iOS 8 WiFi sync is broken

I am using a Windows product for Itunes. Is this relevant to me?

No, WiFi sync should work with iTunes in Windows. However, you may have to change settings in your antivirus or firewall or they may block the connection.

Is it just me or this problem has recurred (under a slightly different guise) with recently released iOS 8.1.3? After being hopelessly broken in 8.0, iTunes WiFi sync used to work acceptably under 8.1.1 and 8.1.2 for me...

Now my iPhone 6+ (plugged in to mains) does appear in iTunes - after a while but better than nothing... However, when I click the sync button in iTunes it goes "looking for iPhone" and then the iPhone disappears from iTunes. The same happens if I initiate the sync from the settings on the iPhone itself (Settings->General->iTunes WiFi Sync).

I upgraded to iTunes 12.1 (from 12.0.1) but this only seems to have made the problem slightly worse (it eventually worked at least once after many attempts on 12.0.1 but has now failed 4 times with 12.1). This is on Win7, x64.

Seriously, Apple...

Now my iPhone 6+ (plugged in to mains) does appear in iTunes - after a while but better than nothing... However, when I click the sync button in iTunes it goes "looking for iPhone" and then the iPhone disappears from iTunes. The same happens if I initiate the sync from the settings on the iPhone itself (Settings->General->iTunes WiFi Sync).

This happened to me with 8.0. See my earlier comments that to test, you have to try syncing. You can't just look at the iTunes devices list.

Rarely, this same thing happened with 8.1.x. In fact, I think I remember it happening with earlier versions as well, but only rarely.

However, this has not happened to me since 8.1.3.

I did notice that after iTunes started up right after the upgrade, the devices list expanded, then iTunes acquired my two devices one by one. Then the devices list shrank back to the icon.

I successfully synced my iPhone and my iPad, both of which were on a different floor but on the same WiFi network. And they've both been in the list and synced since. (I realize that's not many days.)

One thing that people have suggested in the past is to restart your iPhone or reset Network settings. That's not a reasonable workaround for daily use, of course, but might be worth a try once after the upgrade to 8.1.3.

Itunes 12.1 seems to have finally sorted my wifi sync problem.

Using XP and Ipad.

So here's an observation:

Generally, WiFi sync has worked fine, with both my iPhone 6 and iPad showing up in the iTunes Devices list.

However, I recently bought a WiFi-enabled camera, and have been experimenting with it quite a bit, using my iPhone. I think this is repeatable:

I connect to the camera, choosing its WiFi instead of my normal home WiFi.

I disconnect from the camera.

My iPhone automatically reverts to my home WiFi.

But iTunes can't find the iPhone, so I have to plug it in.

Checking back in after a long while.

Somewhere along the line, perhaps with iOS 8.3, this problem returned.

Now almost every time I unplug my iPhone 6, it disappears from the iTunes device list. If it doesn't disappear immediately, any subsequent attempt to sync via WiFi fails.

I've gone back to check all the usual fixes: restart iTunes, log out of Mac and back in, restart Mac, restart iPhone, reset network settings, plug iPhone into power, nothing works. I'm downloading iOS 8.3 to iTunes now (a four-hour process) and will try restoring iPhone.

BTW, everything else about the iPhone is working perfectly, and it is working fine on my home WiFi network, with no slowdowns or hitches. And, unlike my last post, this has nothing to do with switching to a different WiFi network.

I have iOS 8.3 installed on an ipad Air 2, two iPad mini 2's, and an ipad 2. All of them have no problem syncing via wifi.

however I recently bought 3 iPhone 6. None of them will sync via wifi. They all have iOS 8.3 installed. I have done the resetting my network settings on the phones. Unplugged my modem and airport extreme and restarted them both. I have closed out of iTunes and reopened it. Nothing seems to fix this problem. I have checked and unchecked sync via wifi on all three phones to no avail. As soon as I disconnect from the lighting cable when I go into the settings-general-wifi sync, I have the screen that tells me if I want to sync via wifi I have to plug it into iTunes.

Restoring my iPhone 6 (using the full iOS 8.3 package) appears to have fixed the WiFi sync problem, at least temporarily.

Yep, there is definitely an issue with WiFi again, and I'm not sure if it's iOS 8.3 or OS X 10.10.3 or a combination of the two. It was stable for iOS versions 8.1 and 8.2 and OS X 10.10.1 and 10.10.2, but not so much any more. Seems like I have to attempt one or more of the fixes found in this thread each day to get WiFi sync to work.

Don't know about you, but it's fairly annoying and a bit puzzling - why would Apple not vet these iOS and OS revisions BEFORE releasing them out to the wild? Do not the development community and the other public beta testers have a need for these basic functions within iTunes via their WiFi networks? Can we (the fine folks on this thread) be the only ones who care about WiFi syncing? Questions questions...

Very likely the answer is that this bug only affects some users.

I normally do not download the full restore package when updating my iPhones, but do it in the iPhone. That's because the full restore takes hours for me to download.

So maybe a restore (or update with the full downloaded package) resets something.

I don't think this has anything to do with the WiFi network. I use an AirPort Extreme and an Express and WiFi performance is excellent throughout my house.

I use a 5th Gen 3TB Time Capsule with wireless AC, and while I agree with you that the general WiFi performance in my house is fantastic especially for the two devices I have that support AC (iPhone 6 and late 2013 iMac), my feelings are that the way WiFi is implemented on the iMac and iPhone 6 with iOS 8.3 and OS X 10.10.3 is behaving differently than it did in previous revisions of the software as it relates specifically to WiFi syncing via iTunes.

So, by way of clarification, I am not slamming my personal WiFi network in general, I was trying to say that I believe something is different with the WiFi stack as it's implemented in the latest iOS and/or OS X releases, which in turn is making WiFi syncing clunkier than it's been for months.

So, by way of clarification, I am not slamming my personal WiFi network in general, I was trying to say that I believe something is different with the WiFi stack as it's implemented in the latest iOS and/or OS X releases, which in turn is making WiFi syncing clunkier than it's been for months.

I agree. There's something going on in the interaction between iTunes and the iPhone. In my case, apparently something that restoring the iPhone fixed and that resetting network settings, restarting the iPhone, restarting iTunes and restarting my iMac did not fix.

And it is weird that what was a rare occurrence became a daily problem in iOS 8, then seemed to have been fixed, then unfixed.

PhillipsABQ wrote:

why would Apple not vet these iOS and OS revisions BEFORE releasing them out to the wild? Do not the development community and the other public beta testers have a need for these basic functions within iTunes via their WiFi networks? Can we (the fine folks on this thread) be the only ones who care about WiFi syncing? Questions questions...

iOS 8.3 was the most tested release in iPhone history. It was distributed to 1 million users, who had it for 3 months. How much more testing would you recommend?

In my experience WiFi sync has been flakey since it was introduced, which I think was 5 years ago. Rebooting my Mac and my phone fixes it for a while, but there has never been a permanent fix.

Ok, I have read all 23 pages and tried all of the fixes. I have reinstalled itunes and my iphone 5 still sill not connect to itunes. I am on itunes 12, windows 10, and ISO 9.0. My computer tries to download pictures every time so I know it is recognized on some level but it has yet to appear as a device on itunes. I have restarted everything turned off handoff, deleted phone companion(window 10), I was not on the wifi network so I can't turn off wifi sync, because my phone will not appear in itune by cable. What now? any suggestions