How I fixed my broken iOS5 update/restore

Question

Like many of you, my update to iOS5 caused me to lose all my content on both iPhone and iPad. I have lots of playlists and lots of app content in folders, and I've been trying various options while re-restoring my devices to get the content back. I've figured out what may be one bug in the process, and I've figured out how to work around it.
The core issue seems to be that the backed-up references to apps, and books, and playlists, and other content is not being resolved to their correct addresses during the restore, which leads to long delays and ultimately nothing being transferred. However, you can trick iTunes into updating these content references, and then many problems seem to go away and you can preserve your old app content, playlists, etc.
Here's what I did.
Assumption: you had performed a full sync and a full backup with your original system before using the iOS5 updater. Unless the content is in iTunes on your computer, and unless you have a snapshot of devices state saved on the computer, I'm not sure how to salvage a botched restore. Hopefully this backup has not been overwritten...
1) Take your device and perform a new iOS5 restore on it in iTunes. At the appropriate point, tell the program to Set Up your device from the original iOS4 backup you had made.
2) In the last part of the restore process it will begin trying to resync your content back onto your device, but you can interupt that by pressing the close box in the status message area of iTunes. That resync is not going to work, or you wouldn't be reading this post. We're going to make that resync work by following the next steps...
3) Working from right to left across the sync configuration screens in iTunes, you are now going to turn off the single content-type syncing options. So first press the single checkbox to turn off Photo syncing in the Photo tab, then turn off the single checkbox for Sync Books and the single checkbox for Sync Audiobooks in the next tab. Continue for iTunesU, Podcasts, TV, Movies, Music, Ringtones. Note: each of these area maintains pointers to the individual content items or playlists that you like, and when things get fixed we'll simply turn the top checkboxes back on and your particular content will flow back onto the device.
4) Click on the Apps tab, and look at all of your app screens on the device. You may notice some apps that have white featureless icons. These are the bad apps that will ruin your restore; you must eliminate all the white icons! You have two ways of doing this: 1) if you don't need the app right away, click on the close box on its icon to remove it [don't worry, when everything is working again you can add that app back later from the iTunes configuration screen or by redownloading it to your device], 2) if you really want the app and it's saved state, then you must click on the close box and then find the app in the app list on the left and add it back in. When the app is added back in, it will have its colored icon. [NOTE: it may be possible to restore the color by simply moving the icon to a different location in its folder or window]
5) Now go to the first Summary tab and press the Apply and/or Sync button to resync the device. This time the sync should work, and you should have your apps back with their saved state (assuming the app developers wrote the app to preserve their state)
6) After you've got that part working, go back and reanable your other device syncing options (music, tv shows, books, etc). When you reenable these, they will still point at your content or playlists you had chosen previously. Press Apply/Sync again, and you should have all your content back on your device.
I can not vouch that this solution will work for you. I was stuck with two devices that I had to wipe clean to get working at all...and I really wanted my previously-backed-up content, and I've been re-restoring and playng around in order to find something that worked. My iOS5 devices now have all my old iOS4 content, and I'm very happy I don't have to replay Plant vs Zombies from the beginning.
I hope this posting can help someone else complete the migration successfully...

Answer 1

very nice of you to share.....however, i am feeling pretty puny and ****** off at apple. i guess the best offense is a good defense and where in the **** did i get the impression that apple was different from any other capitalistic corporation? i guess i just dreamt that **** up.
i am pretty bitter. i have no music, can't get or fix my mail, battery problems, probably lost an internship and a possible love interest....why? technology. to quote 'animal house'....."i ****** up....i trusted you.'
nevermore saith the raven....nevermore....
i am done with all of this b.s. ....there has to be something better than this. tin cans perhaps?