stuck on waiting for changes to be applied

I'm on IOS8 with Iphone 5s. I restored my phone so all my music was erased.

When I attempted to re-add my previous playlist, itunes would get to the last step, then it would "wait for changes to be applied" for 2 seconds and would stop. After so many different attempts, I noticed that some of the song in itunes were missing. So I removed them, and tried again, and it synced successfully. So I don't know if itunes was trying to 'locate' missing songs, causing the iphone 5s to stop syncing.

Now if I could only get my audiobooks to display. 😟

Same **** with an iPhone 6 and iTunes 11.4 "waiting for changes to be applied"

I tried to restore but that requires hours on end of downloading 8.02 which I already have done.

**** YOU Apple - get it fixed already.

Has anyone got experience with competitors, will I be able to transfer music to an Android useing iTunes or is there a better working alternative for Mac/Android users?

The same question applies to any who has experience with Winphone and all other competitors.

This is my last Apple purchase, been with Apple since ´94 but this does it!

Best wishes

Lasse

for Android you can use double twist and google play.. I but is not better than Itunes. This is why I came back to Iphone.

Try removing all your missing files, then try to sync again. This worked for me.

Yosemite works?

I updated to Yosemite tonight and the first music sync worked perfectly with no waiting to speak of. I'm almost afraid to type these words, in case I jinx it.

Can anyone else confirm this? I'm using iTunes 12.0.1 — it's not the version that came with my generic Yosemite install. 12.0.1 was an App Store update that had to be DLed afterward.

Can't believe this! My syncs were perfect before upgrading to Yosemite and iTunes 12.0.1. Since upgrading I'm getting a "waiting for items to copy" message that displays for 30 minutes, each time I press sync!

What a joke this is. Guess I'm back on this thread again.

Well, I spoke too soon, and it's no surprise.

iTunes 12 has now apparently deleted over 10,000 songs from the iPhone 6+, and it reports 20gb of "Other" content.

iTunes sync is still royally ****** up.

And we're still screwed by Apple's incompetence.

I'm wiping my iPhone 6+ entirely and formatting as a new iPhone. Then I'll restore to the last-known good backup. I just don't want to **** around with 20 half-*** measures — I think I'll save time in the end by using the nuclear option.

Assuming I get to a position where I can re-load music, it will take three overnight sync sessions to reload 13,000 songs (because they're converted to 128k AAC during the sync). Three overnight sync sessions with my two processor cores loaded to 80%.

It's just absurd how utterly broken iTunes sync is. Still — in Yosemite. Why does Apple sell 128gb iPhones, if iTunes is incapable of managing that much media?

Trying to fix the mess here. At this point it's almost a half hour (so far) watching "Waiting for changes to be applied."

It would almost be funny if it weren't so pathetic. My next phone will be an Android.

I solved the problem, but the cure might as well had killed the patient, it's a corrupt app that is screwing up my system.

Upon uninstalling all apps syncing is working like a charm, if I had the time and temper I'd which one is the problem, but I just dont.

Have a nice weekend.

Lasse

I thought I'd just pile on. Got my new iPhone 6+ yesterday, and after two days of trying, still can't get my iTunes library to synch with the bloody thing. I've tried various combinations of the remedies proposed above, but none of them seem to have done the trick. I'm sick and tired of rearranging apps after I do it each time. Guess I'll just set it up over night and see if that works since there seems to be some suggestion that the large volume of music I'm trying to synch is causing the problem.

What a joke. This problem has been going on for a year, and I can't see a response from Apple - and I've seen about half a doze (completely different) suggested fixes.

just curious if any of you have tried my post from above?

close Itunes and Iphoto and disconnected phone. Then go to /Users/MyUserName/Library/Preferences and delete all "com.apple.iTunes", "com.apple.IPhoto", "com.apple.IPod" & "com.apple.iPhone"

Hooked phone back up and sync

One additional thing that has helped me is syncing less items at a time. Instead of syncing everything at once add one playlist at a time (100-2000 songs on each) starting with one of the smaller ones and only add up to 10 apps at a time. Once you get the main library of items on your phone, the sync will be doing less each time and will sync faster.

After hers of being a satisfied iTunes and Apple user I have the same problem since today. For me it's surprising how this issue can go on FOR YEARS and Apple just doesn't care. Is there any alternative to administer the music library on a Mac, sync it to and listen on the iPhone?

