That may be normal for a site like the Huffington Post, but I think it’s a record for Searchblog. Methinks I touched a nerve.
What I found most interesting was the tone of the response – I had anticipated the standard Apple defenders to come out with blades sharpened, calling me a dumb old skool punter or worse. There was some of that, but the vast majority of folks who commented, either on Twitter, Facebook or here on the site, were instead supportive of my point of view, adding their own frustrating stories, as well as helpful suggestions.
Chief among them was pointing out the iOS feature that brings you back to the top of any list by touching the clock (who knew? Not me). That solved one of the larger irritations I have with the iPhone, but not the largest – which is this yellow “other” goo that has taken over my phone’s storage. For that, I had to head to my nearby Apple store – I made the appointment online.
Saturday I drove over to the store, which was, as always, buzzing with a kind of high-household-income testosterone (regardless of gender). I met my “Apple Genius” and explained my problems. I showed him my post, and explained that while I had many issues with Apple, all I wanted was the yellow goo to go away.
My Genius was a very nice fellow, clearly aware of the storage issue. This was not the first, or even the 100th, time he’d dealt with it. He explained that it was probably corrupted software in the phone’s OS, and that a clean restore would most likely fix the problem. I told him I’d tried that already, twice, but admitted that perhaps I had done something wrong.
Funny aside: As I was showing him my post, I explained that many commentators had scolded me for not knowing about how “touching the clock” took you back to the top of contacts and initiated a search. He was dumbstruck – he had the same problem as me, and didn’t know about the feature either. So at least I don’t feel as stupid as before.
Anyway, the Genius (I’m protecting his name and location) did an initial software scan and told me that yes, my phone had a software problem. What kind of problem, I asked? He said the scan didn’t say, just that he needed to “update the firmware.” That meant, essentially, wiping my phone back to factory settings, then restoring it from a backup. Fortunately I had brought my computer as well, so he did a backup, then proceeded to install the new firmware.
While we were waiting, I asked Mr. Genius if the “problem” was corruption in the software, or if it was a known bug that Apple had fixed in more recent firmware updates. I suspected it was a known bug, given how prevalent my yellow goo problem was (it’s all over the Apple boards). He said he wasn’t sure, but admitted it was likely a firmware bug that had been fixed later. It often had something to do with the upgrade to iOS 5 and forcing people to use the cloud, he admitted.
The phone was now ready for its backup, but when he attached it to my computer, the restore process was going to take well over an hour (I had a lot of photos, and he said that takes a lot of time to transfer.) I couldn’t sit at the store for an hour, so I told him I’d do it at home, if that was OK. He said of course, and I was on my way. At this point, the phone was clean as a whistle, but it also wasn’t “my” phone – it was back to its “pristine” state.
You can probably guess where this is going, or I’d not be wasting your time. I got home, chose the backup the Genius had made to my phone, and let it run while I did some chores around the house. When I got back I checked the iTunes storage to see if the goo was gone. Indeed it was, but so were my photos. And my apps. For whatever reason, my music was there. Nothing else.
That was odd. I called the Apple store and asked to speak to my Genius, but they aren’t really set up for that kind of follow up. After sitting on hold for ten minutes, another person came on, admitted my Genius had left for the day, apologized for my predicament, but had no solution for me other than to suggest I use an earlier version of the phone’s backup. Turns out there was one, from about a week ago. So I decided to backup from that version.
I’m about three hours of time into this by now, for those keeping count at home.
So, to review where I was: I had a iPhone with totally new, up to date firmware but without most of my original data, because the backup made at the Apple store was somehow incomplete. And I was now going to replace that backup with one made a week earlier.
Which I did. And this time the backup took a lot longer, which to me was a good sign: My photos must be transfering this time!
After about 45 minutes, the process was complete, and it was time to check the Goo-O-Meter.
Uh oh:
I had a tiny bit less goo, and I had my photos, but not my apps. I realized I could get those later by sync’ing apps in iTunes, so I punted on figuring that out (and there wasn’t room on the phone anyway). Regardless, I was on hour four, and this was NOT progress.
PhoneDisk To The Rescue
It was about this point that I decided that if I was going to solve this problem, I was going to have to do it myself. Earlier in the year I had purchased a utility called PhoneDisk, now known as iExplorer. It’s a great piece of software that lets you mount your iPhone as if it were just another hard drive. It “roots” your phone – showing all the files that are in there, even if the opaque Apple iOS doesn’t (or won’t).
I figured it couldn’t hurt to use PhoneDisk to see if there were folders and files that looked….off.
And yep, I sure found something. Turns out I had more than 17 gigabytes of “recordings” – memos from Apple’s Voice Memo application that comes standard with every phone. Now, I’ve used that app about 30 times, and my phone showed about half that many recordings when I looked using the app itself (I’d deleted the others). But using PhoneDisk, I found more than 1200 recordings! And guess what – more than 1000 of them were duplicates, many duplicates of memos I’d deleted over the years!
I decide to delete all the duplicates using PhoneDisk. First I backed up the entire 17 gigs on a 4-terabyte drive I happen to have (handy, I’ll admit). Then I sync’d music with “Include Voice Memos” unchecked (it had been checked). I was hoping that might get rid of the dupes. No luck.
My next step was to delete some test files from the iPhone using PhoneDisk, just to see if it reduced my yellow goo factor. I identified one 42.6-megabyte file that was duplicated 97 times – I trashed 96 of them.
By the way, I’m into hour five of working on this problem, thanks Apple! But I’m sure this is what the company means when it markets itself as revolutionary and elegant and all that.
It seemed to be hung on the “backing up” part of the sync. So I tried to kill the sync. I was too eager to see if I had cleared some of the goo. Well, when I hit the little “x” that allows you to stop a sync, I got the infamous Apple Spinning Ball of Death.
Time for my favorite app: Force quit.
I fired up iTunes again….and stopped it from synching the phone immediately.
And yes! Minor success – 5 gigabytes of yellow goo – the amount I deleted using PhoneDisk, is now gone!!! But I am not triumphant – because I sense that as soon as I sync and back up – a process which cannot be avoided, those duplicate files may return. I must be cautious. I have many miles to tread.
The next hour or so is spent deleting files from the iPhone and insuring commensurate reduction in my phone’s goo. Finally, I restart everything, connect the phone, let it sync (that took half and hour) and….SUCCESS!
Yes, six hours later, my phone is (mostly) yellow goo free, and I’ve identified the culprit, some kind of duplications bug in the Voice Memo app.
Will it come back? Who knows. Is my experience typical? I bet not. But let’s just be clear about one thing: This. Ain’t. Easy.
And Apple’s Geniuses? Not so much.