stuck on waiting for changes to be applied

I'm curious if the folks on this or the other threads dedicated to this problem have pretty substantial (say, over 25 GB) music files.

I ask because the simplest thing seems like it solved it for me. Every sync since downloading ios 7 and itunes 11.1 encountered this problem. I did all the resets of my device and Macbook Air, re-installed itunes, factory reset on my iphone (4s), turned off Genius and Find My Phone, double checked my download file in itunes, deleted all my voice memos, deleted all my media and then re-installed it, basically any of the suggestions I came across on the discussion boards or were recommended during any of my three Apple support chat sessions, it still hung up every time resulting in partial or complete deletion of my music and other media.

Then this evening for the first time I fought the urge to cancel the sync when it seemingly got stuck and I just let it go. Well over an hour later the sync finished seemingly normally and since then it's been fine, syncing just as quickly as it always used to. I've got about 43GB of music that syncs every time, I wonder if there isn't something that the new itunes/ios needs to do to the individual files that just takes awhile. My wife updated to ios 7 on the same day I did and never had this issue, the only noticeable difference between our phones is the size of our respective music libraries.

There is no question that the combination of iOS 7 and iTunes 11.1 takes more time to sync (waiting for changes to be applied) than prior releases. I have an extremely large iTunes library (217GB of music across 24,400 songs and that doesn't include video), so I have to create smart playlists to limit what is sync'd to my 64GB iPhone.

That being said, the original problem I had (and others) never went away despite leaving it waiting overnight. I had to go through the steps I outlined before I was successful in reseting the behavior.

I've been having this problem for the last week since upgrading to iOS 7. I'll bookmark this thread and try what's been suggested at work tomorrow. Mine does eventually does sync, but I have to leave a good 10 mintues.

I also find once it's synced the and I make a change and sync again it goes through normally (quickly).

I am having all the same probs. Nobody has come up with anything that fixes the music/video sync on mine. Tried it all. You're the 1st one I've come across with the hitting its own buttons. Mine is doing that. Dial one contact, shows that another is being called, and actually called an entirely different person.

Before nuking your music (and movie) collection try turning off your password for autolock (just for the sync). I saw this on another stream and I now seem get past the "waiting for change" message. Of course I am in the process of restoring all my music and videos because I nuked my stuff. Jeff (from JeffandLaurel 🙂)

Unfortunately I did have to move the iTunes.xml file to the desktop and remove the iTunes.itl file as per the instructions. I am now watching a restoration of 20 GBytes of videos and audio. What a drag. 😠

Jeff (from JeffandLaurel 🙂)

I am so irritated with this bunch of bull$h*t ! I just rolled to an iPhone just to give it a try, and of course, nothing can go right. Nothing can be easy, but you have to do this, you have to do that. I have never, EVER, been more dissapointed for a cell phone, as I am with apple right now. It's just so stupid to have to go through all sorts of shchenannigans just to get music on your **** device. While we pay 650 bucks for this device, I don't think they REFUND the time that WE are NOT able to USE the device ! It's just so stupid, what happened to simplicity, drag and go ?! I have tried everything ya'll have suggested on this thread and others. Nothing is working. I am about to run the **** thing over, call insurance, and just roll back to an Android.

I was able to fix my problem by turning off Sync with this iPhone over Wi-Fi. Just unticked the box, retried the sync and it completed sucessfully. It seemingly had copied over all of the files just had not updated the index to show them. I know this because while unable to find the songs in the library I was looking for, I did see that the exact amount of data I synced was accounted for on the disk space remaining bar. It may not work for you, but it certainly did for me. First and only thing I have tried after putting up with this issue since upgrading to the new and "improved" iOS 7.

This is a joke...Ive always been so happy and now all of a sudden my phone wont synch - it hangs at various stages and it seems the only solution is to go through a painful process as kindly listed by cpaulPHL above.

Come on apple - sort it out or lose very loyal customers!!

Just adding on to this thread. Same problem as everyone on this board, getting stuck on "waiting to apply changes". Also noticed all of my music I ripped from cd's are no longer playable on my iphone, only allows songs purchased thru itunes to be played. I'm starting to feel like I'm being assimilated by apple. Apple, should I just go ahead and bend over and wait?

I'm having the same issue. Spent three hours on the phone today with an "escalated support representative" who ultimately told me he couldn't determine exactly why it wasn't working but I should add songs back into my library one at a time (or in small chunks) to determine where file(s) are causing issues. With over 4,000 music files, suffice it to say this is not realistic. Not what I would expect from a company with 400 bn. dollars to invest in getting things right the first time.

Well, I must be jinxed. Because after a solid week, this morning my iPhone 5s once again started hanging in "waiting for changes to be applied". I'm still not sure what caused this latest round. But it does appear that the problem is within iOS 7, and not iTunes 11. I'm running iOS 7.0.2 and iTunes 11.1.1

This time, after the problem reappeared, some of my existing playlists with music already on the iPhone had entries that appeared to be downloading (the circle with the square inside). It appears that when the problem occurs, something gets corruped in the Music database on the iPhone, and the only resolution is to wipe and restart.

Interesting observation - after the problem appeared, I tried turning on iTunes Match on my iPhone. This gives a warning that "all music will be erased and replaced with content from iCloud". And yet, even with this enabled, going to "About" my iPhone shows the same 4000+ songs on the device. And even though iTunes shows that iTunes Match had been turned on on the iPhone, it also showed Audio content.

In the end, here's what I had to do:

- within iTunes deselect "Automatically sync when this iPhone is connected"

- remove the iPhone from USB / iTunes

- hard restart of the iPhone (to stop the "in-progres" sync)

- reconnect the iPhone to USB / iTunes

- select "Transfer Purchases" to move any updated apps or newly-purchased content back to iTunes

- force a manual Backup (local)

- restore iPhone and wait

Once the iPhone was restored, it showed zero songs on the device. I disabled iTunes Match, and once again the iTunes Music sync completes properly. I did not have to sync a subset of songs each time - 4357 songs were transferred successfully. And I have verified that the synch is once again working.

I ended up being patient (about 20 minutes) and it seemed to go through fine eventually. Glad I didn't do all the things suggested here. Seems to be something in a recent upgrade that's holding things up.

Its seems as if Apple is ignoring the complaints, not only is the iTunes screen stuck at "waiting for changes to be applied" the touch screen response is out of sync and the screen freezes up when web browsing and other activities. There is a saying if it ain't broke don't fix it. iOS7 has been THE WORST iOS so far, and I have been with Apple and iOS before it was cool to be. My iPod Touch is now a paper stopper and the customer service, and people at Apple seem to be just sitting around doing nothing.

Hey,

I read all the replies and tried almost all of them! I just did a complete reset of my iPad including all its content. It wasn't to bad as it was a new iPad so had pretty much nothing on it, but still a pain!

Oh well, I now have all my precious music!

Thanks and Bless,

Sam (: