Q: iTunes stuck on last stage of sync, "Waiting for items to copy", NEVER COMPLETES??

I was having these sync problems after I upgraded my iPhone 4 to iOS 5 but found a simple solution.

Cancel the sync in iTunes. In iTunes turn off Genius (Menu > Store > Turn Off Genius). Then un-tick the Sync options for all the following for your device (iPhone, iPad etc.):

Sync Ringtones

Sync Movies

Sync TV Shows

Sync Books

Sync Photos

Now press the Sync button. All the items will be removed (quite quickly).

Now go back to iTunes and reselect the Sync tick box options for all the items you disables as in the list above.

Press the iTunes Sync button. After all the items have been re-synced press the Sync button again as some further artwork may need syncing.

Now turn Genius back on (Menu > Store > Turn Genius On) and then press the Sync button again. After it finishes press Sync one more time and after this all should be back to normal.

This can't possibly be what's going on. I've got Genius disabled by default, never turned it on in the first place and am still getting "Waiting for items to copy" and I've tried removing everything, and syscing once catagory back on at a time, Music, Ringtones, Books, Photos, STILL get "Waiting for items to copy".

The above fix didn't work for me either. So I turned off Genius, downloaded & reinstalled iTunes, and restored my phone. The sync completed in no time. Not sure which part fixed it, but it's fine now.

I was having the wireless sync stuck on last step problem with both my iPad and iPhone.  After applying your fix of deleting the iPod Photo Cache, they both sync really fast and complete.  Thanks a bunch!

What version of iPhoto did you have? If you have version 11 and performed the 9.2 update it should upgrade your library for you to support iOS 5 devices. May some are not checking for software updates before installing iOS 5 on their devices?

Same issues here.  Successfully upgraded to iOS 5, iTunes 10.5.   Now whenever I sync, it gets stuck on the last step, regardless of how many steps it thinks it should have.  I tried removing all the content and re-adding it.  No joy.  Tried a backup and restore.  No joy.  Tried the delete "iPod Photo Cache" trick.  No change.

It's driving me nuts.  I'm glad I tried updating my phone first before I did my wife's.

This is clearly a bug on Apple's part, their products should interoperate correctly. 

MacBookPro 2011, OS X 10.6.8.  iPhone 3GS

Yeah im getting the same problem. Ive tried all the suggested methods to fix it and none work.

Having the same issue with iPad 2, nothing seems to help

I finally fixed the issue on my iPhone 4.

Here's what I did - I'm not sure which steps did the trick so I'm just listing it all:

made it sync locally, not to cloud,

disabled cloud on phone

Disabled wifi sync on iTunes phone options tab

disabled everything except apps from syncing (didn't wanna lose all app data),

did a back up,

Updated to osx10.7.2

did a restore

One by one reenabled syncing items, and synced the phone before reenabling the next item

When it all synced fine I then reenabled wifi sync, unplugged my phone, plugged it into power, and successfully synced via wifi.

Count me among those having same issue. Either it is "waiting for items to copy" or "waiting for changes to be applied" this is where it stalls out in sync.

I did turn off Genius... made no difference. The thing is that I have yet to finish syncing all my photos back after upgrading to iOS 5. Over the last few days I keep on trying (lost count how many tries) and it may copy a few hundred at a time or a few thousand, but it never completes it all before it cancels itself. I am about 3/4th complete now, maybe a little more.

I would hate to have to re-sync all my media back if I were to turn off syncing on all of it and then turn them back on. It took a few days to get to where I am now syncing them back after installing iOS 5 and I am still not done.

Sigh.

A point of interest: I noticed the free space reported on my iPhone itself is not the same that iTunes reports. I am guessing that this due to iTunes projecting the free space after it completes the sync (which it never does).

Try to disable "include videos" in photo tab of itunes. it helped me.

I'm having the same problem and have tried everything suggested here, plus repairing permissions and disabling automatic syncing.

This is an iPhone 3GS that I have just given to my wife to use with her MacBook. I cleared the phone, set it up as a new device, removed all my apps and created a unique Apple ID for her. The other thing I have noticed is that unlike when I was using it on my iMac, there is no option on the iphone to slide to cancel sync. (Maybe this is an iOS 5 thing - I need to check my 4S on the iMac to confirm...)

I have unchecked ALL the apps, music, movies, tv shows, books and photos, deleted the caches in both iPhoto and Aperture, installed a new download of iTunes via the Apple site and it's still stuck waiting for changes to be applied! This is just Calendars and Contacts.

The MacBook is running Snow Leopard 10.6.8.

I'm having the same issue. I get to the last step and it spins forever on "Waiting for items to copy" without ever finishing.

I've tried everything suggested in this thread--deleting the photo cache, unchecking the sync options and disabling the genius feature, etc.

Nothing works. There is a bug with the software. Please fix it or give us a workaround!

I had the same problem to sync my photos. The issue happened whenever "Sync Photos from": "iPhoto" was checked

I was able to sync after this workaround, in Photos "tab":

Select "Selected albums, Events, and Faces, and automatically include": "no Events".

("Include videos" was checked, in my case)

In the "Events" group, I checked a few albums (from 1 up to 10 at a time), and clicked "Apply".

After several syncs, all my photos were copied to my iPhone 3GS.

My idea is that the sync has some kind of timeout, and if too many photos are synced at once, the time expires causing the problem. I have noticed that the syncing icon in iPhone disappears after some time when synching too many photos.

I also noticed, in Activity Monitor, that there is a huge increment in the network downlink when the photos start syncing. (I am synching via USB). Maybe this is because my photos are storied in a NAS drive, but I supposed iPhoto kept the thumbnails (iPod Photo Cache) in my local driver with the iPhoto Library. I dont know if this is right.

Same here.  Nothing I do gives me a "work around".  Because of thiis, some of my music won't sync...