iTunes cannot sync... apps installed on the iPhone could not be determined.

I had this problem start on my iPhone 4 running 4.3.1.

I tried rebooting my iPhone (both soft and hard) and restarting iTunes to no avail.

Then I went to the "Apps" tab for my iPhone in iTunes 10.5.1. I unchecked "Automatically sync new apps". "Apply"d the changes triggering a sync. That sync worked. Then I turned back on "Automatically sync new apps" and "Apply"d the change. That worked too getting everything back to normal.

Win 7 user here, went to control panel, devices clicked on PC name and then Action (scan for new devices) and all fixed. No more cannot sync because apps can't be determinded. 3G model iphone BTW.

I think we may have an answer here as these 2 threads seem related to our problems. Unfortunately it's not an answer that's welcome.

Can't download free or purchased apps...: Apple Support Communities

App download buttons not working.: Apple Support Communities

Looks like Apple may have finally abandoned the 2g ;-(

-Dave

Restarting iTunes fixed the problem for me too. Thanks so much for sharing your simple fix!

Did any of you guys using Mac 10.5.8 & 1st Gen iPhones every get a solution? I've tried ALL the suggestions here and still have a brick for a month.

Yeah - must be Apple Xmas present, as today after once again running permissions, rebooting, hard resetting my 2g - it finally sync'd & backed up !!! ;-)

That bug in iTunes /iCloud that was fixed a few days ago must have been the solution.

Guess the 4S may have to wait a little longer ;-)

I was able to overcome this error on my iPhone 3Gs running ios 4.3.3 after transferring purchases. Control-click (right click) on your iphone in the itunes window, and select "transfer purchases."

This solution worked after I had already tried restarting computer and iphone without success.

I went to the Apps section of the iPod summary, and the section where your iPod's apps appear was empty. So, I did the logical thing, and restarted my iPod, both hard restarting it (hold power and home button for fifteen seconds), and shutting it off (the usual method). Neither of them worked.

What did work for me is simply restarting iTunes. The apps were back, and my iPod was sync-able once more.

I know this is two months late, but I just had that exact same problem. Hope this helps.

I found that every time I synced a few more apps would sync then I'd get the "iTunes cannot sync... apps installed on the iPhone could not be determined" message. So I persevered and restarted iTunes and synced again. Each time I synced a few more apps, followed by the error message until finally I synced the last few without the error message.

i.e. my last 4 syncs were like this:

1. Synced TV guide, TW Metro, Twelve Days, Twitter, tried to sync Zombieville 2, gave error message.
2. Synced Vision pad, World Lens, tried to sync Zombieville 2, gave error message.
3. Synced World Facts, WunderRadio, Yelp, Your Medical Encyclopedia, tried to sync Zombieville 2, gave error message.
4. Synced Zinio, Zombie Hwy, Zombieville 2, finished properly!

All subsequent syncs worked.

So I wonder if people are reporting "success" with various "fixes" that are nothing other than just coinciding with the final sync that worked. That would explain why various "fixes" work only for some people. i.e. if you have a lot of apps that you have been updating or downloading on your device but not via iTunes then maybe it is taking a few syncs before iTunes can catch up.

Anyway, you might want to try syncing then restarting iTunes, resyncing, restarting iTunes etc, few times, noting if you are gradually syncing more of your apps until the error message no longer appears!

slocks wrote:

So I wonder if people are reporting "success" with various "fixes" that are nothing other than just coinciding with the final sync that worked. That would explain why various "fixes" work only for some people. i.e. if you have a lot of apps that you have been updating or downloading on your device but not via iTunes then maybe it is taking a few syncs before iTunes can catch up.

Anyway, you might want to try syncing then restarting iTunes, resyncing, restarting iTunes etc, few times, noting if you are gradually syncing more of your apps until the error message no longer appears!

I think you may be on to something, slocks! See one more twist at https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3632864

"I was able to overcome this error on my iPhone 3Gs running ios 4.3.3 after transferring purchases. Control-click (right click) on your iphone in the itunes window, and select "transfer purchases." This solution worked after I had already tried restarting computer and iphone without success."

After working through each fix in this thread, this was the one that worked for me. (Though of course it could have been coincidence by slocks' reasoning)

iPhone 3g/Macbook Pro/Lion

You are correct. iCloud is only an option for iPhone 3GS, 4, and 4S as it is only compatible with the new iOS 5 software.

Problem of original poster on original iPhone fixed, probably by Apple update as subsequent posters suggest.

First off, there are many possible reasons why an iPhone may not sync as in Apple support posts outline, but the first post on this thread was more specific problem, which I also had. (This thread is vastly diluted by posters on similar sounding problems).

I wasted many hours on this problem over many days, but near Christmas I saw posts indicating the problem may have been fixed by Apple. After New Year, when I was back home I tried to resynch my restored 1st gen iPhone and it worked first try.

Before I had looked at the log traces on the phone and the error messages were garbage, but I knew the phone was communicating to my Mac. Took the phone to my Genius place and a very plausible guy whipped out the same diagnostic stuff I had and said he couldn't communicate with my iPhone, thought the USB port was faulty and offered to sell me a replacement iPhone in return for my iPhone. I thought about it for a few days and didn't buy the story. First off the iPhone could talk to 5 separate Macs via 4 separate cables at my home at I was pretty sure other people were having the same software/cloud problem. I decided that either Apple would eventually fix the problem, or they were ditching support for the original iPhone. One way I had to wait, and the other way I would buy a different manufacturer's phone.

As it is, it looks like the problem I had after me waiting long enough is fixed by Apple. I am very unimpressed with the Genius support I received.

This happened to my Mom's iPhone 3G the other night... she uses a Windows 7 PC Desktop and it kept saying the same message you received about iTunes not being able to sync apps. Long story short, I ended up syncing her phone using my Windows Vista Hp Notebook PC laptop and it didn't give me that error message and it synced all her apps to where she could use them again.

don't know why her computer wasn't letting her sync, but mine did... weird, but it worked.

maybe you should try another computer with a different operating system if possible or maybe just a different computer. Syncing an iPhone isn't dependent on having your computer unless you need to back it up or restore from a back up or something.

if trying a different computer or operating system isn't possible, last resort might be A.) unsyncing all apps from phone and then resyncing them or B.) backing up your phone to your computer and then do a restore from back up of your phone

hope this helps