Its come to my attention that a lot of people are having issues syncing iPads, iPhones and iPods to iTunes. It would seem that even though the device is set up to sync with iTunes correctly, sometimes it just feels like being a jerk and not syncing. I’m a big fan of Apple products, but it’s no secret that syncing with iTunes can be a little buggy. In this article are a bunch of methods that have worked for other people, and hopefully will work for you.
First if you simply need help understanding how to sync with iTunes or how to set it up you can check my other post, Sync your iOS device with iTunes over Wi-Fi.
These fixes are what I have found through hours of reading articles and forums, as well as speaking to people through twitter and other online resources to find out what has the highest chances of working. These instructions may work for you, however nothing is guaranteed as it’s pretty much trial and error. Try each solution, then attempt to sync, if it doesn’t work, go to the next solution and so on. I will put them in order of easiest and quickest methods, down to the more drastic.
- If syncing over Wi-Fi, make sure both your computer and iOS device are connected to the same Wi-Fi network.
- Restart your iOS device, restart computer and restart your wireless router if your device syncs over Wi-Fi.
- Plug in your iPad, iPhone or iPod into iTunes. Uncheck “Sync with this [your device] over Wi-Fi”. Click Apply. Check “Sync with this [your device] over Wi-Fi”. Click Apply. It also may help to disable “Home Sharing” and then re-enable it.
- Uninstalling iTunes and then re-installing it may work. If you take this route make sure to do a backup first.
- If you just want your iOS device to sync and don’t care if it syncs over Wi-Fi or by plugging it in with the cable, then just deselect “Sync with this [your device] over Wi-Fi”.
Devices pane
Remember that with the new iTunes (11) the devices tab has moved from the left side to the top right hand side of iTunes. If none of the above made iTunes recognize or connect to your device you could always restore your device (wipe everything off it then restore it with a backup). I have heard many people fix most syncing issues with this method. However make sure you have made a backup if you take this route, so that you can restore all your settings and apps ect, when you’re done restoring.
Instructions for restoring your device are at the bottom of this article.
If you want to bring back the left side-panel that shows all the devices connected, Music, Movies ect. Then go to the menu bar in iTunes -> View -> Show Sidebar.
- If you have “Manually manage music and videos” checked, try unchecking it and then syncing. After recheck it and try syncing. Also make sure you have the music or video selected when syncing.
- If your apps aren’t syncing properly try to deauthorize and then reauthorize your computer. To do this, open iTunes, go to the menu bar and select -> Store -> “Deauthorize This Computer”. After it’s done, simply select “Authorize This Computer”.
- In your device window under the Summary tab, check to see if “Sync only checked songs and videos” is checked, if it is make sure you have the music or video selected when syncing.
- If your music isn’t syncing, go to the Music tab in your iOS devices window in iTunes and uncheck “Sync Music”. Click Apply. Once done, check “Sync Music”. Try the same thing if it’s something else like your Movies that isn’t syncing.
- The only options that I have selected under the iTunes summary page is “Sync this iPhone over Wi-Fi” and “Prefer standard definition videos”. Syncing working well for me with these options selected, maybe it would also work for you.
- Restoring your device may work. Instructions on how to do this are at the bottom of the page.
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Device Window
Go to the devices window and select the “On this [your device] tab. Make sure the song is checked, once checked it should change from grey to black and then be playable.
- An issue that is surprisingly common when trying to sync with iTunes via the USB cable is simply that the USB cable is faulty. I know it may sound strange, but if nothing here works, then you may need to use a different/new USB cable or even trying syncing over Wi-Fi.
- If when/after you sync you notice that the song is greyed out on your iOS Device then the song may not be in the proper format. Right click on the song in the iTunes and select “Create AAC version”. This will create a new version of the music file. Delete the original song file and sync the newly created AAC version.
- Check to see if you have “Manually manage music and videos” or “Sync only checked songs and videos” selected in the Summary tab of your devices window, if it is make sure you have the music or video selected when syncing.
- Go to the Settings app on your iOS device and then tap “iTunes & App Stores”, turn off Automatic Downloads for Music, Apps and Books. Connect your device to iTunes, go through the device page and uncheck “Sync Music”, then click Apply. After it’s done check “Sync Music”. Turn Automatic Downloads back on if you like.
- Sign out of all iTunes accounts on your iOS device and iTunes, then sign back in.
- There is a very good chance that restoring your iOS device will also fix this issue.
