stuck on waiting for changes to be applied

Follow this guide here! It works like a charm! 😀

L3nn1n

After hours of frustrations i finally found a solution and hope it helps everyone that comes across this post.

1. Disconect your iDevice

2. Sign Out of your appleID acount on Itunes Store > Sign Out

3. Close iTunes

4. Conect your iDevice (dont go opening iTunes just yet)

5. Follow this short support guide http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1451

6. Check the Libraries you want to sync (for me i only tick sync music, untick all the others"i mean the tv shows, movies etc")

(p,s: it sync after this step, so i assume most of you might not need step 7)

7. Click "Sync" and if it gets stuck again on "waiting for changes to be applied" click on the small cancell 'x' and your content will beggin copying on your iDevice

hope this helped, i worked for me after hours and hours of trying diferent methods.

Credit to L3nn1n! Cheers!

This post below fixed it for me. It looks like the iTunes Library.itl file somehow gets corrupted during the update. The steps in the support link below basically outlines the steps to rebuild the .ITL file.

One thing to add is that when you connect/sync the iPod you may be prompted to erase the iPod'slibrary (makes sense since the .ITL files will be different since the last time you synced the iPod) and use this iTunes Library or some such message (I was/am tired so I wasn't paying attention since I though this was another failed attempt). Select yes or ok to the erase/delete message. Also note that it didn't work right away. I tried one time and it didn't sync. Then I selected my iPod in the list, selected "music" at the top of the list box, unChecked Include Voice memos and things started to flow from there. I really feel for you guys and girls. I hope you all get your devices back in working order soon.

Kianhow23

igster99 wrote:

Just to add that I've tried most of the solutions here (rebuilding library etc) and most did not work. It has been solved by me deleting all the songs on my iPad (from Settings / General / Usage / Music) *and* the empty playlist shells left behind (from music app, by long hold on playlist name) and then syncing after that. God knows it took a lot of fiddling though, and who knows, it'll probably occur again...

This might be part of another "symptom". I just finished giving a long winded explanation of why my setup seems to be at least 12 days stable (I broke down and upgraded to itunes 11.1 & ios 7.0.4 12 days ago).

It's far too early to tell if it's truly stable or if I haven't encountered the problems yet, but it might be partly due to the way people sync their devices.

While I have the "waiting for changes" problem, it's usually limited to 5 minutes now (first night I upgraded to ios 7.0.4, the sync was horrible and I instantly regretted it... it got better... a bit). No other problems just yet beyond the first night's format/reinstall several times.

The various sync problems might have something to do with "automatic downloads" and "show media not on device", but others see things like an ever growing "other" category (meaning no room left for actual music).

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5324398?start=720&tstart=0

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

It is amazing to me how many different things people have tried to fix this problem. The only fix that has worked every time is to delete the medialibrary database file on the device itself using a program that allows one to read files. I've described what I do in this thread:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5324684?answerId=23388123022#23388123022

I believe that some bug in Tunes progressively screws up the library file on devices by leaving junk behind that you cannot get rid of, which eventually slows syncs to a crawl. Deleting the corrupted library file, warm rebooting, and resyncing (which rebuilds the library file on the device) gives me several weeks of trouble-free syncs before it gets stuck again. It does take a while to put the files back on the device so I usually let it run overnight (I've got a very large library). So far I've used the same technique to fix stuck syncs on my iPad 2, iPod Touch 4, iPod Touch 5, iPhone 4s, iPad 2, and iPhone 5. It isn't a permanent fix, but it does get things working for a while before "gunk" builds up in the database and you need to repeat the process again. I'd still rather do this than delete my entire iTunes library and rebuild it from scratch, remove all purchased music, or restore my iPhone to factory settings repeatedly.

Based on past "ghosted" files, I think the real problem isn't the media type so much as it is purchased items. When this problem first cropped up, for me the ghosted files were primarily in *.m4p format . I removed all of these files and reinstalled them in *.m4a or *.mp3 format. After some initial hiccups (I believe linked to corruption of the database file on my device), syncs worked flawlessly for a while, then it got stuck again. Another issue seemed to be "matched" music, so I removed all of those files and turned off Match. That also seemed to help for a while. My guess is that iTunes is doing something in the background to verify that your purchased music is allowed to be on the device, and something in this process corrupts the device library file over time. It always amazes how much extra space my iPhone suddenly finds once all those ghosted files are gone and I've resynced.

I'm ticked off enough about this problem that I rarely purchase music from iTunes anymore and rely on Amazon instead. I've kept my Match subscription temporarily, but plan to switch entirely to Amazon Cloud as soon as all the tags on my music files are clean. Apple's premium prices are only worth it if the product and software work. This problem has existed for years and it doesn't seem to be a priority of Apple's to fix it. Given that, I'm already looking at tablets made by other manufacturers to replace my old iPad, and I've been doing the same with phones. This is almost as bad as Windows registry errors or BSODs.

I'm in the same boat. If I make one change to one song or playlist, my sync can take up to an hour. It's absolutely infuriating.

The iTunes programmers clearly do not care at all about the quality of their software, or they wouldn't have left this bug to fester for years and years.

One thing I do is report this bug on a daily basis here: https://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

I'm sure it does absolutely no good, and I imagine that those contact forms don't accomplish anything, but at least I feel like I'm doing something. Maybe if enough people keep reporting this bug Apple's programmers will decide they care about the quality of their products and actually do something to address it.

I'm not holding my breath, though. This is a bad bug, and they haven't addressed it in years, so it's clear they don't give a crap. Which is sad to see; they used to write such good software.

