Springboard Problem and Cannot Save SMS messages

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Springboard Problem and Cannot Save SMS messages

My wife took her phone to the Apple store for a bad speaker and short battery life. They replaced the speaker and ran diagnostics and determined that Springboard was bad. They can reflash the phone, and she can restore content from the cloud, but will lose all her stored SMS messages. She can do a full backup to our computer, but Apple said if she restores from that, the problem will return to Springboard.

This was incredulous to me that Apple would mix data with programs and have this issue. Another appointment at the Genius bar and I went with her. Same story from Apple. They even gave me an analogy that if you car has a problem caused by bad oil and you drain the oil and fix the problem, and then put the old oil back in, the problem returns. I thought a more apt analogy is having to remove the radiator to fix your air conditioner, and putting the antifreeze back in the radiator after reaasembly. It will NOT break the A/C again.

I found some third party applications that may do what is needed for $20-$70. The Apple store had their canned spiel on third party applications.

Has anyone else experienced this problem and is there a workaround? And is it believable that the world's largest technology company still writes their software this way?

iPhone 5, iOS 6.1.4

Posted on Jun 8, 2013 2:21 PM

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Answer 1

tonefox

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Jun 8, 2013 2:36 PM in response to pdxomimi

How do you suggest Apple rewrites their software to prevent the user voluntarily reintroducing corrupt data?

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Answer 2

pdxomimi Author

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Jun 8, 2013 2:50 PM in response to tonefox

Apple has not said that any of the user content (data) is corrupt and causing the problem. That would be called a virus. They are indicating that something in the iOS or Springboard configuration is corrupt and saved as part of the backup and restored from one's computer. If one saves the user data separate from the OS, one just does not reload the corrupted OS and all data is maintained. It appears Apple only supports two levels of backup: iCloud content and the full OS and configuration files. If all user data were backed up to the iCloud (or in this case, just the addition of SMS messages), the phone could be restored after the OS is reinstalled.

I'll use the PC as an example. I can do a full backup where everything is restored including viruses and registry problems. I can also just backup all my user data and move it to a new computer with a new registry.

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Answer 3

tonefox

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Jun 8, 2013 3:07 PM in response to pdxomimi

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4946

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Answer 4

pdxomimi Author

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Jun 8, 2013 3:26 PM in response to tonefox

This is helpful. It would be great if one could select some rather than all items to backup. Four different people at the Apple store indicated if I restore from iTunes that I will also bring the Springboard problem back into my phone. Is there a way to just restore the text messages? I can get other user data I need from iCloud.

I will admit to not understand how Apple considers photos and documents as essential and backed up to iCloud, but that text messages which many people cannot live without are only backed up to iTunes and restore with what could be corrupted configurations.

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Answer 5

Jan 30, 2014 9:44 AM in response to pdxomimi

My wife forwarded this to me. She thought I had written it using a pseudonym. I have the exact same issue and views as you, pdxomimi. My wife's springboard on her non-jailbreak iPhone has gone corrupt. No one can say how or identify a root cause. Everything on that phone came through the App Store. The guy at the apple store in Southlake, Texas gave me the same automobile metaphor song and dance, which could imply that it's an official Apple position. He also told me that upgrading the phone to iOS 7 would not fix the issue because "springboard is part of the core operating system, while iOS 7 is just a skin on top of it".

Having just upgraded myself from an iPhone 4 iOS 6 to iPhone 5s iOS 7 with complete backup and restore, my thought was for her to backup her iPhone, get a new iPhone with iOS 7 and restore from backup, like I did. In my mind, the operating system would stay with the later version, but the programs and user data would be restored (and migrated to the newer settings, format, etc. in some cases). But this is not at all what happened. Just as the Apple employees knew, the corrupt core operating system code/data was restored to the phone.

Let's hope that this is an embarrassing issue for apple, and that they just don't have a fix for it yet. I don't know and don't want to know what springboard does or how it does it. I don't know what data cache it uses, what is valid, what is invalid, or what causes it to break. What I do know is that my wife is unable to put people on hold, can't hang up a call, and can't continue a call if call-waiting comes in. If apple hasn't designed a system where that problem can be remedied, they're done.

Apple could do a hotfix of the OS. They could publish a utility app to check and clean-up corrupt/invalid springboard data (springboard is an apple app). They could design or re-design the backup/restore feature so that it overwrites corrupt operating system components with known good ones. These are just a few options.

The only workaround apple has suggested is for my wife to set up her phone as new, manually backup and restore photos, videos, apps, music, other data, etc. He showed us a website with detailed instructions on how to perform each restoration by type (video, photo, text, sound, ring tone). It looked like an exciting way to spend an entire weekend or two. Except there is no way to restore text messages. Deal breaker. She has to have them. And not, as Southlake Apple Store recommended, printed out to PDF file using a 3rd party app for reference.

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