Q: Mavericks and iTunes 11.1.2 Won't wifi sync iPhone

Mik B wrote:

 

Therefore if you still lhave issues with wifi syncing (with IOS//OSX10.9) please stop blaming the updates. It's more likely to be something you did or that you missed doing. This is not voodoo. There are always technical reasons why syncing doesn't work.

It may not be voodoo, but it should "just work" like most Apple stuff used to be famous for.  It worked for me since Apple started wifi sync... then, like so many, just stopped.

I'm not above saying it might have been something I did, though the fact that I have the same issue on 3 different Macs, have tested everythning here, used two completely different networks, etc. etc. makes me think something in an update has caused an issue - possibly some file corrupted somewhere.

At this point I'm almost to the point of testing Yosemite and hope if something did break for some of us in Mavericks, maybe its magically fixed.    I have enough certifications and enough years in IT to know how networks are set up and when something should work or not.

Typically in IT you look to the last change that happened.  Unfortunately by the time I noticed wifi sync wasn't working it could be one of many things.    I keep waiting for someone to come up with a real repeatable pattern that will solve it for the rest of us.

My biggest fear at this point is that Yosemite won't fix it, and none of the great new tech they are putting into it that seems to rely on wifi will also be broken... no taking phone calls on the Mac, or passing emails off between iOS and OS X... 

Thank you geezerhiker, could you please also click the "i" button to the right of the "Vindalia" network and post a screen shot from there so we see the IP details?

Here's also a quick test to carry out, can you please go to the ethernet connection in the neetwork panel and use the pop configuration menu and set it to "off"?

Then turn off also the Wifi and turn back only wifi. After you have recieved an IP address. verify you have internet access. Do the same on the iPhone, making sure you are on the "Vindalia" network. Now try and do a wifi sync.

If this doesn't work please set Wifi to off from the menu bar or do it from the preferences and then set "Ethernet" to DCHP again. Wait for an IP adress and repeat the mentioned tests again.

Are there any differences in behaviour or results compared to before (with both Wifi and Ethernet active)?

While Arthur C. Clarke once famously said "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" Apple isn't there yet. It's all technology and therefore ruled by machine logic as programmed. Snafus do occur, but computer development these days is a very focused and controlled process.

That Macs just works is true as long as Apple developers (as well as other collaborators) adhers to established (within Apple and elsewhere) methods and practices. I feel Apple have been somewhat lacking in focus since OS X 10.6.8, though I find OS X 10.9 Mavericks very pleasant to work with. That said, Apple is still way ahead.

If other people can't reproduce your errors, then it's very likely you missed something, messed up something or assumed something that isn't true. Please help others reproduce your errors, because this is the way solutions are found to very difficult problems. Developers can't guess what happened. They have to identify the error(s) before they can rectify them. And I am asking questions to take you some steps further on that path. Please be generous with real data and let's not overspeculate on our matters.

Mik B wrote:

 

Thank you geezerhiker, could you please also click the "i" button to the right of the "Vindalia" network and post a screen shot from there so we see the IP details?

on the iPhone that is.

A few things that would be helpful are communications diagnostics tools.

iOS deviecs have to be trying to contact iTunes over a certain port, TCP and/or UDP.  What are they?

Can we run a command on the Mac to listen for an iOS reaching out?

If I run: 

sudo lsof -i -P | grep -i "listen"

I get:

iTunes    3453             jd   27u  IPv4 0xf6f1baead5796d8d      0t0  TCP *:58348 (LISTEN)

iTunes    3453             jd   30u  IPv4 0xf6f1baead7836575      0t0  TCP *:3689 (LISTEN)

iTunes    3453             jd   31u  IPv6 0xf6f1baeac77577ad      0t0  TCP *:3689 (LISTEN)

Is this correct?  Are there any other ports that it might need?  (checking to see if I maybe have some other app running on a port thats creating a conflict.. though the fact that its broken on 3 different Macs with comletely different setups makes me doubt this but who knows)

Is there something I can use on the iPhone to test this type of connectivity?   Normally I'm pinging something to see that communication works, or telnet on a certain port.