Restoring your device will wipe everything off of it, so if you want to restore everything make sure you make a backup!
- Disconnect the USB cable from the iPad, iPhone or iPod
- Launch iTunes
- Turn off your iOS device. (Press and hold the Home and Power button until it turns off)
- Press and hold the Home button while you reconnect the USB cable
- Keep holding down the home button until iTunes shows an alert saying that a device in recovery mode has been detected.
Sometimes restoring your device and setting up as a new device instead of restoring from a backup works as well, however this should be only used if nothing else works.
If you need help backing up and restoring check out my other article: 2 ways to backup your iPod, iPhone and iPad
If you had a problem syncing and have found a different method that works, please post it in the comments section below.
I liked the old iTunes more than the iTunes 11. it used to have that panel on the left side where I could go into my iPod.
February 3, 2013 at 9:20 pmHello Amanda, it’s very easy to have the sidebar show up just like it did in the earlier versions of iTunes. When in iTunes go to the menu bar -> View -> Show Sidebar. Alternatively you use the keyboard shortcut; press the “options” key and the “command” key down then tap the “s” key.
February 3, 2013 at 9:28 pmOMG I feel like an idiot for not knowing that. Thanks lol
February 5, 2013 at 1:02 amBought my daughter an ipod and have spent literally 6 hours attempting to just get music on the thing, from a CD we had put in the computer. I understood about getting the songs into the itune library first, but would they show on the ipod?? Kept saying ‘no content’. Finally, after going all over the net and being told to click the device pane (which I couldn’t blooming well find, and no-one explained how to find the device pane), I found your thread and the ‘show sidebar’ advice you gave solved the problem. Thank you for a guide for ‘thickies’, as everyone else (Apple included!) seems to think that we all should automatically know the basics! You have just saved an iPod Touch from being stamped to death.
February 7, 2013 at 9:41 amI’m glad to hear you found my article helpful, and I’m pretty sure your daughters iPod is glad not to have been “stamped to death” haha.
For a quick reference, the device pane is accessible from the button located at the upper right side of iTunes, incase you were curious.
February 7, 2013 at 11:16 amGood stuff, here, but I have something imitate but not resolved…
My new iPad appears in iTunes. I selected the apps to install and the ones to remove, but whe. I tell it to apply or sync, it goes through the steps quickly, but does not change the apps that were to be affected.
Thanks for any advice on this.
Steven.
February 27, 2013 at 3:57 pmBefore we delve to deep into what could be the cause can you tell me what options you have checked on your devices summary page in iTunes?
February 27, 2013 at 4:37 pmThanks for responding so fast. I tried to delete my post after finding the solution, but I couldn’t find this site until I got your email.
Turns out I had to de-authorize my computer, and reauthorize it for each account I wanted to sync apps with. Simple enough, but not intuitive.
Thanks very much for responding, and your helpful replies to other users.
BTW – Sorry ’bout the confusing first sentence… should have read “similar” not “imitate”… Not sure where Siri got that from!
February 27, 2013 at 5:14 pmI’m glad to hear you were able to resolve the issue your were having with your iOS device. Thanks for coming back and posting the solution that worked for you. If it worked for you it may be something that will work for someone else. I’ll add it to the article.
Haha, thought that looked like Siri’s handy work. Again, thanks Steven.
February 27, 2013 at 11:59 pmWhen I try to sync movies to my iPad, following the normal process of checking the boxes etc it shows as it is syncing going through the 5 processs though no movies are on my iPad? When I check the on thisipad tab it shows the movies there though the text is very faint and a small broken line circular icon is next to the movie name? I can watch the movies through home sharing though I want to down,lad them onto my iPad for travel etc
Help please ?? It is winding me up haha
March 1, 2013 at 4:56 amThat’s strange that is happening. I’ll need a bit more info to try and narrow it down though. First try these steps:
1. Connect your iPad to iTunes, go to the Summary Page -> Movies, uncheck “Sync Movies”. Now sync the iPad (this will remove any movies currently on the iPad). Once it’s done, close iTunes, then reopen it. Go back to the Movies tab, and check “Sync Movies”, then mark the movie you want to sync. I had this same issue once on my iPhone and it fixed it for me. No idea why though.
2. Try to simply drag the movie into your iPad. Go to “Movies” in iTunes (not under the device, in the actual iTunes library) and simply drag the movie over to the right. A side panel on will slide into view from the right hand side, just drop it onto the iPad.
