Level 1

104 points

The ipad cannot be synced. An internal device error occurred.

Yesterday I updated my iPad Pro 9,7" to iOS 11. All went well. But when I thought I was entering my Apple ID for iTunes, I was tricked into iCloud. I never use iCloud. Not on my iMac and not on my iPad. I just don't want to use it.

When I opened my unwanted iCloud account every button was set to ON. It took me a lot of time to set every button to OFF. In the meantime a lot of my documents (photos) were copied to iCloud. I had to delete them from my iCloud Drive. After I logged out of iCloud I discovered that all my photos were deleted from my iPad.

Of course I had a backup on my iMac. I always sync my photos (and books and music) with iTunes on my iMac. I have updated iTunes to the latest version.

Never before I have had problems with this procedure. But this time all went wrong. It said there was no iBooks App and no Music App on my iPad and after that I discovered that all my books and music was deleted on my iPad.

Several times I got the message "The ipad cannot be synced. An internal device error occurred."

I tried all the usual things - restarted the iMac and the iPad / changed the cable (all Apple cables) / changed the USB port. I succeeded in restoring my books and my music but not my photos (more than 3000). It stops halfway with the above message and than only a few hundred photos are copied.

Before iOS 11 syncing with iTunes always worked great. Now I don't know what to do to solve this problem.

iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Sep 22, 2017 2:53 AM

Top-ranking reply

beasterjr

Level 1

9 points

Posted on Oct 2, 2017 1:14 PM

I’ve spent several days dealing with this. The best solution was to erase all contents and data from my iPad and start over. I started by syncing just the photos, nothing else. I got the internal iPad error once. But all 103 photo albums had synced to placeholder icons along with about 400 photos which were synced to the correct albums. I hard rebooted the iPad and synced again and again and again over several hours. Hard rebooted every time. Eventually all photos 21,000+ synced to the iPad and into the appropriate albums. Only after that did I sync everything else which worked just fine. Good luck!

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449 replies

May 20, 2018 10:41 AM in response to Sunshine4a

Yes, everything is working as well as can be expected but like I said, this iPad is new to me so maybe there are problems that other people are having that I know nothing about.

For clarity, I have synched with iTunes and all the photos and music in the selected albums and playlists were uploaded, though it took an hour or two. I have since modified the albums and playlists and the changes have synchronised.

If I hadn't just bought the iPad second hand, I might have waited for the final release but as things were, I needed to know if my iPad was okay.

May 29, 2018 12:00 PM in response to Paardeslager

Same problem here. New iPad 6th gen. set up as new iPad, syncs only a few pictures from laptop running Photos on macOS Sierra, fails after a few hundred photos. Not to mention the pain on signing into iCloud to start with on the new device, 4+ hours set up. Ridicolous. They say the product is not you, but surely consumer's time is free to them.

Paardeslager Author

Level 1

104 points

May 30, 2018 5:02 AM in response to denali_uk

No reason to feel sorry for the mini-rant. I completely agree with your view. Especially iTunes updates do have a very bad reputation. You really have to take all kind of precautions before attempting an update. The way Apple has in the past ruined iTunes libraries from their customers is almost legendary.

It's good to read that the latest version of iTunes maybe has solved the sync problem, but then again it has a problem with showing album covers. A lot of them are completely blank. That bug was introduced with version 12.7.4 and is still there in version 12.7.5. That's called progress. So for now - for normal day to day use - I stick with iTunes version 12.7.3.

mr_ggg

Level 1

13 points

May 31, 2018 9:09 AM in response to Sunshine4a

Same experience for me. I have 37000 photos, been re-syncing my 128G iPad Air 2 every now and then over the last month and got it down to 13000 remaining before the 11.4 update. Yesterday with iOS 11.4 and iTunes updates it seemed to complete, but I tried another sync and it said 1300 more to go. I remember seeing something similar long ago. Pretty sure its all there now. I must also agree with everyone this is an egregious bug that should have been fixed long ago. I have never heard of anything like this in the Windows or Android world - something as basic as transferring photos to a device, how can you screw that up?

