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iPhone cannot sync iPhone (unknown error: -50)

iTunes (v8.6.1) cannot sync my iPhone (v3.0.1). Says an unknown error occurred (-50).

Any ideas how to sync?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.5.8), iTunes 8.6.1 / iPhone v 3.0.1

Posted on Aug 10, 2009 6:14 PM

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Posted on Aug 15, 2009 5:03 AM

I've exactly the same problem. Synched my iphone 3G to 3.0.1. I also got a message "An update to the carrier settings for your iphone is available. Would you like to install it now?" After this I get "The iphone "iphone" cannot be synced. An unknown error occurred (-50)"

I reset the phone and still the same.

I've just tried syncing my wife's 1st gen iphone and now it's the same.

I'm running itunes 8.2.1 on an iMac running Leopard.
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Question marked as Best reply

Aug 15, 2009 5:03 AM in response to JayKay01

I've exactly the same problem. Synched my iphone 3G to 3.0.1. I also got a message "An update to the carrier settings for your iphone is available. Would you like to install it now?" After this I get "The iphone "iphone" cannot be synced. An unknown error occurred (-50)"

I reset the phone and still the same.

I've just tried syncing my wife's 1st gen iphone and now it's the same.

I'm running itunes 8.2.1 on an iMac running Leopard.

Aug 26, 2009 7:18 AM in response to JayKay01

I found a helpful post on this at MacRoumors, so I can't take full credit for this myself, although the explanation was incomplete. The problem I believe occurs when the AlbumData.xml file is incomplete, but this may be an issue when any xml data is missing. To find this file, open the iPhoto Library by right-clicking on it and choose "Show Package Contents". The file can be viewed in TextEdit. When I did so, however, at the top, it indicated there was an error, and the file was truncated! That was the problem!

Figuring out how to fix the problem, however, is something that will be specific to the individual iPhoto Library. The first step, regardless, is to scroll to the bottom of the file, which will reveal the name of the album that is to blame. In my case, it was a slide show I did some years ago for my mother that I made into a DVD for her. What apparently happened is that the iPhoto couldn't find the music selection I'd used for one of the tracks, so there was an undefined element - I had made a change to my iTunes Library, substituting a newer recording for an older one.

You'd think that iPhoto could recover from this, or that iTunes could at least let the user know more about what is preventing photos from being synced. My guess is that the team that designed photo sync in iTunes assumed the xml data would always be complete, and the iPhoto team never realized their xml data would be used for iPhone or iPod synchronization.

Aug 26, 2009 11:21 AM in response to mdhurst

Seeing the exact same thing here. Problem occurred with both my iPhone 3Gs and iPod 80GB Classic.

Wish I'd seen this thread before calling AppleCare last night, as they don't have anything in their database with this error on Mac-based systems. The error (-50) in their troubleshooting database refers only to Windows systems.

I spent three hours with tech support last night, and am not quite done getting rid of the problem. During my AppleCare session, we tried uninstalling/reinstalling iTunes, trashing iTunes preference files...they didn't fix the problem. My tech, about 2 hours into this, did hear from a co-worker at the call center that Apple engineering is aware of this problem, and that not syncing my photos will fix the problem. So...we did that...

During the reinstallation of iTunes, we managed to duplicate most of the songs in my iTunes library, which resulted in an error message that there's not enough room on my iPhone.



I'd started going thru the iTunes Music folder and deleting all of the duplicate files last night...didn't come close to finishing, though. My AppleCare product specialist tech and I couldn't think of an easy way to remove the dupes...

Today, though, I may have had a "Eureka" moment. I realized that I SHOULD be able to use my Time Machine backup to restore my iTunes Music folder to its previous state. I'll try this when I get home from work today.

Will advise results.

Aug 26, 2009 12:36 PM in response to James Sapoznik

You may think this is a drastic way to cure the problem but I've just upgraded the iMac G5 for a new 24 inch iMac (the graphics card blew). I restored all my data from time machine to the new Mac. What I noticed during the course of the upgrade was that several of the applications including iPhoto rebuilt their databases as I was going up to iLife09 from the old version. When I synchronised my iPhone after that the problem had gone away so whether the problem was to do with the hardware or the software or the data I'm not sure.

I do think iPhoto had got a little confused because it found 4 photos which it placed in recovered folder in iPhotos, so maybe iPhotos is the cause of the problem.

Not sure if it helps.

Shaun

Aug 31, 2009 8:18 AM in response to JayKay01

I just did a full install of Snow Leopard and of course I had to re-install iTunes. After I did that I dragged my backup copy of the iTunes folder from my external drive onto my mac. I launched iTunes and did a backup of the iphone. No problems at all. I was able to sync any photo album I wanted even though I had slideshows present (some people said slideshows might be the culprit). I think that backing up your iTunes library and then re-installing iTunes might do the trick. Hope this helps.

Sep 1, 2009 5:14 AM in response to JayKay01

I have been having the same issue with my 3GS. So far I have about 3 hours on the phone with tech support during which we have:

1. Reset phone
2. Rebooted computer
3. Deleted and restored i-Tunes
4. Restored preferences and permissions
5. Performed a hard/forced reset on phone

Still no luck. I am going to look into the i-Photo suggestions listed in this thread. Hoping for some relief soon. Apple techs are scratching their heads and are out of ideas.

iPhone cannot sync iPhone (unknown error: -50)

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