Voice memo time limit?

This bug is indeed a mystery, and it's not entirely reliable, but it seems that Itunes 3G creates a .mov file when the recording is over a certain time limit wrong, and this is the only file -- not the mp3 file -- which will play when extracted from the phone and transfered manually to itunes.

I was having a double nightmare, though, because I recorded a 1 hr 40 minute interview, and couldn't get it off -- because the iphone hadn't created a .mov file of it. What I finally was able to do, and which did work, was go into voice memos, and after selecting the memo, I pushed Trim Memo and shaved the first 15 seconds and the last 15 seconds off the interview and resaved it.

Then, the resulting new, "trimmed" MP3 file which showed up in Phone Disk (which is the highly recommended for-pay version of iphone explorer, since it allows you to use the iphone as a hard disk) was not corrupted and transferred to Itunes without a problem.

Intererestingly, this technique -- trimming the memo -- was advocated on another thread as a way of getting a VM to download merely through synching, but I've tried that both with and without success, so there's no hard and fast rule here.

And for the record, I have recorded 5+ hours on the iphone and gotten them off no problem. So there's no time limit per se.

Can I leave voice memo on over night to record as a security device.

Will it shut it's self off at some point? Will I be able to listen to the file in the am on the phone?

I downloaded iExplorer (free) as someone had recommended and can't believe it worked. My voice memo - an hour and 51 minutes - had somehow been converted to a .mov file. After I extracted the file to my laptop via iExplorer, I was able to immediately open it in QuickTime. So happy this worked.

Have you been able to reproduce this? I've tried but with no luck to create a .mov file. Does anyone else have any ideas? I can still see the file says 28mins when in voice memo, but with only the .m4a I might be boned!

i have a question not an answer unfortunately. i just installed lion to find it does not support olympus ds330. so i dictated to iphone for the first time for 34 mins. after nine mins i paused and came back two hours later. the iphone says it is 34 mins long; it synced with itunes where it says it is 9 mins long. the audio stops at 9 mins on the iphone despite the info saying it is 34 mins long. does anyone know what is going on? any ideas as to how i can recover the other 25 mins? any thoughts much appreciated. thanks.

You have one of the more advanced problems with this bug. I would get iExplorer and just follow the steps there to retrieve your file from the media/recordings folder. That is a great program, and totally necessary if you want to continue to use this app. I use it on a weekly basis, and it's great to know that if nothing else works you have a safety net.

I would also make sure you have any recordings you want from your phone, and then do a full-on backup and restore the phone. It was only after I restored the phone that I stopped having so many problems with this. I still have some, mind you, just not so many.

I would also not ever use 'pause.' I would just stop and start again. Playing with fire. This app is basically a beta version -- don't mess around with it like it's a real app.

@trondizzle.

I think that the bug that was creating the mov files has been fixed, because I am not having that issue anymore. The other issues remain. But why are you screwed with the m4a file? Does that not work? You should be able to drag that to the downloads folder and then drag it into itunes from there.

The problem is that the file says 28mins on my iPhone, but will only play the first three. I tried to 'trim it', hoping that might recreate the file to no avail. When I'm in trim mode, I can actually cut the audio after the first three minutes, but when I preview it in that mode, it won't play anything after the first three. Checking the file size in iExplorer, it's 1.5MB for the 3min version, and if I try to trim that away, it's only like 50kb. So it's like the app recognized the full length of the recording, but there's no data there for me to access.

pulling the .m4a to my desktop and opening in itunes has been no luck.

is this an issue with other (paid) voice recording apps? I've heard people recommend just using garage band, which instantly can save the file to icloud....

Sorry, but it sounds to me like this file is shot. There is no way that 1.5 MB is ever going to translate to 28 mins of audio.

I don't know how Garage Band would come into the mix with this. Can you explain?

I have used other iphone apps, but the issue is that synching is a hassle -- or worse. The one called Recorder used to be great -- more options, better interface than Voice Memos, but you have to open a web page on your Mac, connect the phone, then download the file over your own personal wireless network. Really annoying. Then, once, the webpage didn't work at all, and I was desperate for the recording --- but the "support" people at Recorder didn't respond for over a week. By then it was too late, and I've never used it again. (BTW, Recorder also offers a service that will let you record calls, which I need to do often, and that service was a flippin disaster.)

Hello, Would like to thank people on this post as I just managed to retrieve a precious rather long 1:56 mins interview ! To share my experience - Upon recording this interview (without a pause) it appeared as "0" mins in the Voice memo. Trimming did nothing. I then downloaded I explorer on Windows PC and saw two files in m4a and mov format with a 24mb file and 60 mb file size. Which meant something was alive! But somehow these refused to play in any type of player and also did not respond to any conversion softwares - tried mpeg3/ wav, etc. I then downloaded i explorer on Apple and wow! - it worked !

Again, thanks everyone!

So many thanks for pointing out iExplorer! Made my life a **** of a lot easier.

iTunes for syncing will be used no more...