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  • Songs get deleted after a restore

All of my mp3s disappeared from my ipad after doing a restore. The metadata restores successfully, but the mp3s are gone.

This information is important to note: I had been doing Database Only backups once a week for the past year on my “main” ipad. I then would immediately restore that backup to the other 2 “extra” ipads. That way I have 2 backup ipads during gigs.

Well, I decided to do a Database Only Backup from one of the “extra” ipads (because I had done a bunch of setlist work/organization), and then tried to restore it to my “main” ipad and the other “extra” ipad.

Again, the metadata restores fine, but there are no mp3s to be found. It looks like they don’t even reside on the target iPads any longer.

I moved some of the mps3 to one of the target ipads, which worked. I then did a restore to see if it would use the mp3s I added back. Nope - I deleted those mp3s from the ipad again.

Do you know what is happening? What folder can I put my mp3s in so that it recognizes them and won’t delete them going forward? I have 2,200+ jazz backing tracks that I’ve worked up over the last several years, so I really need to use the latest Database Only Backup because it has recorded years worth of work within all that metadata.

I did not do a full backup; just a Database Only Backup. I do have multiple copies of the mp3s on external storage devices. Also, I don't use "Sync with iCloud".

Help? Thanks!

    jazzlizzard database backups are not a great way to do things if you have multiple devices for a number of reasons , a full backup is your best solution if you want to run multiple devices that are identical without the hassles of syncing up your database with the actual songs themselves. The problem you will end up is exactly what you are now experiencing.
    Do a full backup of the master device and transfer that to all devices.
    It takes longer to do and is a much bigger file but it will work without the headaches.

        Damir Okay, thanks Damir. I will give that a go. The mp3s in my Stage Traxx 3 folder equal 17GBs, so I will dump all my photos to iCloud so that it frees up enough space for the full backup. Currently, when I try a Full Backup I get the message "Not enough free space. You need at least 16.5GB free space to creat a backup."

        Will my full backups take forever to complete, or is there some optimization built in so that it only backups up and/or deletes mp3s that have changed?

        jazzlizzard

            jazzlizzard I have an older iPad Pro with 256gb storage , my ST3 full backup is around 23gb, I make sure I get rid of all crap I don’t need on this dedicated iPad I use on stage , this allows me to have a permanent full backup outside the ST3 folder within this iPad, I then create a new full backup every so often to update this master iPad , then I use Airdrop to send this full backup to all my other devices like iPhone, another iPad, my Mac Studio, this is very simple as the update creation takes a few extra minutes but it’s well worth the no hassle afterwards like using databases then loading missing songs with every device ending up slightly different , creating a headfuck .
            Especially if you have lots of files of different type.
            Having one master device to create your stuff is the answer , I stay away from anything cloud based if possible, my exception is syncing my diary and contacts all photos and videos are not cloud synced , they get injected to my master photo/video device which is my Mac Studio with BIG external drives that store that shit.
            Otherwise you iCloud dive would have to be huge which Apple LOVE! As it empties your wallet much faster.

              jazzlizzard Will my full backups take forever to complete, or is there some optimization built in so that it only backups up and/or deletes mp3s that have changed?

              Every FULL BACKUP is an all in one new backup which takes only a few minutes to create even if you have around 20 gb of data.
              Well worth doing on regular basis especially if you update your ST3 library often.

                @jazzlizzard Was your database only backup file bigger than 10MB? Stage Traxx uses a (maybe too) simplistic approach to decide whether your restore a database only or a full backup. If your backup file was bigger than 10MB, it decided that it is a full backup and deleted your audio files.

                  peter Huups... for a moment I was afraid - only 10 MB? But then I saw: a database only-backup of about 400 Songs is only 1,3 MB.

                    Yes, I have calculated with a couple of 1000 songs. But even though. I guess that approach is too simple and there might be edge cases like possibly with @jazzlizzard that could lead to a wrong detection.

                    peter My DB only file is 5.8MB

                    Another question? I'm in a pickle. I'll explain. I deleted all my photos to make enough space for a Full Backup onto the iPad. That was successful. So then I started the Full Backup. It almost went to completion, but it stopped short of finishing. After showing 100% created, it then showed an error message that said it could not complete the backup because it could not locate the helper. I learned this is a picker/helper that looks for the last location that it performed such an action, in this case, the last backup. And this time the location target was on the iPad, not the iCloud as in all my previous backups.

