Why did iTunes 11.1 (126) delete all (SEVERAL HUNDRED) Podcasts?

I've been using Macs daily since the late 80's. I've enjoyed Podcasts from day one. This, in my opinion, is just about the stupidest clusterf*ck Apple has managed on the Mac platform as long as I've used them. I have a data cap. I can't afford the bandwidth to constantly re-download episodes only to watch them vanish before my eyes before I have even had the chance to listen to them.

Last night I stayed up until midnight (this is not easy for me, I'm chronically ill) to manually redownload a couple dozen episodes of a particular podcast that I've tried to download and listen to at least a 1/2 dozen times now; all this after trying the various workarounds mentioned here and elsewhere.

This morning, all those podcasts are gone again. Never even got the opportunity to click on them.

I mean, seriously? This is a FEATURE?!

It better be, or this is another disaster fumble by Apple. Not downloading it 'til I know for sure, or the screams in this discussion have died down that maybe all is well.

On the same token; I'm not downloading the iOS7 Podcasts app update in case the same problems here start affecting other devices.

I've turned off all updating and sychronizing options for iTunes. I shall not be buying anything Apple for a long time.

I moved all podcasts to gPodder. And Windows Media now accesses all media libraries on my computer for playback. The playlists don't display as nicely as iTunes but that is a minor gripe. They function well enough. The main annoyance will be having to replace my ipod which was a gift with an inscription I love.

150GB of audio and HD video podcasts gone. I do love Apple, but this is really trying my patience... This along with the broken album art in iTunes 11 is a complete deal breaker. Get this fixed now Apple devs, or my colossal iTunes library and my Apple ID will be gone by the end of the month. For Apple, this is a cluster**** beyond belief. This is the sort of blunder I expect from small, inexperienced developers on beta or just launched software, not Apple in version 11 of the most popular music player and store on the planet.

I have a backup of my iTunes library network drive, but it was last fully backed up well before the HD video podcasts were downloaded and added because my library outgrew my backup NAS at that point. I am in the process of missing file data recovery on the array now. The recovery app is estimating 1.8 days total - the array it's stored on is over 10TB.

Couple of things in response to some of the rants here.

1. Not having and using a backup is like owning a house without insurance. It's a personal responsibility.

2. Apple cannot protect it's customers from every single possible mutation. No-one can. The infrastructure is the best in the world, and most of it is free. People do not value what they already have.

3. With Mac OS 9 and lower I used to spend the entire weekend backing up, installing and recovering my mac or macs. With many iterations when disks failed. Downloads over modems failed 80% of the time and most things did not work without some IT knowledge. Recovering lost podcasts by comparison is like a walk in the park.

Just wanted to even up the debate a little.

Just a note about anoher alternative to itunes if you listen online... use Google Play. After reading about people losing music as well as podcasts I had to go to Google play to count my albums to make sure they were all still on my computer. I was missing a few but apparently I pulled the plug on iTunes soon enough to avoid serious damage to my music albums (167) plus a few book CDs. I was able to restore from Carbonite. But while at Google Play I noticed that one can also download lbums from there. I love the sound quality from Google Play so I often use it when not hindered by the data cap at home. And I can get to the music from any device that is hooked to the internet that supports sound and a browser.

I have uninstalled iTunes completely. I hope there is nothing left to ever want to sync with the icloud again. I noticed while uninstalling there was a message that said my iTunes was "improperly" installed and did I want Apple to try to repair the problem syncing with devices. ROTFL. I said no. If it had been an option I would have said NO!!!! Even after their bungle they won't admit the problem is on their side. I would feel a lot better about the whole disaster if Apple had even once sent out a message of some sort to warn people or to put a notice at their website. Certainly they knew about the problem almost immediately..

Ah well, the cure for corporate attempts to save face is to play "Sweeping the Clouds Away" -- Johnny Crawford's dance orchestra... I wish he would put out more CDs of that big band music. [He did the music for "Thirteenth Floor" - probably one of the few movies that did NOT publish a sound track. 😟]

PS Google Play still has most of my cover art that itunes demolished. So far, I haven't found a way to get all of that back into windows media player.

I do have a back up and I am still mad. Don't lecture people on personal responsibility, your not evening up any debate.

