up tons of storage and if you end up doing lots of experimental backups like I did, you may want to transfer them to another drive to save valuable space. Word of caution, be sure you keep the backups unclearly marked folders so you can identify them if you want to pull them up again in the future. Obviously, once you're satisfied that you have a good clean iTunes backup of your iPhone you will be able to delete the old backups, you'll find this a lengthy process. Hope this helps..

  • by Kelly Wilkerson,

    Kelly Wilkerson Kelly Wilkerson Sep 15, 2015 9:34 AM in response to Frank Malloy
    Level 1 (63 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 15, 2015 9:34 AM in response to Frank Malloy

    Agreed. It's entirely normal to have a large smattering of files in that backup. My iPhone backup is on the small side of what I see, and it's currently 7.4GB in 22,598 files. There should be 3 files with the .plist extension, 1 file with the .mbdb extension, and then a massive pile of files named with hashes (a string of letters and numbers 0-9 a-f). Some will be large; some will be small; they're all of the files from your iPhone many of which are plist settings files.

     

    I'm very glad that you have a reliable way to get the backup to go through right now, albeit an irritating one.

     

    Do you have XCode installed on your Mac? If we want to dig deeper into the specific error during the incremental backup, we need to look at the debug log from the iPhone. I have a little Mac program I use to pull the logs too, but XCode will work if you have it. (And on public forums, I am still just a "scary internet stranger" so I don't want to be offering to send you software.)

     

    The iPhone debug logs contain info you likely don't want to paste blindly into this thread 1) because it may contain email addresses (not passwords, just addresses) or your phone number... stuff you don't want to post to the internet, and 2) they're REALLY long.

     

    Or, we can wait until tomorrow and make sure it's still a problem. Ha.

  • by Frank Malloy,

    Frank Malloy Frank Malloy Sep 15, 2015 9:55 AM in response to Kelly Wilkerson
    Level 2 (355 points)
    iPad
    Sep 15, 2015 9:55 AM in response to Kelly Wilkerson

    Thanks again so much for your help.

     

    I do not have XCode installed, but I'll look up how to do that. I thought you need to have a paid developer account but from what I just read apparently you don't.

     

    I'm willing to spend a little time to narrow down the problem. I do software testing as part of my job for a software company and know my way around UNIX, so hopefully it won't be too difficult.

     

    I'm guessing the backup pores thru existing backup files and either in the files or the phone sees something it doesn't expect that hangs the process, so it times out and gets interpreted as a disconnect of the phone.

  • by Frank Malloy,

    Frank Malloy Frank Malloy Sep 16, 2015 11:48 AM in response to Kelly Wilkerson
    Level 2 (355 points)
    iPad
    Sep 16, 2015 11:48 AM in response to Kelly Wilkerson

    Tried a few more things - Reset Network Settings and didn't change the name of the phone and left it as "iPhone". Removed a profile. Was actually able to do an incremental backup that finished quickly. Thought the problem was solved. Then I used the phone to try to create some changed data and came back later for a backup - failed. Updated to the official iOS 9.0 and will try again tonight, but I don't have much hope.

  • by Kelly Wilkerson,

    Kelly Wilkerson Kelly Wilkerson Sep 16, 2015 11:50 AM in response to Frank Malloy
    Level 1 (63 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 16, 2015 11:50 AM in response to Frank Malloy

    *nodding* If it's still happening, we can take a crack at scrubbing the logs of personal stuff and taking a look.

     

    At least now the logs won't be beta!

  • by LaBigDogs,

    LaBigDogs LaBigDogs Sep 19, 2015 7:23 AM in response to Bruce Johnson5
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 19, 2015 7:23 AM in response to Bruce Johnson5

    This morning I tried to backup on another Mac computer and got the same old error message.... so I just deleted old apps on my iPhone I don't use anymore including a few ring tone apps from years ago... and my backup now works on my Mac too.  it has not worked in over a year.  iPhone6+ OS9/Yosemite

  • by BlakeLin,

    BlakeLin BlakeLin Sep 23, 2015 12:29 AM in response to Frank Malloy
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 23, 2015 12:29 AM in response to Frank Malloy

    Reset network works for me.

  • by Kelly Wilkerson,

    Kelly Wilkerson Kelly Wilkerson Sep 23, 2015 9:28 AM in response to BlakeLin
    Level 1 (63 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 23, 2015 9:28 AM in response to BlakeLin

    Updating my original list with a few more things to try if you're having consistent problems making a backup.

     

    • One problem that is probably well addressed in this thread is a broken previous backup. In those cases deleting (or archiving, so you don't lose it) the previous backup will push the issue through. This is the most frequent cause I see for the problem.https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203282 (Just the section entitled "Archive an iOS backup with iTunes")

     

    • Another common problem is a flood of notifications during the backup causes the backup process to need to restart enough times that it eventually just crashes the backup program. You'll frequently see this one produce a message about the iPhone disconnecting. You can try putting the device into Airplane Mode in order to test/prevent this cause.

     

    • In Kiwimacguy's case, there's an intermittent problem using the iPhone's keychain, that causes the backup to fail sometimes and succeed other times. At some point, changing the lock screen password just wreaked havoc that only a backup restore could fix, but the root cause definitely seems hardware related. This is likely a more rare cause of this error message.

