Q: Music not syncing after iOS 7 update

So I just chatted online with an Apple employee and I may have a simple solution.

If you are still having a problem syncing music from your itunes to your iphone then try this. When your phone is plugged into your computer uncheck the sync music box in itunes and apply the change. Once it finishes syncing you should only have music that you purchased from itunes on your phone.

Now recheck the sync music box. During the syncing you will see the usual waiting for changes step last, but this time it should follow with all the music you chose to sync and it should start adding it all.

I know this sounds too simple to work, but it worked for me and I have tried a few suggestions in this thread unsuccessfully. Try it out and let us know if it works for you. It worked for me, thank the heavens! The best part is that I didn't need to uninstall iOS7 or restore my phone or any drastic actions.

Good luck!

OMG! Everyone! iOS7.0.2 has been released! (Or iOS7.0.1 if you use iPhone 5S or 5C).

This has FIXED this syncing issue. I had the exact same problems mentioned here but after the update, I could transfer my whole playlist (1000 songs) no problem!!!

Finally Apple has fixed this

Too bad...

- Restoring my iphone to a new iPhone and adding apps without using back up did not work.

- Checking & unchecking method didn't work.

- "Manage music manually" worked just once and does not work anymore.

- Updating iOS 7.0.2 did not work.

So far, we don't have any solution yet.

Whenever I am trying to add a few playlists & thousands songs, the sync gets cancelled after a few hundred songs. Let's wait for the next update.

Wow, this is the first time that a cellphone has failed to do the simple task of playing my music. NONE of the steps above has worked, including updating to 7.0.2

Yeah updating to 7.0.2 didn't work for me either.

So basically there are 2 different issues : the sync cancelling automatically halfway through and the sync staying stuck at "Waiting for changes to be applied" forever

I had the 1st issue when I updated to iOS 7 but it morphed into the 2nd one

Right now, I don't have the second issue. Maybe you should try check & uncheck "Manage Music Manually" in many ways to solve this.

In regards to my last post:

"Ok, so I turned on home sharing on my iphone and as I previously mentioned, this didn't work.

However, I went into my itunes on my mac and noticed it wasn't active on there, so I turned on home sharing.

Next thing I know my music is being synced!

No failed syncs and it it appears on my phone as it should.

Verdict is out whether this is a solution, as I don't think it will work once I have moved away from the mac or the mac is switched off. I guess I will see later on today..."

This worked for me. I now have 1.5GB of music on my phone. It works wherever I am (I think someone previously mentioned as soon as they were away from their computer it did not work?)

I have just plugged my iphone 4 back in again, and it has completed it's sync and the music is still on my phone. Happy Days!

It's ridiculous how many workarounds people are being forced to try. Anyway I found a fix with mixed results. Basically it worked for some playlists and not others. It involves sync'ing playlists by genre. I will outline the steps that I used to sync music from iTunes to my iPhone 4 (iOS7). Just to clarify, I also experienced this music sync issue since updating to iOS7.

(Only try this if you don't mind risking losing music on the phone. Failure to sync can corrupt the music on the phone)

(Make sure to create a back up of your iTunes playlists by exporting them.)

1. Select a playlist, select a song and then press CTRL+A to select all the songs on the playlist. Then right click the selection and click "Get info" from the list. You should be able to edit the info for all the selected music simultaneously.
2. At the bottom of the "Info" window, look for a field labeled "Genre". Edit this field to a unique name. For example, Chillout V1.
3. While your phone is connected to iTunes, open the phone's Summary window and under Options, make sure that only "Sync only checked songs and videos" is checked.
4. Open your phone's Music window, check "Sync music" - "Selected playlists, artists, album, and genres" and then under "Genre" put a check on the genre of music that was just renamed (e.g. Chillout V1).
5. Now sync. (The final step "Waiting for changes to be applied" should take less than 1 minute before music starts to transfer to the phone... if not, click the 'x' next to the loading bar to cancel the process and try to sync again)
6. If sync was successful and the music is now on your phone, check the playlist that contained the songs with the changed genre tags and then sync again. This will create the playlist on your phone and add all the songs from the same genre to that playlist. If you skip this step you can create a playlist on the phone and add all the songs 1 by 1.
7. Repeat steps 1-2-4-5-6 for other playlists. (Keep the same playlists checked as you sync more so you don't erase them from the phone)

