itunes not detecting iphone 12

I have a few other lightning cables (mostly Apple branded) but my computer does not have a USB-C port on it. However, I was finally able to get it to work after connecting an Apple brand USB-A to Lightning cable directly to a USB 3.1 port on the back of my computer (directly connected to the motherboard). All other ports did not work, even though device manager was detecting the iPhone correctly and following the various reinstall recommendations did not work. Only the USB 3 port worked properly and I didn't have to restart everything - though of course in all my troubleshooting i did a number of restarts and reinstalls so it can't hurt if you restart your computer or iTunes as well.

Just for background, I've got an iPhone 12 Mini on iOS 14.3. The computer I'm trying to sync to is an AMD Ryzen 3 (Gigabyte B450M motherboard) running Windows 10 (with the latest Dec 2020 patches). I do not have a USB-C port on the computer anywhere, so the included cable is not particularly useful at the moment. Thanks for the discussion which helped me narrow down some things to try.

Had this issue and it drove me crazy! Windows 10 fully updated and new iPhone 12 Pro. What worked for me is reinstalling iTunes, updating my 12 Pro to iOS14.3 and then reinstalling the apple USB drivers (every step on this page:https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204095. Then I had to restart the computer with the phone plugged in and then I launched iTunes and it spun for a long time like it was loading then suddenly worked! I think iTunes had to download some drivers and didn't know it had to until iTunes was launched with the phone plugged in.

I was having the same problem. I was using an aftermarket Lightning to USB cord. I then tried one of the Apple Lightning to USB cords that had come with a prior phone. Worked great. The new Iphones come with a Lightning to USB-C cord. You could probably also just by a USB-C to USB adapter (I would go Apple) and that would probably work also.

I tested two different TYPE-C cables on two different PCs, all up-to-date.

None of them can see my brand new iPhone 12 Pro Max.

One is an AMD, the other is an HP Spectre laptop.

It seems like those cables (the original in the boxes) have not enough power to sync the phone to the PC, but they can only charge it. In fact, the old cable from the iPhone X (USB-A) works just fine on both PCs.

I'll try to reach an Apple Store and ask for a cable replacement although the iPhone 11 Pro Max used to connect just fine with the same original cable I am using.

Windows 10 iPhone 12 Pro iOS14.3

Wow this took me so long to figure out.. I did everything on this page multiple times: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204095 and have had no luck.

What worked for me is:

Try different cables and try enabling/disabling the Apple Mobile Device USB Driver in the Device Manager (WITHOUT restarting) until you find a cable that shows up in your iTunes/My Computer. I had to use an original iPhone cable in a USB 3.0 slot. Once I saw it was recognized I went to my Device Manager and selected "Update Driver" on the Apple Mobile Device USB COMPOSITE Driver->Browse my computer for driver software-> and put this path in my "search for drivers": C:\Program Files\Common Files\Apple\Mobile Device Support\Drivers->Let me pick from a list-> then I selected the Apple Mobile Device USB Driver and NOT the composite driver. This caused the composite driver to go away and then I updated the non-composite driver the same way with the same driver. This FORCED me to restart my computer. I restarted my computer with my iPhone plugged in and launched iTunes and it WORKED! I am now able to back up/restore my iPhone 12 Pro. It was definitely something seriously wrong with the drivers that wasn't working. Every cable and every driver worked on my iPhone6S but this iPhone 12 Pro was a nightmare to work. Keep trying to reinstall your drivers and uninstalling/reinstalling iTunes until you get it to work.

I've finally fixed whatever issue was causing iTunes not to recognise my iPhone 12 Pro Max in Windows 10 on my PC.

Unfortunately, the USB-C to Lightning cable that came in the box doesn't work at all on my PC whether plugged into the USB-C port or connected by the USB-C to USB adaptor, though some of the USB ports will charge the iPhone, but that's all.

What finally worked for me was uninstalling iTunes and any obvious components that were originally downloaded from the Microsoft Store. I then downloaded iTunes directly from Apple: https://www.apple.com/itunes/download/win64

Once installed and for the sake of it, I then restarted AMDS: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT203188

Finally, I reinstalled the Apple Mobile Device USB driver as described under the 'If you downloaded iTunes from Apple' section here: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204095#PC

Thereafter I used a genuine Apple USB to Lightning cable which I reckon was from either an iPhone 7 Plus or iPhone 10 Pro Max (but can't be certain) to connect the iPhone to the PC. The main USBs at the front of my PC labelled USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 didn't work so tried the light green coloured USBs on the rear of the PC but they only charged the iPhone so moved to the dark blue coloured USB ports and voila!

I've tested the result to destruction this afternoon by removing the LAN cable from my PC and randomly starting my PC from shutdown, opening iTunes and connecting the iPhone to the blue USB port and 100% recognised and a very reliable cellular data tethered connection established, which is why I need iTunes to recognise my iPhone.

@johnjapan, I replied the other day confirming everything you noted. I had nearly the same experience. Not sure where that response was added in this thread.

Subsequently, my computer began recognizing my iPhone 12 as my old 7. Really odd. I did a chat call with support & performed the obvious troubleshooting measures that Apple outlines for connectivity issues. Still stumped, we reinstalled iTunes 12.8 at the advice of a senior advisor. Though I supposedly had the current release, that did the trick in my case. In fact, as it was installing a secondary pop-up window appeared (after the initial installation window) indicating an update was necessary to sync with my iPhone 12. See below.

SOLVED

So it seems like the problem was very easy to solve. It was an hardware problem with a brand new iPhone 12 Pro Max. Apple replaced my iPhone and now it's working fine.

Not a real solution, but it was the ONLY one.

So if you're experiencing problems with the sync/backup/update/restore options in iTunes, or the iPhone can't be recognized at all by multiple PCs/Mac (with the ORIGINAL USB Type-C cable), and you have an up-to-date system (and latest iTunes version), it is an hardware problem with the iPhone.

There is no problem with Ryzen processors (as thought by someone), the new iPhone 12 I got can be now used with my Ryzen CPU.

Just in case anyone stumbles upon this Post in the future. I had the same issue and the following steps solved this issue for me.

1. I connected my iPhone 12 with just any USB-A - Lightning cable
2. The phone connected and showed up in File Explorer, not in iTunes though
3. I went to Device Manager and found "Apple iPhone" under "Portable Devices"
4. Right-click on Apple iPhone and "Update Driver" -> Search on my Computer and entered "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Apple\Mobile Device Support" (search subfolders checked - Afaik this is the path were iTunes stores its device drivers)
5. After a few seconds it updated the drivers and my iPhone showed up as "Apple Mobile Device USB Driver" under USB-Controller and was detected by iTunes

These steps might differ a bit since my Windows isnt in enlgish so i had to guess how the buttons are labedled but you should get the idea.

I had this same issue of Windows and iTunes rarely if ever recognizing my iPhone 12 Pro with an MSI B550 PRO-VDH WIFI motherboard and AMD Ryzen 9 5900X CPU. My iPhone is running iOS 14.4 over an older Apple USB-A to Lightning cable with the latest Windows 10 updates as well as the latest version of iTunes.

The solution that worked for me was updating the BIOS version for the motherboard.

1) You can find out your motherboard make and model by following these steps: https://techguided.com/what-motherboard-do-i-have/.

2) Follow these directions on this MSI support page to update the BIOS: https://us.msi.com/support/technical_details/MB_BIOS_Update

Hope this helps someone, because this was a pain to troubleshoot, I should have known to check the BIOS version first :)

Just came across this thread today because I too was having issues trying to connect and use iTunes to restore my new iPhone 12 from the backup I made today with my old iphone 6s. My system is a fairly new Ryzen 7 homebuilt using an Asus Crosshair VII with two USB2-A, two USB3-A, and one USB-C ports on the top of case.

I had no problem plugging in my iPhone 6s to the USB-A port and being detected by both Windows and the computer. So I made a full backup in iTunes without problems.

Now, when I attempted to connect the new iPhone 12 to the same computer using an older (ie, the same cable I used to backup the 6s) original Apple lightning cable, first the computer complained about possible defective USB ports. So I tried all of them including some on the back of the machine and nothing worked. iTunes simply didn't see the phone.

I then decided to use the new lightning-USB-C cable provided in the iPhone 12 box, and connected it to the one USB-c port on my computer and...walla. Detected instantly. I can only conclude from this that the new iPhone "expects" to be connected via USB-c, at least for passing data or connecting to iTunes. This is of course, just a guess on my part.

I hope this helps someone out there.

I had the same problem, upgraded from iPhone 8 Plus to iPhone 12 Pro Max. iTunes said it was not compatible and I need to update it, but the App store didn't show an available update. When I called in to support she told me to go to the internet and download iTunes directly from https://support.apple.com/en_CA/downloads/itunes I downloaded version 12.8.2 for MAC (there is also a Windows version) and it fixed all my problems. iPhone now shows in iTunes and everything is syncing as it should. She said sometimes the small software updates will blow out iTunes and my OS is three years old so they stop supporting older versions. I also purchased the USB-C to USB-A adapter that some else mention in this thread from Amazon and it works perfectly!

I'm running OS High Sierra on a 2015 MacBook Air.

I too have a home build Ryzen 5 3600 system and was having the same issues connecting to iTunes with my new iPhone 12 with a 'normal' Apple USB-A to lightning and also an after market USB-A to lightning cable. It would connect for a while sometimes and then spontaneously disconnect again. Sometimes it wouldn't connect at all. I removed iTunes, rebooted and reinstalled via the MS store (not the iTunes web site). Made sure the phone had the latest software version etc. Nothing made a difference to the reliability of connection.

I have an iPhone playlist that I keep all the music I want on my current and subsequent iPhones with 8000+ songs in it that I was trying to copy to the phone. When I managed to get it to connect by plugging and unplugging, trying different cables and ports etc. , some of the songs would go over, then it would disconnect, then I would re-connect it and some more would go over etc. Very frustrating.

In the end I had Apple on the phone for a few hours and they agreed to send me a second iP12. The second one is worse than the first one - won't appear in iTunes at all with 'normal' lightning to USB-A cables.

After reading this thread I tried the supplied lightning to USB-C cable connected to a USB-A port via an adaptor (Syntech USB C Female to USB Male Adapter (3 Pack), Type C to USB A Converter by STARWARE X Syntech Direct

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085VT1VJT/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_SqZVFb7JQJSWS?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1)

and it worked very well and seemed to be faster at copying the music than the 'normal' cables mentioned above.

Now I just have to track down the screen protector they promised to send me FOC that has not arrived.

Go to Device Manager

-> Scroll Down to Universal Serial Bus Devices -

you should see two Apple Mobile Device USB.... items

In turn select each one->Right click->Select Update Driver->Select Search Automatically

Close iTunes and restart it

Good luck

->

I've been agonizing over this issue for so long, but this actually worked! Here's my story:

I got my new iPhone 12 Mini yesterday after making a backup of my iPhone 11. It's a trade-in so I did that ahead of time just in case, as you always should. I used an USB port right on the front of my PC to do it. I hadn't had any issues with those ports before. The Motherboard is an MSI B450 Gaming Pro Carbon, and of course I'm running Windows 10.

The transfer of data from phone to phone was gonna take too long since the store was going to close so I went home to restore from my backup in iTunes. My computer would make a sound after connecting the phone, and sometimes it would show in the File Explorer. But it almost always refused to show the phone in iTunes. I say "almost" because there was a brief moment while troubleshooting with Apple support where it actually showed the "Welcome to your new iPhone" screen in iTunes, but I'm not sure why. That screen was only up for about a second before just going away and showing regular iTunes with no sign of seeing my phone.

I ended up running through even more troubleshooting once live chat transferred me to a call, but my contact wasn't much help either. He basically just ran me through all the steps he had listed on his end before saying he would try to look into it more and call me back on Tuesday. Luckily, the store I got my phone from was holding my old one until I could confirm my data had transferred before wiping it. So I went back there earlier today to transfer the data from my old phone directly. It took about an hour.

So I was trying to figure out the issue tonight since nothing was really solved. What if I want to back up my phone? Why can't iTunes see it? We tried reinstalling iTunes (after moving the folder with my iPhone backup), restarting the PC AND the phone, making sure iTunes was up to date, and I tried other USB ports including the one USB-C port on my PC using the new lightning to USB-C cable that came with the phone. None of it worked.

But just now, I tried one of the other USB-A ports on the computer (the one directly under the Wifi antennas on my motherboard), and now iTunes is seeing the phone. Looking into it, I think this is a USB 3.1 port which confuses me because it shouldn't be the only one. So I'm not sure why only this one works. My phone is getting backed up as we speak, but this definitely sounds like something that's either gonna need a software fix in iTunes and/or iOS OR there's some hardware fault with the new iPhones that causes this to happen, in which case the phones should be recalled and replaced at no charge.

I'm really hoping the right people at Apple get on this because- while I'm glad to see it's not just me- this means there's a real problem here.