Is this movie from the iTunes store or did you convert it yourself? If you converted it, what format did you convert it from and what format/extension is it now?
March 1, 2013 at 10:48 amI seem to be having similar problems syncing my iPhone 4, having already sync’d my iPad mini. It would appear that my phone is not communicating with my pc. It’s only he music which won sync everything else has been transferred. So annoying!
March 3, 2013 at 4:03 amTry unchecking, sync music. Click apply/sync. Now go back and check sync music. Click apply/sync.
This has a somewhat high success rate.
March 3, 2013 at 11:54 amHere’s the solution for syncing iPhone’s with iTunes for PC’s. I got this answer from an apple Genius. 1. right click on iTunes icon, 2. left click on Properties, 3. left click click on compatibility, 4.check box for Privilege Level/ Run this program as an administrator, apply, save.
August 31, 2014 at 5:51 pmHi
For some reason my iPad and IPod won’t sync with iTunes. I then downloaded the newest version of iTunes but it is still not working. I am afraid of losing all my data and can’t backup because the wifi sync also doesn’t want to work. What should I do next?
March 7, 2013 at 6:41 amAre you able to backup to icloud in the meantime? http://appducate.com/2013/01/2-ways-to-backup-your-ipod-iphone-and-ipad/
Also have you tried syncing without syncing over wifi?
March 7, 2013 at 10:08 amHi Damien
Thanks for your reply. This morning the printer wouldn’t work either. You won’t believe it, we restarted everything and I connected my iPod and it synced!! iPad as well! We had a power failure yesterday, I think that threw everything out and the restart fixed it. Thanks for your help. :)
March 7, 2013 at 10:44 pmHey Retha, I’m glad to hear your iOS devices are syncing properly again. Also thanks for coming back and letting us know that you got it resolved.
March 7, 2013 at 10:56 pmHi there, I’m having problems syncing my Iphone4s. I have tried all your methods (where applicable) and nothing seems to work! i feel like i’ve tried everything. I recently got a replacement iphone from apple and when i tried to set it up with my computer (after having actually set it up withouttttt my computer- just using the steps on the phone) it wouldn’t sync my music! Initially it wouldn’t sync anything. Later on, when i synced again it added my photos but still no music. I have 11.01 iTunes on my mac, and have checked sync when iphone is connected. Although i’ve tried doing it manually as well! PLEASE HELP! Very frustrated.
March 8, 2013 at 11:08 pmHello Cathy, that does seem like an odd issue. I may need some extra info in order to fully help though.
Before any of that though, have you tried selecting the songs in iTunes (not in the iphone summary) and dragging it to the right? Normally you should be able to simply drag it over to the right which will bring up all your connected devices where you can just drop it onto your iPhone.
If that doesn’t work could you tell me what options you have selected under “Options” in your iPhones summary page?
Are you receiving any messages/errors at all while trying to sync?
When you initially startup iTunes and plug your device in, what exact steps do you take to sync?
Sorry for so many questions, but the more info you can give me the better I can attempt to help you out.
March 8, 2013 at 11:28 pmWhen I plug in my iPod to sync it, it syncs all my music, but only syncs SOME of the pictures. I get a pop up on the screen that says “High resolution images synced via iTunes are missing. Connect your device to the computer you sync photos from and launch iTunes to sync them.” But I’ve always synced my photos from this computer, none of the photo folders that are connected to my iPod have been tampered with at all. And when I try syncing, I also get a pop up on iTunes saying I’m missing a folder or something? I don’t know what folder it could possibly be talking about because, once again, I haven’t tampered with any of the folders.
March 11, 2013 at 5:24 amIt may be an issue with your photos database. Try un-syncing all photos on your iPod and then syncing. Go to the summary page -> Photos -> Deselect Sync all Photos from [location here]. Now press sync. Go to your iPod, make sure all synced pictures are removed. No go back into iTunes, enable photos and sync.
Also are you using an iPod Classic or an iPod Touch? If you are using an iPod Classic make sure to select “Include Full Resolution Images”.
March 11, 2013 at 1:01 pmHi Damien
I have 2 apple devices Iphone 4 (ios 6.1.2) and Ipad3 (ios 5.1.1)
I try to sync my music libray with iphone i have a problem withe grey circle that you write in your article. I can’t sync music i try all method and it all fail. With ipad i dont have any prolems with syncing. Do you know how i can solve this problem ??
