iTunes sync mail accounts problem - list pane empty / greyed out

I have now resolved this issue entirely. It is related to a bug in iTunes with respect to Lion Mail.

After upgrading to Lion [10.7.3 from SL], Mail upgraded the storage structure and location of the Mail folders [from ~/Library/Mail to ~/Library/Mail/V2]. iTunes can no longer recognise the mail accounts.

This was diagnosed and confirmed using a dual-boot setup between Lion & Snow Leopard with various version of iTunes and a shared user profile [probably not the wisest idea]. The bug was present regardeless of OS version & iTunes version.

Prior to the Lion upgrade, I saved my entire ~/Library folder. Today I was able to restore this under Snow Leopard, and, using iTunes 10.6, all accounts were visible for sync. [I had suspected that this may have been the case and hoped that 10.6.1 may have resolved this issue, but it does not.]

This is a deal-breaker for me, with multiple accounts and aliases, I often 'tweak' an email account and need this to be synchronised with my iPad/iPhone. I'm currently clearing my Lion-specific profile and will be reverting to SL in the next 24 hours.

Just a few more details on my troubleshooting process:

iTunes was previously completely uninstalled (under Lion), along with all associated files & preferences (as described in iclarified.com's tutorial).

Having spoken to Apple Support at length, they stated that the OS was (possibly) not reporting the correct version to iTunes. iTunes is written 'to account for differences in OS', and that I should be waiting for a Lion update rather than an iTunes one!

My take on this is that this is probably not true (maybe under specific circumstances). But a complete uninstall/reinstall should take care of any failure to detect the Mail folders & settings.

But it didn't so this is my last post from Lion OS...

I spent a few hours today on the phone with apple care and the solution was to create a new computer account. That was the only way that would fix the problem. So that is what I have done and transferred everything over from my old account.

Hope this helps.

I don't believe that a new computer account can solve the problem!

Anywhere, I tried as you said and... obviously nothing! iTunes doesn't see any Mail Account!

I agree with Awhittall: this is a bug of Lion 10.7.3

I don't want come back to SnowLeop... I don't accept it and I'm awaiting for a hopened patch to resolve the bug, but Apple doesn't become a new Microsoft, full of bugs and system crash!!!

... but there is not much time!

How did it you to solve the problem?

Using a new mail account did not work for me, neither did using a new user account.

Update from Apple: they are 'aware' of the problem & investigating. (Reply from 'senior analyst' who escalated this to contact developers.)

Ah, your right, all creating a new account did was to clear the old email addresses. Oh well, we can live in hope of them fixing it one day.

I think it has something to do with SyncServices. I recenetly reset my SyncServices file. That file is located at /Users/HomeFolder/Library/Application Support/SyncServices. After doing so I had the same problem as mentioned and I couldn't fix it. I had to go in my backups to restore this file to make it work again. Not sure of any other solution.

Hello thingo,

how did you do it? Do you have upgraded the 10.7.3 release to the newest OR you have re-installed totally the new realease?

I ask this because I "upgraded" the old release BUT it doesn't work!!! 😢

I'm thinking to repeat a new total reinstalling... I'm not sure that it will work...

Same here. I just upgraded from 10.7.3 to 10.7.4 and now the email account selection is no longer greyed out.🙂

It's fantastic! Now I have updated my iPhone, then my iPad with the new iOS.

Obviously no good news: iTunes list pane remain empty.

Sorry, I forget my iPod! So I have updated the iPod Touch: incredbile! with the iPod I see the list pane full of my accounts mail 🙂🙂🙂

But if I return to my iPhone or iPad...nothing 😢

WHYYYYY??????

I'll try it again!

Wow!

I turn off the iMac.

When I turn on, I open iTunes and now all works fine!

Aleluja!🙂

Thank you to all for sharing our passion!

I see this issue with a client with iOS 6.1.4, OS 10.6.8. See it with iCal, Contacts/AddressBook and with Mail. The culprits were always some preference or application support file for those apps, not iTunes -- and the sync history managed from iSync. In each situation, I had to (make a backup copy of the folder I was moving first, then remove content one by one. The meta data usually was not the issue, but some other file -- particularly with AddressBook. Then clear the sync history, then launch that app to make sure the content was still there, then launch iTunes to see if the window with listed groups/calendars/etc magically reappeared. Ug.