"Backup Could Not be Saved" error message

Question

"Backup Could Not be Saved" error message

For the past 2 weeks, every time I sync my phone I get the following error message: "iTunes could not back up the iPhone [phone name] because the backup could not be saved on the computer." I used to be able to backup fine but now it will not backup. I tried doing a restore with the phone but that did not solve the problem. I've got a 3G phone and am running 10.5.6. I've got plenty of available space on my hard drive.

Any ideas or suggestions?

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.5.6), iPhone 3G

Posted on Feb 14, 2009 9:54 PM

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Answer 1

Feb 14, 2009 10:38 PM in response to Robert Marino

Have you tried deleting the existing backup and creating an entirely new backup?

If not, go to iTunes > Preferences.

Your iPhone's backup or backups if there is more than one will be available under the Devices tab. You can delete the existing backup or backups from there.

After doing this, with your iPhone connected and available in the iTunes source list, control-click on your iPhone and at the menu window that appears, select Back Up.

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Answer 2

Feb 14, 2009 10:42 PM in response to Allan Sampson

Yes, I did. No Luck. Any other ideas or suggestions?

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Answer 3

Feb 14, 2009 11:09 PM in response to Robert Marino

When you restored your iPhone with iTunes, did you restore your iPhone from your iPhone's backup, or as a new iPhone or not from your iPhone's backup?

If you did the former and there is something wrong with your iPhone's backup, then you restored the problem with your iPhone's backup.

If you restored your iPhone as a new iPhone or not from your iPhone's backup and the problem remains, I don't have any other suggestions.

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Answer 4

adoman

Level 1

0 points

Feb 18, 2009 5:39 PM in response to Allan Sampson

Mine started doing that on Feb. 10th out of the blue - I have the "old" iPhone 🙂 And your suggestions fixed it. Thank you!

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Answer 5

Feb 18, 2009 8:47 PM in response to Allan Sampson

I re-did the restore as a "new" phone and the problem still continues. I was able to ctrl-click backup on a different computer so that leads me to believe that it's a computer/hard drive problem rather than a phone problem. So, any ideas given this update?

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Answer 6

Feb 21, 2009 8:57 PM in response to adoman

i had the same issue. couldn't figure it out. spent an hour on the phone with apple....reinstalled itunes and the whole 9 yard.

here's what was wrong...

my "backup" folder permissions were set to "read only" for my user account. go to ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync and go to "get info" for the Backup folder. Make sure your permissions are set to "Read and Write" for your user account.

This may be the problem, maybe not...but I figured since it helped me, it may be someone else's issue too. I never switched my permissions, it just happened for some reason.

Ciao.

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Answer 7

Feb 22, 2009 5:55 AM in response to Robert Marino

Going back to basics solved my problem but thanks to everyone who offered suggestions. I did check and my folder was read/write so that was ok. But thankfully checking that got me thinking...

What I did was just rename that backup folder to "backup-old" and then performed a sync. iTunes created a new backup folder and everything worked fine.

Thanks again to all.

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