March 21, 2013 at 4:06 amThat’s odd that it is syncing to your iPad and not your iPhone. Do you have all the same options selected under the Summary page on both your devices? Do some of your songs sync with your iPhone or are they all greyed out? Have you tried selecting the songs in iTunes (not in the iphone summary) and dragging it to the right? You should be able to simply drag it over to the right which will bring up all your connected devices, where you can just drop it onto your iPhone.
Sorry for all the questions, but the more info I have the better I can attempt to help out.
March 21, 2013 at 10:10 amI have tried over three hours to fix my problem with every advice available on the net: My MacBook Air shows no problem syncing my iphone 5 with itunes 11, however the songs i choose to be synced are grey and have the little circle, they can only be seen on iTunes on my MacBook, not on my iphone. iTunes doesn’t give me any error message or idea why this isn’t working. The rest of the syncing is ok, it also syncs to my ipad. I’ve tried sync/unsync, connect/disconnect, wifi/usb, manually/automatically, autofill, deleted my iphone from the backup list, I rebooted, turned itunes match off, everything – nothing helps. Last thing I haven’t tried is to restore my iPhone, because iTunes tells me that some items I’ve purchased are going to get lost because they can’t be transfered into the library. I’m getting frustrated and would much appreciate any more help.
March 24, 2013 at 1:46 amThanks for being so descriptive, it defiantly helps me understand the issue.
1. Were the songs purchased from the iTunes Store? If so it may be an issue with the song being downloaded (synced through iCloud).
2. Are you able to manually transfer media from your device into your iTunes library? File -> Devices -> Transfer Purchases from [your devices name here].
March 24, 2013 at 1:45 pmThanks for your quick answer.
1. I would say about half the songs were downloaded from the store.
2. This has worked!
I found out that the syncing process isn’t functioning properly with my mail either. If I delete items on one device, it doesn’t delete them from the other devices. Could this help finding a solution to the problem?
March 24, 2013 at 2:11 pm1. Is it just the songs that have been downloaded from the store that are greyed out?
2. That’s good that at least that works, it narrows it down a little bit more. Means there is a high probability that it isn’t a problem with iTunes sync, and more so iCloud sync. I assume now you would be able to restore if you needed to without loosing your purchased media?
3. Mail syncing can be buggy, I notice it myself all the time. It usually fixes itself… or just doesn’t work half the time.
It does sound like it could be a problem with iCloud sync/download. Try disabling and then enabling automatic downloads on your iOS device (settings -> iTunes and App Stores)
March 24, 2013 at 3:25 pm1. All songs are greyed out. No matter which source.
2. No, still can’t be done. Same pop up shows.
3. I’ve tried to off/on the icloud syncing – this did not fix the problem. Should I just turn the iCloud syncing off and use a USB cable?
I’ve got another information that might be useful, I can’t download purchased songs from the iTunes store (iTunes>More>Downloads) on my iPhone.
Could it be, that I am not allowed to play those songs on more than three devices? Since I have changed laptop several times, now ipad, iPhone could it be that those songs are blocked or something?
March 24, 2013 at 4:06 pm1. Turned into step 5
2. Even after manually transferring media from the device successfully it still says you have purchased items on the device that would be lost if restored?
3. I actually don’t believe that turning iCloud syncing off will do anything to help out.
4. It may very well be that you have to many devices authorized. If I’m not wrong I believe you are allowed to have 5 devices authorized to one account. To manage the authorized device open iTunes -> Go to the iTunes Store -> Go to your account -> Sign in -> click Manage Devices. Remove all the devices that you don’t want authorized to your account.
5. If nothing works, you may have no choice but to restore your device. Of course I’d also suggest getting in contact with Apple Support.
March 25, 2013 at 3:33 pmdeleting and restoring my ipad helped
March 24, 2013 at 6:00 pmThanks for your advice, it really worked, what a pain that iTunes can’t just sync properly in the first place!
March 25, 2013 at 10:06 amI don’t know what did the trick, but I could restore without any loss of data after all and restoring fixed my problem :D Thanks a lot for your help anyone. You guys just made me very happy!
March 26, 2013 at 2:17 pmOh – special thanks to Damien – awesome service!
March 26, 2013 at 2:19 pmHey Carola, I’m glad to hear syncing is finally working for you. And thank you for the complement as well as coming back to let me know it’s working for you now :)
March 26, 2013 at 2:23 pmBe sure to check the location of your iTunes library. I keep my music on a media server not the C: drive. For reasons unknown to me, iTunes will revert back to the default C: drive location once or twice a year. It can’t sync if it can’t find the music.
