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stuck on waiting for changes to be applied

Just downloaded itunes 11 and ios 7


Trying to sync iPad with iTunes. process is "stuck" on waiting for changes to be applied


Any ideas?

pro, Mac OS X (10.6.2)

Posted on Sep 18, 2013 10:10 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Sep 23, 2013 1:40 PM

After countless hours this past weekend with this same problem (iTunes stuck on "waiting for changes to be applied..." I finally have resolved it without having to completely rebuild my iTunes library (and losing my metadata in the process). For background, I updated my iPhone 4s while I was traveling, and when I returned home, I was no longer to update music in iTunes (it would hang).


The problem, it seems, is related to several factors:

1) you have enabled "Find My iPhone" in the iCloud settings on your iPhone

2) you have initiated a download of music through iTunes on your iPhone, and the downloads have not completed

3) you have a corrupted Voice Memo, causing duplication on each sync


Here's what I ended up doing:

on your iPhone / iPod / iOS device:

1) disabled "Find My iPhone" on the iCloud settings of my iPhone

2) gone to the "Downloads" section of the iPhone "iTunes" app and deleted every in-progress download

3) go to Voice Memos app and see if there are recordings in the list that may have been duplicated

you can also check the "Voice Memos" playlist on your iTunes library

- delete any duplicate Voice Memos; if some memos are gray and can't be deleted see below

4) do a cold reboot (hold down top bottom, power off, then on again) but do not dock your iPhone yet


on your iTunes:

5) change your iTunes -> Devices preference to "Prevent iPods, iPhones, iPads from syncing automatically"

you can now dock / connect your iPhone to iTunes

6) select "Manually manage music and videos" in the Summary tab for your iPhone within iTunes

7) go to the Music tab for your iPhone within iTunes

- you may see a list of music at the bottom called "manually added music"

if present, select all items in this list and Delete to remove them

8) uncheck "Sync Music" at the top of the Music tab and "Apply"

- this will remove all music from your iPhone

9) if the iTunes sync completes properly, perform a Local Backup of your iPhone (you may need this later)

10) re-enable "Sync Music" but uncheck "Voice Memos" and "Apply"

- if this fails, you have a corrupted memo - see below

11) if this sync completes, change your iTunes -> Devices preference to disable "Prevent iPods, iPhones, iPads from syncing automatically"


possibly optional steps needed:

a) make sure you have a backup of all of your Voice Memos (check iTunes)

you may want to copy off these files and then remove them from iTunes, especially if there are duplicates

b) if your Voice Memos database is corrupted, you may need to clear out the iPhone internal database

there are third party utilities (I used "iPhone Disk") that let you access the directory even on a non-jailbroken phone

b) remove all files from the "Recordings" directory

c) cold-boot your iPhone

d) repeat steps above


Again, this sounds painful (it was!) but after many tries, this is what finally allowed my iPhone 4s with iOS 7 to once again sync properly with iTunes 11.1. This process will preserve your iPhone settings, voicemails, Messages, etc. And, it will let you retain your iTunes library without rebuilding.

630 replies

Dec 7, 2013 2:10 PM in response to WirelessDJ

After seeing all of these options, and realizing that the last step BEFORE "Waiting to make changes" was concerning "applying apps" (or something like this), I went to my Apps on my iPhone4s (fully updated) with 7.0.4., and updated them. At that point, everything began updating. After that, I discovered that songs purchased on the iPhone had a little cloud by it. I tapped the cloud and a circle appeared that spun clockwise. I then selected File-Transfer purchasing from iPhone in iTunes; I had to so this several times to get all the songs to transfer to iTunes, buy they are all on there now.


The phone no longer hangs up anywhere in the process of syncing.


I changed nothing else...in terms of my settings, etc.


Just thought I should share my experience. It took awhile to sort this out.

Dec 8, 2013 10:12 AM in response to Roaming

I have been stuck with this for the last few days, iPhone not syncing music correctly.

I have found the following to work:

Open iTunes in Administrator mode, to do this Right Click on the desktop icon and select 'run as administrator' a warning box appears asking you to confirm this action, click 'yes' and iTunes opens as normal.

First of all I then used iTunes to delete all music from my iPhone, this worked.

Then I created a new small Playlist (One Album) and sync'ed this to my iPhone, It Worked!

I then asked iTunes to sync the rest of my library, it paused for what seemed an age (20sec) and then proceeded to sync everything I asked it.

Result!

Maybe it will work for you?

