Summary of Issues: MDCrashReportTool, Backup, Sync, Preparing to Sync

Great note! Coincidentally I encountered this yesterday and have been trying to solve it.

Regarding disabling MDCrashReportTool: The path to it is

/Library/Apple/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/MobileDevice.framework/Versions/A/AppleMobileDeviceHelper.app/Contents/Resources/MDCrashReportTool

Note that to navigate all the way to the bottom we need to use "Show Package Contents" on AppleMobileDeviceHelper.app.

I renamed MDCrashReportTool with no trouble. I expected to get "insufficient access" but did not. After renaming the tool, I can sync my iPhone completely: steps 1 through 4 start and end normally.

I am on Sonoma 14.2 and iOS 17.2.

Your mileage may vary. Not responsible for anyone's issues if they choose to rename an Apple tool.

Thank you for your research!

After several days of trying various things and checking the latest posts to various threads , here’s where I’m up to.

In the Finder, boxes “show … on Wi-Fi” and “automatically sync… when connected” are both checked

1. Syncing over wi-fi always hangs.
2. The phone occasionally disappears from the Finder sidebar.
3. Syncing over a wired connection sometimes works first time and sometimes hangs. When the sync hangs disconnecting and reconnecting the USB cable causes the backup and sync to complete and produces a valid backup. So it’s important not to skip the backup. This is now my favoured workaround.
4. Looking at various posts in other threads I’m left wondering if anyone who doesn’t have an Apple Watch has this problem. The sync always works fine on the iPad. So what’s different about the iPhone? Could it be that Watch diagnostics data causes a problem in the iPhone backup/sync which invokes the crash reporter which hangs? Just my WAG.

Thanks for all your efforts Ron, it’s much appreciated .

My user ID on my mac is an Admin. If you are not an Admin you may not be able to rename Mac standard software.

If your Mac belongs to your company or is under administrative control by your company you may not be able to rename Mac standard software.

If the MDCrashReportTool is running you might not be able to affect the software on disk because it is in use. You would need to kill it, and ensure you do not start another sync so it does not get restarted, before trying to rename the program.

Note that the path to the tool starts at /Library (the Mac's Library) , not ~/Library (your account's Library).

The tool is actually embedded in an application tree, not the regular file system tree. The permissions in such a tree may be different from the permissions in the file system tree; I'm not sure how they work. The controlling permissions may actually be on AppleMobileDeviceHelper.app.

There are other system permission mechanisms that have prevented me from changing Mac software in the past, so I was rather surprised my user WAS able to change it.

When you say you cannot rename the tool, do you mean (1) you do not know how, or (2) you know how but you get an error message or are otherwise blocked?

(1) Using Finder, navigate via the folder structure until you see MDCrashReportTool. Right-click on it and you should see a drop-down menu that includes Rename. Choose that, then add text to the end of the file name. Do you get an error message at this point?

No, you probably cannot create a folder in this location. No, you probably cannot move the tool from the Resources folder. From the point of AppleMobileDeviceHelper.app on down, you are navigating folders within an application package, not "really" folders within the file system. Finder can navigate it, but the .app was built by Xcode, and Finder's abilities are limited there. Renaming is one of the few things you can do with Finder.

(2) Using System Settings > Users & Groups , do you see Admin under your name?

If not (you are not Admin), you will need to either promote your User to be an Admin, or log in as an Admin user to do the rename.

If so (you are Admin) there is something else going on with your Mac (see my earlier comment), e.g. your Mac might be locked down by a company administrator.

• It might be possible for you to rename the tool if your Mac has been freshly booted and your iPhone is turned off, so the tool has not been referenced by the sync process.
• If that doesn't work, it might be possible to rename it if you boot your Mac into single-user mode so you have more access and fewer system processes are active.
• If that doesn't work, you might have to disable System Integrity Protection to accomplish the rename. If you are comfortable with that, instructions are available elsewhere on Apple's site.

In reply to Northern-Survivor

• I face the "hanging sync iPhone to Mac" as well (iMac24-M1 14.2.1, iPhone-13mini 17.2.1), since the update to 14.2/17.2 - not before that update. System version 14.1.x / 17.1.x did sync OK for me.
• I always use the "old" USB cable connection, and I have "Automatically sync when this iPhone is connected" activated in the "iTunes" Finder window
• Yes, I do have (also) an AppleWatch (Watch-9 10.2)
• As reported e.g. at reddit, I had several times (but not always) success with activating Flight Mode on the AppleWatch when a sync was hanging at "Step 2 preparing to sync". The iPhone did disappear from the Finder window sidebar for a short time, then re-appeared and the sync continued.
• It is mostly Photos that need to sync in my case (the AppleMusic abo works without sync on several devices). Syncing Photos from Photos.app completes with success after Force Quit of MDCrashReportTool.