                    The question is: Where on my iPad is that full backup located now? I can not find it. It does not come up when I search for the file name that I named it. It is in "no man's land", I think, because while it gathered all the data for the Full Backup and stuck it in an unnamed "file", it did not complete it fully. My goal is to find that file and delete it.... because that full backup just created another 16GB file (that I cannot find), and with that file still on my iPad I'm back to having not enough space for another full backup.

                    Where is that bastard file now? Ha.

                        jazzlizzard I didn’t know that the size of the database file might stuff up my ST3 setup, there’s another reason for not using it, I only use full backup and had no issues since.
                        The missing incomplete file issue sounds very familiar to me I think I went through this as well years ago.
                        My quick solution to this if I was very serious about using ST3 and if I had a full backup somewhere else would be reinstall the operating system to the latest version and install the latest ST3 version , this gets rid of all crap on the device and by reinstalling the full backup will give you all the space you need on the device for future full backup ups, don’t use iCloud and stop loading the device with unnecessary stuff.
                        Treat it like a music playback device only and get yourself another device to do all other things.

                          The helper is usually a plugin by Dropbox or Google Drive or whatever cloud drive you have integrated into the Files app. If you had a cloud location selected last time you used the file selector in Stage Traxx, it will default back to that location when selecting where to store the backup. And it seems that this plugin has a problem with the size of the backup.

                          The backup has been written to a temp folder in the container of the app. You can not access that folder directly but iOS should automatically delete the contents of that folder after a while or when it needs to clean up space.

                          You can force Stage Traxx to clean that folder by exporting a single song as an stsa file and when it asks for a location to store it to, press cancel. That will trigger a cleanup of the temp folder.

                          But please send me your logfiles via Settings > Create support email. If creating the backup fails, ST3 deletes the temp folder. So I don't understand why the file still takes up space.

                          And with a 6mb big database only backup, ST3 should not delete any audio files when restoring the backup.

                          Just sharing my recent experiences of this topic.

                          The original laptop I was using to run ST3 only had 32GB storage and was dedicated to the task.
                          A full backup of my ST3 was about 6.5GB (I have 85 multitrack audio songs).
                          I use a OneDrive folder as my 'go-between' storage location as I produce all my backing tracks and lyric sheets on a PC and then need to get them onto my iPad. My ST iPads are my only IOS devices so I'm not invested in the Apple ecosystem, paying for extra iCloud storage, etc.

                          Due to limited space, and wanting to have a simple cloud based backup, I had tried saving my Backup directly to a OneDrive folder. It would save, but just never seemed to sync, even if I left it for days. I've given up on that approach.
                          More recently I've migrated to a newer iPad (9th Gen with 64GB storage), save the Full Backup into a local folder and then AirDrop it to my backup iPad. At 6.5GB, that still is not a quick process and took about 5 minutes.

                          It's only going to get harder for me as I increase the number of songs (almost all multitrack audio at around 100MB per song) to juggle space. The other problem I face is that the OneDrive app for iOS seems to go nuts caching stuff and consume huge amounts of local storage space. I've never had this issue with the OneDrive app for Android so it seems to be a 'feature' of the iOS version app. You can go into Settings -> Help and there is a Clear Cache option but I find that sometimes doesn't work, or only frees up a small amount of space. End result; I often have to Remove the OneDrive app to free up all the space it takes, do whatever ST maintenance I need to do, and then reinstall the OneDrive app.

                          SUCCESS! I was able to create a full backup and then airdrop that full backup to my other iPads. Thank you everyone for your input. This was really stressful. @Peter I sent you the log files from both iPads. @Damir Per your suggestion, I will be keeping an iPad for StageTraxx only and keeping other garbage off. And I will be doing Full Backups often.

                          Here's a recap of the latest task, which was to get rid of the incomplete backup file that was "written to a temp folder in the container of the app" and therefore completely inaccessible by a regular user (me)..... And also what I did to complete and restore the Full Backup. Not sure which of these was the silver bullet that got rid of that hidden backup file, but this is what I did:

                          1. Started to transfer an stsa file via airdrop, then cancelled before sending, it as recommend by Peter.
                          2. Actually completed a transfer of an stsa file via airdrop to another device.
                          3. Performed a DBOnly file to the iPad itself (to try and reestablish that helper file location).
                            ** At about this point, I noticed that I gained back the 16gb of storage availability, yay! **
                          4. Performed a Full Backup to the iPad itself.
                          5. Airdroped that Full Backup to my other iPad. IT WORKED!

                          Thanks again everyone. This app is amazing, and glad I've become a little more familiar with its inner workings.

                          -jazzlizzard

                          I will make the app clear any leftover files in the cache folder during startup. That should take care of any stale files.