waiting for changes to be applied

In iTunes I unchecked Sync Music. Then I synched (and it synched). Then I rechecked Sync Music and it works now. Curious.

I suspect this issue also has something to do with "corrupt" files iOS7 make. I believe you won't see this kind of issue in iOS6 environment so it is useless to do something until Apple updates iOS7.

I had this same problem when I selected SYNC.

I found that if I right clicked on my iphone (on the left column of iTunes) and selected BACKUP instead of SYNC, after this backup completed, I could then sync on future tries.

Maybe BACKUP is more thorough than Sync? Anyway I hope it helps someone.

UPDATE: Although it appeared to help, my phone is now back to it's old trick of getting stuck. Lame.

I had this problem, but I fixed it. Here's how:

My phone would not finish syncing, it was stuck on "Waiting for changes to be applied". Someone said to un-sync music, so I did, but it still wouldn't finish.

However, someone also said to do a backup to the computer and that after that it would sync. So I canceled the sync and tried that. It finished the backup, so then I tried to sync again. It finished!

Then as a test, I checked only one playlist in my music and tried to sync that. It copied the songs and finished the sync! So now I'm re-syncing ALL 10,000 of my songs. Hope it finishes, and hope this helped.

Everything is now working fine after doing most everything everyone suggested, mulitiple times. My iPod simply cannot store any amount of anything that goes over 45-50gb. Anything over that and my 60gb iPod-5 crashes and burns, and the yellow "other" line goes through the roof.

Keeping it under that and it's working fine for over a week now. Updates, syncs, even the iCloud works.

Hope that helps anyone that likes to keep a lot of music on their iPhone/iPod.

iPod-5 ios7

Mavericks

iMac 10.9

iTunes 11.1.2

I had this problem, waiting for changes, cancelling sync, I tried everything everybody said, from changing the cord I used (how hopeless) to full reset of the phone. Well even after the full reset of the phone I still came to the same problem, FINALLY I got it working by unchecking every sync category and then clicking the manage music manually box, and dragging my playlist over to my phone, which still didnt make it work, after I tried that though, I went and checked the sync music box with my selected playlist and somehow by the grace of God it is working. Was about to buy a galaxy or something so im glad it did. Hopefully this helps somebody who was like me searching the web felling hopeless like I was for weeks.

iPhone 5

iOS 7.0.3

iTunes 11.1.1 (8)

MacOS 10.8.5

It thought I had fixed the problem that I was having. Here's the problem (same as others): when I tried to sync my iPhone iTunes would go through all of the steps and then stall on the last step with the message "Waiting for changes to be applied" - I waited for an exceedingly long time and that step never completed. When I tried to cancel that step, then Canceling didn't complete.

The first thing I tried was a Manual Backup. That completed appropriately and then I tried a Sync and that completed without stalling at any steps. However, I discovered that some new music that I had added to my iTunes library had not transferred to my iPhone. I tried another Sync and that stalled at the last step, as before. However, at least when I cancelled the sync, the cancellation didn't stall and instead, completed normally.

I then went to the Music tab for my iPhone in iTunes and unchecked the box "Sync Music" waited a few seconds then checked it again. I then went back to the Summary tab and clicked the Sync button. Now iTunes copied my entire music library back to my iPhone as if none of the music was in my iPhone. This took a long time because I have a very large music libary that wont' fit on my 62 GB iPhone so I have checked the box Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kpbs AAC so in addition to copying the music it must also convert much of it to this format. But when that copying and converting was done, the sync completed normally. I found that now all of my music appears to have been transferred to my phone. I then tried another sync and that completed normally although there was a delay for a few minutes at the "Waiting for changes to be applied" point. However, when I then tried another sync it stalled again at that last step. This is very frustrating and I don't know why it is taking Apple so long to fix this problem!!

I've got my fingers crossed still but lo and behold, it looks like perhaps the latest update of iOS 7.0.4 may have finally fixed this problem. The first time I synced after this update iTunes copied >5,000 tunes to my phone that apparently hadn't previously been properly synced. The next time the sync performed normally and while it seemed to stay on the "waiting for changes to be applied" stage longer that it should have needed to it completed that stage within a minute or two and the sync terminated normally. As far as I can tell, everything is working now. Time will tell for sure but let's hope this problem is finally resolved!

I spoke too soon. Now my iPhone and iTunes are back to their old tricks. A new playlist with a set of tunes that I added to iTunes will not sync with my iPhone and when I try to sync, it stalls at the "Waiting for changes to be applied" stage. Why doesn't Apple fix this problem? Clearly it is not an isolated issue. We're talking about a fundament function of the iPhone - the ability to sync music with a personal computer. Based on the large number of messages I find posted about this topic on this support forum over an extended period of time it's clear that this affects a large number of users and has existed far too long. It's very disappointing and leads to a decline in my perception of Apple Computer. One of the reasons I chose an iPhone over an Android was because I thought it would be more reliable and consistent in performance. Problems like this diminish that advantage.

The error is due a album that cannot get copied properly to your iDevice.

