The Apple TV is designed in a such a way so that apps are given very little persistent storage space (500 kb) so any library data that Infuse stores on your device is at risk of being removed at any time. This applies to all apps.
To mitigate this, Infuse uses both local and cloud storage to maintain your library so in the event the system decides to clear the local storage the library data can be quickly pulled down from the cloud to get things back to where they were in a matter of seconds. This guide has more info on how this works.
iCloud Sync is available whether or not the Cloud Backup feature is used but this is more focused on keeping shares, watched history, ratings, etc… in sync between multiple devices. It does not store a complete copy of your library (EG textual metadata, images, etc…) as the available APIs are not well-suited for this (and many users are on basic iCloud plans with low storage limits) . More info on what’s included with iCloud Sync can be found here.
Cloud Backups are kept for 180 days, and saving a new backup replaces the older backup (effectively resetting that timer) so if you are automatically saving cloud backups then these would never be removed. If backing up manually you would want to do this at least once every 6 months.
In the event an inactive backup is deleted (due to inactivity) there would be a message like you are seeing shown and Infuse would pull down your network shares from iCloud and work to fetch metadata again for your files (restoring things like watched history and ratings).
Rescanning the library like this is a longer process than just pulling down a full backup from the cloud so I would recommend keeping the automatic backup option enabled.
I had automatic backups on but then Infuse backed up the library right after the bug in the update erased everything. So that completely invalidated the purpose of a backup.
Now, I’m faced with the same situation. I had a backup. The backup served no purpose and is gone.
Infuse needs a periodic backup system instead of whatever it does, with a fallback. It would be so much better if we could save the backup locally and not have to deal with random, uncontrolled events like this. At the very least, Infuse should give a warning if the backup is reaching a threshold like 90, 120, 150 days (ideally, allow a choice).
More importantly, it still doesn’t make any sense that my entire library was deleted. Why did it do that? I didn’t see anything triggering a change. The only message was that the backup expired and if that made it erase my library, that’s a serious flaw.
The local data in Infuse (and other apps) is deleted by the system if it detects your device is running low on storage space. Storage can be taken up by many things including downloaded apps, downloaded/cached app data, screensavers, system update files, etc… This storage clearing is not something Infuse does itself and apps do not have the ability to prevent this from happening.
The cloud backup solution which was introduced in late-2023 has proved to be an effective way of improving the experience for the majority of Infuse users and my recommendation would be to keep automatic backups enabled to avoid potential issues in the future.
Ahh, okay that makes sense; the system lost the data and tried to restore, which is why I saw the backup failure message. Because when I then tried to manually restore, it looked like it cleared everything (and it might have).
I’m aware of the storage limit issue and cloud backups are a good idea but there are two areas that need improvement:
The system must backup before an update and not after.
Manual backups should give you a warning before they expire.
It really ruined my trust in automatic backups when that bug erased all my data and the automatic backup saved the deleted library. How much space do these backups take? A primary and secondary could help.
For #2, I think you could pretty easily add a reminder. Just let people choose a reminder frequency: none, 30, 60, 90 days.
It’s too discouraging to have to keep rebuilding this.
