waiting for changes to be applied/waiting for items to copy stuck during sync

This worked for me too! Just update all your apps in iTunes first. Easy! Dumb, but easy!

Have tried everything here. Now going on DAY 7 of trying to sync to my iPhone 6 Plus. Am on my 3rd Restore.

I can get the apps, movies and TV Shows on there, but when I try to sync my relatively large music library, I never get past "Waiting for items to copy". I can leave it for days and it never finishes.

Tried switching to WIFI Sync but this is GHASTLY slow. (Only about 500mb transferred when I left it running overnight.) Even syncing using the lightning cable is SLOW as molasses, which kind of defeats the purpose of naming it a "Lightning" cable. They should call it the "Trickle" cable instead.

iTunes crashes frequently, throughout this process. (prompting me to try to uninstall and reinstall iTunes, and then being told that I CAN'T uninstall it due to the fact that is an integral component of the OS, so then resorted to installing it again, hoping that this would repair any problems with the existing install. Unfortunately, it still crashes.) At one point the firmware of my brand new iPhone become corrupted, and I had to put the phone into recovery mode to reinstall the firmware. After that for some reason, the iPhone backup that I had named "DAVESIPHONE6+" changed its name to "iPhone" all by itself, and even though I had made several backups using the name "DAVESIPHONE6+", they had all vanished. Thankfully the backup named "iPhone" still contained the latest backup of my iPhone.

I have now changed the name of my iPhone Backup to "DAVES6PLUS" in case the "+" sign was possibly wreaking havoc in the internal workings of Unix somehow.

Why don't TouchID fingerprints get stored in my encrypted iPhone backup? I'm getting really tired of having to make new ones every time I have to start from scratch again, each time my phone fails to complete the sync and I have to restore it again. (For some reason, if I just try to "un-sync" my data to start over again. it still leaves tons of stuff on the phone under "other", so Restore is the only option for a clean sync it seems.)

I have a hunch that things get messed up somehow when you interrupt a sync, but it takes so darn long, I've had no choice, as I need to take my phone with me to work and other places where having a phone is useful, and since the sync seems to want to take longer than 24 hours, I haven't ever been able to try 1 continuous, uninterrupted sync yet on my 128GB iPhone 6 Plus. (Other than the initial attempt where I let it run for 2 days)

I have just restored my phone, yet again, and am about to try syncing it again, using the lightning cable, in 1 long uninterrupted sync, if I can manage to live without my phone that long. That's the same thing I tried to do when I first got the phone, and after 2 days it still said "Waiting for items to copy" even though no files actually seemed to be transferring, and the storage stats on the iPhone were not changing. I don't have high hopes where that is concerned.

This is all TERRIBLY inconvenient. I really wish Apple would do something about this! Why is it taking so long for a fix, or even a workaround to be forthcoming from Apple?

I so much agree with you.. What is taking these guys so long?

I have a similar and I'd guess related problem. I've never purchased Poker Journal, but I now have five, grayed-out apps stuck Waiting on my new iPhone. When I delete from from the iPhone, they temporarily disappear only to return when I attempt an iTunes sync. I've tried both cable-only and wireless-only syncs. Makes no difference. None of the stuck apps shows up among Purchased Apps when I sign into the iTunes Store; however, if disable sync they are listed in iTunes as Will Install. If I click on that, it changes to Install. That never happens. All other apps display a Remove options. The ones that Waiting do not. I'd guess this results from restoring a back-up from my old phone on the new one when I was originally setting it up. Maybe that pulled some old, no-longer supported/offered titles that are jamming the sync process. Question is how to get them off. I've thought about reverting to that back-up, and then deleting those apps before syncing. Except then I'd lose calls, etc. that have come onto my phone since that back-up.

I'd welcome any suggestions.

I finally got it to sync completely. The process I used is as follows, and may be repeatable. NOTE, I am using a 2010 iMac running the latest version of Mavericks, and an iPhone 6 Plus 128GB. Here is the workaround process I came up with that finally worked. Hope it helps someone:

Step 1: I put the iPhone into Recovery Mode, connected it to iTunes, and restored it to do a clean install of the software on the phone.

Step 2: Using a lightning cable I synced everything EXCEPT for music. (Apps, TV Shows. Movies, Tones, etc) For me this took a couple hours and completed without any issues.

Step 3: Once this completed, I checked "Sync entire music library", applied, and left it running overnight. It showed 9200 items being copied, and showed a blue progress bar underneath, and flashes the individual names of the files in the status bar as they are being copied. Once it gets to the end of the 9200 items, and the blue bar gets all the way to 100% it gets stuck on "Waiting for items to copy", and never completes the sync, no matter how long I leave it running. Checking the Storage stats on my iPhone under General Settings/Usage reveals that not much is going on. The stats change by .1GB (100MB) every so often, but not much more than that over 12 hours. DO NOT INTERRUPT A SYNC WHILE files are transferring and the blue progress bar is moving! Doing so in my case resulted in all subsequent syncs getting stuck immediately and indefinitely on "Waiting for items to copy", which seems to only be able to be remedied by Restoring again.

Step 4: Once the blue progress bar has reached 100% and Sync gets stuck on "Waiting for items to copy", cancel the Sync by pressing the X in the status bar, and reboot iTunes with iPhone still connected via lightning cable.

