I'm a newbie to the mac world but have been using my IPhone and loving it. However when I plugged in the Iphone to my new IMac I get this:
Itunes could not sync calendars to the iPhone because an error occurred while merging data.
I started getting that same message a few weeks ago on my PC, but just figured it was because of a soon to be replaced pc was...well soon to be replaced. Any thoughts?
I have been having the same problem. It had worked perfectly for about a month, now it won't sync. I tried resetting the sync history, but it didn't work. Any other suggestions?
Hello everyone. I am sorry to see your having this issue today. Posted below are some troubleshooting steps that may assist with troubleshooting.
1. As stated try Reset Sync History.
On a Windows. Open iTunes. Go to Edit- Preferences-iPhone-Reset Sync History and Confirm
On a Mac- go to Applications-iSync- Then open iSync Prefs. Then reset sync history and confirm.
Now attempt to sync data again.
2. Make sure any data thats on the iPhone that is not in one of the programs on the PC is there now. As this second option will erase that data you manually added unless it already exists on the PC/Mac
Go to Info- scroll down to Advanced. and put a check mark into Contacts or Calendars. Depending on what is causing the issue. Attempt to Sync again. Check results. If this works normal syncing can take place.
3. Test Syncing on another USB Port
4. Reboot the PC/Mac and Sync again
5. If possible and you do not care about the data on iPhone and assuming it is backed up. Try to sync using another user account or another PC. This will help isolate it to a possible user issue or PC issue and sometimes even an iPhone issue itself.
6. Try syncing with just the iPhone USB Cord, then try with Dock. See if results are any different.
Has anyone found out a working solution for this yet?
I found an article a while back that identified the origin of the problem as entries without title in iCal. The solution was to view all iCal entries as a list and sort them by name. The entries without a name float to the top. Supposedly, deleting those entries and overwriting the iPhone data will fix the merging data error.
I did not try because I don't want to lose the data changes I made on the iPhone calendar.
I was hopping Apple would eventually find a solution to the problem, but I'm disappointed to see the firmware upgrade 1.1.2 did not address the issue.
Since upgrading to Leopard, I have found that iCal no longer has the "view entries as a list" button. Even if I wanted to delete those entries with no title, I can no longer find them.
Still looking for a solution that allows me to keep the data I have in the iPhone.
The title of the error dialog in OSX 10.4.x was "error occurred while mingling data". Leopard's error dialog title changed to "error occurred while merging data".
I run Windows XP Pro and I've gotten both these errors.
I ran into the "Error occurred while MINGLING data" before and, rather long story short, I had to check the "Replace information on this iPhone" box for Calendars. The next sync solved that problem.
I mention that problem because I had already upgraded to iTunes 7.5.0.20 so that wasn't what caused this new "Error occurred while MERGING data."
I have rebooted my computer, tried another USB port (on a separate USB 2.0 card/controller no less) and Reset my Sync History.
Problem remains
Export all your calendars as vcal files.
Create a new test calendar.
Delete all your calendars, except the new test calendar, from ical, on a mac, or outlook, on win, even your subscribed calendars.
Quite the program and open it back up.
Import your calendars back into ical or outlook.
open itunes and try to sync the calendars to your iphone replacing all calendar data on iphone.
Unfortunately, this still isn't working with all software updates (leopard, iphone, and itunes) installed this still isn't fixed. Back on the PC I can sync if I rewrite all data from the computer to the iphone. I just can't get anything from the iphone to my mac.
Very frustrating. I always get an error about an error while merging data..
Okay, after a few hours of reading everything I could and trying to figure everything out I have solved my issue. Someone had entered an item in my calendar at work with no subject. Once I changed this, wrote over my iPhone, then synced with my mac at home...I am now able to merge and sync on both computers.
Apparently it was a coincidence that this happened when I had installed leopard.
If you have any untitled calendar entries it may solve your issue to delete them.
i have found a work around that worked for me with Leopard. Problem seems to be entries on the iPhone that do not have a title. If you go into Calendar application on the iPhone and change to "list' view. Now scroll backward from the present date, which you can do quite quickly, and you will find (or at least this is what I found) several calendar events without a title. Delete each one of these. I was then able to successfully "merge" my iPhone with iCAL using iTunes. Hope this helps
I finally went ahead and just manually entered the data on my iPhone into my Outlook calendar in XP and told iTunes to overwrite my iPhone calendar with Outlook and hit Apply. It worked. I synced and again it worked fine.
"Syncing" the iPhone calendar to my computer by hand is a long and tedious process, hopefully Apple can find a permanent fix before we see a third similar error.
Oh, I forgot to mention that I didn't bother exporting and reimporting my Outlook calendar data, just didn't seem necessary. I only have 1 calendar if that makes any difference, but apparently those steps weren't necessary for me.
Ok, problem has returned. I'm leaving as many details as I can remember here as I don't know how much will prove relevant.
I left my computer on all day while I was out. I don't think Outlook was open during that time, but iTunes was, music paused.
I came home, made a couple changes to 2 weekly-recurring events, one for Saturdays, the other for Sundays; both set to Never End Repeat.
I edited the Saturday event's name and its time by 15 minutes to match the Sunday event's time. It was set for a single reminder of 2 Hours, I added another for 1 hour before the event.
I added the same 1st & 2nd reminders to the Sunday event.
All changes were saved "for Future Events".
I synced this change and noticed that it didn't change the same events in Outlook (but no errors) so I synced again, this time receiving the error "while merging data" again.
Again telling iTunes to overwrite the calendar in the iPhone solved the problem.
I went back to Damon M.'s comment a few back thinking maybe I was wrong about needing to export Outlook and import again.
I looked up how to export as vCal files but found that's for individual events. I have several years of events (over 2,000) so that's just not an option, unless I can export the whole calendar as any format file?
I've tried redoing the changes back and forth in different variations but haven't been able to recreate the error since. I've tried syncing with Outlook open and closed, starting the sync and opening Outlook when iTunes said it's syncing the calendar, anything that may affect the data in transit. I tried making the changes with and without the USB cable plugged into the computer (ok that was reaching 🙂.
I'll just sync more often now until I can recreate the error. I would offer to save and send in the database when the error comes back, but the problem seems to be on the iPhone.
