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

Hi everybody,

I've been having this exact same issue, and all the posts I've seen have done nothing. I have an iPod touch 4g and iPad 3 wifi with iOS 6 beta. The solution is actually pretty simple. First, unplug your device, and then quit iTunes. Next go into the finder and click go in the top bar. Hold down the option key and then click Library. Then navigate down to the folder labled iTunes. Double click on the folder and select all of the files. Delete the files and empty the trash. This will not change any preferences. It will simply cause iTunes to repopulate the apps to be synced. Then go to http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/ and download iTunes. Do this even if iTunes is completely up to date. Reinstall iTunes then. Open iTunes when completed and plug in your iOS device. Then it should sync.

Hi Everyone,

I have the same issue on my iphone4s, ipad3 & my wifes iphone4, i have tryed all the diferent ways to try and fix this proble but to no avail, I went to the apple store and sat at the genius bar for 3 hours and they couldnt even get it to work.

Im running IOS6 on my iphone4s, and IOS5.1.1 on the ipad3 & wifes iphone4 also im running iTunes 10.6.3 on OSX Lion 10.7.4.

I have completely removed itunes and all the plist file for it ect and done a complete reinstall of itunes with a new library and still get the same stupid message.

I think its about time apple did something about this problem as more and more people are posting the same issue.

Regards,

uk_rules_ok

I kept on getting the "can't determine apps to sync"

I tried "transfering apps from iphone" and I noticed that it would only transfer one app at a time before stopping. When I synced, I got the "can't determine apps to sync" screen again.

I quit iTunes, restarted and transferred the next purchase.

I rinsed and repeated until the apps total in itunes did not increase any more.

I was then able to sync.

Same "iTunes cannot sync apps to the iPhone" error. The problem for me was that I had previously stopped a transfer of iPhone purchases back to iTunes.

The solution was to transfer an old app from iTunes to the iPhone. Then quit iTunes and unplug (probably unecessary but do it anyway) and let iTunes do it's auto sync with the iPhone and it should do a "Transferring purchases from "iPhone name" .." That's it.

You'll have to use an old app from iTunes that you know hasn't been updated in a long time so that you can update it on the iPhone and transfer it back to iTunes.

Alexfrompittsburgh - Came to the forum this morning to solve try and resolve this issue, and your solution worked like a charm. Thanks so much!

I solved this problem by updating to the latest version of xcode, i had a old version that hadnt been updated, after the new xcode installed everything worked fine.

Regards,

Andy.

I too had the problem where iTunes says it cannot determine the apps and the sync fails. I changed the preference to download purchases from the iPhone. When I would try to sync, iTunes would download some of the apps and then the sync would fail again. I kept doing this (5 times) and I noticed that a different set of applications would be downloaded. Eventually, iTunes didn't try to download anymore apps and the sync finished properly.

Thankyou fixed mine, seems i might've got a bad install of device support or something previously that was affecting ios5 devices as well.

I'm having this problem too. I made sure that all of my apps on my phone and on my iTunes are up to date. I restarted iTunes several times. I turned off my phone and back on again. One time it said it was missing a paired record, but usually I get the apps could not be determined error.

I've also got "sync session failed to start". It's plugged into my computer while I have been trying these.

I'm very fustrated.

Thanks, alexfrompittsburgh. Your fix worked like a charm.

no problem glad i could help

no problem glad i could help

"Next go into the finder and click go in the top bar. Hold down the option key and then click Library. Then navigate down to the folder labled iTunes"

can u please tell me how to go into the finder?

On your dock there should be an icon that looks like a blue smiley face with a line down the middle on the far left side. That is the finder. Just click in and in the menu bar click the go option (at the top of the screen)

If you need more help, just email me at alex.taffe@gmail.com so I can insert any pictures or links as necessary.

alexfrompittsburgh, that is the most incoherent reply I've ever read.