itunes could not connect to this iPhone. This device is no longer connected

Phone not recognised in itunes

device not recognised by iTunes on PC or device not recognised by iTunes on Mac

iTunes could not connect to this iPhone. This device is no longer connected.

iPad 2 7.1.2

iTunes 11.3 (54)

iMac 27 in 10.9.4

Follow these steps to resolve your issue for iPads

Troubleshooting time is about 30 minutes - 1 hour

Step 1

Unplug the usb 2.0 cord from the 27 in iMac and iPad 2 64 GB (or what ever version you have) Power down the iPad

Step 2

Select your HD (Hard Drive) ( I did this form my desk top)

Next select the applications folder, Next right click the iTunes icon and select show package contents, select Contents.

1. 1. Next select info.plist, right click and select move to trash (A message should appear Finder wants to make changes. Type your password to allow this)(Enter your password) Select ok, (This moves the file to the trash).
2. 2. Next select pkginfo, right click and select move to trash. (A message should appear Finder wants to make changes. Type your password to allow this)(Enter your password) Select ok, (This moves the file to the trash).
3. 3. Next Select version.plist, right click and select move to trash (A message should appear Finder wants to make changes. Type your password to allow this)(Enter your password) Select ok, (This moves the file to the trash).
4. 4. Remove "iTunes" from your dock
5. 5. From the Finder, choose Go > Go to folder.

6. Type the following and then press Return:
/var/db/lockdown

7. Choose View > as Icons.

8. The Finder window should display one or more files with long alphanumeric file names.

9. In the Finder, choose Edit > Select all. Then, choose File > Move to Trash. Enter an administrator password if prompted.
Note: Do not delete the Lockdown folder itself.

Delete only the files contained inside the Lockdown folder.

Step 3

Follow the below steps to troubleshoot the issue.

1. 1. In Finder, click the Go menu and then choose Go to Folder. Enter the following location into the text field that appears:
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons
2. 2. Click Go.
3. 3. Locate the file "com.apple.usbmuxd.plist~orig" and drag it to the Trash. (Do not move the similarly named "com.apple.usbmuxd.plist" file to the Trash.) If you DO NOT HAVE file "com.apple.usbmuxd.plist~orig" I DELETED THE FOLLOWING (com.apple.usb.plist)
4. 4. In the Finder, locate iTunes in the Applications folder and drag it to the Trash. (This will not remove any of your iTunes media or your iTunes library.) You may be presented with the following message “iTunes” can’t be modified or deleted because it’s required by OS X.) Do not worry click ok and proceed troubleshooting
5. 5. Choose Go > Go to Folder. Enter the following location into the text field that appears:
/System/Library/Extensions
6. 6. Click Go.
7. 7. Locate the file "AppleMobileDevice.kext" and drag it to the Trash.
8. 8. In Finder, click the Go menu and then choose Go to Folder. Enter the following location into the text field that appears:
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks
9. 9. Click Go.
10. 10. Locate the folder "MobileDevice.framework" and drag it to the Trash.
11. 11. In Finder, click the Go menu and then choose Go to Folder. Enter the following location into the text field that appears:
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons
12. 12. Click Go.

Step 4

Goto your hard drive in the finder

1. 1. Goto Library
2. 2. Goto Launch Daemons
3. 3. Throw this in the trash: com.ghughes.wifisync.root.plist and anything with the words iTunes
4. 4. Goto Library
5. 5. Goto Application Support
6. 6. Throw this in the trash: Wi-Fi Sync (it's an entire folder) and anything with iTunes

Step 5

(Before restart book mark the link command and D). Restart the Mac.

Download iTunes and reinstall it. After the install, connect the 2.0 usb device to the iPad 2 while the unit is still powered off, next connect the 2.0 usb cord to iTunes, power the iPad on. iTunes will read the device and ask to trust device, select continue. Backup the iPad device to the 27 in iMac.

Step 6

Please Rate if it helped you! After that have a cold hard drink and enjoy the day

Hi Apple2029,

I too have the problem;

iTunes could not connect to this iPhone. Could not connect to the device. on my iMac, however i have followed your instructions and cannot get past Step 3 Action 4.

When i go to drag iTunes from the Applications folder to the recycle bin, i get the following message;

The item “iTunes” can’t be moved to the Trash because it’s open.

With the only option being to press ok, which aborts the action.

Can you shed any light on how to get past this?

Cheers.

Go the top right of the screen

Click apple logo

Select force quit

Select iTunes

Select relaunch finder

This should work if not and it continues to say iTunes is open

Reboot the computer

Start from step 3 again.

This is a ridicuolous situation. I did roughly Apple2029 suggested, on my own before coming to this thread. It was when I realised I had to do it again this morning that I decided I needed to find a better process. This is the only process? Rebooting? What a pain. I think what we all are looking for is a way to STOP itunes from needing to verify our computers and our devices. Is there a way to simply shutdown this behavior. My phone never leaves my desk/pocket and I don't need iTunes to be that secure. APPLE give us a little control please.

It's not a question of control, it's a question of shoddy software engineering. There are just lots more bugs in iTunes 12 than iTunes 11, and I'm afraid it's likely to get worse given the history of software releases from Apple over the last few years.

Your only hope is that Apple themselves fix the issue - that, or jump ship to another phone / OS combination that actually works, if you can find one. Anything that doesn't rely on iTunes would be a good start. I used to like it, but 12's UI is a disaster and the bugs are just getting embarrassing (for Apple) now.

I am not holding out any hope at all that Apple fix this any time soon given how long this version has been out with this bug without them releasing a fixed version. I complained recently in another post about the non-display of release notes for updated apps and that took them ages to fix, and that wasn't even a bug in iTunes - it was a bug in the server pumping out the release notes, so it must have been a pretty straightforward job to fix it.

I don't know what all those gazillions of engineers are working on at present, but it certainly doesn't appear to be fixing bugs!

How many steps in the recommended article have you tried?

I don't know which article you are referring to because you don't specify. I have tried a number of things, but the thing that instantly fixed it was killing (or effectively restarting) usbmuxd as described in the post by oskapt in the thread at itunes 12 will not recognize iphone. This thread also explains what the problem is.

Here's what worked for me: I re-booted the computer and then the iOS device.

Yes, but that is just another (sledgehammer) way of restarting usbmuxd, as described by oskapt in the thread I linked to. You can achieve the desired result without having to reboot any device by simply killing usbmuxd (using Activity Monitor or from the Terminal) which will then automatically restart.

Thank you for your post: this solved my problem where my brand new Mac Mini would not recognise any of my iOS devices after about 24 hours and I had to reboot the computer.