March 26, 2013 at 8:11 pmInteresting, I’ve never seen or heard of that happening before. Thanks for letting us know.
March 26, 2013 at 8:35 pmHey Damien, I’m really hoping you can help me.
I just bought a new iPhone 5. I tried to sync it the way I always have, with all of my old iPhones but this one simply refuses to cooperate! I’m not getting an error message of any sort, but the sync does happen VERY quickly, as many others here have reported. I have not been able to sync apps, music, tones, or photos.
Most of my apps I finally uploaded from iCloud in the AppStore through my phone, but I still am not able to upload the bigger capacity ones.
When I try to sync with music selected, the bottom capacity bar, in iTunes, shows the blue portion for music at about half of my phone’s capacity, but the music doesn’t show up on my phone. Strangely enough, when I bought a new song through iTunes yesterday, it did show up on my phone via iCloud’s automatic download option.
I have old photos in my camera roll that do show up on my phone (that were on my previous phone), but none of the photos I choose in iTunes (even the events that were on my old phone) show up on my new phone. They do not show up in the capacity bar at the bottom of iTunes either. (Did that make sense?)
Tones are selected as well but do not show up in phone either, as previously mentioned.
I have tried everything on your list shy of reinstalling iTunes.
I have the latest software on both my iPhone and my MacBook Pro.
I have tried deselecting/selecting every option I can think of, both on my phone and on my Mac…even changing languages on my phone, as one website suggested.
Do you have any other suggests I may be able to try? This is driving me nuts! :)
April 4, 2013 at 1:27 pmHi Rebecca, sorry for taking so long to get back to you. From what you say it sounds like you’ve tried almost everything out there to get your new iPhone to sync properly. For your circumstances, I do not think that uninstalling and reinstalling iTunes will do anything for you.
The most probable solution I can think of is to restore your iPhone though iTunes. You probably already know how to do this, however just incase, go the Summary Page of your iPhone in iTunes and click the “Restore iPhone” button. I actually had the same problem when I first bought my iPhone 4S, restoring it fixed it for me.
April 5, 2013 at 12:37 amThanks for your response, Damien. I had restored my phone twice before your response, but your response made me question my computer, rather than my phone. I realized that my computer was not updating the new iPhone software (although my phone had). That seemed to be causing the issue. When I restored for the third time, making sure that my computer had the updated software, it worked a bit better. This time it erased my favourite contacts, my wallpapers and all of my text messages but I can handle that. :) Thanks again!
April 8, 2013 at 7:44 amI am beyond frustrated with Itunes I use to be a hard core apple supported as I love how my ipad/ipod/iphone/mac all synced together until recently. I FINALLY had a chance to upgrade to the newest itunes and downloaded new music and went to put it on my ipod. Well I plugged it in and it said it wasn’t recognized and needed restored. So I did that thinking it was because I hadn’t used it in a while as I had the Ipad but it was just recently stollen so back to ipod I went. Well I restored it and low and behold i resync it and it now says it finished syncing but the music will not sync. I have tried changing all the boxes to only checked songs and so forth. Nothing helps. It goes through the syncing process… it shows the blue part in the data that shows that it has music on it but as soon as the syncing is finished the blue disapears and there is no music on my ipod. I am beyond frustrated! help!?!?!
April 5, 2013 at 12:41 pmHello Marissa, that does seem to be quite the frustrating predicament.
1. What options do you actually have selected under Summary page in iTunes right now?
2. Have you tried simply dragging your music onto your iPod? (select song, drag to the right, window will slide into view, drop the music on your iPod.
3. Does anything sync to your iPod or is it just the music that doesn’t sync?
April 5, 2013 at 12:55 pmMy ipod sync gets to stage 3 and stops. I have recently got new music on itunes and really need it for a playlist on my ipod!! I’ve tried most of the tips on this website but none have worked :/
April 7, 2013 at 8:17 amI’ve had the same problem, whereby the latest cd’s added to itunes were not syncing. When I tried your solution above to drag a specific track across to my iphone a message popped up saying the iphone was linked to itunes match. So what I thought? Then I found out my mac was NOT linked to itunes match – somehow this had become disassociated with match during (I assume) one of the itunes upgrades. When I turned on match everything’s fine.
April 7, 2013 at 9:47 amThats interesting, thanks for letting us know about that.
