iTunes not opening automatically

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Level 1

14 points

iTunes not opening automatically

When connecting my iPhone, iTunes does not always open automatically. My preferences in iTunes are set to open automatically (under summary>options) and the choice to disable automatic syncing (iTunes prefs>Devices) is not checked. Any ideas as to what else can cause this conflict?

Also, is there anyway to set iPhoto to not open automatically when connecting an iPhone, yet to open automatically when connecting a digital camera? Seems like Apple could make iPhoto smart enough to know the difference.

MBP 2.16 Core Duo, Mac OS X (10.4.11), 2 GB ram

Posted on Nov 5, 2008 7:16 AM

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Answer 1

Nov 5, 2008 7:21 AM in response to MEW77

When connecting my iPhone, iTunes does not always open automatically. My preferences in iTunes are set to open automatically (under summary>options) and the choice to disable automatic syncing (iTunes prefs>Devices) is not checked. Any ideas as to what else can cause this conflict?

It should. Make sure the iTunesHelper application is in your list of Login Items (System Preferences > Accounts > Login Items). You may need to remove and reinstall the Apple Mobile Device Service:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1747

Also, is there anyway to set iPhoto to not open automatically when connecting an iPhone, yet to open automatically when connecting a digital camera? Seems like Apple could make iPhoto smart enough to know the difference.

It seems that way, but it's not the case. It's an all-or-none thing, unfortunately.

You can submit feedback to Apple: http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

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Answer 2

MEW77 Author

Level 1

14 points

Nov 8, 2008 8:35 PM in response to neuroanatomist

Thanks for the comments. This has gone from bad to worse. I've followed all of the steps, starting with resetting the phone and then with deleting the suggested files on the mac and reinstalling iTunes. Lastly, I completely erased the phone. Before and after I erased the phone, I got the same behavior from iTunes, it would recognize the phone briefly and start to sync and then suddenly the iPhone would just disappear from the iTunes screen. It did this as well on the restore side, recognizing the new phone, starting the restore from my backup and then failing.

One other point, I'm using a Seidio usb dock connected directly to my Mac, but I doubt that is the root of the problem, as iTunes stopped opening automatically when I used the original iPhone USB cable directly to the Mac as well.

Any other ideas how to get out of this purgatory?

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Answer 3

modular747

Level 6

19,674 points

Nov 8, 2008 11:17 PM in response to MEW77

This is more likely a problem on your Mac. Go through the usual OS X troubleshooting including repairing permissions and verifying/repairing the HD with Disk Utility. If you have a more comprehensive disk utility such as DiskWarrier, run that. You may need to flush the caches and rebuild prebindings with a utility like Tiger Cache Cleaner (you show OS X 10.4.11).

Even though the problem started with the iPhone connected directly to the Mac, it is now worse and I recommend that you don't use an external hub. They often are a source of USB data flow errors even though they claim to 2.0 compliant.

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Answer 4

Nov 23, 2008 5:46 AM in response to MEW77

This is an update to my problem, as it really has not gone away. Here is what I have done thus far:

Ran several OSX repair utilities as suggested here. This seemed to fix the problem for a bit.

I then migrated my Account over to a new MacBook running the latest version of OSX. I did not migrate the apps over and installed apps anew on the new MacBook. My problem is now back and spotlight can find no iTunesHelper application. I have the latest update for iTunes as well as the iPhone 2.2 update.

Any ideas of where to go from here?

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