iPhone 15 Plus stuck in “Preparing To Sync"

ZumbaAnne wrote:

Hi! I just started using my iPhone 12 mini for Music for my Fitness Class as my iPod touch was aging out. Yes, after teh IOS 17.2.1 update my iTunes on my PC is also is sticking on "preparing to sync". But I am unfamiliar with and do not see on my iPhone the Activity Monitor App. Can I get it from the App Store? Anne (Not an iPhone guru :)

Hey ZumbaAnne, the Activity Monitor app is not on your phone. It is one your computer.

For Mac users, it is an app you can find with spotlight or by searching in the Utilities folder.

For PC users, use the Task Manager instead of Activity Monitor.

-R.

fantaisie-impromptu wrote:

Having said that, on another note, respectfully, I don’t think it’s wise to have the thread be split off.

I haven’t suggested the thread be split off, and I don’t think Robert did either. He said it was getting clouded and potentially confusing . I pointed him to another thread in an effort to help clear any confusion he might have. The issue of the MDCrashreporttool has appeared in multiple threads over the years.

In any case, I’m not sure anyone exercises such control over threads. The moderators edit or delete posts as they see fit. Threads run their course and any user can start a new one . I agree the volume of posts and “me too”s should focus Apple’s attention.

Back to your new IPhone. Have you failed to get any songs loaded, by any of the suggested workarounds that you’ve tried?

I haven’t unpaired my Watch, but disconnecting and reconnecting the USB cable has worked - mostly. Manual media management certainly works and especially appropriate if you want your entire music library on your phone. (I’m not a fan of ForceQuit nor renaming system processes).

i-f

It’s not iTunes Match but iCloud Music Library that avoids the need to sync - and that’s free. And storage of all your songs in iCloud Music Library doesn’t count against your ICloud storage plan. I’m not recommending it - it’s simply another option.

This thread has highlighted several possible workarounds to overcome the bug in Finder syncing. The choice is yours. My favoured options are disconnecting/reconnecting the usb cable and manually managing music in the Mac Music app.

The Apple Help article you refer to is all about syncing, which we know is faulty. It doesn’t mention Backups nor manually managing music and other media which is what we were discussing.

I may have found a better / alternative work around.

1. run iTunes on your pc.

2 connect you iphone via cable.

3. Turn on personal Hotspot.

4. Got to setting on your iphone.

5. Under personal hotspot enable allow others to join.

6. run Sync.

7. after Sync okay to turn of allow others to join.

Hope this works for you.

No, there is confusion, this is a pretty long thread and a lot of posts, so I'll do my best to make this as coherent as possible.

Part 1:

I have two MacBooks (MacBook Pro 2015, and MacBook Pro M3). My MacBook Pro 2015 only runs up to Monterey. I noticed the sync issue then when I tried to sync with my MacBook. I thought it could have been a Monterey issue.

When I got my MacBook Pro M3, I saw that the sync issue persisted (Sonoma). So I knew that this wasn't likely to be a macOS issue, but rather an iPhone related issue.

I only sync my iPhone 15 with my new Mac, as syncing with two Macs would just cause all sorts of headaches and it wasn't intended to be done.

Part 2:

As for manually copying music. It doesn't allow me to manually copy music (by selecting 'copy to device') if music management is turned on in Finder. Once it is turned off in Finder, it works perfectly (I tried it on my iPad, since I don't want to risk messing up my iPhone music library before there is a fix for it). It not syncing by selecting 'copy to device' makes sense if the music management is being managed in the Finder, so it wouldn't allow music to be added outside of the Finder.

Part 3:

As for the iPhone Sync, there are two options in the Finder. (Backup now, and Synchronize). Hitting either one initiates the 5 steps. The only difference (if I remember correctly) is that hitting 'synchronize' allows the option to skip the backup. So either way, it has to go through the sync process, where it gets stuck as mentioned in this thread.

To be fair, I don't really remember what the difference between 'backup now' and 'synchronize' is because I haven't done a manual backup in a while (my devices have hundreds of gb worth of data). I think I will try the two options with my old iPhone 12 on my old MacBook 2015. (Since the iPhone 12 has about 15gb of data and I can confirm it syncs correctly, given that my AppleWatch isn't paired).

