stuck on waiting for changes to be applied

I am facing exactly the same situation as everyone posting here. Running all up to date software on iPhone 4S with 64GB space, syncing with macbook pro mavericks. Tried every solution posted such as removing all music from library, removing voice memos, resetting phone to factory settings, syncing only selected music, removing 'other' from the phone - none have worked consistently. Even if I could get it to sync briefly as soon as I connected the phone to the mac again or added some more music it would all get screwed up again and random tracks would disappear. Fed up with this issue - the reason I got an iphone was that everything would work flawlessly and smoothly - it seems not.

Please help Apple!

I have this issue too, I have currently been waiting for an hour and a half for my iPod to finish syncing a few tracks. It is not a problem with my hardware, it is most definitely a problem with iTunes for me.

Every time an iTunes update comes out I have long sync issues and once I have gone through the hassle of waiting for a stupid amount of time waiting to shuffle songs on/off it usually works fine. But until it completes that first sync I have problems. If I unplug my iPod (sometimes I just want to use the **** thing) I will start listening to a playlist and get the first second of a song before it skips to the next . Going back to the track list will show that the track I wanted is no longer on there. Or, as happened today, with it plugged in I will select a track and nothing plays.

I'm done updating iTunes now. Gonna stick with this current version until Apple can pull their collective fingers out and work towards a solution.

Here's something new:

I've gone almost a week without long-sync problems, which means I'm due any time now.

That said, I've long believed there was a "bad media file" somewhere in my music.

Yesterday, I discovered two purchased songs, no longer available on the iTunes music store, neither of which will play on my iPhone. Both will play on the computer, and I reloaded them from a separate drive back onto the phone and they STILL didn't play.

I took them out of the library entirely, but I've got them saved offline just in case it turns out they were the "culprits."

It may have to do with Apple's authorization requests - songs that were taken off the music store may have a harder time getting authorized, which may lead to whatever else we're experiencing.

Have had a LOT of trouble syncing my Ipad Mini with my Itunes on my Mac (OSX 10.8.5) . All Itune and Ipad software up to date.

It would get stuck on "Waiting for changes to be applied" and eventually crash. I followed numerous conversation threads and one suggestion for me worked. Might have been random, but when I checked "reset warnings" and then "Manually manage music and videos" it finally worked on that sync, after hours of trying other things. It still did stick on the Waiting for changes, but I left it on that warning, and several hours later, not sure how long, all music, videos,books, etc were synced. I think it just takes longer now with ios 7 and I-tunes 11. Currently at 7.0.4 and 11.1.3

*** PLEASE READ ***

REMINDER: If you haven't filled out the survey, please take a moment to do so.

It appears that Apple has so far been unable to fix this problem. I propose we give them all the information they need to troublehsoot it. I have created a free survey that goes over the basic points. Maybe they can round it down to a specific attribute?

PLEASE TAKE TIME AND FILL THE INFO OUT https://www.quicksurveys.com/s/n4DMr5

APPLE OR ANYONE INTERESTED CAN view survey reports page, https://www.quicksurveys.com/s/Wa27Jce

Awesome... worked perfectly. Like many folks here... I have spent HOURS trying to rexolve this. Even calling Apple Care several times with no luck! THANK YOU! The suggestion that worked came from -- cpaulPHL

Message was edited by: blgios

I noticed that I got this error after buying a bunch of 5 dollar mp3 albums from Amazon that I added to my IPad playlist. I was syncing to a PC on an IPad 2 with the most recent update for it and ITunes. To fix it I

!. Selected all the new tracks, rightclick, "convert to mp3"

2. Then I deleted all of the original tracks so that only the converted tracks remained

3. Apply

4. Sync

After that, all of the music loaded with no problem and no hanging on "awaiting changes to be applied"

Your mileage may vary

Funny, I had a similar problem - I was trying to see which tracks were always "vanishing," and the Amazon purchases turned up repeatedly

I did the same thing as Dannyverse. Fixed the problem for almost a week.

I wish I'd pointed out sooner; sorry, Dannyverse!

Funny, those were OLD Amazon purchases, too. Which makes it even more obviously an OS7 issue - they worked fine for YEARS before the update.

For now, I'm at eight (8) days without the problem. The "fix" for me was an online tech walking me through a backup to iCloud, followed by a clean restoration from iCloud. Weirdly, I've also gotten 200GB worth of reclaimed extra space on my hard drive. It's as if the old backups weren't being deleted at all.

Regardless, I'm maintaining a bare minimum of songs on the phone, to minimize the long sync when it returns.

Have had same problem on and off for a few weeks now. Have been on here for a few hours today reading everything that others have tried and finally found something that fixed my issue.

When my sync hangs, I have to cancel it, then right-click on my device and choose "Transfer Purchases." Once I do this, the next sync attempt works fine. I guess I downloaded an app from the app store on the iPhone at some point (I almost always get them from iTunes on my PC) that is having issues going from my phone back to iTunes on my PC.

