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

I upgraded iTunes to 10.5.2.11 and it fixed the problem. I think that 10.5.2.11 just came out. Not sure. But it worked for me.

It took two months but with Apple Support's help yesterday,we found a corrupt Music Atrtist that was causing the problem. After deleting all of the music by wiping iPhone clean, restore then add music maunually by artist about 20 at a time. After hundreds of of songs added, it stopped when I got to one Artist.  I deleted the music from iTunes (move to trash), poor Cheaptrick, they were the problem for me. Then sync "all music" and it worked fine. I had this problem for two iPhones and two iPads. Life is great today with all of my music, photos and Apps. Good Luck!

This worked like a charm. No need to do all the other convoluted things- just deleted the iPod Photo Cache and bingo - everything worked.

I had this problem and I unchecked "sync photos from iphoto" and both my Ipad 2 and Iphone 4s sinced fine.  This was clearly the root of the problem for me.

I had this problem. The iPod photo chache deletion didnt help. Deleted voice memos and its resolved now.. read the original post here  > http://peter.upfold.org.uk/blog/2011/10/21/my-resolution-to-ios-5-waiting-for-it ems-to-copy-sync-issue/

I have tried everything to no avail. I tried deleting caches, I've deleted voice memos that never even synced to my phone, I unchecked almost all "sync-able" items and nothing. So I said screw it and I was going to deal with not syncing. I went into the ITunes app on my phone to re-download missing music and when I when into the iPod app, I noticed that my last sync attempt had duplicated some songs. So I deleted those albums off of my iPhone and tried to sync again. This time it finished. So I then deleted and re-downloaded those same albums on my computer, added those too and the sync still worked.

So to sum it up, for me, it was a conflict with music on my phone. And not just the album artwork as I had deleted all that and re-download that previously.  So add another one to the check list...

that's exactly what this one is - duplicated music due to a bad previous sync

the fix:

check "manually manage music" in the summary pane

go into your music folder in the sidebar UNDER THE IPHONE device name

delete all music off your iphone

do a sync

worked for me

Happens to me too on BOTH my iPhone 4s and iPad since the iOS 5 upgrade last autumn. After a LONG while the message "29 items could not be copied" is appearing. (Don´t know what 29 itemns, it could be some Aperture photos or music files - or something else...)

MOST annoying!

Ditto to others still having problems. I too have updated and read this entire thread and tried all the suggestions. It's still not releasing and completing the synch.

Absolutely. It's completely broken.

I was okay for a while until I turned on iTunes Match. Now half my album art is gone from my iPad and it won't sync any more.  It keeps saying it's over capacity but when I uncheck Books it ignores me and it will be checked again the next time.

This is very buggy software.  Apple is supposed to be simple.  iTunes has gotten out of hand.

.. and now the most lately added "projects" and photos in Aperture are not synced to my iPad, and not synced properly to my iPhone. All software is up-to date. The Aperture Library is big though - about 20.000 pictures.

When will there be a fix?

The only solution that worked to for me is to make sure that the phone has backed up recently, and then restore the phone from backup.  This completely wipes the phone and it will take ages to copy everything back (I had to leave it syncing overnight), but it seems to work.  All the app settings will be restored so none of you app data will be lost.

I finally had to do the Restore too. It was annoying because you loose all phone settings which you don't realize is that valuable until you Restore the phone. Then your phone is a mess without your apps or phone settings, logins that you had before.

Sorry, but most probably you will have the issue sooner or later again. In my case with 2 iPhones and my gf's case it lasted for one or two syncs, before it became corrupted again.

Keep us updated and I keep the fingers crossed that it worked at least for some people

My phone is still syncing after about 10 to 15 syncs (plugged into my mac) .  I have a feeling its something to do with the wireless syncing.  For some reason my ipad started syncing wirelessly this morning without being plugged in and itunes gave an error of not being able to backup the ipad.  Since then its had the same problem of hanging on 'waiting for items to copy'.  It might be something to do with disconnecting the phone from the power source before it completes its wireless sync.

I'll let you know when I've built up enough courage to try a wirelss sync on my phone.