April 11, 2013 at 12:47 pmDamien, you may be the man who can help me!
I’ve recently bought a new pc and have copied the iTunes folder from the old to the new. I backed up my iPhone on the old pc and then connected the phone to iTunes on the new one (ensuring that it didn’t sync automatically). I then did a backup and transferred all my purchases to iTunes. All the files and folders seem to be where they should be but I can’t get the phone to sync properly. It will sync music ok and backs up ok, I just can’t get updated/new apps to copy to the phone. Also, new apps that I purchase on the phone will not copy to iTunes automatically – I have to manually transfer them via the File menu each time. I’ve done the latest update to v6.1.3 via iTunes and that went fine.
Since buying the new computer, I’ve also bought an iPad. This I have set up on the new pc without any problem and it syncs perfectly. It has the same boxes checked in iTunes as the phone.
As the problem is pretty minor (since I can update or buy apps straight to the phone and it seems to be backing up ok) I am very reluctant to restore the phone. I have, however, tried many of the other suggestions such as de-authorising the pc and re-authorising it, and I’m now out of ideas!
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Maybe I have a file or folder in the wrong place? I do seem to have 2 different itunespreferences files – one in the iTunes folder and one in the iTunes media folder. If I remove the oldest file though (which I probably copied over from the old pc), it seems to make no difference. Could it be something like this or something much more simple?
April 10, 2013 at 2:31 amHi
I’ve got my iPad on my main PC with 1 Apple ID & I’ve bought an iPad for my adult son who is severely Autistic.
His iPad, I’ve hooked up to a laptop and it’s on a different ID (my spare email address). I kept it separate as I didn’t want all my emails & personal stuff being read by the care staff. (This iTunes thing is beyond me)
I’ve purchased an expensive App for communication & it’s downloaded onto the laptop for my son’s iPad. The App says that loads of info can be shared from iPad to iPad as long as both devices have the App.
Now, I’ve learnt how to Home Share and I’ve shared my music library over to my son’s library – yey! I have then done home-share again & managed to get the Communication App to show up in my library. I have tried to sync the App onto my iPad. The App is showing on my main PC as ‘will install’ but my iPad isn’t sync-ing. The device does show up in iTunes but the sync isn’t happening.
I was hoping to help my son as I’m at home & he lives in a care home. If I could update the App (on my iPad) from home, then the latest Foods & Places to Go pictures/symbols, can be transferred onto my son’s iPad over Wi-Fi when I go to visit him.
Please advise – am I trying something that can’t be done? or am I just useless at this?
Finally, is it right that when I connect my iPad to my PC with the lead, that is says ‘Not Charging’
April 11, 2013 at 12:40 pmFrom my understanding it sounds as if you’ve purchased the app from your main Apple ID. To get it on your sons iPad, it need to be downloaded from the app store onto his iPad. Since his iPad uses a different Apple ID (not the ID that you used to purchase the app) then it needs to be bought again from the Apple ID account that is on your sons iPad.
Of course, you probably don’t want to purchase it again. The way to do this without purchasing it again would be to go onto your sons iPad, log out of the account that is currently logged onto the App Store (in the iPad). Once logged out, you’d need to log into the account that you purchased the app on, and then download it to your sons iPad. This won’t show your emails or any other personal information from your main Apple ID, it’ll simply download the app to the iPad.
As for the “Not Charging” I assume your iPad is a newer iPad with the newer connection cable. It isn’t unusual that it’s isn’t charging. This is simply because the USB port on your computer doesn’t have enough power to charge the iPad. It’s the same with my computer, and I believe everyone else who uses the new charging cables.
April 11, 2013 at 12:58 pmWow Damien, I can’t believe how quickly you have responded – a great big Gold star for you!!
Thanks for your response – as I am so stupid with all this stuff, could you please clarify exactly what I should do………..You were nearly there but slightly the wrong way round ……..-
My own iPad on my PC is on email #1
Son’s iPad on laptop is on my email #2
I purchased App using email #2 and put it onto son’s laptop
Done Homeshare onto my PC and now have the App showing in my PC Library
Highlighted the App – says ‘Will install’
Can’t get the bugger to sync so nothing was happening :-(
I have been onto my iPad and signed in as the #2 ID account. I’ve then plugged my iPad into son’s laptop iTunes. The window came up with Erase & Sync OR Transfer Purchases. I chose Transfer Purchases, something quick happened in the box at the top of the screen then I got loads of messages that ‘This iPad is already sync’ed to another account, erase & sync’ – mad panic as I couldn’t get off quick enough!
