iOS 8 WiFi sync is broken

I have the same issue. My iPad 4 synced just fine over wifi after turning off handshake and is still OK today. However because my (and yours and everyone else's) 4s did/does not support handshake, the option to turn or modify it does not even show up in your general settings!! So far no one has provided a way to turn this off on the 4s as it's not there!! Also movement between programs has a little jerky movement to it, so I may reinstall 7.1.2!! To be truthful wifi sync for my 4s at 7.1.2 was intermittent, not at all solid like for my ipad 4!!! I heard apple pulled back the 8.0.1 update so..................😠😕😢

I wouldn't suggest trying to revert just because of Handshake. Turning off Handshake didn't help my iPhone 6.

A 4s should work fine with iOS 8. You might want to look at the battery-usage section and maybe see if there's some memory hog running in the background. You could always just kill all running apps and see if that helps.

Because of the wide variety of suggestions, I'm wondering if the short-term success comes just from restarting the iPhone or iPad.

Reverting to 7.1.2 is not a challenge. It is simple and straightforward and iTunes provides a clear path to do so!! It is well known that the last model supported may be the first to exhibit issues!! It is worth it for me as I have a lot of apps and updates are almost everyday from iTunes. WIFI updates simplify this workflow for me!! I always kill apps after I exit them!! Battery usage is not an issue for me and those statistics will not show memory hogs. Of course it SHOULD run fine on the 4s, but................ I've read elsewhere that ios 8 wifi has frequency assignment/determination problems, so like all upgrades we dance until the bugs sift out!!!!

Same resolution here--with Network Settings Reset followed by iPhone name correction. I reset Network Settings because my new iPhone 6 (that I had originally restored ftom new to import all my old 4S info) at day 4 or so suddenly started sending iMessages as regular SMS Texts (green instead of blue) to other Apple ID logged in iphone folks. After I solved that issue with the Network Settings reset, I could no longer sync over WiFi no matter what various and multiple reported "fixes" I tried for that different problem. No joy. After sleeping on it, I finally checked my iPhone name in Settings-General-About, and sure enough it somehow had reverted to just "iphone". When I renamed my iPhone to my custom name--chosen & given after it was first restored to content of my iPhone 4S backup--my iPhone 6 once again immediately connected to iTunes on Mac and syncs and backs up just fine--so far so good. I'm confident that Apple will fix this annoyance promptly. Hopefully with a quick but fixed IOS 8.0.1 update without the bugs I heard about today.

Noticed the same problem and tried to the suggestion of turning off Handoff (General settings) and rebooting my iPhone 5. My iPhone showed up in the iTunes sidebar again, right after the reboot. After this procedure, you can turn on Handoff again without losing the wi-fi sync.

So glad I found this discussion cause I've been so frustrated with wifi syncing since iOS 8. My devices don't appear in iTunes unless i restart them each time i need to sync. Needs to be fixed soon!

My devices don't appear in iTunes unless i restart them each time i need to sync. Needs to be fixed soon!

That's my conclusion (with the added note that plugging the device in always works). All the suggestions, including turning Handoff off and back on seem to actually rely on a restart.

I don't think Apple will get the message by writing here that it needs to be fixed, you should file an official bug report.

Thank you so much, your solution worked!

I've just opend an official support case. The will contact me next saturday. I'll mention that thread.

Same for me with same fix, shutting devices on and off will show them in my device column. I just got off the phone with Apple and they think it's an IOS 8 issue and that maybe the patch that's due in the next couple of days will address it. I won't hold my breath. In the meantime, I'll just have to continue to turn my devices on and off if I want them to show in iTunes via the network.

Nice one Just J - that worked on an iPad mini 1st Gen.

IOS Mavericks, IOS 8, mac, iphone, ipad. After upgrading to iOS 8, itunes wifi sync worked, then sporadically and then totally disintegrated. Like Microsoft ME and VISTA, it slowly died and when to heaven. Apple needs to get their softare teams doing better jobs. They are beginning to fail in many different areas, iOS, comm soft, apps (pages), etc.

Just J posted a fix: It worked for me. Seems Handoff (Default set to ON) and Wifi sync conflict. Here is his message:

OK, I think I found a fix (well, a work-around), at least for me, and so far.

Settings>General>Handoff & Suggested Apps, turn "Handoff" OFF.

Then, to be safe, I did a double-hard-reset (while unplugged and turned off, I held down the Wake and Home buttons until the Apple appeared, disappeared, and appeared again). I then unlocked the device with my passcode, and now WiFi sync is working as I would expect.

Worked on all 4 of my iOS devices - iPhone 5S, iPad Air, iPad Mini, and iPod touch.

WiFi sync still not working on iOS8.0.2.

None of these fixes work for me on any device (iPhone 6, iPhone 5, iPhone 5s, iPad Air). I still have to reboot my device for it to appear in iTunes. Then after a few hours it disappears and will not reappear again unless I reboot my iPhone again.

Exactly, iOS 8.0.2 did nothing to fix wifi sync.