If I run the Fing app, I can ping my Mac.  I can scan services and get:

22 ssh

88 kerberos-sec

445 microsoft-ds

548 afp

2002 globe

3689 rendezvous

5900 vnc

I can ping my iPhone from my iMac and it is always successful.

---

If I go to my iPhone->General->iTunes Wi-Fi Sync, I usually see "Sync Now" greyed out.  Once in a while, it is not.  If its available and I click it (when not connected via USB) it says:

Apps

Lookkng for JDiMac...

And about 5 seconds in this will blink for a split second (so fast I had to video tape it to catch it):

Sync will resume when "JDiMac" is

available.

Looking for JDiMac...

Apps

Last Sync: Today at 3:45 PM

Here is some other behavior details:

If I plug into iTunes all my devices show up right away.

When I unplug them, they disappear instantly.  Not even a second goes by... as soon as the cable is out, they are gone from iTunes.

For the many months I had Wifi sync actually working, my iMac was hard-wired but my iOS devices were on wifi.   I never *had* to have wifi turned on my iMac to sync between them.   In fact, I have 2 routers to the Internet and could actually be pointed to one for my default gateway on my iMac, and another for wifi. 

To test of course I remove all this complexity, but thats how it used to work.

I've run Cisco, Linksys and Apple routers.   It worked with all of these in my environment.  If I isolate to just one or the other, it makes no difference.  

Thats some of the details and things that I see.

Mik B wrote:

 

Thank you geezerhiker, could you please also click the "i" button to the right of the "Vindalia" network and post a screen shot from there so we see the IP details?

 

Here's also a quick test to carry out, can you please go to the ethernet connection in the neetwork panel and use the pop configuration menu and set it to "off"?

 

Then turn off also the Wifi and turn back only wifi. After you have recieved an IP address. verify you have internet access. Do the same on the iPhone, making sure you are on the "Vindalia" network. Now try and do a wifi sync.

 

If this doesn't work please set Wifi to off from the menu bar or do it from the preferences and then set "Ethernet" to DCHP again. Wait for an IP adress and repeat the mentioned tests again.

 

Are there any differences in behaviour or results compared to before (with both Wifi and Ethernet active)?

 

That was interesting - the first predictable and consistent results I've seen, viz., with Ethernet turned off the wi-fi sync worked consistently. With Ethernet back on, it failed consistently.

It is good knowing that this is not entirely random but if I have to go to my iMac and turn off Ethernet whenever I want to sync, then the whole purpose of wi-fi syncing is pretty much defeated. Is this sort of behavior truly what Apple intends? I still maintain that it is a pretty pathetic network setup if it depends on how the devices are physically connected; the software network layers ought to be above this sort of thing.

For what is is worth, here are the wi-fi details from the iPhone:

Re:Your Network Issues....

Hi again,

I know this sounds really simple, but try connecting manually instead of using automatic in your network/ preferences/ advanced/ TCP/IP /  try selecting Link local - only instead of Automatically

It may only be a temporary fix but it has worked for others....

HappyScotsLass

There's an old support document http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4062 that I'm not sure we've already introduced. Of specific interest I think are the sections "Check your network connection", "Check for network interference" and "Check firewall settings".

On firewalls, any one of you guys having wifi sync issues have a firewall up and running? If an important port is not open, then sync can't take place.

I use the great Little Snitch app as a firewall, both for all outgoing as well as all incoming connections. As a sync experiment I turned off everything and started a wifi sync over ethernet to my router which is connected to my iPhone via Wifi. I then watched what ports what processes wanted to use and found that it is the process usbmuxd that in my case need the ports 62078 and 49250 accessible on the iPhone. Once I OK'ed usbmuxd to use those rules Wifi sync works also over ethernet only (at the computer side). As far as I know I have no bridge setting in my router, so it's standard settings.

