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

I finally found a solution. I noticed that several of my videos on my iPhone were missing preview "Cover Art". I simply deleted those videos and everything is now fixed!

If its any help to anyone I just solved this by simply using a different USB port on my PC. I don't know why but it just worked.

Breannarose - thank you so much! That worked perfectly!

I did the option to not sync ringtones, then sync ringtones and it took care of my issue. I was getting the message about waiting to copy artwork. Random that they seem unrelated, but it worked.

Here's a suggestion that got all this fixed for me. It got my itunes back to connecting to the internet and allowed my iPad to go through the syncing process completely.

It also got my restore and update working from itunes on my computer. (its a Win7 64-bit by the way)

Link

https://discussions.apple.com/message/18081764#18081764

Directions:

Close your iTunes,

Go to command Prompt -

(Win 7/Vista) - START/ALL PROGRAMS/ACCESSORIES, right mouse click "Command Prompt", choose "Run as Administrator".

(Win XP SP2 & above) - START/ALL PROGRAMS/ACCESSORIES/Command Prompt

In the "Command Prompt" screen, type in

netsh winsock reset

Hit "ENTER" key

Restart your computer.

If you do get a prompt after restart windows to remap LSP, just click NO.

Now launch your iTunes, Sync and see if it is working now.

If you are still having these type of problems after trying the winsock reset, refer to this article to identify which software in your system is inserting LSP:

iTunes 10.5 for Windows: May see performance issues and blank iTunes Store

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4123?viewlocale=en_US

I'd have to see a double blind study to believe that...makes no sense.

So, just to throw another thought out there:

I've had all these same troubles.  Have tried the solution of turning off Genius, restoring to a back up and then syncing each tab anew one at a time.  Worked great.  All went well. Synced. Solved.  But this query began for me because one day I noticed a particular app had gone MIA.  When I tried to get this app back on my iPhone, it simply would not go - it would show up on the iTunes picture of my phone after syncing, then blink right off the screen. It will not go to my phone.  But then all my problems with synching began all over again. 

To me, it looks like there are certain apps, perhaps that are just in conflict with the updated iTunes/desktop software.  They crash the whole party.  This app happens to be Firefox Home.  I've read up and personally contacted Mozilla on the issue and they have not heard of this problem yet with their app, and suggest resolving it with Apple - that leads me back to the hypothesis of app/iTunes software conflicts. 

Not sure if this rings true with anyone else, but would love to know!

For iPad2 users having this hanging sync problem, just turn off all the apps on your iPad and sync...WORKS LIKE A CHARM.  No more hanging on sync...and this fix takes about 20 seconds!!!!  On the iPad, just four finger swipe up from bottom of the screen (this shows all open apps along the bottom of the screen), then press and hold one open app until they all jump, then just touch the little minus circle on each one until they are ALL closed. Rresync and DONE!  FIXED.  Same thing should work on iPhones!!! Why hasn't Apple just said so...

Thanks MikeB it worked for me

I am running the iOS 6 version as a developer. I also got the "Waiting to copy" hang error on the iPhone 4S. I hate to say it, and don't ask me why, but what fixed it for me was unchecking "voice memos". EVEN though I wasn't syncing music, it was still checked. So I turned music on, unchecked it and it worked. I tried numerous things for about a day and did the voice memo thing out of desperation. So go figure...

My Sync fails to complete and causes iTunes to become 'not responding' at the 'Determining tracks to Sync' step. I have tried factory reset / deletion of iPod Photo Cache from iPhoto / deletion of Artwork Cache etc etc but none of that helped. What did work for me was when I disabled Genius, it syncs fully.

As I like Genius and use it alot, I decided to enable it and see which playlist was the issue. Instead of syncing the entire music library I have gone for the select artist / album / playlist approach. I then selected one Genius playlist at a time and tried that, but it hangs on some playlists and not others... don't know why.

I have my iTunes library stored on an external drive and I am running the following versions:

• iOS6 on iPhone 4S
• OS X 10.8.1 (Mountain Lion)
• iTunes v10.7

This issue has been around quite some time and to be honest I am getting sick of it. It seems Apple has done nothing about it and doesn't care about their customers any longer. I was going to get my wife the iPhone 5 but I think I will get her a Samsung S3 instead!

Ha ha, good one. Wait until you discover how hard it is to get the Samsung to sync to anything on the Mac. But I hear you, that "Waiting to copy" message is a pain. There is a solution for it though, but I suspect its different for according to each setup. Try all the ones listed here. Mine was the voice memos, and I had all but given up when I tried that.

Have you tried quitting all running App's on your phone / iPad before sync'ing?

That works for me.

(However, I still get an error message saying that a small, but inceeasing number of items are not being syncronized.)

Tried deleting Voice Memos, quitting all apps on iPhone before syncing, but nothing helped.

What I did do was move my iTunes Library onto a external drive connected directly to my Mac (instead of NAS over WiFi) and bingo everything syncs perfectly time and time again.... must have been down to timeouts on my WiFi network or something due to the large amount of Genius data it was trying to sync...

Still annoyed at the lack of response from Apple on this issue, but at least it is working.... for now anyway!

i came accross the same issue earlier today. i resolved it by unchecking everything i has syncying with my phone and hit sync. after it removed everything i went back and applied the checks one catagory at a time and the issues dissapeared.