Waiting for sync to start

Greetings All

I got here cause I got the same error as you folks. After reading of your problems I took a different approach.

I was aided by the fact that this was the first time I had seen this error and I knew that I had just added a USB hard drive to my system. So I removed all USB devices and rebooted.

All was then OK for me (note I had been through the phone reset and system reboot quite a few times before I thought about the USB being a potential problem and removed all USB attached devices).

My symptoms were just like many describes - itunes saw the phone etc but just didn't start the sync

Hope this helps a little

Well, I have some reasonably good news. as I mentioned before, I have been dealing with this for months now.

The good news is that all of my idevices are currently syncing properly. Here is what I have learned.

In my cases, each time the system has failed, it has been caused by itunes match. The sync failures are immediately proceeded by massive amounts of duplicate empty playlists in itunes. From what I can gather, this is caused by my daughters creating playlists while not online using their ipods. This must be avoided at all costs. I don't understand the exact cause, but its result is complete.

The first step is to clear out these playlists from itunes. You have to be slow and patient when clearing them out. Removing too many at a time will cause your machines to be "detached" from itunes match. Delete about 100 at a time, then update itunes match by hand. Repeat this until all the duplicates are removed. Then remove your machine from itunes match. Then add your machine back in to itunes match. Wait a few minutes to allow the machine to resync. You will likely find there are more duplicates to remove. Repeat the cycle until they are all removed.

Once all duplicate lists are gone from itunes, its time to attack the devices.

I have found that even though itunes cannot sync or backup the devices, they can still back themselves up to icloud. Go ahead and set your device to back up to icloud, then do a backup. Make sure it completes before continuing.

Plug in your first idevice and do a full restore. When it boots back up, make sure to restore it from icloud. It will take quite a while. After the restore completes, it will attempt to download all the apps from apple. If you turn off wireless at this point, itunes will kick in and start transfering the apps to your idevice from your local library. Even of you don't have the apps local, your idevice will grab them from apple the next time you go online. the restore process is very reliable. I have not lost settings so far.

You will need to repeat this for each of your idevices that is not syncing. the process takes roughly 4 hours to clean itunes and then another 4-5 hours for each device backup and restore. In my case that comes up to roughly 28 hours of work every time this happens. Its not worth it, but what choice do I have.

I have been through this three times now. Currently one of my daughters is grounded for creating playlists on their iphone, and if this happens again, they lose itunes match.

I keep hoping Apple figures out a way to solve this forever. Sync has now turned in to the nightmare chain gang that Jobs despised so.

Good Luck!

I have a far easier solution:

Disconnect any printers or other USB devices (besides keyboard).

Turn off iTunes match (go into bar above iTunes and turn it off). Do same on phone. (Under iTunes settings.)

Turn off phone completely. Turn it back on. Connect to computer.

Sync.

Worked fine.

It's definitely iTunes Match.

Maybe others are seeing this symptom for other reasons, but none of the suggested fixes work if your sync problems are due to Match. I'm always happy to try any new ideas to fix this, but I've done enough trial & research to know that we're just waiting on Apple for a fix here.

And to some of you folks of a specific bent, please stop offering up solutions that have already been repeatedly suggested and thinking that's helpful. Read before you write - those of us with the continuing issue certainly have.

Just checked - iTunes 10.6.3 didn't happen to include a fix for this.

I don't have itunes match, yet i do have this problem. it first started with an update to the iOS5 which dleteed all of my contacts. I followed steps for about 10 different solution possibilites, and yet none of them worked. Not only have i lost ALL of my contacts, but i am also unable to sync my phone to itunes.

Greetings and salutations. I've been puzzling over this thing for some time now - and read all of your comments. And I was sitting here wondering what to do next about this - and I stumbled on MY SOLUTION.

For all I know this only works for me.

Stop iTunes - end it, get out of it, period.

Connect your iPod / iPhone / iPad to the USB port.

I physically started and stopped iTunes - and it started syncing.

Glory be. Not sure if you MUST let the iPod start iTunes, or if it has to start up with the thing in the USB port - but this seemed to work.

It is syncing away as I write this!

Restart it WITH the iPod iPhone connected to the USB port.

I simply changed what USB port my iPhone was plugged into.... worked a treat.

I exited out of iTunes completely. I backed up my iPhone 4s to the 'cloud' . I unplugged the iPhone 4s from my PC. and witched the USB connection on my PC to another port. I allowed (??) the iPhone to start iTunes ... it synched fine and applied updates etc... go figure?!

I had this issue aswell for a moment, but it WAS NOT caused by this iTunes Match. When i plugged my iPhone into my PC it ask about transfering purchases, if i click yes it fails. When i clicked no, it synced no problem. Transfered purchases when it finished, now back to normal operation.

Mr. CarlScheider had a working solution for me.

All I had to do was make sure the option was selected for "Open iTunes when this iPod is connected." Once that was done, nothing more was needed other than to X out of iTunes, plug in my iPod, then once iTunes started it would automatically sync for me. This seems to have solved my problem. Thanks Carl! Hope it works for others too.
-- Stew

Well, none of the above worked for me, but if you go to Helpin the iTunes box and click there and then click on run diagnostics, you will get a list. I unchecked everything except Device sync test and ran that. It worked! It ran the test, synced my ipad and I'm back a day later syncing the normal way.

Kim

Hi,

Not sure if this helps but I got the same problem and went to the itunes store. It had my wife's login details so I logged out, shut down itunes, unplugged my iphone and then plugged it back in and it seemed to sync fine.

I hope this helps you.

Thanks for the tip, that did the trick for me!

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