sync session failed to finish

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

Guys - just wanted to continue this discussion of “could not be synced because the sync session failed to finish”.

I had it too and was trying all different suggestions I found here and elsewhere. Well I finally solved it very simply in my case. I had the iCloud drive sync on! You cannot have this on if you want to sync your fotos from your Mac. So go to your iCloud account in settings and switch it off. All photo synchronizing from Photos/iTunes now works again. Maybe this could be mentioned somewhere more explicitly by Apple ...

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

If it's anything the same with my situation...the photos ARE in fact still there...(just not in albums). If you go to "Photos" which is all the way to the bottom left in the Photos App ( left of the "albums" icon ) you will find your photos I bet....

I am trying to sync my photos ONTO my iPhone though... To remove your photos you could always do a restore though - couldn't you?

my problem is to free up space in the iphone without loosing the photos. therefore I'm assuming that PC Mac photos and videos in the folders are there and no synch will move them, but to remove them from the iPhone I see that I have to perform a synch with no longer the folders synched. But anyway whatever synch I try to launch it always ends up with a failure in finishing synching

I had the same problem, and unfortunately the Apple sync software seem now only to be able to add and not delete. I believe that Apple has designed updates that can not do the job you (and I ) wished to do. The answer is to reset (= erase) your iPhone and restart from new (with need to reload all the apps, even the ones you purchased). I guess, Apple thinks that by now you have a new iPhone, and therefore, wouldn't have this problem 🙂.

I have been battling "sync session failed to finish" for over a month now....I can't seem to figure it out except for the fact that it revolves around photos somehow. Yes you are right...if you uncheck the photos box and then sync you will remove photos from your device (except it will remove ALL photos & not just a few to save disk space). I wonder if Apple is somehow trying to corral all of us into using their "iCloud Photos" application where ALL your photos are stored in the cloud and available for any device? Syncing would not be necessary then. I have over 48,000 photos though & uploading them to the cloud would take forever! I do not think they are put into albums too when you use this also, but I am not sure. I think it has something to do with permissions/sharing on the photo files somehow...something that got changed in the property values of either the photo album file folder or the individual file properties of the photo files themselves. This could have happened with either a Windows update or an Apple one! It's making me nuts!! =)

Well, even trying to remove all photos didn't work for me. No, I was speaking about reseting the phone to "zero" , so it would be as when you bought it; only original basic apps present...and empty, and purchased apps absent...

Hello,

I have tried all the solutions stated above including your method of "activate COMPATIBILITY of ITUNES for win7" but all failed to fix my problem 😟

The only way I fixed this issue is by the following :

1. Backup the IPhone.

2. Go to Settings/General/Reset/"Erase All Content and Settings".

3. Set the IPhone as "New Phone" and complete all the steps.

4. Restore from the backup.

5. WALLLLLLLLLAAAA, it worked and everything went smooth.

I hope it works for you also.

Yes, that's what I plan to do. However, beside the fact that one will have to repack the iphone will all the lost apps, my phone can't even be backed up anymore with iTune, after having tried many methods to add photos from my imac to my iphone...

No, but I haven't had time to do the restore, knowing that I will lose many apps that will need time to reorganize...And also being nervous that a restore will cause new unexpected problems, considering how amateurish Apple's iTune software is....

Ah ok...I already tried a regular restore from backup & it didn't work. Still got that **** "sync session failed to finish. This is on my iPhone 8. From what I've heard through the grapevine...you need to do a restore then set it up as a new iPhone. Seems like a severe method but I have tried EVERYTHING else and nothing seems to work. My iPad 4th gen used to sync but just tried to sync that & now I am getting that error message on that too (and that's even on a different computer!). Good Luck Buddy!!!