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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

Oct 28, 2013 6:25 PM in response to jmcfayden

This just happened to me again for the second time in about a month. This time, I restarted my phone, and deselected wifi sync, and deselected Sync Tones. Then tried syncing again... it took ~5 min to sync, and for some reason resynced all the music on my phone, but it worked. Apple... if you are reading these... fix this already... you are quickly destroying the only advantage you hold in my mind over a Samsung. Make your music work seamlessly, or I might as well not bother with you.

Oct 30, 2013 4:25 AM in response to rkstiens

Running XP with a 4S-iOS=7.0.3(11B511) and a cable-sync (no WiFi sync-no cloud sync), I tried a previously suggested "fix" that involved uninstalling Itunes, reinstalling Itunes (V11.1.2.32, latest download version on website) rebooting Iphone & computer, deselecting sync music on the music tab (also tones, also unchecked all voice memos) then trying sync again. It DID WIPE all my Iphone music (It wasn't playing any songs anyway-although it showed them as being on the phone) and freed up ~15GB of space, but when I then selected the music sync again the same thing happened-locked up waiting for changes and I gave it all night (~7 hrs) to make good. The only music I have on my phone are 2 songs I had purchased.

Oct 30, 2013 9:09 AM in response to rkstiens

Holy sh*t, after not being able to sync since the last software update, it finally synced today! And it all happened by chance, here's what I did:


I decided that I was fed up with this BS situation, and tried to restore iPhone (I've done this before a long time ago and remember that it happened pretty smoothly, but I am still weary of wiping all of my information, even if it's for a quick period of time).


However, when I went to do that, iTunes told me that I had to transfer my purchases from my iPhone, or I would lose all of that data and have to purchase it all again. I thought about it, and honestly I don't even remember when the last time I transferred purchases from the iPhone. It's been a while, so obviously it needed to be done.


That worked out fine, and for whatever reason, following the transfer of my purchases, iTunes made the decision to sync on it's own, and BAM - it finished. Unbelievable. I don't know if it will work for everyone, but it did for me. It wont hurt to try.

Oct 30, 2013 6:04 PM in response to SouthLake1

I tried the protocol you suggested but the Sync failed at your #9 step-the Sync did NOT complete properly. I think you can tell when it is failing because the small rotating circle on the Iphone upper task bar simply disappears even though the Itunes Syncing Window says waiting for changes...

At least it did not mess with all my other Iphone apps. I am reluctand to try a full restore as I'm not sure what will happen to some of my important apps and settings. I'm going to make an appointment with the local store Genius bar to see if they have any insider info. Will post a solution if available, but suspect it will have to come in the form of an upgrade to either Itunes, iOS7 or both!

Oct 30, 2013 9:51 PM in response to rkstiens

The reason is that the iTunes library of your device is ruined.


Here comes another way to solve such kind of problem:


Use a 3rd-party tool called "iTools" and delete all of the iTunes library files of your iOS Device (not your computer) via the file system of your device, then quit iTools and open iTunes.


Your device could be recognized as a "new device" and you could recover your backups to your device.

Nov 2, 2013 2:40 PM in response to RockTheGlobe

I had this issue with iTunes 11.1.2 and iOS 7.0.3 on both an iPhone 4S and 5. I've done a lot of research and it seems that there are a mulitude of fixes and you just have to be lucky to find the one that works for you.


Voice memos seem to be implicated for a lot of people, but not relevant to me as I have never used them. So I suggest anyone using voice memos search for fixes related to that feature.


The fix in my case it was simple, but time consuming. I have both my phones set to sync the entire music library which is quite large. All I did was uncheck "Sync Music" and sync the phone. This removed from the phone all music and playlists as expected. Then I re-checked "Sync Music" and synced again and everything happily copied back to the phone as it should. Seems drastic (but really it wasn't) and it did take a bit of time because of the volume of data.


I have read in other threads that for some people when they do the second sync to put everything back on the phone it doesn't work - so try this at your own risk. For me, I was prepared to take the risk as I could live without the music on my phone if I had too.


I hope this suggestion helps someone else as I know I have wasted hours myself.

Nov 4, 2013 3:36 AM in response to rkstiens

Is the only way to get past stage 6 of 6, the waiting for changes to be applied message to do a full restore of my Iphone 4S & loose all the photos & data on it?

I think is just rubbish service from a company the size of apple you would think that they could actually publish on here a solution instead of leaving it to their customers to guess solutions that worked for them, none of which have worked on my phone. It is your hardware & your software you tell us why it won't work. The physical store was no better i was told well if you had a Mac it would work, well i don't i have a PC.


For the record it stopped syncing after i downloaded V7.0.3. The itunes is V 11.1.2.32. The PC is on Windows 7

stuck on waiting for changes to be applied

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