itunes not detecting iphone 12

I have an iPhone Xs running iOs 14.2. For some reason today it would mount in Photos but not in iTunes. After running the update recommended by turingtest2 everything seems fine again.

Would be helpful if Apple Support could also provide such useful information !

Thank you.

@Dikirok - That's great you were able to get it to finally work. I believe some people are still experiencing issues. It's only a handful of us out of tons of people experiencing this issue and with my latest findings, the issue is so sporadic that I don't think Apple is aware and will do anything about it.

Here are my latest findings with my particular setup.

iPhone 12 64GB

Latest iOS 14.2.1 and latest iTunes 12.11.

Asus ROG Strix B450-I Gaming latest BIOS

R5 3600

32GB DDR4-3600

Silverstone RVZ03-ARGB

TL:DR

Not sure what to make of the results except that it is now working on my AMD system albeit best to use the rear USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A ports

1. With aftermarket USB-A to Lightning cable, tested the 2 front USB 3.0 Type-A ports colored blue; I can charge but I get an error message in iTunes "An unknown error occurred (0xE800000C)"
2. With aftermarket USB-A to Lightning cable, tested the 4 rear USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A ports colored blue; I can charge and also connect to iTunes, sync music and do full backup. iTunes detects the phone immediately.
3. With aftermarket USB-A to Lightning cable, tested the 2 rear USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A ports colored red; I can charge but iTunes doesn't recognize the phone and no error message
4. With aftermarket USB-C to Lightning cable (link below) and USB-A to USB-C adapter (link below), tested the 2 front USB 3.0 Type-A ports colored blue; I can charge and also connect to iTunes, sync music and do full backup. iTunes detects the phone immediately
5. With aftermarket USB-C to Lightning cable and USB-A to USB-C adapter, tested the 4 rear USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A ports colored blue; I can charge and also connect to iTunes, sync music and do full backup. iTunes detects the phone immediately
6. With aftermarket USB-C to Lightning cable and USB-A to USB-C adapter, tested the 2 rear USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A ports colored red; I can charge but iTunes doesn't recognize the phone and no error message
7. With Apple's in-the-box USB-C to Lightning cable and USB-A to USB-C adapter, tested the 2 front USB 3.0 Type-A ports colored blue; I can charge but iTunes doesn't recognize the phone and no error message
8. With Apple's in-the-box USB-C to Lightning cable and USB-A to USB-C adapter, tested the 4 rear USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A ports colored blue; I can charge and also connect to iTunes, sync music and do full backup. iTunes detects the phone immediately
9. With Apple's in-the-box USB-C to Lightning cable and USB-A to USB-C adapter, tested the 2 rear USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A ports colored red; I can charge but iTunes doesn't recognize the phone and no error message

USB-C to Lightning Cable

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TXH6LQ5/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

USB-A to USB-C Adapter

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B079LYHNSR/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I FOUND THE ANSWER TO THIS!!! I have a MacBook Pro and just got the iPhone 12 and was wondering why my new iPhone 12 wouldn't connect to iTunes so I could restore it with my previous backup. I even reset my privacy and location because I found that online but that wasn't it. Well here are the steps (If you have a Mac. May be the same for windows, I'm not sure.)

1. Make sure your iPhone 12 and MacBook are updated to the latest version.
2. Next plug your phone in and go to FINDER. Not iTunes.
3. Under finder, go to your iPhone that's plugged into the USB port. It should ask you if "you want to trust this device."
4. Click yes and while doing this, have your iPhone unlocked. It'll ask you the same thing on your phone..
5. After that, everything should work as normal in iTunes after that!

I think the issue is that the new phone isn't "trusted" yet and it won't show in iTunes until it is. Solution: connect your phone and you should see it mount like a hard drive in the finder window. Sect the phone icon and it will give you an option to "trust" this device. Once trusted, it will mount in iTunes.

