iTunes - Step 7 of 7 waiting for items to copy - hanging

Did the reset of my iPad and configured it anew. I still have the "Wating for items to copy message," and the only thing that changed since resetting are four photos that I added to iPhoto!!! Apple's total silence on the matter is aggrevating. Can't some Apple engineer simply say under what circumstances the message appears! Which device is waiting, and why should either the Mac or the iPad, that is connected to the Mac via USB and syncing with iTunes, be waiting? Nothing should being going over the Internet, for example. This is absolutely ridiculous.

@RSER: Did the reset completely solve the problem? Have you set the iPhone up the way it was when you had the problem? Are you syncing the same things? Have you synced after the reset? Does the message still appear? If so, how long does it take before it disappears?

Richard

All good problem solved received an update on my mac while the phone was plugged in and it fixed itself.!!

How good is that! We have 11 computers in this house and only one mac.

It probably the only one that doesn't get yelled at!

@dave h

I looked through this whole thread and found no previous post from you.

1. Did you have the same problem as the rest of us, i.e., while syncing your iPhone or iPad with iTunes the message "Waiting for items to copy" appears and takes a very, very long time to disappear. So long, in fact, that most people conclude that the syncing is "stuck" and interrupt it?

2. What update did you receive on your Mac while the iPhone was plugged in?

3. What fixed itself? Did the message just disappear?

4. What are you syncing: music, photos, videos, TV shows, moviess? How much of the devic's memory is free (please estimate based on the diagram in the Info (??) tab of the iPhone in iTunes).

@All,

Is there anybody following this thread who has never had this problem, e.g.,

1. upgraded to iOS 5, iTunes 10.5 and syncing just worked and didn't take appreciably longer than before, or

2. just bought a new iPhone or iPad with iOS 5 installed, set the device up new, and syncing does not seem to get "stuck" at this message?

If you, could you tell us how much music, photos, videos, etc. you're syncing? Maybe a good estimate is the percentage of memory free on the device, as displayed by the diagram in the Info tab (I think) of the device in iTunes

Thanks,

Richard

Hi Richard,

Dont know if I have the answer you need.

Every week or so an update just appears on my mac computer. I just download the update and I happened to have my iphone plugged in charging overnight as per usual. It went straight to itunes and the phone started syncing by itself, finished and was good to go.

I sort of knew it would be the ' iphone bug fix' the phone needed as the problem has only been occuring for a day or two and I've also found that once or twice simply shutting down and rebooting big mac usually sorts minor things out as they occur.

This particular Iphone is only about 2week old ( last one still working but phone company said it was time to upgrade to new Iphone4) and happy to say is now comfortably syncing all photo, music, videos, notes as per usual. The iphone is also usually pretty full of plans and data so we can flick them around at work to engineers and stuff if the Ipad is in the truck and I cant be bothered walking over to the truck to get it.

Yep all good here, hope yours sorts itself out soon Richard.

@dave h,

Thanks for the response. The updates that you received did not necessarily have anything to do with the iPhone that was plugged in. In fact, there has been no update that claims to address this problem. That doesn't mean, of course, that the cause of the problem isn't, say, in iTunes or iOS 5, but in some other software, and an update to that software fixes it. My Mac is updated "to the gills". In particular, I have just installed iTunes 10.5.1, and I am still getting the error message, "Waiting for items to copy."

---> Were you getting the error message, "Waiting for items to copy," in iTunes while syncing your iPhone, and had the impression the syncing was just "hung," because it didn't seem that the message was going to disappear?

---> If so, does the message still appear after the update that seems to have fixed whatever syncing problem you had?

Thanks,

Richard

Richard,

Like I said, it wouldn't get past step 7 for 2 days.

Am not very computer savvy, all I did was update the computer while the Iphone plugged in and problem solved. Syncs just fine again.

Hope yours gets sorted soon.

Thanks,

Dave

I had the same issue of iTunes hanging at step 7

AFter reading all posts and deciding it all to be "too hard" I thought I'd do a bit of everything that was "simple"

BTw iPhone 4 n imas all running latest software

So I shut down the iMac ( had to force quit iTunes ) and left my iPhone plugged in.