Step 5: Turn on "Sync over Wifi" and press APPLY. Disconnect lightning cable, and reboot iTunes again. (Cancel any Sync that is in progress)

Step 6: Make sure that the computer is on the same WIFI network as the iPhone (preferably a dual band wifi network with both devices in close proximity to the router) Having the computer connected via ethernet, and the iPhone connected via WIFI will not work, even if they are using the same router. They both need to be connected via WIFI, and I took the extra step of disabling the ethernet connection. It is a good idea to plug your iPhone into a charger at this point (not the computer) as this process seems to be rather power intensive. This does not seem to interfere with the sync over WIFI.

Step 7: After you see that the iPhone is connected to iTunes via WIFI (it should appear on iTunes like it normally does when you connect it using the lightning cable. If it doesn't check that both devices are on the same WIFI network, and that "Sync over WIFI" is checked), then press Sync, as it does not seem to sync automatically via WIFI, even when "Sync when connected" is checked. In my case, iTunes suddenly found another 2000 or so music files that did not sync automatically during the previous sync over the lightning cable. These once again show progress with a blue status bar, and the names of the files being transferred flash in the status bar as they are copied. This took a few hours.

Step 8: Once the transfer of all the files completes, the message "Waiting for items to copy" DID appear again for a few minutes, but it didn't freeze there indefinitely this time. DONE! In my case I did get a warning that some of the items failed to copy (11 items) but this is the same message that I have always gotten in the past. Apparently these 11 items in my iTunes library are incompatible with my iPhone. I keep hoping someday that a future update of iTunes will be smart enough to convert these 11 files on the fly to a compatible format, as the rest of my music is down-sampled to 128K. (I have my iTunes set to convert all music to 128K when transferring to my iPhone to save space. This option is available on the summary screen when you sync the iPhone in iTunes.

NOTE: Regardless of whether your Sync is getting stuck on apps, music, or something else, the key seems to be to transfer as much as you can using the lightning cable until it gets stuck, and then switching to WIFI to transfer the rest. Good luck!

I have this same issue and am very frustrated by this. I have tried every single thing.

do you have "sync with wi-fi" selected or deselected?

Come on Apple do something!

I'm not taking part in any of your surveys until this has been sorted

I had a very similar issue with my iPhone 4s and iTunes 12.0.1.26. I had created a new playlist, tried to sync and it stuck on "waiting for changes to be applied." It eventually finished (after an hour or so) but the playlist wasn't on the phone even though iTunes said it was.

Turns out the iTunes database on the phone was corrupt. Luckily it it will rebuild itself but I had to use a third party tool to fix it. Here's what I did:

1. Downloaded and installed iFunBox which is a freeware iPhone file browser. Installed it and started the program.

2. Plugged the iPhone in via USB and it came up in iFunBox.

3. Selected Raw File System in the left pane.

4. Navigated to the iTunes_Control directory in the right pane, then to iTunes folder.

5. Renamed the database file and indexes: MediaLibrary.sqlitedb -> MediaLibrary.sqlitedb-backup, MediaLibrary.sqlitedb-shm -> MediaLibrary.sqlitedb-shm-backup, MediaLibrary.sqlitedb-wal -> MediaLibrary.sqlitedb-wal-backup.

6. Closed the iFunBox program and disconnected the USB cable.

7. Held both the power button and the select button on the iPhone until the Apple logo appeared and released both buttons.

8. Waited for a few minutes for phone to completely reboot.

9. Plugged the phone back into the USB, brought up iTunes and did a sync. I chose to manage my music manually so got the popup asking if I wanted to replace the music on the iPhone with the synced music from iTunes and clicked on yes.

10. Did a sync and everything is good now. Took a little while to copy all the songs again but straightened the database out, now it syncs the way it should.

Since everything worked out okay I went back into iFunBox and deleted those backup files I created.

Hope it doesn't get fouled up again but at least I know how to fix it.

This isn't my solution, I found it elsewhere but thought I would share it on this thread, I see people completely restoring their phones and I think this is a much quicker fix if it's just iTunes that's messed up.

I just had the exact same problem as you, i couldn't sync my 100 Gb music library with my iPhone 6, after doing like EVERYTHING here and elsewhere on the web, Unchecking "include music videos" and "include voice memos" Did the trick for me, and just to be on the safe side, I've been doing the syncing since then, for 2 artists at a time, no more than 300 tracks per sync. It's at least working !

Similar problem. I was stuck on "waiting for changes to apply". I disabled syncing movies, tv, and books and turned off WiFi. It looks like it might be moving again, since a handful of Apps have now successfully been synced. I will give it a couple hours.

Since there are so many different remedies in this thread, I don't know what to think.

Ed

To add to the list of possible solutions, I disconnected my files from being able to sync (in my case, I unplugged my external HD with my songs), sync'd, then restarted with files available, and the sync completed very quickly.

possible solution, which worked when I tried it...while in the stuck state i.e. phone attached, sync circle spinning etc etc, go to 'add to library', point to your iTunes music location and let iTunes update the library. My 6+ started almost immediately the transfer process. For those of you with movies/music etc on an external drive, make sure it is attached and 'add to library'...good luck. Apple, please review and solve this issue. Thank you.

Just thought I would post because I solved this problem when I had it very easily.

I just transferred purchases File/Devices/Transfer Purchases

My sync then just started straight off.

Worth a try, it took me a few seconds.

Max

Thank you, oldpathwhiteclouds! I did just what you suggested -- the computer transferred "garage band" (default app with new iPhone 6, I guess) to my iTunes and then started syncing properly. Hoping music gets synced overnight while I sleep...