Thanks for all the tips and updates guys. The lightening to USB-C cable only works as a charging mechanism when plugged in to the USB-C port on my HP laptop. The only way around it is to get an adapter and plug the cable into the normal USB-A port in order for iTunes and Windows to acknowledge the phone. (I’ve done this, and the cable when plugged into the USB-C port only charges the phone- Windows doesn’t even acknowledge a device is connected. Nothing comes up in My Computer- there is no phone displayed as an external device or anything like that. However, using the adapter in the USB-A port, Windows acknowledges the iPhone 12 and so does iTunes.) I think for MacBooks, the cable works as it’s supposed to after utilizing Finder to mark the phone as “trusted” as a few if you said previously, but for any of us who have HP, DELL, etc., we’re better off sticking with the charging cable we previously had or getting the adapter and plugging it in to the USB-A port. It makes perfect sense that Apple would utilize a new charging cable that is more compatible with a MacBook, and I’m regretting selling mine lol. Still, I don’t think Apple plans to “fix” this in any other way if we’re using traditional laptops, other than telling us to buy the adapter, use our old lightening to USB cable (that still works for the iPhone 12) or get a MacBook. Good luck everyone.

I'm having a similar issue:

-OS 10.13.6

-iTunes 12.8.2.3

iTunes will recognize 12 mini, will sync, but when I try to back up my phone, iTunes either quits, or the backup cannot be completed because the iPhone "has disconnected."

I managed to get one backup done a couple weeks ago (after a few hours of trying), but haven't managed to do it again.

Same but it confirmed that the cable is the main issue mostly. I used the new cable from the box and it could immediately detect. I dont have usb c on my pc so i bought small converter usb c femsle to usb 3 and stuck it on the rnd of the apple cable. Works fine. Annoying they don’t give one a normal cable but world is moving to usb c i guess

Seems there are multiple issues here. Users with Windows PCs are one group, those with MacBooks (particularly old ones) another. I’m in the old MacBook group. By a process of elimination, it seems the real problem must be with hardware (or firmware?) on the iPhone 12 series. In my case, very similar to others’:

1. Connecting iPhone 12 mini (iOS 14.2 and now 14.3) to my old MacBook (mid-2009, MacOS 10.11.6) occasionally results in it appearing fleetingly in iTunes (12.8.2.3), then vanishing again, but most of the time it simply doesn’t show up at all. However, the phone does charge fine, and the Photos app also recognizes that it is connected.
2. The exact same connection procedure allows my old iPhone SE and iPhone 8 to appear in iTunes without fail - and also my brand new iPad Air.
3. Tried suggestions for rebooting phone while connected, restarting iTunes while connected, using a USB-A to USB-C female converter plug, using an old USB-A to Lightning cable, etc., etc. None work.
4. The fact that the phone is new to my Mac, and therefore untrusted, seems to give a hint, but I can’t find a way to get the Finder to recognize it at all. (The “Trust this Mac?” window pops up on the phone okay, but confirming there does not help.)

Was hoping to have a solution, especially after reading and following turingtest2’s suggestion. But that didn’t help either. (Seems I already have the latest iTunes version.) 07truth’s solution of completely wiping and resetting the iPhone seems unreasonably drastic and inconvenient.

The occasional, transient appearance of my iPhone 12 in iTunes is the weirdest thing - you’d expect it to either work or not work at all.

Wonder if Apple will ever offer us a solution...

This worked for me:

1. Make sure all software is up to date and back up is ready(this was my issue(I believe)
2. Turn Off Find My Phone. Backup cannot take place if this is on. The stores use to tell me this and I forgot.
3. Once you plug in and if everything is updated, iTunes should recognize it and will prompt you to go to Finder and finder will update the rest of way.

Using: Macbook, iPhone 12 Pro, macOS Catalina

Plug in your phone when then go to the go option up top then authorize or trust device

I've got a MSI B450 Tomahawk Max so don't think there are any USB 3.0 ports on there - From what I've read they're all 2.0 or 3.2. Absolutely nothing has worked for me!

Well there's an update to iTunes to 12.11 but my 2 AMD systems still do not detect it reliably.

I was able to get iphone 12 to work in a USB 3.1 slot. The only way I got mine to work

This answer worked for me!! The issue was the "trust computer" never came up on my iphone 12 until I went into the Finder and did as suggested. Thanks for solution!

Turbo5306 wrote:

Windows 10 users do not have “finder”.

Try iOS device not showing in iTunes for Windows - Apple Community.

tt2