An unknown error occurred (1140) - iPhoto synchronization - iTunes

Download and install the iPhoto 9.4.1 update, which was just released today. It may be the answer to your problems:

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1598

No, downloading iPhoto 9.4.1 did not fix the problem. "Sync select albums" checkbox in "Photos" tab in iTunes is still dim, and cannot be checked. The only optionis to sync all photos, which is not possible for a collection of more than 100,000 photographs.

Make sure neither iTunes nor iPhoto is running when you install the iPhoto 9.4.1 update. After installing the update, then restart iTunes and iPhoto. By default, "All photos" is selected. Change this (it's no longer grayed out) to "Selected albums..."

Now it has worked OK, I can sync only the photos I want. The mistake I've made initially was to install iPhoto 9.4.1 update while iTunes was running. Thank you very much!

Unfortunately I am unable to finish downloading the software update. It consistently times out at around 249 MB of the download (leaving about 500 MB of the file still not downloaded). The file starts downloading quickly enough, then it stops as the connection to the server breaks. It take it a lot of people are having problems with iPhoto, a lot of people are trying to download the new version, and Apple can't handle the volume.

Which, you know, is just more sad suckiness.

Update 9.4.1 is now out for Iphoto. Installed and it works, hurray

Success!

Error 1140 can be resolved several different ways but seems to stem from having special characters in your photo file names in iphoto. Removing the special characters, like ampersand(&), can allow you to sync. Removing ipod photo cache has resolved this issue as well. One other fix is to not sync photos but this really isn't a good option. The best fix is to remove the special characters and sync. If this does not work then the only other option is to stop syncing photos.

Unfortunately, the iPhoto 9.4.1 update did not fix the problem for me. After installing, I still get the 1140 error when trying to sync photos.

Try deleting ipod photo cache(TS3697 at Apple.com/support) and removing special characters from photo file names. Then try to sync again. Make sure everything is up to date. If this doesn't work try creating a new folder and sync only certain photos. The special characters are the likely culprit so removing anything like an ampersand symbol(&) will help w/the sync issue.

Oh this one just never ends like other Apple bugs - they continue to show up even with the updates 😟

Here is what worked for me after getting the same error message (1140) on iPhone 5 & iPad 2: with one or both units connected, go into iTunes iPhoto tab and make a change to your settings. I changed mine to Sync All Photos even though I knew they would not fit. Sync using these new settings then after that works or fails, go back into the iPhoto tab & check off the settings you really want to keep. No more error message 1140 for me. So far...

What dileep_s suggested works for me to resolve this issue. So thanks! I can see that it doesn't seem to work for everyone from this thread, but it might be worth a try.

When I got the error (after the recent pre-Mavericks updates & 7.0.3), iTunes was trying to sync all my photos and wouldn't let me change it back to just the selected albums. So, I fired up iPhoto, let it spin it's beach ball a bit. Once it settled down I quit it & iTunes. When I fired iTunes back up, all was good.