iTunes could not connect to this iPhone. You do not have permission.

Please read this whole message before doing anything.

This procedure is a diagnostic test. It’s unlikely to solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.

The purpose of the test is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party software that loads automatically at startup or login, by a peripheral device, by a font conflict, or by corruption of the file system or of certain system caches.

Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards, if applicable. Start up in safe mode and log in to the account with the problem. You must hold down the shift key twice: once when you boot, and again when you log in.

I'm having this same problem. I'm using an iPhone 4s Macbook Pro 15-inch Mid 2010 Model OS X 10.9.2. This is getting really frustrating. I have wifi sync enabled, but don't know how to turn it off if that helps. I'm getting really tired of all the hassels I've been getting from apple lately. I don't think I'll be buying another Apple product if they continue with this crap.

How'd that reinstall of Mavericks work out for you? I've tried everything I can find through searches, plus the Genius Bar and 2 hours on the phone with support. Still nothing.

OS X stores the device pairing information in /var/db/lockdown directory in form of plists. In my case the problem was that somehow (maybe after OSX update) this directory became write protected and that plist file couldn't be created by XCode.

Figured out by inspecting the logs in console:

10/05/14 09:34:03,716 com.apple.usbmuxd[54]: WriteDataToPath unable to create file /var/db/lockdown//############################.plist.tmp: Permission denied.

Changed the access flags of this directory and this solved the problem:

sudo chmod 777 /var/db/lockdown

Hoping this will solve my problem as well as I'm seeing the same error in Console. However, two issues. First, using the sudo command doesn't seem to allow access to write to identifed plist.

When I go into /var/db/lockdown/ specifically, I can't delete the file.

I've tried GetInfo on the plist file, it says that everyone has "Read & Write" access... but clearly we do not. I even tried to add admin to the users, right now it's _usbmuxd and "everyone".

Any tips on how to nuke these?

Okay, so I found a terminal command that allowed me to force delete the file. That totally did the trick.

sudo rm -Rf /private/var/db/lockdown/dragyourfilehere.plist

Enter your username and voila!

Reconnected my phone and saw it re-create the file in the lockdown directory. Hit "Trust" on my phone and it loads up in iTunes.

All good...

Thank you so much! This worked perfectly!

To novices (like me) - open terminal and copy and and paste Stephen's instructions exactly:

sudo rm -Rf /private/var/db/lockdown/dragyourfilehere.plist

Hit enter and you should have no problem connecting.

Thanks Stephen! This problem has been plaguing me for months!!!

Thank you so much!! I had this permission issue after upgrading my iPhone 4 to 7.1.2. Your suggestion solved my problem perfectly, and also took away the "trust" dialogue that I knew shouldn't be there on my home computer. I followed instructions exactly as posted, and when I reconnected the phone, iTunes recognized the phone.

Whoa! I had same error message and solved it by just signing into my iCloud account. Try that before all this more complicated stuff.

Logging into iCloud worked like a charm! don't do the more complicated rigamarole until you are sure this won't fix it.

I also selected repair disk permissions in disk utility and it works fine. Keep it simple

I think many of us were seeing the same (or similar) symptoms for different reasons. Repairing disk permissions did nothing to resolve the problem for me, nor did the terminal commands.

In the end, my solution was simple -- but not obvious: I didn't have any data I was worried about losing, so I ended up using recovery mode.

I have an iPhone 4 with 7.2 on it (the last and and only version left to update to) and I did a restore. After the restore I kept getting that error message, but this fix absolutely solved it. Never would've crossed my mind that permissions on the /var/lockdown folder would be preventing this. Didn't even know it existed!!

> sudo chmod 777 /var/db/lockdown