Syncing Apps to iPhone 6 / 6 Plus Stuck

How did you reactivate your iPhone 5 before deactivating it again?

Thanks!

I tried a different approach - I noticed that it seemed to be a specific app that was causing the hang-up, so I deleted the app from the iPhone 6, forced-quit iTunes and started the sync again. It picked up right were it left off - synced some more apps, got caught on another specific app. Again I delected the app from the phone, forced-quit iTunes and started over. I had to do this only twice (I have almost 200 apps on my phone) - the sync process completed successfully after deleting those two apps.

The two apps that seemed to cause the hang-ups on my phone were: "Meetup" and "Nook".

I'm trying to just upgrade from my iPhone 5 to an iPhone 6. In every other situation that I've had a new phone (or replacement), I plug in the new phone and select "restore from [xyz] backup" and it goes through the setup motions and then spends about 45min copying music, apps, photos etc. I cannot get this process to complete. Twice it's hung endlessly on "Sync app x of y" and twice it's hung on "copying photo 1 of 1313" (which is inaccurate anyway since I have both more than the number of apps and photos shown).

I need the sync to complete fully without stopping in the middle because I'm concerned that pausing the sync and restarting will not port all the data successfully.

Things I've tried

- iPhone 6 cable (instead of iPhone 5 cable)

- Completely wipe/erase iPhone 6 via Settings and start from scratch (2x) "Restore from [xyz] iPhone 5 backup"

- Force-Quit ITunes, restart sync (this seemed to make it worse - it "synced" all the apps but they're not on the phone - essentially skipping app syncing but thinking it was complete - and then hung on photos)

- Turned off iCloud on iPhone 5

- Turned off iPhone 5 entirely

- Turned off wifi on iPhone 6

Have been waiting for Apple support for a while now... considering returning the phone and going back to my iPhone 5.

I also tried the cable that came with my 6+ and now its working fine. So weird, something must have changed in the cable!

I'm using the wifi sync method... unplugged the cable and simply chose to sync the iPhone over wi-fi. So far so good, i'm at 42 of 206 which is about 20 apps further than i got in any previous attempt to sync while tethered.

One think i'm noticing though is that iTunes periodically "beach balls" throughout the sync process, to the point that something definitely seems up with iTunes - which by itself isn't all that surprising. Crossing my fingers, but so far so good.

Ok...so I just pushed on thru and once I got thru the Apps it was smooth sailing. I tried solution 1 and solution 2, no dice. I still got hung up when plugged in directly, and my wifi would cut out when I tried wifi only method. I tried the iPhone 6 cable...no difference. What I did do was go to airplane mode, plug in and sync. When it got stuck I'd eject, dismiss the pop up warning, then pull the plug on the iPhone to truly "disengage" and stop the sync. I'd plug back in (I didn't even close iTunes or restart the phone), and hit sync again. I rinsed and repeated until it was done. I verified the # of Apps matched (plus the 5 new ones), and they all seem to have my data (I'm now syncing videos that I didn't have space for previously, so I haven't been able to see if there are any issues).

So all in all, I say push on thru and hopefully it works. Doing all the other stuff seems to take longer and may end up with the same result.

Update: Wifi sync still chugging along. It's at 176 of 206 without any problems. This appears to be working for me.

This is happening to me, and is incredibly annoying. I started with an iPhone 5, backed up with iTunes, then restored. Everything seemed fine, but no apps are syncing. Pictures synced fine, as did the appropriate settings. I have around 150 apps, and it looks like I have to sync them 6 at a time.

One interesting thing is that in iTunes when I disconnect the phone it gets removed from the devices section. Usually devices hang around there when you disconnect them.

Trying the airplane mode way now, and will be plugging/unplugging my iPhone all night looks like.

SUCCESS! Ok after MANY failed attempts, this worked:

Erase iPhone 6 completely (Settings / Reset / Erase Content and Settings) - this makes the iPhone 6 out-of-box

Let it reset, then *go through the prompts* before plugging into iTunes

Get to prompt asking if you want to set as a new phone or restore from backup - select restore - you'll be prompted to plug in.

*Then* plug in the phone.

Let sync take its very sweet time (mine was 45min plus)

Ironically last week when I needed my iPh5 replaced the genius warned me that *not* going through these prompts and plugging right into itunes sometimes causes issues. He recommended "Set up as new phone" and then via iTunes selecting restore from backup. Had this not worked, completely erasing first and then doing that would've been my next try.

Hope this helps someone out there!

After being able to sync apps from my MacBook, I tried to sync music video and Photos from the iMac and nothing has worked, wifi, airplane.... Tried with several cables... And now I can't even sync anything else that the apps from my macbook. I'm going to return the phone to ApplE. There must be something defective with this device, my iPhone 6 has synced flawlessly from the start And nothing will work for my wife's iPhone 6+.

Tried this, it didn't work.

Sorry to hear that!

My experience with Solution 1 is that it worked, eventually.

But I discovered something interesting. I screwed up and actually wiped out the content of the new iPhone 6 once I was done (my wife came rushing in thinking I'd had a heart attack). But luckily, I had performed an iTunes backup of the newly installed phone to my Mac.

This time, restoring from an iTunes backup worked perfectly. Apps, photos, videos, everything, was re-installed within 40 minutes, max. (The first installation was 3+ hours).

Thus, I feel, there is an incompatibility problem between an iOS 7 backup to iTunes and a new iOS 8 device. I don't think cables (I've used the same lightening cable) have anything to do with it. But the incompatibility can be overcome by repeated attempts at the installation. It is like it just hangs.

It is all VERY frustrating and hope Apple come up with an explanation and an apology.

I may have the solution!

Background: I kept my old phone (the one I'm replacing) on iOS7 and updated to the iPhone 6 (including iOS8) directly from my old phone's iOS7 backup. I think there are a handful of apps whose updated versions were set aside, to be installed only on iOS8. It seems that when iTunes tries to install the old version from the backup onto the new phone, it gets confused between that and the new iOS8-exclusive version.

In iTunes: Apps > Updates, many of these apps are included as waiting to be updated. Once I manually updated all those apps in iTunes first, the installation now seems to have completed flawlessly. (Via Lightning cable.)

None of the previous suggestions regarding Wi-Fi syncing or changing cables worked for me until I tried this.

Hope that might help someone!

I was going from iOS 8 on an iPhone 5 to iOS 8 on an iPhone 6. What worked is what Dennis Hagen suggested: I cancelled my app installs, backed up my incomplete iPhone 6, and restored it. Magically apps started installing again. We'll see if they finish, but so far it's looking good.