Why, Why, Why does backup and restore take so long?

Something must be wrong somewhere. Until I started seeing a few of these postings, I didn't even know there was a "backup" phase during syncing.

So, this is not normal. Unfortunately, I don't have any specific instructions for fixing it. I have some general instructions. Run Console.app and see if you are getting any error messages when you connect the iPad. If that doesn't reveal anything interesting, try restoring.

Are you using a laptop? I struggled with this for a week! (Using my Macbook Pro 17 laptop). Started to take my iPad back to apple! iPad & iTunes would stall out for long bouts just for clicking on a tab! Apple tried various resets and crap to no avail. Then one day I plugged it into my Mac Pro tower and voilà! Fast as a mouse in tHe kitchen! It was pure nirvana. I'm no expert but It seems to me that laptop USB cards don't carry enough power or something. Most gear stalls out or craps out when insufficiantly powered. All I know is Macbook Pro.. 30 min to 2 hours for a simple sync! Mac Pro tower, 60 seconds to 5min max!
(yes both machines identical in system and software!!!) Go figure.....

Art

I tried to backup and sync my ipad last night around 10:30pm. It is 8:30am now and it is not halfway through backing up and hasn't even started syncing! That's 10 HOURS!! The little line is moving across the top but very slowly. At this rate it could take 24 hours just to do this. This can't be normal! Any suggestions??

ARIII wrote:
I'm no expert but It seems to me that laptop USB cards don't carry enough power or something.

Works just fine with my circa 2007 MacBook.

Same problem here. I turned off Wifi, Notifications and Dimmed the Screen on my iPad 32GB Wifi with latest OS. Plugged it in to my Dell 64-bit Windows7 (2GB Core2 with latest iTunes) last night around 10 PM. Selected "Backup" (not "sync"). The iPad screen shows "Syncing..." and pressing the top button won't turn off the screen. Since iPad no longer charges using USB connection to PC, I was afraid battery will drain before it completed the backup if at all (major Apple fail, BTW).

My iPad content is mostly stored in GoodReader.app (graphic novels, huge PDFs and mp4 videos--all password protected folders, of course). I converted several MKV-format 1080p movies into highest-res mp4 format that iPad video.app can play (they look and perform great!). So in all I'm at 80% of 32GB capacity.

It's now morning and the backup status bar on iTunes shows about 40% completed. Strange though that the iPad battery icon on iTunes shows that it's charging (lightning icon), but the iPad screen battery icon says "Not Charging" yet still has full-battery icon image (not lightning icon). I'll check back on it when I get home from work.

I read somewhere that Console.app and check to see if there are any error messages that could explain this slowness; maybe a rogue app? I'll install it and do the backup again tonight to dig deeper.

I hope Apple is frantically working on releasing the first iPad OS update very soon with some much needed fixes.

Shredrca wrote:
Since iPad no longer charges using USB connection to PC, I was afraid battery will drain before it completed the backup if at all (major Apple fail, BTW).

It charges, just more slowly and it fibs about it in the screen. An Apple "fail", but a minor one.

It's now morning and the backup status bar on iTunes shows about 40% completed.

That's just not right.

Strange though that the iPad battery icon on iTunes shows that it's charging (lightning icon), but the iPad screen battery icon says "Not Charging" yet still has full-battery icon image (not lightning icon). I'll check back on it when I get home from work.

It charges.

I read somewhere that Console.app and check to see if there are any error messages that could explain this slowness; maybe a rogue app? I'll install it and do the backup again tonight to dig deeper.

Those instructions are for the Macintosh application Console.app. On a PC, you will have to see if iTunes write a log somewhere.

I hope Apple is frantically working on releasing the first iPad OS update very soon with some much needed fixes.

I see no evidence that slow syncs and backups are a common problem. For now, you are going to have to do most of the troubleshooting work yourself. Any logs you can find would be helpful in tracking down your issue and helping anyone else that has a similar issue.

Message was edited by: etresoft "fibs" not "ribs"

Rick Eames wrote:
I love comments like that. "I see no evidence that slow syncs and backups are a common problem. For now, you are going to have to do most of the troubleshooting work yourself. Any logs you can find would be helpful in tracking down your issue and helping anyone else that has a similar issue."

I aim to please.

Everyone I know that has an iPad has the slow backup issue, some worse than others.

I didn't know there was a "backup" at all until you mentioned it. But you are correct. There is a "backup" phase. I just synced my iPad so I could time it - 4 seconds.

I have looked the console, I have looked at logs -- I still have no idea why my backups take forever. Other than spending my quality time removing apps one by one to find it (which Apple pays testers for), I have no way of figuring it out.

One thing you could do is post the content of "All messages" from Console.app while you are backing up. Perhaps someone else will see something in there that is significant.

Just to add additional support to the "slow backup" camp, my backups are extremely slow. If I don't backup for several days it will take hours to backup the changes.

VerticalHeight wrote:
Just to add additional support to the "slow backup" camp, my backups are extremely slow. If I don't backup for several days it will take hours to backup the changes.

If a USB 2.0 transfer of up to 64 GB is taking hours, then maybe you have a hardware problem.

Rick Eames wrote:
etresoft -- you must have no apps installed. Go get ComicZeal4, install some comics, and see what happens. Or GoodReader.

I have a few, including one I'm working on with a 30 MB dictionary.

iPad seems to have some issues syncing when apps have data attached to them.

Do you want to try an experiment? I just tried it with no ill effects, so I think it's safe. Go into the Library folder in your home directory. Find "Application Support". Inside that look for "MobileSync". Inside that is your "Backup" folder. Move all the folders inside "Backup" somewhere else. I just trashed mine. Then, backup your iPad. You can right click on the icon and do "Backup".

When I did this, my backup took longer - about 20 seconds. Subsequent backups were instantaneous. That means that it is doing something with the previous backups. Perhaps it has a Time-Machine-esque algorithm for only backing up changes. You could have some corrupt files in that folder that are causing such a huge delay.

My backup takes a very long time - a couple of hours at times. I do use a laptop, and I am trying to sync on different ones to see if I can find a difference. I have a 64 Gig iPad, so I figure the backup should take a while the first time. But it takes a long time a lot - so I'm going to search the log files like you suggested. That's new to me.

For reference, I do have ComicZeal4 loaded with over 200 issues loaded. I have 2 movies, 2 iBooks, 500 or so songs, and at least that many photos. I wonder if one particular type of data will cause a longer backup than another?

This is an interesting problem. It does seem that many of us have longer backups than you do, but sooner or later we should be able to figure out why. Thanks for the suggestions.