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iTunes not Syncing

Suddenly iTunes says it's syncing, but nothing happens. The phone just goes back to charging mode, and iTunes is just stuck on the "Syncing Phone" part. If I cancel, iTunes just gets stuck on "Canceling Sync".
Any help thoughts?

macbook, Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Posted on Dec 27, 2007 3:46 PM

Reply
98 replies

Dec 27, 2007 4:23 PM in response to gatsby14055

Having the exact same issue right now.
On the phone with iPhone support. She has put me on hold to contact a "Product Specialist".
First, we redownloaded and reinstalled iTunes. Nothing.
Then, we tried a hard reset (hold down power and home buttons until the Apple logo appears on the screen), with no luck.
I suggested using the reset function in the iPhone's internal software, but I'm waiting now to hear what the specialist has to say.

Dec 27, 2007 5:04 PM in response to gatsby14055

OK, I wanted to come back here so that you didn't go through what I just did...

The "Product Specialist" added nothing helpful. In fact, while I was on hold, before the specialist answered the phone, I fixed it. I found this on the forums here...

==================================
Open iSync, then preferences, then click "Reset Sync History..."

The next sync, the iPhone calendars sync'd with a bunch of conflict resolution things, but it worked.
==================================

It didn't really work for me, at first. iTunes still hung at the "Syncing..." message. However...

I found something else that said to uncheck all the sync settings in iTunes, so, while it was hung up trying to sync, I did that. I clicked each tab for the iPhone and unchecked each of the sync settings. Then, I clicked "Apply" after they were all unchecked. That locked up iTunes completely. I killed it via Force Quit, and relaunched it...and it synced the phone. The checkboxes that I had unchecked were rechecked (I assume because it never saved the settings when I clicked Apply, since iTunes basically crashed).

The first sync merged the Address Book (Mac) and the iPhone. This is normal, since I reset the sync history in my first step.

What fixed it? I have no idea if the second step was even necessary. Maybe it was the sync history reset and things would have worked without unchecking the sync settings in iTunes if I had just killed iTunes and relaunched it again.

I hope this helps you. Reply back here either way, so that others can use this information. 🙂

On a side note, the "Product Specialist" told the support person I was on the with that I had USB 1.2 ports, and that's why the iPhone wasn't syncing. Wrong. (1) It synced last night. (2) It just synced now after I corrected the issue I was having. (3) I have a Mac Pro, purchased in November of 2006. The USB ports are 2.0 Even my iBook, purchased in March of 2005, has USB 2.0 ports. The specialist said that he looked up my serial number for the Mac Pro, but he either didn't bother to do that, or read the specs wrong.

Dec 27, 2007 5:47 PM in response to Dennis Metzcher

I had the same problem and I first tried this: reset sync history, force quit iTunes and then shut down my MBP before iTunes had a chance to relaunch (which it kept doing by itself). I had to force quit iTunes several times before my MBP would shut down. This procedure alone wouldn't help.

Then I read your post and tried your procedure without resetting the sync history again. That wouldn't work either. Success came only when I reset the sync history and then unchecked each of the sync settings in iTunes and then followed as you described. By coincidence you found just the right solution.

However, there is something else that worries me. Until tonight the iPhone showed that it was syncing on its screen. This is not the case anymore. All you can see is a screen with the green battery charging sign. No word about syncing.

I find it very annoying that in never needed these kind of tricks, but that I have to keep comig back to this forum since I installed Leopard. Now there are problems all over the place and solutions that remind me of solutions that my Windows friends needed to apply. Or does the procedure you describe make any sense? I also had such a trouble getting mail running after installing Leopard... What has become of Apple's capability to release reliable and stable software?

Dec 27, 2007 7:39 PM in response to Dennis Metzcher

I performed pretty much the same steps that Dennis indicated. I had previously unchecked the calendar syncing before reading this post. Once I read Dennis' instructions, I reset the sync history, synced the iphone (calendars still unchecked), everything went fine with a few minor conflict resolutions... tried to sync again... got hung up on contacts. unchecked contacts, sync again. Lastly, I rechecked contacts, synced, everything ok... rechecked calendars, synced, everything ok...

so far, so good...

Dec 27, 2007 9:28 PM in response to kami52275

well, i continued to have issues. i needed to add a new calendar in iCal, and noticed that the calendar changes i made were not showing up at all in itunes. I had a similar issue right after upgrading to Leopard, here is what i did tonight that worked:

1. turn off .mac sync
2. back up ical
3. export all calendars as .ics files to desktop
4. create temp calendar
5. delete all calendars from ical (except temp)
6. close/reopen ical
7. reset sync history in isync
8. turn on .mac syncing
9. open itunes, try to sync iphone (continued to get error)
10. unchecked contacts and calendars, click apply
11. force quit itunes
12. resent isync history again
13. open itunes, make sure contacts and calendars are unchecked, sync iphone
14. check contacts, sync iphone
15. check calendars, sync iphone (also, since i was making calendar changes i had to go in itunes and set the computer to replace calendars on the iphone Info>Advanced>Replace Data)

so this seems to be working... for now. i added an event on iphone & sync'd... all good, then deleted that event in ical and changed another event in ical and sync'd... all good.

i hope this isn't too confusing and helps someone. This: http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=5798729#5798729 is the thread i referenced the first time i had issues.

Dec 27, 2007 9:39 PM in response to gatsby14055

I'm having the same problem. After cancelling, and force quitting itunes, and retrying, I tried checking my running processes with activity monitor. I noticed multiple instances of MDCrashReportToo (no 'l', go figure). I quit these and tried syncing again. MDCrashReportToo popped up again. I quit it, and the sync proceeded as normal. I can then sync again with no problems until I unplug the phone, then the next time I plug it in, the process pops up again and doesn't stop without me telling it to quit.

Dec 27, 2007 10:01 PM in response to Stitchopoulis

Okay, at this moment I am extremely frustrated. I'm having the same problem as all of you. I don't claim to be a genius in computers, but why the heck did this happen to all of us right around the same time? Apple should know better than this. I pay good money for something, and this is definitely a problem that is not something I can just "deal with." I have to admit, I started to get very worried over the fact that syncing was not possible, mainly because I have a lot of photos on my iPhone that I don't have saved on my computer; therefore, because it refuses to sync and if I choose to reset my iPhone, I will lose all those precious photos. It really ticks me off cuz this issue came out of nowhere! I thought about all the things I've done with my iPhone over the last week, and I can't think of any setting I could have messed with that would have caused all this crap. And, I just synced without any problem this morning! Listen, I can understand a little bug here and there; but this, COME ON! This thing better get fixed, or Apple will lose not only my business but the business of so many other existing and potential customers. I think it's just stupid that we have to scratch our heads together and come up with a complicated back door method for something that should be solid and not as fragile as this problem seems.
Sorry, if this post was completely irrelevant to the situation. I just felt that I had to vent my frustration somewhere.

Thanks!

Message was edited by: talk2nate43

iTunes not Syncing

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