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Syncing stays on 'waiting for items to copy' with iOS 5

Recently updated to iOS 5 and syncing was working fine the first day. But today, when I tried to sync my iPod, the progress stays on 'waiting for items to copy', and the sync doesn't finish so I have to cancel. What it gets stuck on seems to change everytime, so one time it was syncing Genius data, another it was syncing audiobooks etc. I've restored my iPod 4 times now but it still gets stuck.


It's the 3rd generation iPod touch and I've updated iTunes and my mac to the latest versions. Can anyone help?


Also, does anyone else have a very large 'Other' section in the storage section now? Mine increased to 5.7 GB after updating to iOS 5.

iPod touch, iOS 5

Posted on Oct 15, 2011 2:18 AM

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182 replies

Nov 3, 2011 11:50 PM in response to Matt Shelton

Here's a method that I discovered from TDThompson at the iTunes for Windows discussion board. After weeks of trying everything but a full restore on my iPad2, it was the one thing that worked. I didn't do everything that he mentioned. The first and only thing that I tried was unchecking book sync for my iPad. I noticed that a PDF that I had added from my Mac kept rechecking itself. I would delete it and it would come back. So I deleted it in 3 places on my Mac: the Main itunes music folder under books, books in the Library menu in iTunes and the ibook folder on my iPad when my iPad was hooked up for sync. Once it was gone, I synced normally. It seems that most of the people who have had success have deleted something corrupted. For some it's voice memos and for me it was that PDF. I think that the process of looking to see if something rechecks itself when it shouldn't should be the first step. Hope this helps.


TD's post


"After seeing many other threads, I am hesistant to start my own. However, I thought it worthwhile to share how I fixed this problem on my iPad 1.


SYMPTOM: iTunes sync doesn't complete, with the message "Waiting for items to copy" displayed. There are no error messages, and it appears that all content is valid and synced. It is possible to cancel the sync from the iPad (Settings -> General -> iTunes Wi-Fi Sync) or by exiting iTunes.


RESOLUTION: Select the iPad in iTunes, and in each category (Info, Apps, Music, Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, iTunes U, Books, Photos) make onemodification, just so the Apply button appears. Click Apply. The sync will restart, even if it's already stuck at "Waiting for items to copy".


On my iPad, I noted that if I de-selected the option to sync Books, one book keep re-checking itself after I clicked Apply: The iPad User Guide for iOS 5. I had downloaded this one via the iBooks app in the iPad. I right-clicked the iPad and picked "Transfer Purchases", but it appeared to do very little.


From the iTunes Library under Books, I deleted the local copy of the iPad User Guide for iOS 5, then synced again.


It worked! Briefly, there were extra messages about transferring the iOS 5 user guide again, but the Books category now worked correctly.


SO... it appears that the bug may be related to having items on the device which didn't get transferred fully during the "Transferring purchases" part of the sync.


SUMMARY: If you purchased some items then notice that sync doesn't work right, try deleting the local iTunes copies of the recent purchases and sync again."

Nov 4, 2011 5:58 AM in response to skynettle

Just started having this problem last night. I updated a week and a half ago and didn't have any issues. The only thing different was I had added two voice memos to my phone. After reading here I decided to delete the voice memos and uncheck the VM sync. Everything worked fine for me after that. Hope this helps to narrow it down. ios5 with 3g phone here.

Nov 4, 2011 6:59 AM in response to dojapro

I've got no voice memos and never have had, but I still get these unexplained hangs. Since my previous posting five days ago, all my syncs had gone well and completed quickly with the 'Waiting for items to copy' phase taking only 5-10 seconds. Until today. With no new material having been added to iTunes or iPhoto, I synced both my iPhone 3GS and iPad 2 today, and each of them stopped at the 'Waiting for items to copy' stage and stayed there for 12 minutes (iPhone) and 6 minutes (iPad). Sync then completed without anything having been copied. This is baffling and frustrating and I hope Apple will fix the problem soon. It would be good to hear something from them, but I suppose that would violate their code of secrecy.


By the way, I am syncing over USB to my Mac, not via WiFi, and not to iCloud. On my iDevices, I have turned off everything to do with iCloud except Find My iPhone. So I don't think this could be a network issue.

Nov 6, 2011 6:18 AM in response to skynettle

I think this is a confilict between iCloud and iTunes


For me (iPad2) the issue was solved by disabling the "automatically include last three month of events" in Photo sync settings within iTunes.

As I am using iCloud now, PhotoStream does exactly that so no need to have the "sync last recent events"

Disabled it, all done.

Possibly you can also disable photo stream in iCloud settings, same effect.

User uploaded file

Nov 9, 2011 5:58 AM in response to Rothgarr

SUCCESS!!!

On my iPad 2, I followed one of the suggestions to uncheck the sync items one by one. First I unchecked everything except for the Apps because I wanted to avoid losing my data. I then performed a sync, but I still got the same "waiting for changes to be applied" even though nothing but the apps were set to sync. It was then that I noticed that 'Books' were checked to sync even though I had unchecked that item along with the others. I unchecked it again, and performed a sync while on the 'Books' screen. I saw it get rechecked right in front of my eyes. I only had two books, one was a "Hope for Today" magazine from Joel Osteen. The other was the iOS 5 User guide. I made a copy of the magazine, and I deleted it from iTunes. I unchecked the option to sync books, and I tried the sync again. 'Books' became checked again, and I received the same problem. So I deleted the iOS 5 user guide from iTunes. I unchecked the option to sync 'Books' again, and I performed a sync. As I mentioned before...SUCCESS! The odd thing is although the option to sync 'Books' did not become checked again, the iOS 5 User Guide appeared back in itunes and did sync with my device. I have since checked the option to sync 'Books', and everything syncs correctly, including the iOS 5 User guide.


In any case, all is well now without performing a complete restore. I hope this helps.

Nov 9, 2011 9:58 PM in response to misteraon

I had the same issue on my iPhone 3GS for weeks, since iOS5 came out. Thanks to nodrog666 who identified the issue and misteraon (Aaron) for the detailed instructions, which I followed closely, and everyone on this post who helped fix my issue. I can now sync even over wi fi and very fast and there's no "waiting for items to copy" messages. Sweet!

Nov 10, 2011 6:30 AM in response to Javajoe

I had the exact same problem as Javajoe where the PDFs were the issue. After deleting them from iTunes and then re-adding them it fixed my syncing issue. It appears that the corruption is in iTunes likely after the 10.5 update or the combo of IOS 5 and iTunes. If it's something simple like PDFs or Photos or Voice Memos then it usually isn't that difficult to remove them and re-add them but I suspect some people may be having an issue with there music library and deleting your entire music library and re-adding would be very painful! I'm glad Apple has been so responsive to this problem which seems very widespread ;-)

Nov 10, 2011 9:47 PM in response to skynettle

iPad 2 and iPhone 3GS

The iPhone synced fine but the iPad got stucked with the waiting message. Tried to remove everything and only syncing the apps - did not work. I had to restore to factory setting and backup from the cloud. Started adding only the movies and then after checking that syncing worked fine i also added the music. Now it works but I have no pdfs, no books.


/Max

Syncing stays on 'waiting for items to copy' with iOS 5

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