Can’t sync with iTunes after iOS 17.1.1.update

Sooo for some reason what finally worked for me is leaving the phone plugged into my Mac, then rebooting the Mac while phone plugged in, then when I open iTunes it recognizes the iPhone and will sync. Only works for a day and next time I try won’t recognize the phone again and have to do the above solution again. Every day…… at least found a work around.

Updated by iPhone SE to 7.2.1 today and, while still no love from iTunes, iMazing (version 2.14.6) does mount the phone, performing backup and file transfers, including music. My OSX is 10.11.6

Today I went to an Apple Store, and they told me this is not a bug. They said IOS (17) is not compatible with iTunes anymore, and there's no way to fix this. You can only connect your IOS 17 iPhone to your Mac through the Finder. When I asked them how could this be even possible, that my iPhone was perfectly compatible with iTunes when I bought it less than a year ago but now I can't use it for my music, they (there was a group of 5 "geniuses" paying close attention as if I were a rare cretaceous beast) just stood looking blank-faced at each other.

Seriously, I'm fed up with this guys

(You had to see their faces when I said the word "iTunes" —"iWhaaat?")

once I updated to the latest iPhone version (iOS 17.3), it has been syncing. I will say this....it does look like it's going to get stuck again on "Step 2 of 4", but give it some time and it actually does sync.

my iphone will no longer show up in itunes after updating it to 17.3.1

Tried everything, different cables, different versions of itunes, called apple support (they couldn't fix it either), and I know it has to do with 17.3.1 because if I plug an older phone it works just fine. but two phones i have both on 17.3.1 do NOT show up anymore once plugged in and only itunes, if I open photo app or image capture app the phones show up there...... I even just tried wiping my phone and lost everything, because itunes cannot see the phone to restore it from a backup........ this is straight rediciulous considering you wont let me downgrade my iphone back to a previous version because you no longer sign previous versions..... I'm bassically screwed now until you patch it or fix it please....... literally spent hours trying everything, soft reset, restore mode, you name it nothing works. plugged phone into different pc and boom pops up right away. it refuses to work on my macbook itunes that has ALL MY DATA......... and only phones with 17.3.1................ let me downgrade back to 17.2 or something at least................

According to Apple, High Sierra and iTunes 12.8.3 cannot manage iPhones running iOS 17.

Did it work for you?

JIHO 069 wrote:

According to Apple, High Sierra and iTunes 12.8.3 cannot manage iPhones running iOS 17.

iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus - Technical Specifications - Apple

Syncing to a Mac or PC requires:

• macOS Catalina 10.15 or later using the Finder
• macOS High Sierra 10.13 through macOS Mojave 10.14.6 using iTunes 12.8 or later

If Macs running High Sierra can't manage iPhones running iOS 17, then what is this statement doing in the iPhone 15's Technical Specifications?

Did it work for you?

My iPhone is running iOS 16, and I'm not currently interested in upgrading it to iOS 17.

iTunes Version 12.9.4.102 gets the iPhone to synch with the newest update (17.1.1)... you can get that version somewhere on the internet, but I forgot were I got it from. I am using Windows 10. I hope this helps someone!!

It's possible that iMazing can do a backup. I'm using ver 2.14.6 on MacOS 10.11.6, but there is a new version of iMazing that may function like iTunes did. Not sure about adding music or data files to the iOS17 devices, but my older veresion did a backup, although I didn't try to restore.

I truly hope this is a bug in iOS 17.x, not a decision to cut off users with no prior warning from iTunes. I can confirm that High Sierra is compatible enough with iOS 17 to prompt a "trust" request when setting up a new phone — yet it won't display the iPhone as a connected device. (Apparently under Catalina or newer, the iPhone appears under finder. However the Apple support docs on syncing an iPhone to iTunes consist mostly of links to other documents, none of which provide specifics — hence my hope that this was not a planned break but a bug that will be fixed in a subsequent iOS update).

I have the iPhone Pro 12, technical specifications as follows:

Syncing to a Mac or PC requires:     

• macOS Catalina 10.15 or later using the Finder
• macOS El Capitan 10.11.6 through macOS Mojave 10.14.6 using iTunes 12.8 or later
• Windows 7 or later using iTunes 12.10.10 or later (free download from www.itunes.com/download)

The phone cannot be seen with iTunes 12.8 (High Sierra) using an original Apple cable with a direct connection. I have tested this on El Capitan with the same result. It must be related to iOS. It probably should be reported to Apple as a bug report.

I got on a chat last Friday and was told to speak to a senior Apple tech on Monday. If I obtain a solution, I'll post it. But thus far I can report that even after answering the Trust prompt and also "update software", the device doesn't show up — which also means no manual updates/backups via iTunes. In two out of three attempts, connecting the phone also triggered a prompt to download a software update, only to report that Apple's servers are inaccessible and that the installation failed. In my case I can't say how the phone would have worked with earlier versions of iOS because I only just got it (certified refurbished).

I am having a similar issue. After the latest update, iTunes gets hung up on on step 2 of the sync. After going through the usual checklist and having no result, I tried restarting my phone when the sync freezes and then attempted to sync again- and this time it worked. I have done this a few times now. It’s an inconvenient workaround.

I'm running Sonoma 14.3 (iMac M1) and iOS 17.3 (iPhone 14 Pro) and the problem persists. iPhone gets stuck in the sync process and you cannot cancel it. I started noticing this almost two years ago. Killing the MDCrashReportingTool is the only thing I've found to restore order. It's annoying but at least I can do backups again.

Really puzzling why Apple hasn't resolved this after such a long time.

I have the same problem and I followed you steps to unplug the iphone and restart it and then plug into itunes and it did work. As you said it is no inconvenient.

@Servant of Cats. Sadly, your suggestion doesn't work. I'm already in High Sierra and iTunes 12.8 doesn't "see" my ioS 17.2 phone, either. In my case, I had just brought my iTunes library out of an even older version of iTunes (Snow Leopard!) with no prior history of syncing an iPhone with iTunes because there was little point in doing so when I had so little free space on prior iPhones to import my library. I then turned to iMazing only to find that ~20 years worth of playlists disappeared after waiting over an hour for my library to copy. iMazing support has since confirmed that playlists won't transfer. So those of us who are on High Sierra (maybe even Mojave?) or earlier need an alternative to iTunes and to iMazing…