iPhone just deleted my entire library

[Necronic]

I just downloaded a song to my iPhone, and it deleted my entire music library. WTF? This is so bad its funny. Now all I have is one song I just downloaded.

 

[Espy]

Uh... where did you download the song from?

 

[strawman]

I find that amusing. Obviously the song believes itself to be so good that it knew you'd never listen to anything else again.

-Adam

 

[PatrThom]

That'll happen if you connect your phone to a) a different computer/library than the one your phone is used to talking to, or b) the same computer after restoring/rebuilding/deauthorizing the current library. The phone thinks it has to throw away everything it isn't authorized to play.

--Patrick

 

[Covar]

Deleted your library from your phone or your computer?

 

[Necronic]

From my phone. I downloaded a song from iTunes over the wireless network at my parents house this weekend. What PatrTom said makes some sense, although I am amazed at how fast it was able to delete all of that data. I am still suspicious that it was some bug and that the songs are still there, but they have gotten flagged in such a way as they are no longer visible

 

[PatrThom]

From my phone. they have gotten flagged in such a way as they are no longer visible

Yes. That is exactly what happens when you 'delete' a file on a computer, and how it was able to be done so quickly. To copy a thousand files that are 4MiB each, I have to move 4GiB of data onto the new place. This would take a while. To delete them, though, I only have to remove 1000 directory entries. Don't have to move anything. Much faster.

--Patrick

 

[Espy]

From my phone. I downloaded a song from iTunes over the wireless network at my parents house this weekend. What PatrTom said makes some sense, although I am amazed at how fast it was able to delete all of that data. I am still suspicious that it was some bug and that the songs are still there, but they have gotten flagged in such a way as they are no longer visible

I don't think so. You didn't connect to another computer, just a wireless network. That shouldn't have done anything. So it sounds like you should be on the phone with an apple rep/itunes help STAT telling them you bought *insert song* and then your phone wiped it's music collection.

 

[PatrThom]

Right. Usually when I see this happen, I also discover the iPhone was recently plugged into someone else's computer just to charge it, but that the computer was set to automatically sync or someone just automatically clicked "ok" to the "are you sure you want to erase and sync to a new library?" dialog.

--Patrick