     

    • On Windows computers, there seems to be an increase in USB connection problems beyond just a faulty cable (although cable problems are frequent too). I haven't quite put my finger on the root of this issue enough to post here yet, but I've been seeing it happen a lot more over the past few weeks. If you haven't tried already, try switching out the cable, switching USB ports, rebooting the iPhone, and resetting the Windows sockets ("netsh winsock reset" in an admistrator command prompt.)


    • Another way to resolve some USB or wifi connection problems that may mess up the backup is to Reset Network Settings from Settings -> General -> Reset.


    • Several people have reported incorrectly installed apps causing their backups to consistently fail. In this case, open the Settings app -> General -> Usage -> Manage Storage and look through your installed app usage. (It may take a moment for the list of apps to appear.) Look for apps named "Null" or with no name. These apps need to be removed for the backup to proceed. Here are two other forum posts about this specific issue. "Null" app can't be deleted and Backup fails at step 4
  • by Peter Galvin,

    Peter Galvin Peter Galvin Sep 24, 2015 10:28 AM in response to Kelly Wilkerson
    Level 1 (25 points)
    Sep 24, 2015 10:28 AM in response to Kelly Wilkerson

    I had all sorts of problems getting a local backup to my imac over USB to work. Thought I'd post what worked for me here.

    - Official Apple thunderbolt table (this is a 6 plus)

    - Plug directly into the imac not into a hub

    - Turn off wifi on the phone

    - Delete the previous backup

    - Reboot the phone - Kept getting disconnected even with the above steps until I rebooted then did a full sync and the backup worked this time.

     

    Hope this helps...

  • by Tim Windsor1,

    Tim Windsor1 Tim Windsor1 Sep 25, 2015 7:18 AM in response to Bruce Johnson5
    Level 1 (80 points)
    Sep 25, 2015 7:18 AM in response to Bruce Johnson5

    I've been suffering silently with this for some time. Along the way, I learned to nuke the existing backup to get a new backup.

     

    But that's not exactly a solution. So, today, as I wait for my new 6s plus, I'm experimenting a bit and may have found at least some interesting signal to add to the discussion. Here's what I did.

     

    1. Created a new admin user account - test iTunes - on my MacBook.

    2. Declined the offer to login with my iCloud account.

    3. Synced my phone to the new account.

    4. Sync worked.

    5. (this may be an unrepeatable anomaly) I disconnected iPhone, used it for a bit, then reconnected for the second, incremental backup. It failed. At the same time, I had the backup folder open in the finder and noticed that Finder had hung. I force-restarted Finder.

    6. I attempted to run the incremental backup after restarting Finder. IT. WORKED. My last backup is now time-stamped 11 minutes after the first.

     

    I didn't do any of the other voodoo mentioned up-thread. Did not reset network settings. Did not invoke Airplane Mode. Did not sacrifice a chicken.

     

    No idea if this holds going forward. Also, this afternoon I'll have some new hardware to test it on. So there's that.

  • by Tim Windsor1,

    Tim Windsor1 Tim Windsor1 Sep 25, 2015 7:41 AM in response to Tim Windsor1
    Level 1 (80 points)
    Sep 25, 2015 7:41 AM in response to Tim Windsor1

    And, just like that, it's failing again. Creating a fresh user account appears to be unrelated.

  • by nismo95tt,

    nismo95tt nismo95tt Sep 26, 2015 11:17 PM in response to Tim Windsor1
    Level 1 (8 points)
    iPad
    Sep 26, 2015 11:17 PM in response to Tim Windsor1

    same issues here.  I've tried everything in this thread spanning the last 3 years.  this problem is really a bummer.  Been trying to get around this issue for 3 days- and now I have an iPhone 6s sitting on my desk unopened because I can't get my **** iPhone 6 backed up properly. 

  • by fidnado,

    fidnado fidnado Sep 27, 2015 5:18 AM in response to nismo95tt
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 27, 2015 5:18 AM in response to nismo95tt

    , try doing all the suggestions at the same time.

     

    1. Copy the backup from the backups folder saving it somewhere else and then delete the backup in:

    users/yourusername/library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backups/

    2. Reboot computer

    3. On your iPhone Settings/General/Reset/Reset Network Settings

    4. Use your new iPhone USB cable that came with your new iPhone 6s to try backing up your phone in iTunes

     

    You should be able to get one backup in before it breaks again if it's indeed the same problem many of us are having.

  • by Tim Windsor1,

    Tim Windsor1 Tim Windsor1 Sep 27, 2015 6:18 AM in response to fidnado
    Level 1 (80 points)
    Sep 27, 2015 6:18 AM in response to fidnado

    So far, through one full and three incremental backups, this appears to be working with the new 6s plus. It must have been some ghost in the machine that was somehow tied to the presence of my old iPhone 6.

     

    One other detail I'm remembering: This started when I loaded a developer beta of one of the incremental iOS 8 versions. There was a general release note that encrypted backups were failing in that version. Come to think of it, that's when the "iPhone disconnected" issues started for me and never went away until I switched hardware.

     

    My admittedly uninformed suspicion: Even though the encrypted backup issue was fixed for nearly everyone eventually, my particular phone was forever corrupted at some very low level because of this. Maybe a complete erase and restore could have solved, but it was never such a big issue that I went that far. Buying a new phone was an effective albeit extreme replication of that fix.

     

    Is anyone with this problem NOT doing an encrypted backup?

first Previous Page 18 of 23 last Next