iPhone 15 Plus stuck in “Preparing To Sync"

I've discovered another cause for hanging in iPhone sync is AMPDevicesAgent - the sync window was blank, the fans on my MBP were blowing 100%, and when I check the process table I saw AMPDevicesAgent had consumed something like 5900 minutes of CPU time in the past week (which was when I had last rebooted...)

Well, at least I'm not alone.

TWO MONTHS LATER, this issue is still outstanding. For some reason, it doesn't seem to affect my old iPad 8th Generation syncing with iTunes 12.13.1.3. But each and every time I select "Sync" within iTunes for my iPhone 15 Pro, even when the iTunes app has been open and just performed a successful sync, in order to complete the next sync, I have to ctrl+alt+del to get to Task Manager and end the task MDCrashReportTool in order to move past the dreaded "Preparing to Sync" screen and complete a successful sync with iTunes.

Ridiculous.

My wife ran into this issue before this post was first made, and she gave me the heads up to do that. But I of course keep forgetting, I'll walk away from my computer while it's "syncing", only to find out that it's been hung up the whole time.

Ridiculous.

It's been TWO MONTHS since this post, and this issue has been outstanding longer than that. I'm current for iOS on both my iPad and iPhone (17.3.1). I don't see any current updates or fixes for iTunes, nor have I heard about anything coming anytime soon.

It's almost as if Apple just doesn't care about iTunes anymore. It's gone from my go to everything backup resource for all things iOS, to just keeping a backup image just in case. Thankfully there are other applications out there that can do most if not all of what I do with iTunes, with probably the notable exception of managing and backing up Playlists which is kind of important to me. I have tried several times to completely stop using iTunes, it is do-able, but I like it for just the backup functionality that it still provides. And I'm a Windows guy, I strictly use iOS devices, no Macs etc., so it's kind of important and I'm in the habit of doing backups on a regular basis.

And those backups have become a real PITA lately :)

Come on Apple, let's fix this already :)

Easiest way to deal with this is when it starts syncing, unplug the phone and then plug it back in once the error comes up.

I have this same issue on my PC. I just unplug it as it's trying to sync and force it to stop. Plug it back in and it syncs properly. I do second sync just to make sure.

This is not a fix but it works as well.

Ensure low battery mode is turned OFF, connected to wifi (with a strong signal), and phone is charged or plugged in!

Sooooo, I have to unpair my watch every time I want to sync? FtR, I quit the crash reporter, but that didn't solve the problem. Unpairing my watch did. WTF!

sburnet wrote:

I have Sonoma 14.2.1 Any more ideas?

Update your Mac to 14.3 (and update your other devices)

I got Apple support on the phone yesterday. I mentioned ending the "MDCrashReportTool" process allows the syncing to continue.

At first, he had me uninstall iTunes which I originally downloaded from Apple's website and install the one from the Microsoft Store. When that did not help, he believed the problem could be syncing to iTunes is not removing the logs and analytics. I have about 90 days of files. He said cancelling the MDCrashReportTool process prevents the logs from being removed. I reminded him that the problem occurred as soon as I upgraded to iOS 17.2. Prior to that the problem did not occur.

He gave two suggestions:

1) Allow the syncing to run overnight to allow enough time to remove the logs

2) Do a factory reset and restore from a backup

After doing the factory reset/restore, the logs still are on my iPhone and iTunes still gets stuck.

When he suggested the factor reset/restore, he did recommend backing up to the Cloud. I restored from a password-protected backup on my computer.

SantTX wrote:

He gave two suggestions:

1) Allow the syncing to run overnight to allow enough time to remove the logs

2) Do a factory reset and restore from a backup

I tried option 1 the first time (when my MB Air was still on Ventura) . Only because I didn’t notice the sync had stalled until the following day….. connected by USB, syncing and charging the phone at the same time; I expected the phone to be synced and fully charged ready for a new day. I guess the sync was running for around 8 or 9 hours.

I haven’t checked the logs .

I had the same issue with my iPhone 11 (just updated to iOS 17.2 earlier today) syncing to iTunes (12.13.0.9) via a USB <-> Lightning cable to my Lenovo X1 Carbon PC (Windows 10 V22H2).

With iPhone connected and iTunes running (stuck), launch Task Manager, left click on iTunes, right click on ‘MDCrashReportTool’ then End task. Should complete the sync process shortly thereafter.

Fyi… I repeated the backup / sync just to see if I would need to repeat that process every time. Yep… I hope Apple remedies this soon.

I've had this happen, where the sync goes too fast and nothing copies. My solution: Do a hard reboot of my iPhone and my iMac before I do the sync. Power all the way off and then back on. That seems to help. Hope that works for you!

I reached out to Apple Support and they told me that this was a known issue. However, you should probably reach out too to inform them. The more people talk about it, the faster it will hopefully be fixed. My new iPhone 15 Pro and my M3 MacBook Pro can't backup nor sync, so yeah, that's an issue.

You literally just said you have an AppleWatch. I’m not unpairing mine either, but what people on this thread are saying is that they have had success when they unpaired the AppleWatch. Every single person on this thread has either, A: stated that syncing doesn’t work and that they have an AppleWatch paired, or B: stated that syncing doesn’t work but never stated whether they have an AppleWatch or not.

If you read closely at the comments /last I checked/ no one has explicitly stated that they can’t sync their device and they don’t have an AppleWatch paired.

Given that information, one can say that the issue may indeed be with the AppleWatch.

fantaisie-impromptu wrote:

I just tried that method and, unfortunately, it doesn't work for me. Nothing happens. The problem might be even greater since no music can be synced at all if an AppleWatch is paired.

Really. That does sound serious to me.

This has nothing to do with syncing. Manually managing music on your phone does not involve syncing at all.

Try this help, it’s a little out of date, but still valid:

https://appletoolbox.com/how-to-manually-manage-music-on-your-iphone-in-macos-catalina/

I am somewhat cynical but it does seem like there is little incentive for them to ensure a smooth sync / backup process as they probably want to encourage us all to use streaming services and over the air…

In the Finder, I know a backup step is part of the sync, but, if you click on “Back Up Now” does that execute a backup (only) of your device without any problem?

Or: Do you have a problem with backing up your device to your Mac, or backing up to the Cloud, or both?

I suggest you tell Apple how you feel here:

Product Feedback - Apple

Okay, I initially had my doubts about force quitting "MDCrashReportTool." It sounded like one of those difficult, convoluted processes that might work or might not. Like, "go into the machine code and delete line 11892." I had been trying every trick I knew to get my music to transfer and wasting a LOT of time. However, when quitting the CrashReportTool actually worked, I was ****** grateful to whoever figured it out. It's fairly simple and it works. Thanks.