Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Level 1

4 points

Orphaned data ending up as "Other" and filling all available free space

Hi, I have an iPhone 4s (64Gb) and have been happily syncing with iTunes 11.4 while on iOS 7, which includes roughly 40Gb of music, 5Gb of apps, and 5Gb of photos that I like to carry around. Since the iOS 8 upgrade, however, I've noticed that syncing was a little slower, especially during the initial "waiting for sync to start" and final "waiting for changes to be applied" steps. I didn't think too much of it, as it generally would complete the steps, eventually.

Last week I had a particularly large music change (and subsequent data update) and got impatient during the longer-than-usual wait time during sync. So in the middle of the sync I changed my music selections to reduce the amount of data requiring transfer and hit the 'sync' button again, with the idea it would simplify the data exchange and get me out the door quicker. Unfortunately the opposite happened. Suddenly ALL of my music switched from "Audio" data (in blue on the data graph within iTunes) to "Other" data (in yellow). When I explored the music app on the phone, the music was completely gone, zero songs, although the playlists were still present. Clearly the file list had become corrupted somehow.

When I re-synced no change occurred to this "Other" data, including when I removed all music selections, or changed things slightly, and re-synced. And because there was now 40Gb of orphaned data in the phone, when I attempted to re-add my music I was told there was not enough space on the device. Additional info:

When viewing Settings - Usage, the amount of music data displayed was exactly what it "thought" was on the phone, in other words, when I had unselected all the music and synced, it thought there was no music files present.
When viewing Settings - Usage, there was no indication in the list of items of any large files or groups of files - it was as if this "Other" data was hidden from the knowledge of this Usage feature.
Turning off/on the phone made no difference to this "Other" data
Unselecting all data in iTunes and syncing, then re-selecting the data, made no difference to this "Other" data
Restoring from the latest backup made no difference because the latest backup was AFTER this problem had occurred, so it simply restored 40Gb of "Other" data as well as all the other settings.

The only solution I could think of was to restore the phone entirely, which I did. I went through a complete refresh from scratch over the past couple days, and was just beginning to enjoy the phone once again when it happened again. Again!! Although I was very careful over the past couple days to not interrupt the sync process wantonly, I did have to stop it once, and I think that's what killed it for me. While it was syncing just this past time, I hit the 'Cancel' icon in iTunes to cancel the sync, and even hit the 'Eject' icon to safely eject the device, and it choked. I now once again have about 40Gb of orphaned "Other" data which is clogging the phone, and no apparent way to clean this up.

To summarize:

It appears for the iPhone 4s on iOS 8 any interruption of the sync process (either "safely" by hitting the 'Cancel' icon or 'Sync' button or more roughly by pulling the phone out of the dock) can jeopardize your data on the phone, creating orphaned files and thereby an usually large amount of "Other" data that is impossible to clean up.

Any ideas on how to fix this besides doing a complete restore would be greatly appreciated. I could go through the hassle of restoring again, but I have no faith it won't happen once again either sooner or later.

Kind regards,

Brian

iPhone 4S, iOS 8, 64Gb

Posted on Oct 6, 2014 6:03 AM

Best reply

Andy AA

Level 1

5 points

Posted on Oct 6, 2014 8:05 AM

An excellent description of the problem I have been struggling with over the past few days on BOTH my iPhone 4s 64gb and my iPad 2 also 64 gb. Somehow I managed to get the iPad working after a restore, but I could not get the phone right, it continually did exactly what Brian describes. I then tried to set up as a new phone, but still had the same problems. In the end, what I did was set up again as a new phone and synch all apps, photos and music separately, and even then only did the synch in small chunks in each of those areas. Finally I got everything back on, but there is clearly an issue / bug with all of this.

The interruption of synching is certainly an issue as Brian describes, and I suspect from my experience trying to synch a lot of volume at once may also cause a problem. For example, with the apps iTunes would seem to get stuck on copying one. When I looked at that particular app on the device, it had already been loaded and the synching had simply not moved on to the next app. In that case, I had to eject, and start again, this time manually selecting just a few apps at a time. This worked but was an extremely time consuming process, but that made me decide to do the same with the music and pics, which took forever, but got them all back. I'm now more than a little nervous about synching either device again - I have to hope someone is working on this and will resolve it soon, and that this is not a low priority because "older" devices are involved.

Sorry, I have no actual answer to the problem, Brian, but I hope that this post might help someone else who has the time to spend get their device back up an running at least, until someone sorts it out.

Andy

View in context

20 replies

Mar 13, 2015 12:45 AM in response to The Garv

I know this is a bit of an old post, but could you explain how you used iMazing? I don’t see subfolders and such as the how-to article suggests. I’ve attempted just selecting the songs and deleting (and then following the instructions) but to no avail have I succeeded in cutting down on other data. Could you help?

bfflo

Level 1

4 points

Mar 17, 2015 11:21 PM in response to Monsieur Pain

I had this issue and to me, "back up and restore your phone" is not in any way an acceptable solution. In part because, um, No; and in part, because the back-up and restore functions are not only flaky and untrustworthy themselves, but often insanely, inexplicably time-consuming and inconvenient.

So I searched for non-restore solutions, and what I found is that j4jonathan's solution is a good one -- I didn't use the software he specifically recommended, but you can do the same thing with "iFunbox" which is a free program. I'm sure there are others as well.

I used iFunbox to access the iTunes music folder as he describes, and deleted the offending "hung" folders/files there. And poof -- "Other" clears right up.

What is truly appalling to me is how easy and simple the fix actually is -- the only reason it isn't easy/simple for most people facing the issue, is because of the way Apple buries and obscures things in its file system. You should NOT need third-party software (much less a full phone restore) to resolve this very simple issue.

Anyway, try iFunbox or j4jonathan's program to resolve this "Other" space issue WITHOUT doing a phone restore.

If I switch away from Apple products when my current phone contract is up, it will absolutely, 100% be because of iTunes and its syncing. It is broken software, and it has wasted countless hours and caused continual frustration for me and my wife. I certainly have no intention of buying their ridiculous watch. Fix ITunes, Apple.

May 5, 2015 7:05 PM in response to Rungolion

same here.. and same on my husbands iPhone 6 also. interrupting sync is leaving the SAME amount of orphaned other data. it seems be about 40 GB on both our phones. This is maddening!

Aug 13, 2015 5:40 AM in response to bfflo

Thank you to j4jonathan for the original post and to you for the recommended software. Downloaded iFunbox for Windows, deleted all of the folders within the iTunes>Music folder. After closing the software and reopening iTunes, all of the "Other" space was gone. Also totally agree about the pathetic state of my formerly-beloved iTunes. Unfortunately I haven't found anything else I'm willing to switch to. As soon as I do find it, I'm gone from the Apple universe.

Aug 13, 2015 5:42 AM in response to j4jonathan

Thank you! iFunbx works also and is free. This saved me hours of frustration. I only wish I had discovered it after iTunes 8 destroyed Syncing. It has been a nightmare ever since.

Orphaned data ending up as "Other" and filling all available free space