Am really miffed now as my iPad has loads on it (that I can’t afford to lose) and my son’s new iPad is empty, bar the App that I bought & put onto his.
Please help
PS I’ve got a new Windows 8 computer and have plugged my lightning connector into one of the 2 USB 3.0 ports and not the old 2.0 ports that are at the back of the PC. This ‘lightning’ connector is the stupidest word they could have chosen ‘cos it’s the slowest thing in the world to charge
April 11, 2013 at 1:39 pmThanks for the gold star, I’ve loved those ever since elementary school haha. Sorry this second response took me so long I had to leave to go to work.
Ah, I see, sorry for the confusion.
The easiest way for you to get the app onto your iPad (email #1) would be to download it directly from the iPads App Store (not through syncing with iTunes on your PC). iTunes sync can be pretty finicky when it comes to these kind of things, this is why I would suggest completely bypassing syncing with iTunes for this specific app. I have another article about how to sync with multiple iTunes libraries ( http://appducate.com/2013/01/sync-an-ios-device-to-multiple-itunes-without-erasing/ ), however this other method is simpler.
On your iPad (the one that currently does not have the app installed) open the App Store app (not iTunes on your computer). If you are already logged in on email #1 on the iPads App Store then log out (scroll to bottom). Once logged out, you’ll see the sign in button. Sign into email #2. Navigate to the app, and download it directly onto your iPad. Since you’ve already boughten it, you won’t have to pay for it again.
Next, to sync/backup the app to iTunes on your PC, you’ll need to authorize your iTunes account on your PC so that it can sync apps from email #2 as well as email #1. In the menu bar of iTunes, click Store -> Authorize. Enter email #2.
Hopefully this was able to resolve your issue, let me know if it still gives you problems.
April 12, 2013 at 12:39 amHi Damien,
What can I say – You are a Life-Saver !!
I am getting the jist of this now. Somewhere along the way, during home sharing, I ended up authorising the main PC to accept email #2 so I can sort of ‘get’ where the iPad App was showing up on my iTunes email #1 library, hence it saying ‘will install’.
I have been on my iPad, changed the email to #2 and low & behold, it said Install and I now have it on my iPad :-0
Before I hook my iPad onto iTunes, what do I do?? I am frightened of this bit. Do I leave my iPad on the other #2 email and open up iTunes and hope it syncs?? Do I return my iPad back to my proper #1 email (with all my world on it) before attaching it to iTunes. It’s just that I get into a mad panic when the boxes come up saying it will erase & delete.
I’m thinking I return my iPad back to my own email and then sync it and it should add any new Apps installed but that’s where I get confused……..as yesterday, right-clicked the App on the library and it said it belonged to email #2. It just needs finalising and making official before I can breathe a sigh of relief.
Now the App is on my iPad, all of the work I have put in to creating a Communication Aid for my son on what will be his iPad, should now just transfer an identical copy onto mine ;-) I should then be able to create new stuff on mine at home, set it out right and then seamlessly transfer it onto his whenever I am visiting – He’d never let me take his away to do it (once I’ve given it to him) and it wouldn’t be fair to do so.
So, I’m 3/4’s there and just need my hand holding for this last bit if you don’t mind. I am truly grateful for your help & assistance Damien.
Thanks so much
April 12, 2013 at 5:28 amYou don’t really need to change your iPads App Store login to sync with iTunes, although you should change it back to email #1 just because you probably don’t want to accidentally purchase an app to email #2 (it’s not really important though). If iTunes on your PC is authorized for email #2, it should sync/backup the app to your PC.
Good luck Jaybird.
April 12, 2013 at 9:36 pmThanks so much for all of your help – it is really appreciated :-)
I haven’t sync’d it yet but thanks for clarifying.
I did try to wirelessly transfer all of the data across into my empty programme but there was an error – chances are its cos I was transferring it from me to me & not to another person who has the same App. There has to be a con somewhere I suppose!
Looks like I will have to do it manually so that I have the exact copy of my son’s for safe keeping.
Cheers Damien :-)
April 13, 2013 at 4:14 amGood luck Jaybird, and you’re welcome :)
April 13, 2013 at 12:45 pmThank you. Deauthorize/Authorize worked for my iPad.
April 12, 2013 at 5:19 pmAwesome, thanks for the feedback.
