Running into "waiting for items to copy" bug again with iPad, iOS 12 and iTunes (after Apple mystery update applied - If you see "Software update is required to connect to your iOS device" on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Suppo…) on macOS Sierra. About 7,700 photos sync from Aperture. I'll let it run another 30 minutes but I doubt this resolves.
Any tips?
I gave up and disconnected and restarted the iPad, when everything settled, the images all seemed to transferred. On a later sync it took about 30min but finished. After that it's ok.
My theory is that as images come across the iPad starts trying to process them. The thread executing that blocks the final handshake between device and iTunes. So iTunes just waits while the iPad does image processing (people faces, etc) on 7700 images. Really iTunes should be done when the images are across, it doesn't need to wait hours for the images to be processed.
I removed all images form my iPad then tried again moving over a few hundred. That worked. So I tried with 8,000 or so. The progress counter seemed to move over well, but at the end it hung with "waiting for items to copy". I think the progress counter is misleading, it tracks addition to a queue, not confirmed transfer to the device. Looking at my device I think the process died somewhere around 4,600 items.
I've seen this bug in iOS 11. I'm using Sierra and Aperture, but I suspect from past reports that this bug will impact Photos on High Sierra too. I might experiment with transferring 2,000 images at a time in incremental updates.
Another option might be to export from Aperture to a folder then sync from the folder but I've a hunch that would hit the same bug.
iTunes photo sync with iOS 12: "waiting for items to copy"
