iTunes stuck on "Syncing iPhone (Step 3 of 5) Preparing to Sync" when trying to sync iPhone to new Win 11 laptop

I solved my problem. I had an Apple Watch paired to my iPhone. I had gotten rid of the watch, but never unpaired it. After unpairing the watch everything syncs okay now. Lesson, if you get rid of the watch not only remove it from your devices you also need to unpair it from your phone!!! Life is back to normal.

Yay, thank you! I had the same problem syncing my iPhone 15 Pro to an old Mac running High Sierra, which used to work fine but for weeks has gotten stuck "Preparing to Sync" at Step 3 of 5 since giving away my old iPhone and AirPods Pro. Per your tip, I went into Settings -> Bluetooth, selected circle-i info on my old AirPods Pro, and chose "Forget This Device". After reconnecting my new iPhone to my old Mac, iTunes Sync immediately worked to completion!

If you go into window explorer (C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Apple\Mobile Device Support) and rename MDCrashReportTool.exe to something else like MDCrashReportTool1.exe. Then restart iTunes it is able to sync.

Just had a chat conversation with Apple and during the stuck syncing process stopping the MDCrashReportTool.exe in task manager resulted in finishing syncing my Iphone 13pro and fixed it with a workaround. They say they're looking for a solution.

I have the same problem. I did open task manager and stopped the process MDCrashReportTool. The first time it essentially just stopped the syncing process. I restarted iTunes then restarted my iPhone 12 pro max. synced my iPhone and when it stopped and stage 3 i opened task manager and ended the MDCrashReportTool process. My iphone then synced properly including some new music I selected. But, I agree thats not how i should sync my music. this started right after the last update to iTunes.

Having this problem with a 13 Pro and Windows 11 laptop. Stopping MDCrashReportTool.exe in task manager worked perfectly -- as soon as I ended the task, my playlist sync'd properly.

Thanks very much for this direction. It worked! I would have never put that together. Unpairing an old apple watch did the trick. Until I did this it was the spinning wheel of step 3 of 5....

Much appreciated!

Another option is to revert to the previous build of iTunes on the assumption that the issue is with the current one. See Troubleshooting issues with iTunes for Windows updates - Apple Community. Download links for recent builds are at the very bottom of the page.

tt2

Hey folks. Some of us running Mac OS have had similar issues and we fixed ours by unpairing Apple Watches and Ear Pods. If you have any of those extras you might want to try unpairing the Watches and/or Ear pods.

Unpaired my watch and the problem went away. you can easily pair it again. (for the iPhone 15 pro iTunes syncing problem)

Find the post "Stopping MDCRASHREPORT on task Manager under itunes, if it stops syncing, task manager>itunes>Mdcrashreport.exe then Stop the process. It should sync all your songs perfectly. Kudos to that who posted it first. it works perfectly fine. Iphone still top of the line - im using iphone promax 15 256 gb on 17.1 latest OS.

I tried unpairing the iWatch from my MacBook Air to do an iPhone backup and it worked as well. I can't understand why Apple makes a sync reliant on the iWatch settings. The only problem is that a few settings in the watch need to be reset like the passcode. Not a deal breaker, but they really need to be on top of this and get a patch done quickly.

delete mdcrash report in task manager under itunes

Same "preparing to sync" issue started with my wife's iPhone 12 Pro Max since about a week ago, after successfully syncing 2 weeks ago with earlier version of iOS. Is it something in the newest iOS? Apple tech support says I need to reset my wife's iPhone which is a major pain. My iPhone 13 Pro synchs fine without issue. So far.