AFter restarting I opened iTunes and nothing had changed grrrr I thought.

SO I thoughts to myself what else is wrong.

I was confused as I watched on iTunes what it was trying to copy, lo and behold they were "tones"

SO I went thru and selected the tones that I wanted and then re synced.

Presto!

WIreless sync and it finished no waiting to cy. I also turned off genius. I am going to re tick genius and hope I don't go backwards. I hope that helps someone out there.

MUst say I still have issues with the whole iCloud thing as I seem to have dupe FTC and missing info in some of those contact and they say iCloud. Stillworkingonthat one. Hope apple make it a smooth fix up in next update.

I can't believe the problem has been going this long and there is no official Apple solution!!!

I am having this problem every time I sync my iPod or iPhone 4S, ever since I "upgraded" to Lion a few weeks ago.

Apple - this *****. We can't use your products that we paid for. FIX IT.

It's been 4 months since the last discussion, did anyone find a generic solution? I just switched from a Verizon iPhone 4 to an AT&T iPhone 4s and am not able to sync since the original sync when I got it a week ago. It stays stuck on Step 7! Once I cancel the sync it waits to cancel, and when I close iTunes my iPhone still says it is syncing until I reboot. Shall I just go to the Genius Bar??

@mbbarch,

It's been my experience that the sync just takes a very, very long time to complete, but it does complete. Canceling it only makes matters worse. So if you've gone through one or more cycles of canceling and retrying the sync, it's probably best to restore, then try the sync again and be very, very patient. For my original iPad the sync takes something on the order of one or more hours, even though I'm syncing via USB. For my iPhone 4S, mostly less than one hour.

At any rate, this kind of "performance" is not good publicity for life in the Cloud.

@g60racer,

This is in the truest sense of the word absurd. Applied to the genre Theater of the Absurd, it means that Fate is totally deaf, isn't listening to us. Sysiphus rollls his rock up the mountain, it rolls back down, he rolls it back up, and so on. The two hobos in Waiting for Godot wait for Godot, and every day a messenger comes by to inform them that Godot won't be coming today. Apple is like Fate or Godot. We can ask nicely, put forth sound arguments, raise our fists and threaten, but nothing we do will influence Fate/Godot/Apple.

Richard

@Richard - thanks, but why should step 7 with my iPhone 4s take hours to do when with my iPhone 4 (and the same software) take minutes just 2 weeks ago? I'll do restore, but I'll check to see what is in iCloud first so I don't lose anything.

I never checked back in to this discussion. After spending 4 hours on the phone with Applecare, got a solution. Here's the official Apple skinny:

In order for the iPhone to sync properly, you must have the latest version of BOTH iTunes and iPhoto. If either is not the most recent version, the iPhone will not sync - it will hang or crash. Especially with Lion.

Even with the latest version, it will randomly give you the pinwheel of death and hang for awhile, but give it time. On my Macbook it takes 2 minutes for the pinwheel to clear and the sync to start.

I miss the old hourglass symbol, fwiw.

But I am syncing to Windows 7, not a Mac. Am downloading the latest iTunes upgrade, and will do the same with iPhoto. I did mess around with the sync content when it was syncing once, that could be the source of the problem...

I miss the hourglass too!!

I dunno...I've tried for hours to sort this...it's BS. Only happened after upgrade to iOS6.1. Have unchecked all the items in sync...but go back and they're still checked, how does that work...?? Have uninstalled and re-installed iTunes v. 11.0. Still getting either the greyed out sync or if I can sync it ain't working.

From what I've read, it seems to be everytime there is an iOS upgrade and they've had several upgrades and everytime the same problem, you'd think Apple would get this sorted. I don't have time to waste on this anymore.

CRAP...!!

i am in the same boat as jaybee12. Exactly. Very frustrated and looking for a way out. Only happened after the 6.1 install. Tried lots of things. None have worked. Any way out?