Voice Memo won't play

I know. I am very disappointed with voice memo. I barely slept for 2 hours last night trying to fix things. But it worked out for me a little after I made the comment. On June 15th, in order to change to XS, I backed up my data from 6S and restored it to my new phone. Two days back when I tried to play my voice memo recorded before the 15th, I couldn't play it. All the voice memos that I recorded after the 15th was fine.

I called the apple customer care and they advised me that I could try to restore my June 15th backup again on my phone if I still have it and see if it works. I didn't know I had the Jun 15th backup. But I fortunately had it in the Users folder of Windows.

After trying a lot of third party backup extractors/viewers (few comment on this thread have the sources to them), as a final step I did the following.

1) So I backed up my current data on iTunes. (!!!)

2) Reset-ted my another iPhone 6/7 (This is not the 6S from where I made the back up--its display broke).

3) Restored the June 15th back up onto my Iphone 6/7.

(Then it still didn't play)

4) I chose one of my voice memo -> from the more option (...) --> selected edit recording.

5) I was so desperate that I kept sliding the waveform playbar to move it forward along the time line.

6) After doing that, I tried playing the audio (again out of desperation)

AND IT WORKED! All my voice memos between 2014 and Jun 15, 2019 started playing just fine.

I was very surprised and did't know how it happened. Just letting you know what I did. Try to meddle with the options in the voice memo. Duplicate, trim (but don't trim, just select the trimming option), slide across the time bar (like I did) you may actually get it to playing and back in action. But remember, I also restored my June 15th back up onto my iPhone 6/7 before the meddling with voice memos actually worked. That's my story.

Generally when you take a back up on iTunes, your backup is saved in the Users folder of Windows. My June 15th back up was in Users folder on my PC. You may try iBackup viewer and run it on the computer in which you have the backup taken. iBackup viewer have the steps illustrated on their website for how to view your back up. So try that. However, iBackup viewer didn't read my voice memos as my memos were corrupted probably. This is all I know. Thanks!

This was happening to me, but I updated to 12.4 and it fixed the problem. Now everything's working again.

iPhone 6, iOS12.4

I have a very similar problem, so I'm bumping this thread to keep it alive.

Today I recorded a long meeting in two parts. One file works fine, but the other one behaves more or less as you describe above, except that the files size seems larger than expected rather than shorter, so perhaps that's a red herring.

If I press play, nothing happens, and after a few seconds it gives up and pauses. I can scrub along the timeline but it won't play. If I download both files to a windows computer the good one plays in Windows' built-in player, but the one that won't play on my iPhone also won't play on my desktop. I enabled iCloud syncing and tried playing the copy that appeared on my iPad, but that won't play either. Also, on the iPad, the UI shows the wave form for the file that works, but nothing for the one that doesn't. It's like it can't even open the file. I'm also on iOS 12.1.4, but now that iOS 12.2 has dropped, I'm tempted to update the OS to see if it fixes a file-system issue or something. I doubt that will work, though; I suspect the corruption is in the file itself.

I feel like it got corrupted during the recording or saving process, and it's probably not fixable without a hex editor and an intimate knowledge of the file structure (and lots of time to mess with it).

Has anyone out there has success with these corrupt voice memo files?

I just found this other thread that is helpful: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250086379

It in turn pointed me to here: https://sound.stackexchange.com/questions/27182/how-to-recover-audio-from-an-incomplete-or-corrupted-aac-m4a-file

When I went to online diagnostic tool referred to by the OP in that second discussion, after uploading my file I got this message:

That's very disappointing since the recording was supposed to be over two hours. So I'm not even going to bother with recovery.

iOS 12.2 is supposed to fix a couple of Voice Memo bugs, though there is no specific mention of corrupted files. Maybe the app got more robust? But if the message above is right, it's too late for this file.

ok, i have solved the problem and I am not exactley sure which action truly fixed it, but here is what I did.

First, I signed into to my icloud and looked for recent back up on my mac to find the voice memos and whilst i did this...I was also prompted for an update on the new iphone XR through iTunes. I found the VM backed up on icloud and then once th eupdate was complete on my iPhone

all VM are working also on the iPhone.

I tried the approach mentioned in the link (Hxd, faad, faac..). it helped me received certain portion of recording. but not all. it seemed that Voice Memo some how did not do a good job.

in my case, the recording was about 35 minutes. the above process managed to recover the first 9:30 minutes

Hi, folks,

I had a similar issue: upgraded from a 7 to an XR. Had thousands of voice recordings going back to 2013... None would play. Brutal. Note this was the day of getting the phone. The exceptions were the ones recorded after getting the new phone.

I read many of these replies and tried to apply some of the approaches with mixed results. One thing that worked for me was backing up and restoring the phone. THIS DID NOT WORK INITIALLY, though. I slept on it and while in my car the following day listening to music via Bluetooth, I attempted again. Started with the oldest one and it played fine! All of them worked afterward. Even played through the phone afterwards when disconnected. Hope this helps.

Thanks,

Tate

I figured out this problem for me. It's possible your voice memos are not coming back on your iPhone if you also have a Mac running Mojave. One possible solutions is turning on voice memos on in Mojave. Go to the Spotlight Search (magnifying class) in the upper right. Search for "Voice Memos." Then continue through the startup screens. In a few minutes your voice memos should begin to load. It worked for me. Good luck!

Thanks Tate – confirming I had exactly the same success. Like you, after buying a new iPhone (from an 8 to a XS), suddenly all older memos would not play. I restored to an older back-up – same as you, it didn't appear to work INITIALLY. But looking through my Memos app a few days later, issue was fixed. All my Memos on my phone played fine, some a few years old. I'd suggest restoring to a back-up, maybe pre-purchase of the new phone. Then give it a day before checking. All old memos should play again.

Same here. This has happened to me with almost every phone and it’s so annoying. But as you did, I fiddled around with iCloud - just turning things off and on in settings. Changed the file type in settings/voice memos from compressed to lossless (whatever this means?) and now they are playing.

I have the same problem as the person above. I recorded a voice memo on my iPhone. It says that it is 55:04 long, but when I press play, it sits on zero for a few seconds and then goes back to the play button. When I drag it, it does not play, either. I have other voice memos, including a second one at this same meeting that I had to record after I stopped the initial recording. I also have other voice memos listed on my phone and all of them play. Help! I really need this recording.

Has anyone solved this problem. I notice that 45 others have had the same issue.

I have the same problem as Gina Louise: the app worked just fine old iPhone 5s, but just now I bought a new iPhone XS and on that device all my recordings won’t play. I can record new ones and play those, but the old ones don’t work. I’d hate to have lost them... Has anyone found a solution?

After using my new iPhone XR, my previous voice memos recorded on iPhone XS do not play anymore, what is the solution?

I'm having the same problem ! Has anyone found a solution ?

Follow the instructions on the YouTube video. It worked great for me and I saw a couple other folks used it successfully as well 😊 https://youtu.be/Zy4LDk_Tszo