Encryption password of local backup to mac

Latest update

i am now able to consistently create encrypted backups with Finder

i created a fresh admin account on the Mac in my name and it works fine

The password of the admin Mac account was set to the same as the password that I used to encrypt the backup

I was able to open this one up with iExplorer using the encryption password which happens to be the same as the admin password on the new Mac user account 

So all is good

I’m guessing that the password I used to encrypt , which is a really old password that I never use anymore was the one used when setting up this old iPad, and this isn’t related to the new admin account on the Mac (which is using same password)

The main thing I learned is that the finder will let you set encryption password to anything, but if it doesn’t match the encryption password on the iPad, you won’t be able to decrypt with either password (I tried all of them for each test).  Both have to match and once Finder password is set, don’t ever change it. They might do a hash with each password over the created backup as final authentication check and if they mismatch the file can’t be opened with either password.

I verified it is encrypted with iExplorer (they have a flag)

IExplorer caches the encryption password after the first successful open which is ok I guess as long as no one else has access to your Mac account 

Also if no failures on Finder, the prior backup does not need to be deleted.  The backup does a delta and is very very quick, assuming no major changes between backups 

I did verify each successive backup with iExplorer to insure delta was in new backup

thanks to all who provided input, particularly to DiZoE

it is an awesome forum!

Thanks again DiZoE

here is an article on the same from iExplorer team. It’s good to know that the encrypted backups are virtually uncrackable since iOS 10.2

even the metadata is encrypted

https://helpdesk.macroplant.com/hc/en-us/articles/360019028133-What-do-I-enter-for-encryption-password-

See also above

the good news is I am able to do unencrypted backups again, and can browse them with iExplorer etc

the iExplorer was able to actually repair the corrupted encrypted backup but none of the passwords I used to attempt to open it in iExplorer would work. This is very strange because the same password works fine on Finder for toggling encryption on and off when I get the challenge on Finder

so I am just going to have to settle for unencrypted local backups until I upgrade to a new iPad, because I do not want to reset the entire iPad. I think the only major thing missing in unencrypted backup is all my web passwords and auto fill info + it’s pretty much open to anyone who gets a hold of the backup

Also is there a way to create multiple stored backups?. The previous backup is always overwritten by the new one.(like with iTunes windows backups)

i assume one has to manually move the older backup to a different folder?

thanks DiZoE

i suspected it was on the iPad itself

somehow one of the old passwords I used allowed me to reset to a new password because you have to supply old password to reset to a new password and I was able to do that on the Mac finder with iPad connected

what is confusing me is that now that I have set the backup to this new password, the iExplorer wasn’t able to decrypt when I supplied this new password

i might just back up unencrypted if I can’t get to the bottom of this. It’s better than nothing and it’s quick unencrypted, and it looked good when I viewed it with iExplorer.

>>>>my only other question is, is there any way to test the backup can be used with this new passer other than doing an actual restore or using iExplorer? I know the password now and I think the problem is with iExplorer.....

thanks for your help....

This is very odd.

I attempted an encrypted backup of the ipad again today on finder. I removed the old keychain entry for the ipad on the mac, and this time i used the password that i was certain i used with my old itunes backups/

The backup looked like it was going really well, but then it threw a similar error that i got when using itunes. Basically stated it could not complete the backup because an error occurred.

This time the backup folder size was very large at 18gigs. Normally my encrypted backups are about 9gigs.(even recent ones and even the encrypted ones done yesterday on finder like this one

9,265,707,784 bytes (9.39 GB on disk) for 21,622 items)

I went into the logs on the mac and see this error for today’s encrypted backup. But i see this same error throughout yesterday as i attempted the backups.

2021-06-12 12:53:21.754|AppleMobileBackup|12479:205750272|DeviceLinkConnection.c:_DLCheckVersionForConnect| ERROR: Connecting side determined that its DeviceLink protocol version is greater (connect: 400, accept: 300)

2021-06-12 12:53:25.456|AppleMobileBackup|12480:78331904|DeviceLinkConnection.c:_DLCheckVersionForConnect| ERROR: Connecting side determined that its DeviceLink protocol version is greater (connect: 400, accept: 300)

Also very odd now but iExplore can load the backup, but it states it is not encrypted unlike the encrypted ones from yesterday. It is the 18 gig backup from today.

I went into it and things like iNotes look fine, but its not encrypted as there was no challenge.

1. Does anyone know what the console error could pertain to?

This is the first time i actually got a pop up on finder indicating the backup could not be completed due to an error.

2.I have heard that bad corrupted photos can cause backup issues. A few weeks ago i converted my photos to optimize so only thumbnails are being stored locally to save iPad local storage space.

(My backups to iCloud work fine as far as i can tell)

Hi DiZoE

it was from the local keychain and I made sure the id was that of my backup folder name (it’s searchable as “backup”)

this mac does not use iCloud Keychain

also this is a family member’s mac, not my own. Would that be a problem?

will renaming the ipad or resetting local privacy cause any issues with other things? (for example like when you change hostname of a Linux/Unix server, with dns etc....)

I’m thinking it’s the photos as the optimize photos as you know replaces local photos with thumbnails. As mentioned earlier I switched that on a few weeks ago. Perhaps a thumbnail is corrupted. Since iCloud backup isn’t backing up any photos perhaps that’s why my iCloud backups are still working....

Hi DiZoE

no, no specific error code. Very generic.

regarding local backups to Mac/PC, don’t they include photos?. On the unencrypted backup (which I unfortunately deleted), before I deleted it, I put it up on iExplorer and could see my photos were loaded

its strange I got one backup success yesterday. Now they all fail

i will try your steps

i found out why the file sizes were doubling.

the corrupted files were being added together after each retry.

each failure is about 9.2 gigs and happens right toward the end of the backing up

9.2 gigs is about right

I have to manually delete the folder after each attempt to prevent doubling adding issue

Also I am running an old iOS 12.5 as this is an iPad mini2

Hi DiZoE

i am deleting the subfolder under backups with account Of the ipad.

For the latest attempt using your steps I deleted MobileSychBackups down because:

I noted before my very first backup to this Mac none of these folders from MobileSynchBackups down was created

The big problem with Finder > iPad > Manage Backups is that if backup fails, only the entry from the very last successful attempt timestamp is in the list. If you delete that it doesn’t do anything because the folder has the timestamp of the latest failure. And the files are added together. It is some sort of bug.

The latest attempt did force a new Trust, but still failed. It fails toward the very end

the exact message is

Could not back up the iPad “<name of iPad>” because an error occurred.

No error code. I do see the same error logs as indicated in that earlier post in AppleMobileBackup.00.log