To enter your home insurance analogy, its like saying the government came in to make unwanted, unnecessary improvements to your house, and in the process damaged it. They aren't interested in helping you repair and now you a third party saying "calm down, in their defense, you should have had insurance." Of course you should have insurance, but the government, in their desire for control over your house screwed it up. You have every right to be mad, to tell others, and to even demand help from the guilty party. Even those who have insurence would still be mad! And for some arrogant "government" fanboy to come along and call this a defence is just rediculous and insulting.

I agree. Even though I had a backup via Carbonite it took more bandwidth than Suddenlink allows for that period of time. So I'm on their "bad" list. Apple doesn't care about the consequences to the customer or they would be extra careful about any deletions on a customer's PC. It took about 12 days at 22GB/day to restore all my podcasts. And then there was the time lost finding replacement software.---another few days plus the time required to carry out the conversion, and the time to uninstall and double check that all the necessary files were restored.

It is a little bit like those banks in Greece where they automatically removed money from customer's bank accounts.

Very unacceptable.

I downgraded to 11.0.5, how do I prevent it from deleting all my podcasts again if I update? I can't change the preference in Advance. Also, see my other post. When I upgraded from 11.1.0 to 11.1.1, it also deleted audio tracks.

I do have backups and I spent over a day each time restoring from them after Apple deleted my data. I won't upgrade again until Apple releases a version of iTunes without this bug!

One possibility is to rename the media folder as NOT iTunes Media during the upgrade, since iTunes cannot delete files it cannot find. Then go into the podcasts section of your library and untick those two options before continuing, close iTunes, delete the newly created and empty iTunes Media folder, rename your original one, and launch iTunes.

tt2

I think an important part is being missed here. It's not strictly about the data loss (even though it is terrible). It's about the loss of trust in Apple. I'm an Apple "fanboy", but all of a sudden (due to this bug and further failed attempt to fix the bug in 11.1.1) I'm now treating iTunes and all other Apple software worse than the plague. I'm treating it like Windows..

I haven't upgraded iTunes since this mess started, I haven't updated my iOS Podcasts app, I haven't updated to the latest iOS 7.0.3, I'm fearful of OSX Mavericks and don't want to touch that, I no longer want to buy an Apple TV or iPod Touch for my father for Christmas. We as Mac users buy Apple because (despite the higher cost of their products) they make quality, polished, tested, innovative stuff. Now that they've caused this massive data deletion, they have broken our trust in them and people are looking to other companies. The data loss issue is our problem, yes, and we should have backed-up. But the broken trust issue, THIS is Apple's problem. And what I think we all are thinking is "Is this a sign of the ship sinking, and should be bail out now?"

Now, I hope we can actually get on the topic of iTunes 11 itself, because I DO want my trust restored. I keep seeing complains about 11.1, but no talk of if 11.1.2's release has fixed the issues. Can we get some feedback from this, or is everyone like me: afraid to be the one to test it and find it is still broken?

You are exactly correct - it is a trust issue. If they had even emailed a warning when they first discovered the problem I would feel better about the situation.

I suspect we are all like you - waiting to see if the data-feeding shark has gone away and if it is safe to stick our toes in the water again. In the meantime we find there are other ways of getting the job done - sometimes better ways. It is sad, but some companies just depend on one man and now he is gone.

The sad part of this story is that Apple did not stop distributing iTunes 11.1. And more Users who is not aware of the terrible bug may fall in this trap. For iOS7 quick transition. 70% updates are done.

Synchronization is DANGEROUS.

The problem is that my AppleTV had different podcast settings than my MacBook Pro. After selecting podcasts on the ApplTV, when synchronization occurred, all the podcasts that were not listed on the Apple TV were ELIMINATED from my MacBook Pro.

The same problem occurs with Bookmarks in Safari. Synchronization is a terrible headache, causing the loss of hundreds of bookmarks.

The lesson learned is to NEVER synchronize what you want to preserve and keep.

And better yet:

1. change the media kind of the podcast episodes you want to keep to Audiobook

2. move the podcasts episodes you want to keep into their own folder in the iTunes Music Folder.

This way, the podcasts will be under your control, not Apple's.