stuck on waiting for changes to be applied

Update! Everything is working fine. What was causing the problem for me was converting high bitrate music. It does not work still in iOS 8 or the latest iTunes on any of my devices (iPad 2, 3, iPhone 4S, iPhone 6) but does work on my iPod Classic and iPod Shuffle. I can't even trip it up by cancelling syncs or force quitting iTunes.

Interestingly on my final test I wiped my iPad 3, updated to iOS 8 and latest iTunes, on a fresh install (no backup restore) I had the same problem if convert music was enabled. I tried to restore an old backup with convert enabled and even copying apps over would be delayed and would freeze requiring iTunes to be force-quit. As soon as I disabled convert everything went over perfectly.

I think we need to keep a log of what works for people or at least bold it so it makes browsing this mega thread easier;

Disabling Convert High Bitrate music fixed mine

Well, the solution I outlined above doesn't work anymore. I can't even count the hours I've wasted trying to get iTunes to sync music.

To me, it looks like that for a certain group of iTunes users, sync is just broken — and can't be fixed. I have 10 more days to return my iPhone 6, and I am seriously considering it, because music is not an optional feature for my phone. On Android, all you have to do is identify the folder of music you want synced, and the music files will be copied over. There's no complication of an in-between program like iTunes. So I'm considering trading my iPhone for a Galaxy S5. I never thought I'd say that, but I've spent a year wrestling with iTunes (note that this thread is approx. a year old now), just get music on my phone, I'm tired. I want my phone to "just work."

Disabling Convert High Bitrate music did not fix mine.

I think you may be right. I struggled with this issue last summer and thought I had it solved, triggers seem to be iTunes Match and/or the number of songs you try to load. iOS7 was the issue and now iOS8 seems to have followed. The only reliable music device I have right now is my iPod 4G running iOS6. I have no other options, they are all too small and I don't want to use cloud music because I am not always around data or don't want to use it for music.

COME ON APPLE, WHY CAN'T YOU JUST LET ME SYNC MY MUSIC TO MY DEVICE LIKE IT WAS INTENDED.

b.b.

I am curious. I wonder if it is has to do something with how many songs you are trying to Sync? I am right around 11,000 that I am trying to put on my iphone. There are many times when it just plain screw ups and I have to restore the phone and reload everything.

I fixed it by first upgrading all my apps through iTunes. I had over 100 apps that need upgrading and they didn't show on my iPod. After letting them update I started the sync and everything went just fine.

I did this, as suggested, and when I tried to sync it once again stuck on waiting for changes to be applied.

I went into my iTunes library, found the one memo I had, and deleted (while it was still stuck in waiting for changes). At the moment I deleted it, the sync resumed.

In my case, the memo was clearly the problem. The mistake I made was that after trying to fix things the first time, I deleted the memo trom the phone but not from the iTunes library.

ETA: I forgot one step. After trying to wipe the phone from all music by unchecking the box, there were several items (like, over 100) on the phone. I had to delete those manually, because even though they showed up in the Info page, turning off Sync My Music didn't clear them.

At this point, it looks to me like my problem may be (at least partly) using the "Convert higher bit rate songs to xxxx" option. When I copied 12,000 songs to an 128gb iPhone 6 WITHOUT "Convert higher bit rate", syncing started to work.

Then I turned on "Convert higher bit rate songs to xxxx" (for 12,000 songs). 18 hours later, the sync was done. And playback was fine. Then, I selected two additional playlists to sync.

It took a half-hour for sync to even start. I had to cancel the sync, to take my phone with me to work. After canceling, all album art disappeared, and many songs didn't play. It seems that canceling the sync screwed everything up. Now, I'm trying to sync again, and it looks like the sync has to start from scratch. At least I only wasted 18 hours with both processor cores loaded to 80%…

The funny thing is, I'm not even very upset anymore. I have been forced to realize that iTunes sync is hopelessly ****** — at least for larger libraries — and there's little but suffering to expect. If I ever get it working again, I'm going to treat my library as a static collection. Maybe I'll risk a re-sync twice a year or something — when I have a couple of days to waste.

Kim Hill1's step 2 from higher on this page worked for me (with a bit of a modification)

In: /Users/MyUserName/Library/Preferences

delete all prefs files starting with "com.apple.iTunes"

I closed Itunes and Iphoto and disconnected my phone. Then deleted "com.apple.iTunes", "com.apple.IPhoto", "com.apple.IPod" & "com.apple.iPhone"

Hooked my phone back up and sync went straight through

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

I was able to move past this by removing all my missing files.

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.