Dec 8, 2013 12:19 PM in response to makitamark

I am referring to my IPad Air. It is beyond reasoning how scewed up the IOS7 platform is........ numberous problems with Sync'g...... I had to down load my audiobook (killing Kennedy) to my IPhone 5S as it Will Not down load to my IPad either over WiFi or connected to ITunes...


IOS7 is a joke.........


I will and suggested that people go to Amazon for Books and music until Apple gets their act together......

Dec 9, 2013 4:59 PM in response to Roaming

I'm having this problem about once a week now.


I've experienced it in various forms since my first iPhone. Since iOS 7, though, it's happening a lot more often.


Back in the pre-iOS7 days, restoring the iPhone usually fixed it for months at a time. Now no longer.


I tried rebuilding my entire iTunes library, as well as restoring my iPhone many, many, many times. Each time, the solution works for a few days to a week.


I'm almost certain it's a particular song or audiobook. It only happens when there's music on the iOS device. The problem has occurred with an iPad3 and an iPad mini, but ONLY when there are music files on the device.


Interestingly, it doesn't seem to matter whether the music library is manually managed or not. The problem occurs with equal frequency either way. That's just not right, in my view. Once manually managed files are loaded onto the device, iTunes should leave them alone, but that's obviously not happening.


The only "solution" I've got so far is to limit the number of songs and audiobooks syncing to my iPhone. That way, when the problem INEVITABLY occurs, I don't have to wait too long for ALL of those songs to get copied back onto the iPhone (again, and again, and again, ...).


So, the only answer I've got to share is that no solution works for very long. And that it's definitely an audio-file, in my case.


Oh yeah, one more thing: my "other" gets HUGE (on the order of 5-10 GB). It probably consists of loaded songs and audiobooks that remain on the device but are no longer accessible. The only way to remove that ugly yellow block is to restore the iPhone. Again. And again. And again...

Dec 9, 2013 8:50 PM in response to ExTech

ExTech wrote:


…So, the only answer I've got to share is that no solution works for very long.

This is my experience as well.

ExTech wrote:


…loaded songs and audiobooks that remain on the device but are no longer accessible.


This is a problem I've been having. The Music app thinks that songs are on the device, but when I try to play them, the app skips by them and their text info becomes gray. The songs remain in the list- but they're grayed out.

Dec 10, 2013 8:37 AM in response to rkstiens

i'm having issues on both my iphone 5s and ipad air...


on the iphone, i notice that the first sync often does not sync all of my podcasts, and then i have to sync the device again at which point it could take up to 20 minutes just to get podcasts (maybe 10 new episodes at any given time) onto the device ... the phone is stuck "waiting for changes to be applied"


on the ipad, i noticed that although i've always synced "all books" for some reason the device was prechecked on "selected books" and i had to manually change it back then resync the device. and then it was stuck on "waiting for changes to be applied" for almost 40 minutes (for 300 ebooks)


i'm wondering if the issues are caused by the fact that the podcasts / books are not being managed by the same apps? as in.. there's a podcast app on the phone and a music app, and maybe they don't play with with itunes on the mac.. same for ibooks on the mac having to sync through itunes to then appear in ibooks on the ipad.. something is broken in syncs on both devices.

Dec 11, 2013 1:08 AM in response to kenrict

I've also noticed the spontaneous change to "Selected books" from "All books."


The problem is happening daily now. I feel like I'm playing Russian roulette, every time I sync. The one I'm doing right now is only the fifth sync after a full iPhone restoration.


I'm trying to track which songs get "grayed," but I lost a lot of useful metadata (especially the "date added") when I attempted that extreme fix of rebuilding my entire library. I also lost a lot of album artwork (about 100 songs' worth). And all it bought me was 12 days without long syncs.


There's no clear pattern, but I lose about 2/3 of my song files and 90% of my audiobooks, which suggests it's an audiobook that iTunes doesn't like. Problem is, I've duplicated the problem on an iPad Mini with ZERO audiobooks and manually managed music.


It's the older songs more than the newer ones. That's the only pattern that seems to be emerging.


Lastly, the purchased movie files are "grayed" less often than my home movies or DVD rips.

Dec 12, 2013 5:38 AM in response to Roaming

Or maybe your expectations are simply too high because as long as their has been such complicated software there has been bugs/problems associated. Unfortantely things don't get fixed overnight, not for lack of trying. Although slightly inconvenient, waiting an extra 5-10 minutes to finish my sync of 24gb of music is not life threatening.

stuck on waiting for changes to be applied

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