THX, JJJ

36 pages of complaints & suggestions. Unfortunately, there all different. I've tried 3 of them, and no luck. WTH apple. I am using an iMac, that recently was restored as brand new. I had Mavericks installed onto this brand knew machine. Why the ... apple, won't it allow me to synch? I go through this problem 'every time" there is a new update, and apparently 36 pages of other people have also. Different solutions should not be responsible for correcting a synch error. Do you even test updates anymore before releasing them, and are you releasing several different kinds of updates? I thinking that you must be releasing more then one version of untested updates, and are then waiting to see who complains first. That is the only logical answer to why there are 36 pages. If you want to remain as a computer King, then I suggest you stop doing that. No one will be recommending an apple to friends, if you continue to do that.

I am by no means an expert but after struggling with this issue myself I figured out something that worked for me. First and foremost the issue seems to be with HOW MUCH MUSIC you are trying to sync at a time. I have my Macbook Pro and my iPhone 6 updated to all of the latest software versions. I do not use iTunes Match, it just doesn't make sense for me to use, I don't have an unlimited data plan on my phone. When I had my iPhone 5 the brief period of time I used iTunes Match it totally messed up my Music Library.

Here is what I did.

1) I had a mix of music that uploaded and didn't upload so I deleted everything off of my phone. You can do this by going into Settings>General>Usage>(under storage)Manage Storage>Music -- Hit "Edit" then delete all of your music.

2) With your iPhone plugged into the computer, go into iTunes, select your iPhone. There should be a bar on the left that says "Settings" at the top, highlight "Summary". Under the options box in the main screen for the summary of your iPhone make sure the only box that is checked is "Sync only checked songs and video".

3) Check "Sync Music" at the top, ensure that "Selected artists, albums and genres" is selected, don't select music or videos yet. Apply the changes.

4) Eject your iPhone and unplug from computer.

5) Sign out of iTunes on your computer, then close iTunes.

6) Plug your phone into your computer, open iTunes.

7) Select your iPhone in iTunes, under the "Settings" bar on the left-hand side of the screen highlight music.

8) GRADUALLY add music to your iPhone, no more than about 250-350 songs at a time.

I know that selecting Artists, Albums, Genres and Playlists that you want on your phone may be annoying but the problem seems to be with the quantity of music that is uploaded at a time. You may notice that some songs and albums don't show up the way you think they should. The problem is often the Metadata associated with your songs and albums. You may have an album that has a mix of artists or an artist has an album that has other artists performing with them on some songs. When you are trying to select that Artist or Album it may show multiple artists or repeat the Album for every artist. To fix this go back into you music library, highlight the song or album and open "get info". Check to see what is listed as the "Album Artist", it will help to set that as the primary artist for the album. Also, check the box for "Album is a compilation of songs by various artists. You basically have to clean up the crap on your library so iTunes knows what is what.

I am guessing that once you pretty much get your entire library loaded onto your phone a bit at a time you can probably just go over and select "Entire music library" under the Sync options. Don't quote me on this, I haven't tried it because I don't want my whole library on my phone. Again, the issued seems to be how much data you are trying to load onto your iPhone through iTunes as a batch.

Let me know how this works!

I defend my Apple products as the media constantly uses them for "click bait" on their websites with stuff like "bendgate" and "hairgate" (which were proven to be less than a dozen complaints out of millions of phones sold). Yet, here we are with a widespread LEGIT problem and Apple is silent.

I just encountered this problem in the past week after updating to Yosemite on my MacPro and updating to iOS 8.1 on my iPhone 6. I ran all updates (including iTunes) on both machines and noticed that most of my 14,000 song library went missing during this time. I have tried syncing and it will only sync songs that I have purchased from iTunes which is about 10% of my library. I don't use iCloud or iTunes Match with my music library.

I've combed through the hundreds of posts on this thread from others facing the same problem and none of the suggested fixes worked for me. What say you, Apple? This thread has more than a quarter-million views and there are many more just like it. Google "itunes waiting for changes to be applied" and you will see this is a major problem people are facing when syncing their iPhones.

I know this "syncgate" doesn't have the great visual of a bent iPhone but when will the media start reporting on this flaw so that Apple will make it a priority fix?