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

Got the same problem, I find i've try all you said by it still bug. Now iTunes block on step2 (prearing the sync)... I got the problem on my iPhone v4 AND my iPad V1...

Anyone got an idea ?

i think i found answer go to ur itunes disable wifi sync and then go to phone and go to General> itunes wi-fi sync and then click cancel it worked for me good luck!!

The only thing I could do to sync my phone is to restore it  :/ But will it work normally for the next sync...

I had the same problem with my iphone 4, i kept on going for several hours... always the same message "waiting for... to be copied". I tried EVERY solution that was suggested... nothing worked... until I read the one with the voice memos.. I tried to delete all the memos, and... it worked so thanks to everyone who suggested that solution... (sorry if my English spelling and choice of words are incorrect)

My story, fwiw:

iPhone 4 (ios 5, 9a334) syncing to MBP with itunes 10.5 (141) was hanging on "waiting for items" on Genius data

I tried

1) Disabling Genius: Hang switched to "Waiting for changes to be applied" (ugh)

2) delete voice memos (I had none): no effect

3) stop syncing photos and books: no effect

4) 5-sec phone hard-reset: no effect

What finally got the behavior to change was

--All of above plus:

--Activate airplane mode, then do 5-sec reset

--Quit iTunes and turn off airport on macbook pro

--connect restarted phone via cable

--run sync

It got the podcasts and tracks synced (what I was originally hoping for) but now the sync is stuck for 15 minutes on "waiting for items to copy" for "Syncing Artwork..."

I am going to do a factory settings restore and restore from backup when I get a chance, but I hope Apple can figure out what's up with this one... I like the ability to keep using my phone during syncs, but it's somewhat less valuable a feature if the syncs never complete

Deleting the voice memos (of the phone) did the trick for me. I had 2 of them not syncing. Now everything is fine

...sameproblem here getting stuck on last stage of the sync.

PROBLEM FIXEDby

1. Backup iPhone

2. Restorefactory settings

3. Restorefrom back up.

Done.

Syncs like acharm now. However, I have not tried the Wi-Fi sync after this fix. I'll post here again if there’s problems syncing over Wi-Fi.

To close all applications before sync my device, worked for me. But still think Apple has to do Something about. There are too many issues with this subject.

Restoring my phone didn't even work!

I have also updated to iOS 5.01 and it still cancels on the last step.

Apple needs to realise that this has been going on for nearly a month now.

Something needs to be done!

iPhone 4 User.

I got mine to completely sync by unplugging my router to turn off my wifi.  It seems that it defaults to a wifi sync even if you are plugged directly into your computer.  By turning off my wifi it did a nice "old-fashioned" wired sync just fine.

UPDATE:  After doing that once, now i can plug in and do the wifi sync just fine, too, without having to turn off my wifi, very interesting.................

Still having the problem with iOS 5.0.1. None of the suggested soltuions fixed it. Hangs on either syncinc artwork or syncing genius. The same 47 songs always re-copy. I've deleted those songs and still have the problem. Apple...help.

Same problems here on iPad 1 with 5.0.1 ... I tried almost all of the suggested solutions. Restoring to factory settings is not an option. Hope that Apple will fix this soon.

Following the advice of others here, I moved all my voice memos on my PC to somewhere outside iTunes' radar, deleted all voice memos within the iTunes PC application, and deleted all voice memos in my iPhone. The sync then finished perfectly.

Unfortunately, today the sync stopped working again on my iPhone 4, even closing all apps as I previoulsy posted did not make it work.

Stopping the WiFi did not solve anything.

So I entered settings DURING the sync and set the airplane mode to ON. Suddenly, my running sync completed successfully.

So give Airplane mode a try, it might help you also.

Later Edit: stopped working, false alarm. Airplane mode is no solution.