It would be great if all people who read this thread because they are affected would submit a report at

Feedback - iPhone - Apple

and/or

Product Feedback - Apple => your Mac.

All the best for 2024!

On the iPhone go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Analytics & Improvements. Uncheck "Share iPhone & Watch analytics.

This caused my iPhone to sync properly - just after I wrote that long update!

I found this here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6743151?sortBy=best

Same issue here. Drilled into the bottom of the path with no option to change the filename. With any other file all I have to do is select the file, hit Enter [Return] and change the filename. Nope, not this one. Seems to be protected by kryptonite or something. Tried to change permissions, but was presented with "The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have the necessary permission." So, I guess those who are unable to change the filename will need to resort to killing the file in Activity Monitor every time the problem occurs, which for me is every time I try to sync my phone. Thought: I haven't tried this, but has anyone booted in safe mode and a) tried to sync or b) attempted to change the filename? It's possible neither will work, but...

Just wanted to add here, if you cannot rename MDCrashReportTool because of permissions being denied (or the option isn't available when you right click) you could try disabling SIP.

Disabling SIP is very dangerous, and I cannot emphasize enough that you need to know what you are doing before you do.

Here is a guide to disable it: Disabling and Enabling System Integrity Protection | Apple Developer Documentation

In brief -

1. Boot into recovery (on M1/M2 chips just shut down and then hold down the power button while it is booting back up)
2. Options > Utilities > Terminal
3. Run "csrutil disable"
4. Restart and go rename MDCrashReportTool
5. Boot into recovery
6. Go back into Terminal
7. Run "csrutil enable" (if that throws an error run "csrutil clear" instead)
8. Run "csrutil status" and make sure SIP is enabled!
9. Restart

Hope this helps!

It's absolutely disgraceful that they aren't fixed this issue. It leaves only the obvious conclusion that the only reason this has not been fixed is because Apple refuses to. It's that simple. It is widespread enough they are clearly aware of it, and ave fixed issues with a smaller impact than this. They do not want you syncing music from your computer to your phone. They want you paying a subscription for Apple Music and for larger iCloud storage. If you aren't, this is how they show you that they are content to allow users affected by this to deal with an obnoxious flaw. In fact, it kinda looks like this issue is a deliberate attempt by apple to hamstring devices for that purpose. It's common enough that it is not affected "a small amount of users", but because it isn't everyone, they can plausibly claim that it isn't deliberate. But it is, without a doubt, infuriating and unacceptable that it hasn't been addressed after all these years.

Thank you very much, renaming MDCrashReportTool to something random fixed the issue. But it requireds disabling disabling Syetm Integrity Protection to make this system modification. Maybe the OP would be best to add this fact in his post as most people have SIP enabled by default so will find issues renaming the file.

Barry F-H wrote:

Thanks for your replies!

Yes, the alert indicated that the 6k+ events would be removed from my Mac. The target calendar on my IPhone was completely empty (I made it brand new, intending to prevent duplicate events…just in case).

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/14ccb5dd-0b4c-47e2-9213-1e6ee5b6a921

So, if the latest update to either calendar (Mac or IPhone) created a blank calendar on the iPhone then (based on my limited knowledge of how sync works) the IPhone will take precedence at the next sync and will create a blank calendar on the Mac.

If you update the Mac calendar by creating a new event then the Mac calendar should take precedence at the next sync. And the sync alert , if it appears, should be different.

Please Note. I’m by no means certain, and as always I could easily be wrong.

rsworden wrote:

On the iPhone go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Analytics & Improvements. Uncheck "Share iPhone & Watch analytics.

This caused my iPhone to sync properly - just after I wrote that long update!

I found this here: What is jetsam event and how can I stop it - Apple Community

Yes, there was a short discussion about this yesterday on the “iPhone 15 plus stuck…..” thread. Here’s the bones of it.:

Northern-Survivor

User level:

Level 1

36 points

Jan 26, 2024 2:47 PM in response to udofromberlin

udofromberlin wrote:

Completely disable all crash reporting 1.

Tried that. It didn't work for me. It likely only works if the sync encounters an error in the log, analytics or diagnostic data. Even so, disabling all Analytics & Improvement reporting to Apple is probably a good idea and I left it disabled.