iPhone - Stuck "Preparing to sync" when trying to sync with iTunes via USB cable

Thank you minok. I’ve been looking for a fix to this problem for a while. I’ve tried everything but none has work except for this. Such an easy fix I’m curious why apple has allowed this to go on. There are many apple users who prefer their own music to a streaming service. Thanks again and thanks to the community.

Thank you for the straight forward instructions. I went to task manager, while iiTunes was in preparing to sync process. Looked at Processes and under iTunes you see that file that needs to be ended. Once doing that, it synced with no issues. When I went to sync again - I had to open Task Manager again and do the same thing. I kept task manager open so I could sync till everything was transferred. It's a pain but it's a relief that it works and it's an alternative until Apple can fix the issue. Thank you to everyone's input on here.

Cheers,

Lucy

using @minok's fix has worked for me, also..situation update, whilst trying to troubleshoot an issue purchasing content via the apple tv app on my iphone se, I was directed to and did, update itunes(desktop program) and the mdcrashreporttool.exe workaround fix survived the update.

The Force-Quit solution worked for me.....about five times.

Then it stopped working. Now the process dies, the 'Preparing to Syync' message goes away, but......it does not move on to syncing, it just acts like the whole process is over

iOS 17.3 RC (with WatchOS 10.3) doesn't solve this problem, by the way 😒. So unless there's a change between the RC and the full release (which feels unlikely) then we're waiting to see if there's a new release of iTunes that solves it.

Prev I had found the MDCrashreporterTool being killed in Activity Monitor worked until today. After reading these comments again this morning I closed iTunes (Music on iMac),switched my Apple Watch off so it wasn't connected to my phone (13 Pro), opened Music again and it connected to my phone sync settings.......it was connected to but wasnt actually syncing so I then had to kill the MDCrashreporterTool in Activity Monitor and hey presto it began to actually Sync and adding music to my phone.

[Edited by Moderator]

I was hoping and EXPECTING with all the users with this issue the "stuck on preparing to sync" would be fixed in 17.3. It is not. Both disappointing and showing a lack of responisibility for their customers.

Now, in the process of trying to fix this i have made it worse.

My phonwe and outlook always synced esily and as expected. Trying to fix this I di two things: Unchecked sync contacts and tried reset sync. Both several times. When I rechecked sync contacts I get several possible erros. Tonight's : this will change more than 25% of you contacts on this phone. Add 22, delete 191 and something else for 6. I cancelled that.

Is it possible to get back into sync? I am reluctant to try one toime replace contacts on computer from this phone. Can I trust that?

Appreciate any insight. There are several similar threads on this hear so forgive me for posting more than one, but woul dlike visibility to fix this problem.

Thanks.

I was hoping and EXPECTING with all the users with this issue the "stuck on preparing to sync" would be fixed in 17.3. It is not. Both disappointing and showing a lack of responisibility for their customers.

Now, in the process of trying to fix this i have made it worse.

My phonwe and outlook always synced esily and as expected. Trying to fix this I di two things: Unchecked sync contacts and tried reset sync. Both several times. When I rechecked sync contacts I get several possible erros. Tonight's : this will change more than 25% of you contacts on this phone. Add 22, delete 191 and something else for 6. I cancelled that.

Is it possible to get back into sync? I am reluctant to try one toime replace contacts on computer from this phone. Can I trust that?

Appreciate any insight. There are several similar threads on this hear so forgive me for posting more than one, but woul dlike visibility to fix this problem.

Thanks.

Yup - worked. I'm on a Mac Studio (original M1) with Sonoma and an iPhone 12 running 17.3. I added a few tracks to Music and then sync'd with my phone. Normally, it would stop at Preparing to Sync. Stopping MDCrashReporter using Activity Monitor would allow it to continue. This time, MDCrashReporter did not start and the sync completed successfully. Yay! Many thanks to all who have contributed to this forum and to Apple for finally fixing this.

Upgraded to iOS 17.3, watchOS 10.3, and macOS Sonoma 14.3, with mixed results.

By default, it still isn't fixed. Finder sync still gets stuck on 'Preparing To Sync'.

However, if I shut down my Apple Watch, when I sync my iPhone with Finder, the MDCrashReportTool process still shows up, but after maybe 20 seconds it seems to complete gracefully and sync continues successfully through its normal process - which I wasn't able to reproduce in my previous post on Dec 17, 2023.

Unable to say about Windows users though (some part of the end-to-end software chain is different, obviously).

I've seen so many issues on my Apple Watch in past few weeks, with complications (such as weather especially) that are unable to refresh and display the same data as on iPhone even though you would be looking at both screens simultaneously. I wonder if there's any broader communication issue between iPhone and Watch that would be involved.

Just tried an experiment as people have been discussing it. Just played some songs on my iPhone then synced to my iMac. This time I shut down my Apple Watch Ultra. Lo and behold after about a minute of sitting at step 2 it synced. Played some more music, turned on AW and once again no sync until force quitting the crash report tool. One other thing, this happens on wifi or cable syncing.

iMac M3 Sonoma 14.3

iPhone 12 iOS 17.3

Watch OS 10.3

I have been fighting with this -preparing to sync- issue several days. Without succes. I reported this to Apple support Finland too. Big Bug in iTunes , I think. Apple software quality is sometimes poor. In Apple watch Weather application clock at 1 AM is 13 o'clock.

Unlike yesterday, today iTunes WILL eventually start to sync so partly solved, I suppose. Took around 3 minutes to get past "Preparing..." but at least it did it without me having to kill the MDCrashReport process