This issue just became a rollercoaster of confusion. Hopefully, the above cleared it up. Regardless, the issue is still what the thread is about. Considering this thread is nearly up to 19k views, I have hope that this issue will be fixed soon.

This issue has been reported, plus a few more, like calling people from the contact list without a prompt. The developers are still working to resolve them and that's why we still do not see any new iOS updates a month after iOS 17.2 was released when the issues started. Hopefully, it will be soon. Because turning off MDCrashTool all the time when I sync it's not a solution. The syncing process should be smooth like it was in the last 10 years.

Try syncing over USB, not wifi. (It may help if "show on wifi" is not checked in the Finder).

When (or if) the sync stalls disconnect the USB cable and reconnect after 2 or 3 seconds.

The sync should then restart, if it doesn't click on "Sync".

"...many people also don't sync their iPhones to their computers... so they're probably not aware of the issue"

Let's calculate how many are aware. Let's say 90% do not sync their iPhones with the desktop. The total amount of worldwide iPhone users is 1,46 billion. So 10% makes 146,000,000 iPhone users aware of this plus other issues. If only 1% of people (1.46 million) would submit the request to update and fix this issue, I am sure we would not have 25 pages with posts on this community site.

My suggestion to the Apple development team is to create an easy submit feedback in the next iOS 17.2.2 and an AI response of a temporary solution.

Thank you for this solution. I tried everything you had done in the question to no avail. It even wiped some of my songs off and also said some songs were half synced and now “Not available in my region”. FORCE QUIT worked for me for the process "MDCrashReportTool" and now syncing has progressed

I have the same problem with my iPhone 13 Pro and Windows 10 and iTunes 12.13.1.3 (I upgraded itunes from 12.x to this latest thinking it was an iTunes problem but alas it is an iOS problem). My iPhone 13 Pro was on whatever iOS it had been on since the day I bought it years ago (release day) and I updated a few weeks ago to iOS 17.2.x and iTunes just hangs trying to sync. If I kill that MDCrashReportTool process via Task Manager it does let iTunes go to Step 3 and 4 of syncing, however, it doesn't always sync 100%! Some music never comes over. Even after repeated attempts and closing/starting iTunes again.

I updated to iOS 17.3.1 tonight and the problem persists and it's EXTREMELY annoying that my music often will not sync.

Considering Apple hasn't made and MP3 player in years, the iPhone is really Apple's MP3 player. If Apple cannot get this fixed by mid March, there's no way I'm getting a new iPhone this fall....I will switch to Samsung. This is really ridiculous that Apple hasn't fixed this in months, after 31+ pages of complaints on this forum alone.

One option to get Apple to react might be to report here:

Feedback - macOS - Apple

If all people that looked at this thread would do that (currently more than 5.000), there is a chance ...

fispeterKloten wrote:

Everybody tlaks about synching music. I do not sync music with iTunes but sync my photo libraries and there is the same problem.

Tell Apple at:

Feedback - iPhone - Apple

I could not agree more. Aborting a process can leave the parent process incomplete.

In addition to the comments in this thread, readers may find additional information in this thread:

Since installing the latest iPhone and Ma… - Apple Community

In the following post, users (Windows, MacOS) are discussing the renaming of the MDCrashReportTool. Thereafter, the tool never runs and the Sync and Backup processes will complete without any user intervention, (that is, no longer a need to cancel the stalled tool).

I am squarely on the fence as to whether renaming the tool is a wise choice. Sure, the Sync or Backup will run successfully. However, no error will be reported in a popup when the process completes. Also, what other processes use this reporting tool that will no longer do so?

Here is a link to the rename discussion:

iPhone - Stuck "Preparing to sync" when… - Apple Community

Same issue.

PC "Solution" is to open Task Manager (press Ctrl-Alt-Delete) click on iTunes under Apps. Then right click on MDCrashReportTool and select open file location. Change the name of this MDCrashReportTool.exe (Minoc suggests naming it .exe-orig https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255265364?sortBy=best ) I guess then hang-up is due to this crash reporting tool not working so disabling it just means Apple doesn't get the error sent to them - which they were not getting anyway because it wasn't working. That's it - works normal now.