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

"transferred purchases" from where? Your iPhone? Your computer?

Thanks!

Please don't take this the wrong way but the extraordinary lengths you, and others here, have gone to to get sync 'working', if indeed it is given that you've had to forgo functionality that others of us like and use, confirm that iTunes sync is a broken mess which appears to have been well and truly exacerbated with the introduction of iOS 8.  I never experienced sync problems with previous iOS versions or iDevices.  Apple need to fix it for all of us, a mess of their making.

Apple's iTunes problems run far deeper than this discussion. A couple of years ago, my library vanished...the files were still there, but the library listings were gone. All of my playlists were empty. I managed to fix that. Then a couple of months later after installing an updated version of the software I thought might be a fix, after rebooting I found that all of my iTunes purchased songs were duplicated in the library AND my playlists were empty again. I ended up manually deleting over 3,000 duplicate listings and recreating my playlists. One playlist was over 400 songs from the 1960s listed in chronological order.

There is a huge discussion here on that. Absolutely no official acknowledgement or help from Apple. So, I moved all my files to MusicMonkey and never looked back.

Apple's iOS Is In 'Rapid Decline,' Says Prominent Programmer

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/05/marco-arment_n_6416540.html

QuoteNotes - this is a very troll-like response; you don't offer anything useful or constructive advise - just a complaint and a link to other people offering (often erroneous) opinions.

I've been using Apple products for at least 30 years - I've owned at least 70-80 devices personally and within my business and it's the best-run company with the best Operating System in the world!

Sure, it's not perfect. And you're (the article you linked to) right, the issues have gotten worse over the last few years as more consumers have upped the sales of ALL Apple products.

Constructive criticism is helpful; lacking that what you're doing is trolling - see definition here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_%28Internet%29

There's nothing troll-like in my post. I simply linked to an article that cited a more authoritative source than myself who believes that Apple has a software quality problem. All vendors have bugs though few with the product base of Apple have bugs that are catastrophic, as I reported in my post about having my iTunes library corrupted and unusable. These are serious problems for a well-thought of company. With all due respect, I suggest that you read your own link to the definition of "troll." A troll is not someone who posts information you don't like.

It's an app. That's definitely what's causing this issue. But it's not necessarily one app in the app store. I saw a response in this thread that pointed to a specific app. Several people on the thread who were experiencing this problem all had the same app. I didn't. After hours of trying everything, including restoring my phone, I thought about what I did differently on the phone to cause this problem. I hadn't downloaded any new apps, which is why I didn't think about what I had done differently. I realized that I started using an app that had been on my phone, but hadn't been used in a couple of years. I went to the developer site, and it was gone. There were no updates for the app in lord knows how long. I deleted the app and everything worked. No more "waiting for changes...".

It's an app. You just need to figure out which app it is for you. All of the other solutions listed (log out of iCloud, shut down, reboot, etc) are not going to solve your problem more than for just one sync.

The point is, why should synching an iPhone and iTunes be impacted by the update status of nonApple apps???

Exactly the point.  Good software from Apple would take care of most of these issues.  I suspect most would have old Apps that are no longer supported/updated.  The ball is in Apple's court to fix these issues.  For me at least all introduced with iOS 8/Yosemite.

After MANY hours of fiddling and trying to unplug and then plug my iPhone back in.. this simple fix worked a treat. Thank you! Highly recommended!!

Thank you!!! That was it for me too, it was one app that I downloaded six years ago on my iPhone 3G, The Price Is Right of all things.  I think I played it once or twice in 2008-09.  For some reason iTunes got confused about whether I wanted it on my phone or not, it was probably looking for updates that didn't exist, who knows.  I thought I had removed it but it kept trying to put it on.  Finally I deleted it manually on my phone, and somehow iTunes finally got the hint I didn't want it, and voila, everything works like a charm again.

I did two things to solve this -- I'm not sure if one or both was the key, but they were: (1) turn on Airplane mode on the phone and uncheck the sync over wifi box in iTunes; and (2) update all apps in iTunes. The phone was connected while I did this (stuck on the last step), and about 2/3rds the way through the apps update, the sync started to happen. Feeling like I was on a roll, I also went through my apps in iTunes and deleted a bunch I haven't used in years. All seems good now.

Here is how i fixed mine:

iTunes > Library > Get Album Artwork

Once the artwork downloaded it synced just fine. Before I could never get past the last step.

iPhone 5 and Windows 8.1

Which fix are you referring to?

Update all your apps before trying to upload music. Worked for me.