Unfortunately, I can only get one good sync out of this before I have to repeat the process all over again, but it works for me every time.

No problems with purchase transfers. I rarely do so anyway, and typically download the purchases to my computer independently

Well, this last "fix" lasted me 10 days, almost a new record.

I'm on iChat, logging the latest data points.

There's something about iOS7 that REALLY hates audiobooks, is the nearest thing I can figure. These long syncs wipe out all the audiobooks and most of the AAC and MP3 files that weren't purchased.

Weird thing: I never have a problem with the iPad or iPad Mini, as long as there are no songs or audiobooks loaded onto them. But once I do, the long syncs wipe out most of the movie files along with them.

Well, I'm at my witts end. I've tried everything here and on other discussion threads and I basically now have two iPhone 5S bricks that are only capable of making a phone call. I can't get new apps, books, or music on either of them through iTunes. What's odd is one of my iPhones was exhibiting this problem almost from the day I bought it (Christmas gift) and now my other iPhone is too (another Christmas gift). I'm about to return them and switch to Android....

Edimon, if you just got them, they should still be under full warranty including iChat and phone support

I did get through one of my bad spots with phone support; the fix was not permanent (no fix ever has been) and it had nothing to do with the actual problem (loss of songs and audiobooks). But it worked. I uploaded my info to iCloud, wiped the phone, and had the tech "force" the info back into the phone from his end).

See, the more of us swamp their lines with this problem, the faster it'll get fixed. And it will get fixed, with this many of us experiencing it. They can't overlook it any more.

So I just went to an authorized dealer for Apple products and mentioned the sync issue. The comment by the tech guy was: "Use Manual Update to add/remove songs to your phone as the sync issue has no resolution to date".

Wow! Wasn't expecting that answer; however, I can now add/remove music to my iPhone now.

Hate to break it to you, Edimon, but manual management isn't a solution

You can at least add the songs, but from time to time iTunes will spontaneously remove and re-add them for no discernable reason.

I dunno, maybe you'll be lucky and avoid this happening. I hope you are. Just don't freak out too much if it happens just the same.

It does, however, sound like he was at least aware of the issue, so SOMEone has to be working on it.

SOLUTION!

I was having this exact issue after upgrading to iTunes 11. After several days on chat with different techs I was bumped up to their level 2 techs. This guy found the problem & the solution is pretty simple.

The problem is with files (music in my case) that for some reason iTunes just does not like. They play like normal, but just won't sync to the iPhone (or whatever you have.)

(Note: The tech2 guy suggested a completely new install of iTunes after wiping every trace of it from my system. I did that, but it didn't change a thing in terms of the"Waiting..." sync issue. Just thought I would note I did all of this on a fresh install & new library)

Here is what worked for me...

How to find the bad file(s).

1. Connect the iPhone (or whatever) and uncheck "Sync Music" to clear everything off the device. If it was trying to sync & giving that frustrating "Waiting..." message, X out of it & uncheck "Sync Music." Clear all music off the device.

2. On the "Summary" tab, check "Manually manage music and videos." (Note: I do not sync anything but music.)

Now the fun part. It's tedius, but works. The playlist you are trying to sync has a file (or files) that are not sycning & causing it to hang. I went thru my entire collection, but this should work with just going thru a playlist

3. Start a few new playlists for going thru files. Add everything you want to go thru in 1 big playlist (like everything in the playlist you want to sync.)

4. Move files to test into another playlist. This will help you keep track of which files are fine. The number doesn't matter, but the more files you add, the longer it will take to get a result on them. (My collection is over 50,000 songs, so I started testing my collection at about 2000 at a time)

5. Drag & drop the files from the new playlist (for example, the one with 2000 in it as opposed to 50,000) to the device you are manually managing. If the files eventually start transfering, these are all good. Remove them from the device & delete them from the playlist. Repeat moving files from the untested playlist to this one & dropping them to the device.

6. When you get a batch of files that do not transfer you will know it. It will stop trying to do anything & if you hit "Sync" you will get a familiar "Waiting..." message. Congradulations, there is a bad file in here. Move a number of files to another playlist and continue testing smaller & smaller numbers until you find the file that will not sync. Remember, one file causes the whole issue. So if you transfer two to the device and neither transfers, try them one at a time.

7. When you find the file (or files... I had 4 out of 53,567 that were bad) you will need to get rid of it. Deleting it (them) from the playlist(s) solved the sync issue for me.

8. What if you still want to sync the file(s)? Glad you asked! I found all 4 files in my system to be the same bitrate. All 4 happened to be 192/Joint Stereo. Simply deleting them from the library & reimporting them DOES NOT WORK. I had to convert them to a different format (I just used 192/Stereo) and then delete the original files from the actual folders they are stored in (placing the newly converted files into the origina folders is fine, but delete the old files first... copying over the old files did NOT solve the sync issue. Deleting the originals & replacing with the freshly converted files DID.)

9. Import the freshly converted files to iTunes. Drag & drop to your device. They should import.