This fixed for me:

At the Music Tab, uncheck the 'Synch Music' checkbox. Restart iTunes and simply synch your phone untill it's finished ( takes about 5 seconds ).

Check the box 'Synch Music' and simply pick an album. Not all your music, just an album or song. You'll see it will Synch without any error.

However, if you want to synch all your Music at the same time, you may experience the 'Waiting for changes' issue again due one of your corrupted albums.

I suggest manually adding a few albums untill Apple found a fix for it.

Kev

This is my first time responding to any issue on any forum, so please be kind, as the following solution for me may or may not work for you. With the help of Apple phone support (which, by the way is FREE for 1 year with a new iPhone5 purchase), my issue with "waiting for changes to be applied" was resolved about an hour ago.

I have the iPhone 5s, and synch to Outlook 2003 contacts and calendar several times a day. Also included in the synch are over 1,000 photos and videos, plus apps. I don't use the iPhone for synching songs. As of yesterday morning, synching was working fine. Then I added about 20 new photos to be synched from my PC (Windows 7). That's when I got the first occurrence of "waiting for changes to be applied."

I have a folder on my PC called "PhoneFolders" that include the photos and videos that I want on my iPhone. I use the normal process of accomplishing this using the iPhone software (select my iPhone name under "Devices," then select "Photos.") Because I have a separate folder dedicated for iPhone photos, I select "All Folders." This normally works without a hitch, until yesterday when I added those 20 new photos to my PC synching dedicated folder. I started the synch process, and then had my first "waiting for changes to be applied" problem.

As it turns out, the folder to which I was synching became corrupted for some reason after adding the 20 new photos. THE SOLUTION was creating a new folder to synch to, which I simply named "PhoneFolders-2." I moved all photos from PhoneFolders to PhoneFolders-2, indicated the newsly created folder in the iTunes software from which to synch, and I was done. Everything, including contacts, calendar and photos synched perfectly. The step, "waiting for changes to be applied," ran for a few minutes, as it should anyway, but finished.

So...this worked with photos that were being synched with a Windows folder. I will let the experts here figure out if the same type of resolution works for similar synch operations.

Good luck!

After days of getting frustrated I finally found a solution: Don't use itunes to sync music. After going through pages of possible solutions (restores, syncing albums one at a time, removing all music, deactivating accounts, making a call while syncing and various other things) as well as trying to contact apple support (Which was a joke--They wanted to charge me $19.00 to get help for a problem with their software), I change my Google search terms to "how to sync music without itunes" and I found a program called CopyTrans Manager for free. It only took me a few minutes to add the new tracks to my iphone. It automatically organizes it the same way itunes would and you have the option to make your own playlists. Best of all it synced the first try! Itunes is now dead to me. Now I just have to figure out what I'm going to do with all the free time I have since I'm not going to be spending hours banging my head at my computer ready to throw my phone out the window. 🙂

I have had nothing but problems with itunes on windows 7 and a brand new ipad air with 7.0.4. It seems itunes on the pc + air are very buggy. Itunes hangs frequenly for no apparent reason, and has to be killed with the task manager. I am doing this for my girlfriend - she has no chance to do this.

I have spent 2 days trying to get 4 movies and about 20 books onto the ipad. Not even tried music yet.

I copied one or two books by dragging then fom my HD to the ipad device in itunes (linking?), and it worked very quickly - books appear in ibooks immediatly.

Then I made the mistake of doing the same with the directory of ebooks, about 20 in all. This showed a grey version of each on the ipad, then finished syncing. Didnt transfer the books, only the greyed out images. Then I hit sync, and a few of the books came through (i.e. became not greyed out and could open them), and some got a blue progress type bar underneath.

itunes however has hung on Syncing (Step 3 of 3) Waiting for changes to be applied.

i have tried starting and stopping itunes,, shutting down the ipad completely. As soon as it reconnects, it goes back to waiting for changes to be applied again.

Unfortunately, on the ipad, you cant delete the greyed out books. I left it a couple of hours (books are tiny, should not take long to transfer), ill try leaving it overnight.

Well, I found a partial solution. If I switch off the ipad, close itunes, unplug the ipad, wait a minute, then plug ipad back in, switch it on, itunes starts up a gain and a few more books appear instantly, but then hangs again. I have done this process now 5 times, and all the books are now in ibooks on th ipad. Painful, but worked.

However, itunes is still stuck in "waiting for changes to be applied", even there are no changes to be applied.

Hello everyone. I had this problem with a new iPad that I had to restore but did not originally set up as a new iPad. I was not able to copy music onto the iPad. It was stuck on the 'waiting for changes to be applied." SInce it was a new iPad, I called Apple and got a supervisor who fixed it for me. I won't go into all the details of the process, but I will say if you have a NEW device it's worth calling for phone support. And it's free for 30 days. If you are having this problem, try this. When you connect your device to iTunes, click on the trianglenext to the iPad, then click on Music. If you see a list of music that is not highlighted, then that is where your problem lies. (i can't explain it but trust me, this is the problem). This will require a restore to factory settings and then set up as a new device. Ok, so I went into detail, but it worked for me and now I am very happy!