Voice Memo App Freezing and Glitching

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Level 1

8 points

Voice Memo App Freezing and Glitching

I just got a new iPhone 14, iOS 16.0, restored a back-up and have been using it for several weeks.

First time I opened my voice memos app, I recorded an hour long story from my 93-year-old grandmother, and when I went to stop the recording, it first wouldn't stop. I'd hit the stop button and it would briefly flash and keep recording. When I swipe up, I was able to pause the recording, but then the "done" button was greyed out. I was able to rename the recording, thought when I hit "return" to finish the naming, it would take about 5 full seconds to respond. Then I am returned to the screen in which I still cannot hit "done".

Nothing seemed to be working, so I closed out of the app, thinking it would still show up as a new recording, though possibly without the new name (as it had done before when the app crashes) but when I reopened it there was no new recording. I tried refreshing the app a few times, then a new recording appeared, to my great relief, but it showed the recording as being only a second in length, and being recorded at the very end of the hour long recording session. I tried to play the recording, but it wouldn't let me, and now it is showing as being zero seconds long.

Also, all the recordings that came from the restored back-up are all showing as "downloading..." even though it has been several weeks since the restore and everything else seems to be working fine. Whenever I click into one of these old recordings, it takes 10 full seconds before it actually opens it, but then I am at least able to listen to it.

Does anyone have any idea why the app is behaving this way? Why it is freezing and lagging so much? And is there any way, any way at all I am able to recover the recording of my grandma? It's such an important recording, I am so upset if it is gone!

I found a question in the forum in 2010 that explained the exact same thing as the recording freezing and being lost after the refresh, but I'm really, really hoping that Apple put some sort of recovery in place since 10 years ago, so I am able to recover my recording after such a glitch.

Any ideas or advice please??

iPhone 14

Posted on Oct 24, 2022 12:32 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

WinsC1

Community Specialist

Oct 25, 2022 12:01 PM in response to mousequeen19

Hey mousequeen19,

We can understand wanting to look into your options on that.

If the initial recording wasn't saved, there would not be a way to recover that.

We'd recommend checking to ensure that you have enough available storage on your iPhone. Low storage could prevent Voice Memos from downloading or completing: How to check the storage on your iPhone and iPad - Apple Support

"Use your device to check its storage

Go to Settings > General > [Device] Storage. You might see a list of recommendations for optimizing your device's storage, followed by a list of installed apps and the amount of storage each one uses.
Tap an app's name for more information about its storage. Cached data and temporary data might not be counted as usage.

In the detailed view you can:

Offload the app, which frees up storage used by the app, but keeps its documents and data.
Delete the app, which removes the app and its related data.
Depending on the app, you might be able to delete some of its documents and data.

If your device is almost full and can't free up space, you might get a Storage Almost Full alert. If you see this alert, you should check the storage recommendations or you need to offload some less-used content like videos and apps."

We'd also suggest installing the latest version of iOS to ensure your iPhone is up to date, which may help resolve issues with Voice Memos: Update your iPhone or iPad - Apple Support

"Update your iPhone or iPad wirelessly

Back up your device using iCloud or your computer.
Plug your device into power and connect to the internet with Wi-Fi.
Go to Settings > General, then tap Software Update.
If you see more than one software update option available, choose the one that you want to install.
Tap Install Now. If you see Download and Install instead, tap it to download the update, enter your passcode, then tap Install Now. If you don't know your passcode, learn what to do."

Thanks!

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Answer 2

ryane77

Community Specialist

Oct 26, 2022 11:42 AM in response to mousequeen19

Hi mousequeen19,

Understood! While it's hard to say exactly what happened to cause that, if you're making a lengthy recording in the future, it might help to stop recording partway through and do a second or third Voice Memo to break up the length. We hope that helps!

Kind regards.

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Answer 3

mousequeen19 Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 26, 2022 10:58 AM in response to WinsC1

That is very disappointing to hear, but I had a feeling that was the case. I would like to make sure it doesn't happen again, and thanks for the tips, but neither of those appear to be the culprits - it seems I have the most recent ios update and have 200 GB unused storage.

Knowing I can't recover the audio clip, I deleted the app and re-downloaded it and it seems to be working properly again, at least for now - I just wish the glitch happened while I was taking a nothing recording versus an extremely important one, but I guess one should never depend on technology

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Voice Memo App Freezing and Glitching

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