Well, sync went fine until my battery died. Which brings another possible cause: When you're low on battery power you may have more trouble wifi syncing, than if it's fully loaded.

This morning I went to look at the radar on my wife's iMac and what do I see... her iPhone and iPad are syncing via wifi.

Scratches head.  Thinkis a re-installation of Mavericks is next.

After many hours of trying a lot of things the following eventually worked for me...

- reset router

- reset iphone network settings

- plug iphone in using USB and while connected go into Activity Monitor and select the AppleMobileDeviceHelper and quit it  (note: AMDH was not showing up at all before I plugged it in with USB)

- restart iTunes

- iPhone shows up again and wifi sync is fixed for me

now to figure out why itunes sharing only works for me one way.

my brothers windows PC can easily and quickly look at my music and import without problems

On my macbook his library appears but it wont actually load any content

anybody come across this before?

So after obsessing over this issue for months, I have finally made a breakthrough.

There were only two things (out of the thousands people are posting that work for them) I hadn't tried:  rebuilding my Mac, and completely erasing my iOS devices and restoring from backup.

I decided to do the device wipe and restore thing, but was making a few other changes at the same time (yea, I know, not good troubleshooting) so bear with me:

- Completely wiped my 2 ipads, restored from backup.   Did not sync, did not show up.

Here is where it gets strange:

- I pulled out my Verizon Mifi to build a sepaarate wifi network to try isolate everything in my house and concentrate just on the devices at my desk.    Put the iMac and iPad on the Mifi and nothing. 

- I went to the Ethernet adapter and selected "Make Service Inactive".  It went grey.

- My other iPad, the one not on the Verizon Mifi, showed up in iTunes.

(huh?  How can an iPad on a completely separate IP network suddenly connect like that?  It makes me believe the inactive Ethernet adapter really wasn't inactive, though it certainly showed it.   I double and triple checked my network connections and they were all as I thought)

- I decided to completely delete the Ethernet adapter and reboot.   Once the iMac came back up, I re-created the Ethernet adapter.    My wifi was now on my original home wifi (not the Verizon mifi)  Suddenly both iPads showed up in iTunes.

- I tried turning off my wifi network and they all disappeared from iTunes

- Turned back on, and they are working.

I tried to get my iPhone on but it wouldn't budge... so I wiped that one and restored and sure enough, it now shows up in itunes as well.

A few other items:

It seems syncing via wifi from iTunes works well, but its hit or miss if I do it from General->iTunes Wi-Fi Sync-Sync Now.   About 50% of the time it fails from the device side, and the device disappears from iTunes.   

Long story short it appears I needed to do at least two things:

1. Wipe my devices and restore from backup

2. Delete my ethernet adapter on my Mac and re-create

Now we'll see if this sticks.

It's possible that AppleMobileDeviceHelper process is stuck and that this affects things. When I start iTunes and my phone is on the network this process is started automatically and when I quit iTunes it is unloaded.

Please don't write another unrelated issue in a long thread. Write a new question instead focused on your issue.

 

2. Delete my ethernet adapter on my Mac and re-create

 

It's likely that this reset IPv6. Did you do as have been suggested with setting IPv6 to "local link" before this?

Mik B wrote:

 

 

2. Delete my ethernet adapter on my Mac and re-create

 

It's likely that this reset IPv6. Did you do as have been suggested with setting IPv6 to "local link" before this?

Yup, did the IPv6 thing before.   Also the location thing... DHCP, Static IP and many others...  

Note:  I have since rebooted and things are still working.

I also disabled my wifi and it continues to work.   Ethernet on same IP subnet, but using different default gateway.

This is how it had worked the years prior.   Shouldn't have to have your wifi enabled to do wifi sync as long as you are on the same network.     I notice some articles suggest this does not work, perhaps its not the preferred setup and may not work for some.

I hope this helps others that are struggling.   Just remember to get a good backup before you wipe your iOS device