I was only able to sync 3 playlists (300 songs) doing this and the music on the phone still works after unplugging from iTunes. I don't expect this to work for everyone but for those who have nothing else to try (like I did) feel free to give this method a shot.

wow.  unchecking "sync music" and rechecking it worked for me.

shocked.  still more than a bit frustrated by this entire ordeal (i went through and tried every suggestion in this post), but it's whatever at this point.

Holy **** my music is syncing again. I don't know exactly what fixed the issue for me but this is what I did

1) Unchecked and checked "Sync music" -> didn't work

2) Checked "Manually manage music"

3) Created a playlist with like a 100 songs and it synced

4) So I added like 50 songs each time to the same playlist and synced

3) The 3rd time it got stuck at "Waiting for changes to be applied". So I went to Edit > Undo add x songs to the playlist". And I added less songs to see what was causing the issue. I found that there were 2 songs that just wouln't sync for some reason so I deleted them and carried on and ALL my songs synced without any issues

To make sure the problem was solved, I tried syncing my entire library and it worked so it was those 2 songs that were causing my syncing problem.

I think someone mentionned that solution on a previous page ? I'm not sure but it did work for me

Maybe this can help someone figure out whats wrong.

I attempted to do a wi-fi sync from the phone. It connected and started. As soon as "waiting for changes to be applied" appeared, the phone says the computer is unavailable.

7.0.2 update did not initially resolve the music failing to sync. After the update, I had to uncheck 'sync music' the  let it delete the songs from the iPhone/iPod. Then had to re-check 'sync music' and let it push all music back on to the phone/pod. Thought everything was OK as the phone and pod were playing again finally.

HOWEVER, after making change to a playlist and the re-syncing again, the sync FAILED again!!

Had to turn off sync music and the turn back on and push all music to devices again.

Seems to be the only way to update/add a playlist.

Of course, this is ridiculous as it takes forever and it is not syncing, it is just re-pushing all music to the device.

What in the world is broken here? Is it iOS 7.0.2 or is it iTunes 11.1 or both?!

Would be nice if apple would admit that there is a problem and what the fix will be (new iTunes/ new iOS or both) so that we can quit banging our heads against these [at this moment] worthless devices and inform us what the correct path forward is (temp fix while we wait for a permanent solution).

This is costing some of us and our clients time and money that we will never get back.

Apple does not seem to care about potential impacts to its customers and needs to 'man-up' as it were and take accountability for these issues and get us a fix ASAP!!

APPLE???

Hello??!!

This thread has been very helpful, I also have been stuck at "waiting for changes to apply" and had most of my music not sync to the new 5S phone either plugged or wirelessly. 

HERE IS WHAT WORKED FOR ME:

Cancelled sync and forced quit iTunes

Turned off find my iphone on phone

Check the "home sharing" option in "Music" on phone

Restart iTunes with phone not plugged in

Reorganize iTunes library as suggested in this thread

Reconnect iPhone to computer

Uncheck the sync music option in iTunes

Sync - let that run for a few minutes

Check sync music again

Apply / resync

Now my music is syncing! 

Not sure which of these really did the trick but tried everything suggested in this thread short of doing the complete restore settings (which was going to be my next step)

Some of us solved the problme by deleting a few songs. But we do know that these songs never caused any issue before iOS & iTunes update so I don't want to go further by deleting my precision songs.

None of these worked for me. No music is syncing to my iPhone 4S once I updated to iOS7, and none of the fixes above worked. Once a song starts to sync, iTunes immediately jumps to "Waiting for changes to be applied." and nothing happens.  Terribly frustrating.