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stuck on waiting for changes to be applied

Just downloaded itunes 11 and ios 7


Trying to sync iPad with iTunes. process is "stuck" on waiting for changes to be applied


Any ideas?

pro, Mac OS X (10.6.2)

Posted on Sep 18, 2013 10:10 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Sep 23, 2013 1:40 PM

After countless hours this past weekend with this same problem (iTunes stuck on "waiting for changes to be applied..." I finally have resolved it without having to completely rebuild my iTunes library (and losing my metadata in the process). For background, I updated my iPhone 4s while I was traveling, and when I returned home, I was no longer to update music in iTunes (it would hang).


The problem, it seems, is related to several factors:

1) you have enabled "Find My iPhone" in the iCloud settings on your iPhone

2) you have initiated a download of music through iTunes on your iPhone, and the downloads have not completed

3) you have a corrupted Voice Memo, causing duplication on each sync


Here's what I ended up doing:

on your iPhone / iPod / iOS device:

1) disabled "Find My iPhone" on the iCloud settings of my iPhone

2) gone to the "Downloads" section of the iPhone "iTunes" app and deleted every in-progress download

3) go to Voice Memos app and see if there are recordings in the list that may have been duplicated

you can also check the "Voice Memos" playlist on your iTunes library

- delete any duplicate Voice Memos; if some memos are gray and can't be deleted see below

4) do a cold reboot (hold down top bottom, power off, then on again) but do not dock your iPhone yet


on your iTunes:

5) change your iTunes -> Devices preference to "Prevent iPods, iPhones, iPads from syncing automatically"

you can now dock / connect your iPhone to iTunes

6) select "Manually manage music and videos" in the Summary tab for your iPhone within iTunes

7) go to the Music tab for your iPhone within iTunes

- you may see a list of music at the bottom called "manually added music"

if present, select all items in this list and Delete to remove them

8) uncheck "Sync Music" at the top of the Music tab and "Apply"

- this will remove all music from your iPhone

9) if the iTunes sync completes properly, perform a Local Backup of your iPhone (you may need this later)

10) re-enable "Sync Music" but uncheck "Voice Memos" and "Apply"

- if this fails, you have a corrupted memo - see below

11) if this sync completes, change your iTunes -> Devices preference to disable "Prevent iPods, iPhones, iPads from syncing automatically"


possibly optional steps needed:

a) make sure you have a backup of all of your Voice Memos (check iTunes)

you may want to copy off these files and then remove them from iTunes, especially if there are duplicates

b) if your Voice Memos database is corrupted, you may need to clear out the iPhone internal database

there are third party utilities (I used "iPhone Disk") that let you access the directory even on a non-jailbroken phone

b) remove all files from the "Recordings" directory

c) cold-boot your iPhone

d) repeat steps above


Again, this sounds painful (it was!) but after many tries, this is what finally allowed my iPhone 4s with iOS 7 to once again sync properly with iTunes 11.1. This process will preserve your iPhone settings, voicemails, Messages, etc. And, it will let you retain your iTunes library without rebuilding.

630 replies

Nov 10, 2015 7:55 AM in response to Altervarks

Are you sure the Other category of stuff on your iPhone didn't grow? It used to be that when you interrupted a hanging sync that category would grow each time until your iThing was full of Other. It's like it really was copying stuff as Other and then it would split it up into Music, Movies, etc. if it finished successfully.


iTunes 10/11, iOS 7/8 is when I had a lot of problems. Haven't had any hang-ups for over a year.

Dec 30, 2015 7:44 AM in response to rkstiens

After several hours of troubleshooting my iPhone 4s, reading through this thread and others like it, and not having much luck, I have sort of stumbled on a solution that seems to work just fine. NOTE: You have to be connected to wi-fi on your device.


In iTunes, in the top left, there are icons for your music, movies, tv shows, etc... click on the icon for your device.


Then, make sure you're in the Summary tab and scroll down to Settings.


In Settings, check the following:

- Sync with this iPhone over wi-fi

- Manually manage music and videos


Then, apply these changes and, if you're having the same problem(s) I was having, the sync will have started and should work just fine.


Hope this helps.




*** I just tried adding more files to my iPhone and I got stuck again. Simply toggle the "Sync with this iPhone over wi-fi" off, apply those changes, and immediately toggle it back on by clicking the box, apply those changes, and the sync should start right up.

Jan 3, 2016 4:56 PM in response to allendobbs

Another solution is to delete your iPhone backup in iTunes. Quit iTunes. Restart. Connect to iPhone with Lightning cable. Create a new backup in iTunes. In my case, synching worked perfectly for a few weeks. When it failed, I deleted the backup, created a new one and all was back to normal. Hope this helps.


I'm using iTunes 12.3.2.35 and an iPhone 6s.

Jan 6, 2016 4:50 PM in response to rkstiens

Hey everybody, this issue is a lot easier to fix than a lot of the posts below have suggested. If your iPhone is stuck at the last and final step called "waiting for changes to be applied" there is a simple fix that does not involve the countless steps that other people have suggested. That is not to say that those ways do not work but, it is a lot harder to follow all those steps correctly to achieve the same result. Here are the steps you should follow (Note: before we begin you must be connected to the same wifi network on both your computer running iTunes and your iPhone).


1. Make sure you have your iPhone connected via USB to your iTunes (I would assume you have already updated both your iPhone and iTunes to the most recent firmware releases).


2. Press "sync" and have your iPhone reach and get stuck at the "waiting for changes to be applied" step of the syncing process (of it doesn't get stuck you have already resolved the issue I am solving).


3. Cancel the process by pressing the "x" icon on iTunes, wait for the process to cancel then unplug your iPhone.


4. On your iPhone go to "Settings" then "General" followed by "iTunes Wi-Fi Sync".


5. Select the computer you wish to sync it to (obviously choose the one that you were just plugged into).


6. Wait for the process to finish (at this point it should be able to fully sync past the "waiting for changes to be applied" part of the syncing process).


7. Simply reconnect your iPhone via USB after the wifi sync has concluded, press "sync" once again and you will no longer have this issue

Jan 7, 2016 11:53 AM in response to rkstiens

I found a really easily solution to the same problem. Mine was related to syncing home videos. I had 'sync videos' ticked and 'automatically include all' ticked but nothing had happened after 12 hours. I saw a message appear on reopening iTunes after restarting and it said 'All of your videos are unchecked. Unchecked videos may not sync to other devices'. All the home movies were checked, but one movie in another category (not home videos) was unchecked. I checked it and all synced smoothly as soon as I clicked sync. How ridiculous.

Apr 30, 2016 12:37 AM in response to rkstiens

Thanks for all the support here.

Here is what happened with me and what I did:

I uploaded a number of books to iTunes, pressed synced and waited for Step 6 to get through forever.


After trying a few times, I gave up. I hit the forums for the solution and all the answers sounded too technical and time-consuming. So, I went to iTunes, selected the books and physically dragged them to the iPad icon and just dropped them there. And it worked!


Hope this helps someone!

May 16, 2016 7:21 AM in response to rkstiens

This is a very common problem, and I think that Apple isn't addressing it (hopefully because they are working on throwing out iTunes and coming up with a completely different solution). A good interim fix would be to put up a progress meter with subtext highlighting what item is being worked on (this would provide some debugging inputs).

stuck on waiting for changes to be applied

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