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Mail Data Loss in macOS 10.15

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Re: Mail Data Loss in macOS 10.15

#121

Post by forgotmypw3 »

jquery wrote: post #71

My iCloud backup, with years of data, including apps which only had local storage, was completely borked when I upgraded to iOS 13 (on my iPhone XS). My phone would enter a boot loop during the iCloud restore process, and I tried 15 different restores (different iOS 13 versions including beta versions, iTunes backups, a couple different types of restores they have at the Genius Bar, a direct phone-to-phone restore, c…

    I feel your pain. I hope you remember in the future:

    Unless a backup can be verified, it is not a backup.

    Backing up to a complex or binary format is trouble.

Re: Mail Data Loss in macOS 10.15

#122

Post by jquery »

forgotmypw3 wrote: post #121
jquery wrote: post #71

My iCloud backup, with years of data, including apps which only had local storage, was completely borked when I upgraded to iOS 13 (on my iPhone XS). My phone would enter a boot loop during the iCloud restore process, and I tried 15 different restores (different iOS 13 versions including beta versions, iTunes backups, a couple different types of restores they have at the Genius Bar, a direct phone-to-phone restore, c…

I feel your pain. I hope you remember in the future: Unless a backup can be verified, it is not a backup. Backing up to a complex or binary format is trouble.

So true, but I’m not sure what I could have done here, except stay on iOS 12* indefinitely. This wasn’t a case of having an invalid backup per se (I was able to restore my phone back to iOS 12), this was a case of being unable to port forward data from iOS 12 to iOS 13. In other words, a perfectly working system could not be upgraded via Apple’s upgrade process, nor did Apple provide good workarounds for this scenario, such as allowing the restoration of individual apps.

That’s why I’m extra disappointed in Apple. I did everything by the book, including testing my backups, and my data was still lost.

Re: Mail Data Loss in macOS 10.15

#123

Post by Tsiklon »

herpderperator wrote: post #40

I always find it strange when OS updates affect apps in this way. It just shouldn't happen. It reminds me of when Linus preaches that "the kernel should never break userspace". Why would a OS update suddenly cause the Mail app -- developed by the same company as the OS, for what it's worth -- to have these strange (and catastrophic) data syncing issues? And, just to add, I am tired of OS updates updating and/or relea…

I’ve always seen MacOS releases like a UNIX distribution release, encompassing more than just the OS, including userland applications and development tools.

It seems that by locking their userland application release cadences to that of the rest of the distribution they lower the number of unique configurations of userland applications and OS components they have to support in the wild. I’d imagine this has implications with regards to the cost of support.

Re: Mail Data Loss in macOS 10.15

#124

Post by newscracker »

Santosh83 wrote: post #85
newscracker wrote: post #70

I’ve never used Mail because I’ve never felt comfortable with Apple’s apps when it comes to long term data storage. Here Mail is said to delete data. This has happened before, IIRC. Someone in this discussion has written that their old downloaded podcast episodes were deleted on upgrade. In the distant past, Apple has also broken compatibility in data formats (for its iWork apps) and left those who upgraded with almo…

> If I want a browser, there’s Firefox. Safari 13 has become just ok now (from decent) because of the new extensions system that has junked all old extensions. To be fair Firefox did that recently with their transition to WebExtensions too, and Chrome will soon do something similar when they move to Manifest v3. Sadly all mainstream browsers have become "move fast and break stuff", mainly in their desperate bid to ke…

Firefox’s transition to WebExtensions has caused pain to developers and users, but there was a warning for some years about the transition. I still don’t like where the WebExtensions API support is, and Mozilla hasn’t done much for erstwhile popular extensions like Tab Mix Plus and many others. The case with Safari 13, IIRC, is that extensions have to be developed in Swift and have lesser access than before.

While I get the privacy benefits with block lists that have been/are being/will be implemented in these browsers, the overall extensions scene doesn’t look very good. Hopefully Firefox will delay or not go with everything that Manifest V3 proposes, whenever that becomes standard in Chrome.

Re: Mail Data Loss in macOS 10.15

#125

Post by newscracker »

callalex wrote: post #119
newscracker wrote: post #70

I’ve never used Mail because I’ve never felt comfortable with Apple’s apps when it comes to long term data storage. Here Mail is said to delete data. This has happened before, IIRC. Someone in this discussion has written that their old downloaded podcast episodes were deleted on upgrade. In the distant past, Apple has also broken compatibility in data formats (for its iWork apps) and left those who upgraded with almo…

A counter-example I can think of is iPhoto/Photos, which seems to have just gotten better and better for me. But it is tightly integrated with iCloud so if you don’t use that I could see how you consider it to be getting worse and worse.

I recall the last version of iPhoto, before it was junked, was more powerful in editing. The Photos app that replaced it was heavily crippled and still doesn’t have some features that iPhoto had.

Re: Mail Data Loss in macOS 10.15

#126

Post by darek »

plg wrote: post #5

good LORD if this is true how are we supposed to trust apple with our information? BTW since updating my iPhone & iPad to iOS 13, and my desktop to MacOS 10.15, the Notes app does not propagate changes unless I force-quit the app and then restart it. Entering a new note, and quitting the app, the new note does not propagate to my other devices. If I re-open the Notes app then the update happens. WTF A walled garden e…

Oh yes! Notes failing to sync after iOS 13 update is something that happened to me too. And apparently other people as well, as posted on Apple's forums: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250684880

Re: Mail Data Loss in macOS 10.15

#127

Post by forgotmypw3 »

jquery wrote: post #122
forgotmypw3 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel your pain. I hope you remember in the future: Unless a backup can be verified, it is not a backup. Backing up to a complex or binary format is trouble.

So true, but I’m not sure what I could have done here, except stay on iOS 12* indefinitely. This wasn’t a case of having an invalid backup per se (I was able to restore my phone back to iOS 12), this was a case of being unable to port forward data from iOS 12 to iOS 13. In other words, a perfectly working system could not be upgraded via Apple’s upgrade process, nor did Apple provide good workarounds for this scenari…

I think what you can do now is avoid complex, binary, and/or proprietary formats for your data, because they are more difficult to back up and restore.

You can also learn to not trust software which promiess you the world, but doesn't let you see its internals.

Re: Mail Data Loss in macOS 10.15

#128

Post by sooheon »

userbinator wrote: post #68
quadrifoliate wrote: post #64

A lot of this is a repeat of weird issues that we saw 8(!) years ago with OSX Lion. Perhaps I'm off the mark here, but I strongly suspect there's lack of a proper manual QA team at Apple. QA at most so-called "modern" companies these days has turned into overly fetishising automated testing. Automation is valuable, but crucially also leads to situations where the least-common-denominator situations get tested since i…

Also, no one wants to argue against automation (even if it's taking away manual testing resources) because that can make you seem old-school and out of touch. As someone who is "old-school" and has argued against automation countless times, it's more that your arguments against it will likely be dismissed because the management just wants to see the numbers on their pretty "quality metrics" dashboards going up; regar…

When they’re ready to listen, what do you propose instead?

Re: Mail Data Loss in macOS 10.15

#129

Post by jquery »

forgotmypw3 wrote: post #127
jquery wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So true, but I’m not sure what I could have done here, except stay on iOS 12* indefinitely. This wasn’t a case of having an invalid backup per se (I was able to restore my phone back to iOS 12), this was a case of being unable to port forward data from iOS 12 to iOS 13. In other words, a perfectly working system could not be upgraded via Apple’s upgrade process, nor did Apple provide good workarounds for this scenari…

I think what you can do now is avoid complex, binary, and/or proprietary formats for your data, because they are more difficult to back up and restore. You can also learn to not trust software which promiess you the world, but doesn't let you see its internals.

Yeah, lesson learned. Fortunately my most critical data was backed up elsewhere. This seems like an inherent issue with iOS, I will consider migrating to a different platform. Any suggestions other than Android?

Re: Mail Data Loss in macOS 10.15

#130

Post by forgotmypw3 »

jquery wrote: post #129
forgotmypw3 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what you can do now is avoid complex, binary, and/or proprietary formats for your data, because they are more difficult to back up and restore. You can also learn to not trust software which promiess you the world, but doesn't let you see its internals.

Yeah, lesson learned. Fortunately my most critical data was backed up elsewhere. This seems like an inherent issue with iOS, I will consider migrating to a different platform. Any suggestions other than Android?

See which iOS apps can export/import plaintext or other common formats, especially in an automated way.
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