PDF files in iBooks have disappeared after iTunes backup

Just couple of clarifying questions .... based on the assumption that iTunes

on Windows works similar to on a Mac.

Question 1) Are the missing .pdfs on the machine to which the iPad is being

backed up to ?

No. They were created from web pages viewed on the iPad or from a scanning app.

Question 2) Has the iPad user an active iCloud account ?

Yes, but not used. I’ve checked and nothing is copied there.

Question 3) When device is plugged into PC and iTunes is activated does

music sync ?

Sync is not activated. as afr as I can tell. I wanted manual backup only. Have never used iTunes to buy

music. There is no music from any source on the iPad.

Question 4) are the missing .pdfs now showing in the iBooks App on iPad.

No. That’s where they were, but all gone.

Question 5) In iTunes -> preferences -> devices is "Prevent

iPods/iphones etc form syncing automatically set or Unset.

Unset.

Question 6) Was the is the first backup ever done ?

No. It’s the second. There were no issues after the first one.

There is no Files icon on the iPad. It’s still on IOS

11.4.1. She didn’t like the changes to iBooks that came with IOS 12 having seen

it on an iPhone, so hasn’t been letting the iPad update.

I have signed into the iCloud account and there is only one

PDF there – one of the ones created by the scanning application several years

ago.

I will try restoring to another iPad tomorrow and see what

the result of that is.

It never occurred to me that PDFs in iBooks might not be

backed up as part of a backup in iTunes. It seems ridiculous. Even more

ridiculous is why they would be deeted.

I had taken two backups of this iPad. One was taken this

week and the other last August. After the August backup all the PDF files on

the iPad remained there. After the latest one they disappeared. I’m pretty sure

that neither the iTunes nor iPad software has been updated since August, so

this is puzzling.

Today, I tried restoring the older backup to another iPad (I’ll

call it iPad2 from now on). I was surprised to find that it did not overwrite

the contents of iPad2. Instead it seemed to merge them, so apps that were previously

only on iPad2 were still there. I went into iBooks then PDFs. There were a

number of PDFs that had been on iPad2, but, as I watched, they all vanished.

Next I wiped iPad2 completely and set it up as a new device.

I then restored to iPad2 from the latest backup in iTunes. I went into iBooks

then PDFs and there were all the PDFs that had vanished from my wife’s iPad.

Once again, they vanished as I watched.

Does this mean that (1) all the PDFs are somewhere in the

backup if only they can be retrieved, or (2) iBooks keeps a catalogue of books

and when I open PDFs it finds that the books listed in its catalogue are

actually no longer on the device, so it removes them from the bookshelf view?

Some useful information in these links. Thanks.

I tried the process described in the first link on Ipad2 (I

explained above what I mean by iPad2). It worked. All the PDFs deleted by the last

backup reappeared on this iPad. There were 24 of these and I had e-mailed them

all to myself as a safeguard before exposing iPad2 to any testing.

I then tried the same procedure on my wife’s iPad where

hundreds of PDFs have vanished. This time my wife’s missing PDFs did not

reappear, but the PDFs that disappeared and reappeared on iPad 2 were added to

her iPad. Both use the same Apple ID.

I tried the alternative suggestions in the second link, but

nothing brings back the remaining PDFs.

What I cannot understand is why I can’t see on iCloud the

PDFs that disappeared from iPad2 and then were restored to both iPads, let

alone the others. Can anyone tell me how to do this?

On both iPads. iCloud -> Manage storage shows 322.4MB

assigned to Apple Books. I’m pretty sure that 24 PDFs that I can still access

don’t make up this total - the largest is 48Mb, but the next largest is 5MB.

Some are a single page. Most of my wife’s would also be a single page, so I

suspect the 322MB relates to all the PDFs I’m trying to restore.

It seems like lots of people are having similar problems. It

really gives me no faith in Apple software. Any more suggestions would be

helpful thanks.

In an attempt to rescue these PDF files, I have installed the iCloud app on

a PC. This shows a graph of how my iCloud storage is used and "Docs"

takes up 397MB. If I then click on the "Storage" button it opens a

"Manage storage" window. There are two entries in the left-hand panel

for "Apple Books", one has 395.4Mb and the other 3.5KB.

The right-hand panel says, “Select an app or service on the left to

manage your documents and data”. So, I clicked on the Apple Books entry

with the larger amount of space used, expecting to see what exactly was stored.

A window flashed up saying “Deleting”. I closed the window quickly and

the amount of space used by Apple Books doesn’t appear to have changed. Does

anyone have any idea what is going on here? This software seems thoroughly

misleading and designed to lose data.

Hi. Can you tell me how to get into this setting in iTunes? The only relevent option seems to be Edit / Preferences / Devices, but this only allows me to delete eisting backups. Thanks.

There is no iTunes Media folder beneath the iTunes folder in %appdata%\Roaming\Apple computer on the PC. I assume I'm looking in the right place.

I managed to see what is in iBooks on iCloud using a phone. The PDFs that were lost aren't there. PDfs added in the last few days come and go from 2 iPads and a phone, seemingly at random.