Now it just feels like I'm using Windows.

Absolutely. I've switched now. I keep an old iPhone 4S around just for curiosities sake. My phone gets used for 2 things: music and phone stuff. Not videos, games, emails or anything like that. Why would I pay £600-800 for a phone that is just a phone? Since copying music to it is an exhausting, impossible experience.

It's funny what one event like this can do. A bug is a problem and to leave it well over a year before fixing it shows a huge ineptitude. Something is wrong at Apple, be it the programmers, the managers, the systems in place to report bugs. And here we are in a 33-page forum thread with many people having the same problem. They've lost one in me now, I no longer buy an Apple product with that gleeful excitement. I buy it and wonder what has been broke to get this product to market. I've switched my phone and once my iPad goes I'll be done with tablet computing. My iMac is 3 years old, once it goes I'll just build a PC. All because it took a year for the worlds biggest computing company to fix a major problem. I know that shouldn't be such a big problem but Apple play up the experience so much that when that's gone you're not left with much.

I suggest you raise holy **** if you bought a new device. If you bought it from an Apple Store contact them repeatedly, make a case of it. Report it here https://www.apple.com/feedback/ipodtouch.html and here https://bugreport.apple.com/ you've currently got a broken device, let them know it.

Good morning,

after having read tons of forum postings I have found out, that the iTunes database on my iPhone was corrupt. Then I discovered this posting: Resolution Steps: iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch library corrupted and showing ghost entries which will not play or music that is on the device in iTunes but inaccessible.

After having deleted the database and reconnected my iPhone to itUnes everything was alright.

Maybe this might help other users too...

Joachim

Hey guys. I spent a while with a VERY smart Apple Care rep and he solved this for me. All you have to do is rebuild your iTunes library and it fixes the problem. The problem is related to having music in your iTunes library but it's not found on your computer. Once you rebuild the library you'll get a message saying that "Not all music was added to library because it could not be found". After rebuilding the library, it worked like a charm. Basically remove the iTunes Library.itl file and move the iTunes Library.xml file to your desktop and then open up iTunes and import the library using the xml file you placed on your desktop. Here is a detailed link to do this: iTunes: How to re-create your iTunes library and playlists - Apple Support. I'm quite confident that this will work for everyone. I used to work Apple Care a while back and completely forgot about doing this otherwise I'd have done it in the first place. It logically also makes all the sense in the world. I hope this helps the many other people who have faced this problem.

After trying everything, including completely wiping all my data from my phone twice (as suggested by the Genius guys), and resyncing everything (what a pain), I finally came across this solution and it worked for me:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread...art=0&tstart=0

Good luck everyone!

...my back to the drawing board approach was to notice that there was an iTunes update 12.3.0.44 http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/ .

Downloaded, installed and applied. Then synced and the "Waiting for files to copy" error disappeared and I got a full sync without problems. I also had had one of the hard disk errors at times:

'Attempting to copy to the disk "Macintosh HD" failed. An unknown error occurred (-4).'

, but not this time. I then rechecked Voice memos, synced and the 'stuck on waiting for changes to be applied' error did not recur.

All good, and only the standard IT help disk response (after switch off and on) - always update the software.

I am still under warranty and I did try what you mentioned.

As per apple support...

• I created a new user profile with admin rights
• logged in
• set up fresh iTunes
• no playlists
• no apps
• no voice mails
• no genius
• no icloud
• I downloaded tracks directly from the itune store (so the tracks are not the issue)

I tried syncing and still had similiar issues.

So that rules out the library, tracks, and playlists

This problem started right after upgrading to ios 7. Apple won't let me go back!

I am a professional Full-time DJ. I now have a $800 BRICK on my hands.

May be this is simpler and worked for me:

• In Itunes click on “music” of your iPhone
• If you see any song with a dotted circle to its left and in degraded text, write down its name
• Go to “music” in your iTunes library and unmark each and every of these songs
• Synchronize your iPhone
• Again in iTunes go back to your “music” ON THE iPHONE and make sure that all of the circled degraded songs have disappeared, if any found and you are sure they are unmarked in your library, remove from library and resynchronize the iPhone
• Mark songs you unmarked in your library
• Resync your iPhone

I hope it works for you.

Thanksbes2dt10 for the advice. What I did:

• Checked "manually manage music" checkbox (in the "options" box in the "summary" screen for iPhone, when it is plugged in)
• I also had the "only sync checked music" checkbox checked
• When I did that and then did a sync, it appeared to be copying music to my phone. I don't know if it was copying music to a new "manually managed section" on my phone, or what. It took a few minutes to start, and maybe 10 minutes to finish doing whatever copying it was doing.
• After that, all my music was on the phone. But I wanted to get out of the "manually managed" mode, so I went back and unchecked the "manually managed" checkbox and did another sync.
• That sync didn't take very long to finish. I guess the music was all on the phone now, after the whole "manually managed" sync had done its thing.
• Now it all appears to be fine.

I think what this process did was replace all the music that was on my phone by what was on the computer. In any case, it's fixed now.

Just went through this for the third itteration of iOS7 (7.1, 7.2, 7.4). Happened every time. Last two I just ran it overnight and eventually it fixed itself. This time, screw that.

• Turned off Find My iPhone
• Deleted my one ancient voice note (it HAD been duplicated) both on my pjone and in iTunes [Emailed it to myself first.]
• Devices > Turned off auto-sync.

Everything's cool now.

Reinitialized FMiPhone, still fine. Leaving auto-sync off since I prefer that anyway.