stuck on waiting for changes to be applied

Thank you to all on here for helping out with my issue. I was stuck in the loop of backing up for one little book. Less than a MB of data and my iPad 7.0.6 and itunes 11.crap.crap. was having a mare. By unselecting 'sync over wifi' it suddenly started working. Huzzah! What a joke.

three and half days

that's how long I lasted before the problem resurfaced, AFTER the last iPhone update no less!

So, for what it's worth, it's absolutely not worth it to rebuild your entire computer from the ground up

It took me 18 hours, straight, and I lost tons of emails, credentials, etc.

and it bought me 3.5 days of normal syncs

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.

Thanks wombat,

I did try your fix, but it didn't work for me.

However, that was before I rebuilt my entire machine and reset my phone. I'll try it again; maybe your solution will help me catch the problem early on.

At this point, I'm willing to try anything, including and especially writing to Tim Cook's office directly.

Do make sure you do a warm reboot. I sometimes forget that and it won't work without it.

Atlhough it rarely happens, on occasion I've had to repeat the delete/warm reboot/resync process even though I was positive I did all the steps correctly the first time. If your first time doesn't succeed, try repeating the steps.

NOTE: I've never used wifi sync and do not sync podcasts with iTunes (I use Downcast instead, which is much better in my opinion). If you are using those, it might not hurt to try a sync via cable and only sync non-podcast files given the experience of others. It sounds like there are plenty of bugs to go around as far as this software goes!

Someone please help I was on the phone with apple tech support for over 2 hours and they couldn't help me finally said it was a hardware problem which I knew it wasn't took it back to best buy got different one same issue waiting for changes to be applied step 5 of 5

After not being able to sync any photos or music since sometime in October, and having tried everything else, I followed the advice to delete all music and then go in using iExplore and delete the SQLite DB file.

On the positive side, this fixed my photo syncing (well, it's been five days and it's still letting me sync new photos), but music is still borked. It synced about half my songs, and the rest now just show a cloud (if they were purchased on iTunes) or the circle with a square otherwise. When the sync gets to the point where it should transfer music to my iPhone, it shows that it's transferring a few (but always says "1 of ..." even for multiple) and then says "Cancelling Sync...".

I really think Apple needs to step back and fix bugs in their existing products before they launch the Next Big Thing. We all know iTunes has become a disaster. Likewise for iPhoto, which used to be reason alone to buy a Mac and is now so bugridden as to be almost useless. Not to mention IMAP mail not working right in Mavericks four months after release, Compressor broken in Mavericks, Logic crashing all the time. Yikes!

I'm beyond ****** I spent $300 on something that doesn't work? C'mon apple this is a problem obviously is there no patch or fix for this ? I can't justify this purchase if it doesn't play music?!!!

chiahyena wrote:

Someone please help I was on the phone with apple tech support for over 2 hours and they couldn't help me finally said it was a hardware problem which I knew it wasn't took it back to best buy got different one same issue waiting for changes to be applied step 5 of 5

Well it's not hardware if that's any consolation. If it's anything like mine (and others'), then your iTunes doesn't like some of its media.

Until there's a fix, try syncing only checked songs & videos, then uncheck everything, and try checking off songs in chunks, starting with purchased songs.

Thanks to previous post from masc88... It worked. The fact that this issue has stretched for so long - I am really concerned about apple after this experience. 6 months with no attention to the concerns raised is killing....

I believe this is also a cause for slow performance of iPhone4 on iOS7.

Capturing the response from masc88 for another reference.

masc88 wrote:

medialibrary on iOS was borked in my case, too.

resulted in erratic behaviour, some changes outlined in this thread or simply waiting a long time seemed to help, but only temporarily.

simplified steps I performed to fix it without having to re-setup the whole device:

• cancel all pending syncs on iTunes and the device
• clear out all songs on the device (settings->general->usage->music, left swipe on All Music, delete)
• use iExplorer (eg. http://www.tomsguide.com/us/download/iExplorer,0301-46194.html) or a similar tool to delete Media/iTunes_Control/iTunes/MediaLibrary.sqlitedb on the device
• power down and restart device (this will create a new MediaLibrary.sqlitedb)
• resync (waiting for changes to be applied will take a while on first clean sync as it's figuring out the changes. that's ok, don't cancel)

nothing required on the iTunes side except triggering the sync.

thank you for this pointer - the duplicate tone - I've spent ages trying to get sync to copy the tracks over to the iPhone - removed the tones I'd added recently, and bingo we have movement - what a relief!

Ok mine is brand new out of the box since apple told me hardware issue lol I knew it wasn't I want to avoid the step 5 of 5 please I know if I try to restore it will do this should I set up as new

I don't recommend restoring unless nothing else works.

I've restored and rebuilt my phone, iTunes library and eventually my entire computer after an erase-&-restore.

Some of that may work for you; none of it worked for me, though, but it was all a major hassle

Pfffff! I CAN NOT believe this problem is back again! 😠 I wanted to quickly add a few (ripped) songs today to my iPhone and strangely found that they hadn't been synced to any playlist on my phone.

So I checked that indeed the songs were correctly added to the appropriate iTunes playlists and I synced again, then it got stuck on the infamous "waiting for changes to be applied! 😠

First it showed below in the bar which displays free memory capacity all yellow with the word "other" written through it, and now it's showing "over capacity by 7GB."

However, the good news (at least I f*cking hope!) that after 5-6 tries, this time it IS syncing after leaving it plugged into my laptop for about 10 minutes, although it's completely adding ALL my playlists again!

p.s. I have not changed any settings in iTunes, nor have I deleted or unchecked any music libraries or playlists.

APPLE SORT THIS OUT ONCE AND FOR ALL! It's ridiculous that the average (layman) user has to check various forums all the time after every 'update' to know whether or not it's safe to sync his/her iPhone!

It's unbelievable how bad this is now. Plugged in my iPod today (I have now turned off wifi sync) so that I could pick up 3 new tracks. It executes a sync. Success. If you define succes as not transferring any songs... but it did it quickly! Asked it to sync again. Waiting for changes... and waiting...

Stopped the sync, closed iTunes and reopened. Plugged in iPod. Waiting for changes... I wandered off to get breakfast and come back to find it is copying song 2500 of 5358! yes it is reloading everything

I guess I'm lucky as this takes what an hour? Whereas some of you guys are seeing 12 or more...

So bored of messing around with something which used to work seamlessly and effortlessly with my old iPod Touch (IN FACT IT STILL DOES!)