Dreaded "session could not be started" syncing problem.

Three F'ING hours!!! That's how long I've been trying to get my calendar from my iphone to my imac...and THIS is what works?! First of all, thank you iBuckhead. So appreciate the fix but common...really?! Apple can't figure this out with all of their "cut and paste this garbage line of code into terminal" but some random who-on-the-planet-actually-was-able-to-figure-out-this-work-around thing like enabling Airplane mode worked?! Good Lord....what's next, Contacts won't sync so I should call my mom and ask her how her day was and then connect my phone and magically it'll work?!

Happy to have my calendar back on my desktop byt sweet cherry pie am I the only one who thinks this is RIDICULOUS?!?

PLEASE HELP!

Had same problem, deleted backup and switched off Ipad.

Now it wont start again!

Just gives me that round cirlce thing turning around in centre of the screen!

PLease help.

Cant even switch it off.

Totally worked! Although my phone scared me for a moment because it wasn't shutting down, and I had to do a hard shut down, but luckily when it turned back on, everything was still there! You're amazing! Thanks so much!

This worked for me and my iPad. UNfortunately I'm now getting the "unable to load provider data from Sync Services. Reconnect or try again later" when I connect and sync my iPhone 3GS and/or iPad. I'll search for solutions...

What did you mean all but one backup? Are you referring to other devices besides the ipad (phone or pod)?

How long should the iPad restart take? I'm going on about 5 minutes now, still looking at the spinning "updating" icon.

Thank you so much!

Apple Care, like you, suggested that I delete any old devices but did not suggest to turn off the iPad.

Your suggestion worked without a snitch!! My ipad is updated and synced!

🙂 Wonderful!

I started getting this cryptic error message last week, after I synced my iPod when the battery had gone flat; it had not been used for a while. With the iPad connected, I saw one backup file for each device, the iPad and the iPod (which lost its identity when I tried to sync it).

I reset the iPad (you have to hold both buttons to get the red slider) and resynced it after it reset, but then before the sync ended I got a message that the device had disconnected. I clicked OK, and it completed the sync.

Oh, when I first connected the cable to sync, it told me it could not sync my iPhone and gave some equally cryptic error message. I do not now nor have I ever owned an iPhone.

My iPad has had the same "session could not be started" problem for some time. I didn't realize it, but my iPad had not backed up successfully for over two months.

Alas, Carolyn's suggested fix did not solve the problem. After turning the iPad off, it would not turn back on - it simply displayed the spinner going round and round and round. (I did not have multiple iPad backups listed under the Devices tab.)

To get rid of the spinner, I had to force a reboot of the iPad. Even after doing so, I got the "session could not be started" after performing another sync.

So I then initiated a manual backup of the iPad (by Control-clicking on the iPad's icon in the iTunes sidebar). A backup session started, and completed after a few minutes. Since then, the normal sync operation completes successfully - no more "session could not be started" errors.

Helpful tip: check the status of your iPad backups occasionally, via iTunes Preferences/Devices. Ensure that the date of the latest backup is current, lest you be lulled into a false sense of security that your iPad is being backed up when you do a Sync.

A long time down the road since the first post, but I just encountered this problem when trying to sync my iPad with my Windows PC.

I followed all of the directions given, deleting all but one of the backups. Still though, I got that same "session cannot be started" message. Grr!!

I was able to sync sucessfully after deleting ALL iPad backups in the Preferences/Backup tab.

Thanks for the tip!!!

Andrew