Q: The iPhone cannot be synced. An unknown error occurred (-50)

I'm not a big fun of iPhoto because it's inability to interact through iTunes stinks. One wrong photo can rain down all sorts of issues.

I have found that in iPhoto, photo sharing works better at getting photos back on your iPhone. You can drag and drop photos etc...

Take time and explore iPhoto Sharing. Also I wouldn't delete anything till you're sure. You can create a desktop Folder and copy all you pictures to that folder. After, you can delete iPhoto pictures then, reload your pictures to iPhoto from that folder.

feel free to ask more questions.

It happened to me. Thanks, your answer solved my problem! I tried first to reinstall my iPhone, then I cancelled the pictures sync on iTunes and it worked.

That's Great Jimmy.

It's always nice to see things workout with a positive ending. As to way iPhoto does this is still unknown however, remember you can use iPhotos sharing to get the photos back on your iPhone. All you need to do is turn on sharing and drag and drop to the sharing folder in iPhoto. Make sure iPhoto sharing is on, on your iPhone, and both computer and phone sync.

Always remember to back up. Always remember each program has it's own help section. This will help you to understand the program better, and if a problem brings you here you will have a better idea on how to present the issue at hand.

1bish

I changed the USB port, and it worked out. Try this.

Thanks for your guidance. I re-booted my phone and connected it via usb directly to my computer - synced successfully.

as noted below connect iPhone to mac shut and restart iTunes

Try to just restart the phone! turn it off and turn it back on!

I get this every morning.    Every evening I plug my iPad into my Mac when I'm done reading and go to sleep.   Every morning I have this error.

Quitting and restarting iTunes gets rid of this message.

That "fix" implies that all of the connections work.    I infer that the error happens when my computer goes into power save mode.  

In that case, it is a bug.    Remember when we believed Apple just worked?   When we didn't expect lots of bugs that Apple refuses to tell us whether they are being fixed?

Howard Brazee wrote:

 

I get this every morning.    Every evening I plug my iPad into my Mac when I'm done reading and go to sleep.   Every morning I have this error.

 

Quitting and restarting iTunes gets rid of this message.

 

That "fix" implies that all of the connections work.    I infer that the error happens when my computer goes into power save mode. 

 

In that case, it is a bug.    Remember when we believed Apple just worked?   When we didn't expect lots of bugs that Apple refuses to tell us whether they are being fixed?

And since this issue is extremely rare and the vast majority of users never encounter this, it still 'just works'.

Name me a manufacturer that has a 0% defect/failure occurrence rate.

Mistakes happen.    I wouldn't want to have a company that is run by someone who hasn't made mistakes, because I want someone who can handle mistakes.

What irritates me about Apple bugs is that they so very often are not acknowledged.   We don't know how they are being addressed.    Maybe they aren't considered bugs by Apple.   Maybe they aren't considered important.   Maybe we aren't considered important.   Maybe they have already been fixed and are awaiting the next software upgrade.    Maybe they can't be fixed.   We don't know.

This particular bug appears to be old, but maybe it is a bunch of different problems that give the same message.    In that case, it would be nice to know that a two-year-old fix doesn't apply to the new conditions.   

But we aren't told.

I find that I almost always get this when I get done reading before sleeping, and plug it into my sleeping Mac.    I rarely get it if I wake my Mac first, before plugging in my iPad.

Which implies this is a bug which Apple could fix, but may decide not to fix.   And we all know Apple won't tell us what it decides.

If you are like me you might try the following to fix. I simply turned the need for a password. It seems that syncing is too fast and the prompt to put in password does not appear before your computer trying to gain access. Turning off the password allowed my computer to do the syncing and update with no problems.

I had the same issue, first a error -54. I wiped the phone clean, then restored from backup. This got me to an error -50. Finally resolved it by remembering a post I had seen about a year ago with similar issues. Un-Ticked the "Sync this Iphone Over WI-FI". After un-ticking, the phone syncs again. All apps loading back up. Hope this works for those who are having the same issue..

Holy crap, this worked. I can't believe something so simple caused the problem...just wondering why it even started. Thanks, I had tried a bunch of suggestions!

Glad it worked....Pay it forward