stuck on waiting for changes to be applied

This worked for me. Thanks. But this appears to be a multifaceted problem so your mileage may vary.

No question it's multifaceted, and not every solution will work.

In fact, I've attempted every solutuon posted so far (other than the Windows-specific ones) and they've all, eventually, failed.

That's why it's critical we all keep posting; the more specific we can get, the better equipped Apple's engineers will be to address this problem.

As for me, here's my latest: an AppleCare tech walked me through uploading my personal info (contacts & calendars) to iCloud, wiping my iPhone (uh-GAIN), and restoring from the cloud.

This was mainly to get rid of my increasingly huge "Other" storage (which consists, I suspect, of all the songs and movies that become inaccessible during these long syncs). It got rid of the "Other" just fine, and I've had no long syncs since then, either.

Now, that was only three days ago, so I'm far from convinced that I'm "cured." But at least it's one more thing some of us can try, if so inclined.

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.

cpaulPHL... THANK YOU

This solution worked.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5324684?answerId=23128451022#23128451022

20+ hours of futility prior... Some additional notes:

1) I didn't have any voice memos nor did I have "find my iphone" selected prior to fail

2) That leaves downloads in progress as culprit for me (did you (do you) see the cloud with a down arrow on your music files?- I did)

3) My phone was remotely wiped (long story) - I successfully got it all back from my PC itunes back up except the music.

4) My recent itunes purchases were cloud / arrow downloads in perpetual progress - although they played just fine on the phone. Deleting these did the trick with the steps also listed.

5) FYI... i disabled all WiFi sync on my phone, all iCloud backup options and all other sync/backup options except the PC itune option - Sync to this Computer only. Didn't want to have any sync/backup competing options

Thanks Again for this post

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 experienced this issue last night after backing up an iPhone 5S (on 7.0.4) and then restoring to a replacement iPhone 5S (also 7.0.4).

I was eventually able to fully repair syncing by logging out of iCloud, iTunes, and Home Sharing at a specific point in the "restore backup" process.

Here's how I made this work for me:

1. Make an encrypted iTunes backup, if you don't already have one.
   I encountered this issue while restoring from a backup I took a few minutes prior.
   If you are having this issue and haven't created a backup, do so now.
   The backup needs to be encrypted, or else you'll have to login to all of your apps again.
   
2. Restore the iPhone to default state.
   Connect the phone via USB to iTunes, click "Restore Phone" on the device screen, confirm data wipe, etc.
   DFU restore also works fine.
   
3. Begin the "Restore Backup" process, unplugging the phone when it reboots.
   On the phone screen, complete the initial setup by connecting to Wi-Fi (or not) and then choosing "Restore from iTunes Backup".
   Pay close attention to iTunes and to the phone.
   Unplug the phone immediately when the Apple logo appears. This happens a second or two after the iTunes progress bar reaches completion.
   iTunes will present a dialog saying "Leave your phone plugged in". You must ignore this request, and unplug it before it finishes rebooting and tries to sync automatically.
   
4. Complete the setup process on the phone, logging into iCloud if it asks you to do so.
   It seems unnecessary to login to iCloud at this stage, but it's necessary to do this step, or you risk breaking your iCloud settings and needing to restore again.
   The setup process is complete when you reach the home screen and can locate the Settings icon.
   
5. Logout of iCloud, iTunes, and Home Sharing, and disable the iTunes "Show All" options.
   To log out of iCloud, go to Settings > iCloud > Delete Account. If asked, choose "Delete" rather than "Keep".
   To log out of iTunes, go to Settings > iTunes & App Store > Apple ID: xxx@xxx > Sign Out.
   To log out of Home Sharing, go to Settings > Music > Apple ID: xxx@xxx > Sign Out.
   If you're already signed out of any of the above things, that's fine.
   To disable the iTunes "Show All" options, go to Settings > iTunes & App Store > Show All. Ensure that both "Music" and "Videos" are disabled. This step may not be required, I didn't try without it.
   
6. Sync with iTunes over USB.
   Plug the USB connector into the phone and computer.
   iTunes should begin syncing immediately.
   Restore Backup sets a hidden flag that forces an immediate automatic sync, ignoring the global "Do not sync devices automatically" and device "Sync this device automatically" options.
   Unplugging the phone earlier ensures that the automatic sync occurs *after* we've logged out of iTunes and iCloud.
   
7. Do not use the phone until the sync is complete.
   I didn't use the phone during my successful repair, so this step reflects that.
   You're logged out of iTunes and iCloud, so a lot of things will quietly (or loudly) break if you try to use them.
   If all goes well, it should start copying apps and then music, rather than hanging at the "Waiting" screen.
   
8. Logout of iCloud, iTunes, and Home Sharing, and enable the iTunes "Show All" options.
   I entered my Apple ID information at the Settings pages for iCloud, iTunes & App Store, and Music > Home Sharing.
   If you don't use Home Sharing, skip it.
   Enable the "Show All" options if you disabled them in Step 5.
   
9. Confirm that the music you synced from iTunes is now on the phone.
   At this stage, I had a mix of songs copied from iTunes, and "cloud" purchases with the download icon.
   
10. Sync with iTunes over USB.
    At this stage, it should simply work.

For the curious, or if the steps above don't fix the issue, I have some miscellaneous notes:

• I thought of this because I heard that iCloud was causing issues with syncing for some users, and realized that it might be interfering with the restore from backup.
• I did not alter any playlists or songs, aside from (perhaps unnecessarily) removing Voice Memos.
• While debugging this issue, I deleted all voice memos from iTunes, which had no effect on the problem. I advise trying the steps below without deleting voice memos.
• Each attempt was a Restore + Restore Backup, to ensure that no issues were carried over from prior attempts.

I hope this is of some help.

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....