May 31, 2018 1:26 PM in response to mr_ggg

with almost 100k pics, this does not work.

it took me months to load the pics after the store advised me wrongly and gave me a new iPad.

first it synced about 16k at at time and then 8, then 4....you get the idea.

now, it will not sync anymore.

i have ghost pics...you zoom into one pic and another shows up.

i have pics in folders where they do not belong.

clearing the cache did not help....rather it was the opposite.

HELP anyone??

i am afraid to "wipe" the iPad, since i might be faced with months of syncs again, only to get stuck.

May 31, 2018 1:37 PM in response to Paardeslager

Seems to be their overall push to force us all to use their cloud services. Of course, you have to pay for those. At some point, customers are going to have enough and look elsewhere for products that work without the hassles.

May 31, 2018 2:00 PM in response to euroinstall

stevecloud75 wrote:

Seems to be their overall push to force us all to use their cloud services. Of course, you have to pay for

euroinstall wrote:

and now another new one.....

the iPad could not be synced because the sync session failed to finish.

i am unable to get out of this loop.

HELP APPLE HELP

Paardeslager Author

Level 1

104 points

Jun 7, 2018 11:37 PM in response to erniefrompaulina

That's bad news. So for now it's better to stick to 11.4. I hope this is just a beta bug.

Now that syncing works under 11.4 I only will update my iPad when i'm sure it still works after the update, and Apple in their wisdom did not throw away other basic functions.

Jun 11, 2018 1:46 PM in response to Paardeslager

Back on June 9 or 10 when I synced my iPad, it worked fine copying my +30,000 photos onto my iPad . Today, I returned home from vacation and tried to sync 2 new photo folders, unsuccessfully, as they did added the 2 folders with 0 photos each. Anyone else have this problem or a solution?

Jul 11, 2018 2:16 PM in response to Paardeslager

I updated this morning, but I just tried to sync, and it didn’t add any new photos, just empty albums. However, I was still having this problem with 11.4 (before the update to 11.4.1. I didn‘t turn on iCloud or delete the cache because I didn’t want to lose the photos that I already had on my device. Any thoughts from anyone?

Jul 12, 2018 5:03 AM in response to Paardeslager

I don’t have the problem woth iTunes 12.8 not showing album covers. It works fine for me. However, even iOS 11.4, it does not copy new photo albums that I add. iOS 11.4.1 is doing the same thing so far. I’m going to delete my photo cache today, as recommended in other posts, and see if I can get everything to sync.

Jul 12, 2018 1:36 PM in response to Paardeslager

My album covers are fine in itunes 12.8. However, I can’t sync photos anymore with any combination. Currently, I’m trying to restore my ipad to a back up from yesterday which had all but my newest photo albums. So sick of Apple!

WSC33

Level 1

15 points

Jul 18, 2018 4:57 AM in response to Paardeslager

iOS 11.4.1 just arrived at my phone as an official release. Has anyone tested it to make sure that i can still upload photos from itunes to my devices? I don't want to re-create a problem it took Apple a year to fix. What's the consensus, say you all????

WSC33

Level 1

15 points

Jul 22, 2018 5:14 AM in response to Paardeslager

I just hate this, but I swore that I wouldn't upgrade anything for months after its release. I may wait for iOS12 to install iOS 11.99 and iTunes 13 to install the last release of 12. It just isn't worth it. But i hope this thread will continue to provide info to us all on how all of this unfolds...

Sep 22, 2018 7:11 AM in response to WSC33

I’ve updated to iOS 12 and iTunes 12.9. However, when I sync, I can’t get passed the backup step. It just stays on that step until I cancel. Therefore, I can’t sync at all with iTunes. Anyone else have this problem? So sick of Apple

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The ipad cannot be synced. An internal device error occurred.