Itunesw freezes as the synch is nearing coompletion

When I try synching my Ipod to Itunes, Itunes says that all of the new podcasts are copying over to the Ipos but when it gets to the very end, Itunes freezes. When I look at tyhe Ipod none of the new podcasts were, in fact, copied over. Hint - I believe that this started happening after downloading the latest version of Itunes - prior to that I was getting an error message about some podcast not being available for copying - and I would click OK (and it would finish) - I downloaded a fresh copy of Itunes and it still did not help.