Q: Sync Session Failed to Start iTouch iOS5

Try this.

STOP iTunes.

Plug your gadget into the USB port.

START iTunes.

If it starts automatically, STOP it and RESTART it with the gadget plugged into the USB port.

I dunno why, but it works for me!

Okay, so I've literally tried all of these suggestions and nothing has worked, but I was able to download the songs I bought off of iTunes onto my iPod 4 gen via iCloud. Still working on how to get music I loaded into iTunes from CDs onto the iPod, might end up having to go to the Apple store

to moenyc, I am on ITunes 10.6.3.25 which is a version above the version you mention having the fix. I'm on windows 7.  And still getting the can not sync.  I did finally manage to sync my music, apps and mp3 books but photos failed.

I have yet to try wireless sync or the power button (HOME and POWER) which I never heard of before.

I plan to try both to sync my photos.

Will update group.

Thanks for the responses.

drummev01

I've had this problem with my iPhone 4s & it even had Apple so confused they replaced the phone thinking it may have been a hardware fault but the problem persisted with the new phone.

Anyway long story short as trust me the details & time taken are very boring... I narrowed it down to the file in the iTunes library folder called iTunes Library Extras.itdb

With iTunes off I moved this file out of the folder (& stored it safely as a precaution) then restarted iTunes.

On opening iTunes spawned a new copy of the file no problems. I plugged my iPhone in & every problem I've had (spinning 'beach-balls' after any action, causing iTunes to hang, not synching but appearing to do so & the alert 'The iPhone could not be synched because the synch session failed to start') was gone.

The phone now works perfectly when synching!
I hope this helps someone

To Adam Woodhams- Thanks for the tips. I finally got it to work by using a different usb port and syncing a piece at a time, music, then books, then podcasts, then photos.  If I try to do them all at once it times out without adding content.  Funny thing I still got the message that Itunes could not be sycned due to timeout but in fact it was synced! 

Next time I'll try your suggestion and let you know how removing the file works for me.

thanks,

Vicki

WOW!! Worked like a charm Thanks Adam

No worries SenoKittu. I've since also found that turning Genius off on the iPhone/iPod seemed to help too.

This was happening to me.  I found on another thread that if you power cycle your ipod (or iphone), by simultaneously holding down the home and power buttons, and then try syncing it again it should work.  I tried this and it worked for me.

Powercycling my ipod worked for me. It is syncing now. Definitely never getting an iPhone!

After trying every single suggestion in the book and spending a couple of days trying to figure this out, this finally worked. Props to you!

Thanks Man. Works like a charm.

I have found iTunes does not like syncing my photos from a network share. Trying to syncing photos from a shared location caused this error on my iPad (gen 3). Move photos to local PC and try syncing.

I tried all the other suggestions but continually had the error when including photos in the sync. Once I moved the photos that I wanted to sync to the local PC sync worked again. I dont know why iTunes wont work with network shares (really should be no different). This has only started to happen since 10.7.0.21 was installed. The shared location is a NetGear NAS on a Gbit LAN.

Adam Woodhams wrote:

 

I've had this problem with my iPhone 4s & it even had Apple so confused they replaced the phone thinking it may have been a hardware fault but the problem persisted with the new phone.

Anyway long story short as trust me the details & time taken are very boring... I narrowed it down to the file in the iTunes library folder called iTunes Library Extras.itdb

With iTunes off I moved this file out of the folder (& stored it safely as a precaution) then restarted iTunes.

On opening iTunes spawned a new copy of the file no problems. I plugged my iPhone in & every problem I've had (spinning 'beach-balls' after any action, causing iTunes to hang, not synching but appearing to do so & the alert 'The iPhone could not be synched because the synch session failed to start') was gone.

The phone now works perfectly when synching!
I hope this helps someone

Thanks Adam. this worked for me too.

Thank You!

You solved my problem.

Yeah the stop process, plug in and restart itunes process works for me as well

Perfect. Thanks.