Itunes cannot read contents of the iphone

I wanted to share this for others who might come across this post with the same problem.

This fix will work for ipods/iphones/etc.

What has happened is an itunes control or preferences file has somehow gotten corrupted on your device. Why Apple hasnt built the option to do this into itunes is beyond me. In effect you may lose your music library on the device but all contacts/notes/apps/etc will be untouched and fine. Apparently Apple thinks wiping the whole thing is a better option?

Anyhoo:

First try to delete one song from your playlist, and turn off/on your device. This will hopefully overwrite the corrupt database file. Try connecting to itunes again and see if that does it.

If the above doesnt work:

1) Download/Install "i-FunBox" which gives you control of the iPhone’s file system from your computer.

2) Open i-FunBox and search for iTunesDB or iTunesCDB. They should show up in a folder, ie; /var/mobile/Media/iTunes_Control/iTunes

3) Personally, I had to rename "iTunesCDB" "iTunesContol" and "iTunesPrefs" on my iphone 4 before mine sync'd to itunes again. Its always a better idea just to rename these files incase you need to go back or restore them. If for any reason you cannot rename them, then delete them as a last resort.

DO NOT delete or rename anything other than these 3 files!!!

Keep in mind you WILL LOSE YOUR MUSIC LIBRARY. Everything else will be OK though. (contacts/notes/apps/etc)

4) Open itunes again and reconnect your device. Voila!

Alternately, if youre jailbroken, open ifile and navigate to: /var/mobile/Media/iTunes_Control/iTunes

Cheers!

DO NOT RESTORE

• It could be one of two (or both) files are corrupt on your iPhone (or other iDevice), they are iTunesDB andiTunesCDB.
• There is an fast fix for this, even if your iDevice is non jailbroken.
• You want to disconnect your iDevice from your computer and close iTunes to ensure you DO NOT RESTORE.
• Download iFunBox or iTools a Free Tool for accessing the iDevice file system. It has both a OSX version andWindows version for download.
• After you download the version of iFunBox or iTools for your OS, you will need to install it and run it.
• After installing and running iFunBox or iTools, connect your iDevice to your computer.
• You will see a message in the Upper Right of iFunBox ”connecting to iDevice“, after iFunbox has connected to your iDevice, click on the tab “iFunbox Classic“.
• On the left panel, expand “Raw File System” (click on the +), then expand “iTunes_Control“, then click on “iTunes“.
• In the right panel you will see a number of files, right-click on the file “iTunesCDB” and select rename, please add X after the iTunesCDB in the file name, this will allow you keep the file in case you need it again (you should never need it, but better to be careful than sorry.)
• After you have renamed the file, click on your iDevice name on the upper right of iFunBox and select “Device Safe Removal“, this will ensure the file name change will be written back to your iDevice.
• After you see your iDevice is closed (“No device connected” will be displayed in the upper right), you should now close iFunBox

Now run Apple iTunes, it will see your iDevice and you will be able to Sync again.

I would tend to state that this error is not because of your devices. So there is no need to restore them.

I would go ahead and re-install iTunes as there might be some services broken or not running to properly access your devices.

Thank you very much as your suggestion did in fact allow iTunes to recognize my iPhone 4 again, thus allowing me to backup the phone today. I downloaded and installed i-funbox and renamed the three files as you suggested. I restarted iTunes and voila, my phone is recognized again (yeah!).

However, when I tried to sync, iTunes is telling me I don't have enough available space on my phone. I suspect it is trying to rewrite my music database (which I have verified still resides on my phone, and is 10.6GB in size; I have 10GB free, and iTunes tells me I need 530MB of more space than I have available... thus why I suspect the rewrite...).

Any ideas how to overcome this problem?

Thanks in advance for any assistance you can provide!

Hey, just want to say thanks for the post. I came across this problem on my i-phone5. Apples answer: Restore to factory settings thereby permenanltly erasing music, photos and my phonebook - the best way to cure a migraine is to cut off your own head, right?

I took your suggestion and deleted one song from my playlist, opened itunes and... whatddaya know? It was that simple. Hope one day troubleshoots like this might actually appear in itunes. Thanks for your help.

It looks like you need to delete all the music files on your phone manually as well.

It's unfortunate, because deleting the database files allowed me to sync my phone again and keep the songs (and more importantly my playlists) on my phone, but of course, now iTunes thinks I have no music on my phone so that will cause a whole new slew of problems.

Ok after I connected to itunes i clicked "back up to computer", but I get an error message.

And when I try to sync it, it says an iphone can be synced with one itunes library at a time.

It says the same thing on my old computer as well.

HI.

I know your post was quite some time ago, just wanted to ask (as i have the same issue as Kogiu . how do i delet a song from my playlist if itunes cannot read the contants of my i-phone 5? (sorry if this is a very stupid question)

thank in advance

I just wanted to confirm, this solution does work. I had tried the playlist delate and that did not do the trick. I then used the i-FunBox solution and renamed the three files. It worked perfectly.

Hi there, I got the same problem with my itunes, i.e. it can't read the contents of my iphone and suggests the restore to factory settings.

My problem:

after finding the 3 files on i-FunBox, I can neither rename nor delete them. Is there any trick how to do that, am I missing something?

Thanks for any advise.

sorry - I spoke too soon. now iTunes, every time I reconnect the iPhone, gives me the same message as before, that cannot read the content. so I tried the system of renaming those files via iFunBox, BUT at the third attempt at reconnecting the iPhone to iTunes, I am given a choice: restore an existing iPhone OR set the iPhone as new. what does that mean? I am really really confused...

Warning! Delete only iTunesCDB and everything will working fine! Sync will working too! And will not show you the messege that on your iPhone is not enough free space!

P.S. Our devices have iOS Operating System that system the same as MAC OS X and everything is working the same as MAC OS X (When our iTunes library is damaged we can delete the same files as on iOS) To avoid this problems in the future just make backup of your iTunes library files on both devices (Mac and iOS).

I would just like to take a minute and thank you sincerely for taking the time to post this solution. I thought my iPhone was toast and was desperately trying to retrieve photos from my recent Europe trip! Thanks again!!

what about the case that the i-fun box could not be opened by Maverick?

my macbook pro says, it cannot open since it is created by unknown developer!

this is the reason I could not resolve my problem of "Itunes cannot read the contents of the iphone 4s"

please Help me!

what about the case that the i-fun box could not be opened by Maverick?

my macbook pro says, it cannot open since it is created by unknown developer!

this is the reason I could not resolve my problem of "Itunes cannot read the contents of the iphone 4s"

please Help me!