Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Level 1

9 points

iphone 3.0 Update + Slow Backup Process - Why Design the Backup like that??

Hi All,

I'm hoping one of Apple's staff will respond to this post. I'm sorry it is long and rambling, but the interesting stuff is at the bottom, so stay with me...please. And yes I'm a bit frustrated because my lovely iPhone has now been tied up for 9+ hours... not a good user experience.

This post is really about the backup process itunes initiates whenever I attempt to sync my iphone. I've never yet seen itunes get to the end of the backup. After the first 6 hours I get board and stop the process. iTunes is installed on Vista 64.

Well last night I downloaded Itunes 3.0 update and kicked off the upgrade process in iTunes. All was well (and at the time of writing I guess still is). The backup kicked off at 21:54 on 17 June. It is now 8:11 on 18 June and the backup is still going. The progress bar is still increasing (no x available to cancel) and I've the folder location in open in Windows Explorer. Last time I looked the backup folder contained some 21,000+ files. 1st file plist.status was written at 21:54. iTunes backup is still posting files to this folder!!!

Using some pretty basic Windows Tools to see what was going on I found out the following.

Apple backup uses 3 processes, one a Windows Service called AppleMobileDeviceService.exe. Another process called AppleMobileDeviceHelper.exe and AppleMobileBackup.exe. They are all network enabled. AppleMobileDeviceService is the hub and listens on port 27015. It 'talks' to the other two services on various & variable port range in the TCP/IP stack.

Using Windows Performance Monitor I can see that the TCP conversation going on between AppleMobileDeviceService & AppleMobileBackup is running at between 9,000,000 Bytes a Minute (min) and 14,000,000 Bytes a Minute (max). That is 1.2 Megabits per Second (min) & 1.86 Megabits per Second (max). That too me is very slow when the USB 2.0 interface its connected to has a capacity of up to 480Mbits per second.

It occurs to me that the methodolgy Apple's Devs have chosen for the backup process appears to be incredibly flawed.

I can't test whether the backup is also using compression, although I hope so because of the 21,000+ files (and climbing) in the backup folder to date they only add up to 200MBytes. My iPhone has 7 of its 8GBytes used, so I could be in for a very long haul before I get my updated iPhone 3.0 software.

Apple, please this isn't a dig, I know I've got Windows on the desk (its my day job)but I love my iPhone and AppleTV.

Can you ask your Devs to explain why they chose to use such a slow methodology to underpin the iPhone backup service. Or, is it that the potential high speed backup that is possibel over TCP/IP is just very broken?

Lastly, when is Apple going to fix this, because this backup thing is very broken and giving your customers an incredibly poor user experience.

Anyway, hope this was a little bit informative for those suffering the same trying to get their iPhone upgraded to 3.0.

Thanks

Pete.

handcrafted+dell, w7+vista+2008

Posted on Jun 18, 2009 12:41 AM

80 replies

tomagion Author

Level 1

9 points

Jul 14, 2009 2:27 PM in response to DanWilson

Dan,

There are a few work rounds that improve the situation for iPhone users.

1) Clear the caches on any apps that allow, i.e. Safari, etc.

2) Consider (carefully) unsynching the apps in iTunes. This has the effect of removing the apps from your iPhone and deleting any cached data. ** consider this carefully. I did this without realizing I was deleting valuable data from a data safe app and lost the lot ** a better approach would've been to sync only those apps that you can't do without in iTunes and to allow the rest to remove themselves. Once the cached data is removed you can sync you other apps back again and then the backup will work quickly.

*Again, think about option 2 very carefully and do it on an app by app basis *

Ultimately Apple need to fix this issue for their customers. Hopefully this won't be a long wait.

Jul 14, 2009 8:11 PM in response to tomagion

Thanks for the ideas... I have run into the situation before where unsyncing apps has helped. In this case I ended up restoring to a known good backup from the day before and have been OK so far.

Jul 27, 2009 2:18 PM in response to tomagion

Erase all the cache from safari, or any applications which has cache.
It might help backup faster.

Aug 2, 2009 8:43 AM in response to sbessel

I've been searching for a way to speed up the backup process and I have to say that this works the best by far.
Some applications have hundreds of files that are backed up one at a time and this takes a long time.
Until Apple speeds up the file writing process, your best bet is to find the culprit apps that have hundreds of files and unsynch them through iTunes and delete them off your iPhone.
Put those apps back on after you get the new operating system on.
My backup took 8 hours and now I've gotten half way through in just one minute by deleting the problem apps.
For me, so far, I've found that clz movies, What's on and iTV slowed down the back up. I'm sure I'll find a few more!

Aug 2, 2009 9:08 AM in response to hawk20011

Sorry...didn't include the method...
Go to the following folder:
C:\Documents and Settings\<yourname>\Application Data\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\
Delete whatever files are there or rename the folders
When you run the iTunes backup, a new folder is created. Watch for when the backup slows down and then the newest created mdinfo file with notepad to see what app it is.
You'll be able to see which apps have the the most files to backup.
Cancel backup, unsynch that app with iTunes, and delete it from the iPhone. You can always put it back on afterwards. If the app has data with it you want to preserve, then find a way to do that with the app beforehand so you can restore it afterward.

iphone 3.0 Update + Slow Backup Process - Why Design the Backup like that??