Setlist Helper Setlist Helper

FAQ - Documents, Audio, and What Sync Backs Up

This page answers the most common question we get after someone reinstalls the app, resets their device, or moves to a new phone or tablet: "My songs came back, but my PDFs and audio are gone. Where did they go?"

What does Sync actually store on the server?

Sync uploads the information about your songs, not the files attached to them. When you sync, these are saved to your account at www.setlisthelper.com and will come back on any device you log into:

These are not uploaded:

For attachments, the app stores only the path to the file, not the file itself. So after a reinstall, your songs and setlists return complete, but each one is pointing at a file that is no longer on the device. The song remembers the filename. It just cannot find the file.

Why are my lyrics gone if lyrics are supposed to sync?

If your lyrics were PDF files or Word documents rather than text typed into the app, then the lyrics were attachments, and attachments are not stored on the server. This surprises people who have always worked from scanned charts.

To check, open a song's lyrics page. If it opens a document rather than a text lyric sheet, that song's lyrics are a file, and the sections below apply to it.

How can I tell where a document came from?

Every attachment has a stored path, and the beginning of that path tells you where the file originated. That determines how easy it is to get back.

On iOS: go to the Songs list, tap the information circle to the right of a song, and scroll down to "Document Location".
On Android: tap the circle to the right of the song name, choose "Edit", and look at the "Document" field.

Before you do anything else, back up your database

All your data lives in a database on your device. Back it up before reinstalling the app, before restoring files, and ideally on a regular schedule.

iOS

  1. Connect your device to your computer and open Finder on a Mac, or iTunes on Windows.
  2. Select your device, then "File Sharing", then Setlist Helper.
  3. You will see a folder called "database". Select it and save it somewhere safe on your computer.

Full instructions, including how to restore it, are on Backing Up Your Data.

Android

Open the navigation menu, tap Settings, then "Backup Database", and choose Dropbox or your device storage. This video walks through it.

How do I get my documents and audio back?

If the paths start with [DROPBOX], the app will do it for you. Sync first, then run "Update Dropbox Files". It looks at every Dropbox file attached to your songs, downloads anything missing, and updates anything that has changed.

If the paths are local, the files have to come from wherever you originally copied them: the computer you used for File Sharing, an old backup, or a cloud drive. Put them back on the device and import them again.

Re-importing is safe. The import matches your existing songs by filename, so it repairs the path on the song you already have instead of creating a second copy of it.

Do not rebuild your library by hand

If your song list looks wrong on the device, resist the urge to start re-adding songs one at a time. In most cases the full library is still safe on the server and a sync will bring it back. Rebuilding by hand on top of that gives you two of everything, and it is far more work to untangle afterwards than to fix the original problem.

If you are not sure what is on your account, email support@setlisthelper.com and we will look it up and tell you exactly what is there before you change anything.

The setup we recommend, so this never happens again

Keep your charts and audio in Dropbox and import them from there. It takes a few minutes once and it turns a reinstall from a rebuild into a single button tap.

  1. Create a free Dropbox account if you do not have one.
  2. Make one folder, for example "Setlist Helper", and put in only the files you actually use. This is a good moment to leave behind the ones you do not.
  3. In the app, import from that Dropbox folder. On iOS: Songs, three-dot menu, Import, Dropbox. On Android: Songs, menu, Import, Dropbox.
  4. Sync.

Your songs now store Dropbox paths instead of local ones. On a new device, or after any reinstall, you sync and then run "Update Dropbox Files" and every chart and audio file comes back down on its own. The same works across platforms, so files imported from Dropbox on Android will come down on an iPad, and the other way around.

Importing from Dropbox also fixes existing songs. If a song already exists with the same filename attached, the import re-points it at the Dropbox copy rather than adding a duplicate.

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