sync session failed to finish

Two points:

1) I misunderstood you: You speak about "restore": Yes this needs a backup (unfortunately, none of my backups in 4 macs work).

2) My earlier comments were about "reset" the iPhone (≠ "restore" from a backup), namely, erasing everything that one added to the iPhone from the purchase day on. That doesn't need a backup.

When I have time I shall visit an Apple store with my MacBook (that has all the photos) and iPhone (that has photos up to one year ago), and confront them with the iTune problem.

Ok? You have totally confused me! Haha! I have done a complete restore from backup using iTunes already - It doesn't work - no. Did all of that & still got that error message "sync session failed to finish" when I tried to sync. Next I will do a restore then instead of restoring from a back up - I will use the function "set up as new iPhone". My question to you (because in your one message - I thought you did this) was when choosing this option - set up as new iPhone - I didn't know if it required a backup or not. Make any sense? 😃

I have an iPhone 8! Just got it last November! No I think Apple sometimes doesn’t have a friggin’ clue what they’re doing is more like it buddy! Anyway..good luck & if you need help with the process - let me know - J.

Thanks, but I do not use iCloud (always inactivated)

Thanks, but I do not use "Smart Albums" only "Albums"

actually sorry scrap that.... it worked once when i did that but now I am back to the same old problem... Apple sort it out!

obviously this doesn't work in getting stuff (photos) put ON devices...any ideas on doing that when you get the error "sync session failed to finish" ?

Hi - I have a question for you....if you do a "restore" then select "set up as new phone" or whatever that option is - do you still use a backup?

I made the backup in another computer, not the one I have issue with.

Sorry I forgot to mention this part of the equation 🙂

This seems so extreme, surely Apple which prides itself in making life easy for its users rather then having to factory reset my IPhone X and start all over again.

I am trying to remove all of the photo albums that have been synced from my computer. I did the "Transfer Purchases" as you suggested, but it does not remove anything from my phone. The only way to remove them, it seems, is to uncheck all of the synced albums and then hit Sync. Unfortunately I always get the "sync session failed to finish" error message. Come on Apple! Seriously? This problem has been around for at least 3 or 4 years now and you still don't have a fix?

It seems like a couple of people have this problem - I setup iTunes to sync my photos with my iPhone, and then tried to remove a folder from sync. iTunes then cannot complete the sync (I assume it times out trying to delete the folder from the phone). Now iTunes thinks the folder isn't there, the phone still has it, I can't delete it from the phone cos the delete is grayed out, and the iTunes sync always fails with "could not be synced because the sync session failed to finish".

I've done all the steps people have suggested, but nothing works.

(setting manually manage, playing with the usb cable, rebooting, upgrading, sync purchases, deleting all libraries from iTunes, hard-reset, shutting down apps, etc.)

NOTHING WORKS.

The only thing that worked was to reset to factory and restore from backup.

This is ridiculous.

The worst part is when you Google this and see how old some of these posts are...

This thread was started in 2014, there are posts here up to 2017, I found other posts in 2012...

This problem has been around FOREVER.

Maybe you should fix it Apple?

I'm having the same problem: "Sync Session failed to finish..." ---when syncing photos to my phone. I'm trying to update my Mac Photos images to my iphone----and NO LUCK.

Now, I can't even unselect "Sync" in iTunes and remove photos from my phone.

VERY FRUSTRATING. I'm using a 2013 MacBook Air -- and iPhoneX

Tried all of this. It is scandalous that Apple has not been able to find a solution to this problem; there are thousands of users with the same problem, and all Apple can find is "connect and disconnect cables", or similar platitudes every user has obviously already done; really taking us for idiots.

Dieter Schifferli

I think I have the same issue. I was trying to remove many photos albums, which apparently you can't delete in the iPhone itself. Went to ITunes, photo synch, deselected the synched albums, answered yes to "remove photos from iphone", launch the synch session.... it passed all the steps but in the end I got the msg "synch failed to finish"... with the Mac iTunes interface reporting 52GB free while actually the iPhone is still full with 15GB left only. Strangely enough the albums are no longer available in the iPhone Photos... but the space is busy

I tried several times, deleting backups, authorizing devices , selecting and deselcting albums, etc etc.. It never worked