April 12, 2013 at 8:17 pmI was going nuts trying to reconcile the issue of my iPhone 4S not syncing with iTunes. Songs always came up gray on the phone even when changed to AAC format. My partner with the same type of phone was having no problems. Eventually I used her USB cable & found the problem was solved. Seemed I’d been using an older iPhone/Ipod cable.
April 21, 2013 at 11:13 pmThanks for taking to time to post the solution that work you. I’ve heard of this being the cause off syncing issues from a few people now. I’ll update the article with this information.
April 23, 2013 at 12:42 amThe cable that came with my iPhone 3GS would not sync my 4S, I never thought the cable would be the issue, but it seems that it was. I changed over to the cable that came with it and it synced right away, thanks.
May 19, 2013 at 1:03 amTHIS is the Solution for me i have spent all day long to fix my new iphone and i forgot about the cables so after a half day i started to search the web fordsolutions and i had to wait 53 minutes to restore my phone and it did not woork with my old CABLE so when i changed it to the NEW cable it worked so now i can synck my 870 song that i have been trying to Sync over to my phone
well TY guys it was like 1.5 years ago i did find this soultions my self but had forgoten about the “CABLE” issue so try this firt befor you do anything else it might save you hours of work and irretation LOL
anyway in the ens everything works by trial and error LMAO =)
July 14, 2013 at 4:30 pmI am having a really odd problem. My device seems to sync, and I can transfer music onto it, but when I open the iPhone tab on iTunes, it acts like I’ve never synced. I can click on the different “tabs”, like “music”, “apps”, etc, but nothing changes, and then the “done” tab is greyed out like it doesn’t recognize it? I just don’t understand what’s going on and it’s very frustrating to not be able to manage my device on my computer! By the way it’s an iPhone 4S, and I’m on Windows XP running iTunes 11.0.2.26. Thank you so much for any help!!!
May 1, 2013 at 1:30 amOh my goodness, I just figured it out. I have a netbook, and apparently lower on that screen there was a “get started” button that I had to press (this is a new phone for me) but I couldn’t see it because my screen was too small and there was no scroll bar. But when I opened the lefthand column to manage my device and iTunes and etc, and clicked on the music tab under my iPhone, there WAS a scroll bar and I could scroll down and see the “get started” button. And that’s all it took. Good grief!
May 1, 2013 at 1:51 amHaha, wow good thing you figured it out. I would have never guessed that that was the solution. Anyways thanks for coming back and letting us know how you got it working.
May 1, 2013 at 9:35 amThanks so much for this – I have been having problems with all my music disappearing off my iPhone 4s, then time-outs when trying to copy files across, and greyed out files even when they DID copy & sync. Spent hours looking through articles. FINALLY read this and saw the comment about the cable being the issue – and voila! Changed the cable, problem solved. Thanks!
May 9, 2013 at 12:40 amThanks for the feedback Tracey. I’m actually surprised at how often the issue seems to be that the cable is simply faulty.
May 9, 2013 at 12:56 pmHi Damien,
I am having trouble just connecting my devices with i-tunes and wondering if you can help. I have just downloaded the most recent version of i-tunes but now neither of my devices seem to connect, where they did so before. I have an iphone and an ipod nano but when I now plug either in, the device does not appear within i-tunes, not does it show as connected on the device screen itself. Do you have any ideas?
May 12, 2013 at 10:31 amSo I tried everything you said about the ipod not syncing properly with itunes. I have over 4000 songs on my itunes library which used to sync with my ipod, then yesterday my ipod came back with only 1500 of those songs. After trying what you suggested, I ended up with 40. I don’t know what happened, but I tried everything on that list.
May 14, 2013 at 11:45 pmim having somewhat of the same problem. i recently downloaded a bunch of new music and when i tried to sync it to my ipod (4th gen touch), it said i didnt have enough space. so i deleted a ton of apps but it kept telling me that i still didnt have enough space, even though i know i did. i tried unchecking and checking the “sync music” button in itunes, but that didnt delete or change anything. i eventually read on an apple forum that going on the actually ipod and general and just deleting all of the music from there and re-syncing would work, but i cant get it to re-sync. i go to itunes and go to the “on my ipod” tab, and all of the songs are greyed out and have little grey dotted circles next to them. ive tried almost everything…all of the songs are checked in the music tab and will play fine from there, ive tried resetting my ipod (not to factory settings but holding the home and power button), restarting my computer, reinstalling itunes…nothing has worked. thank you so much!
May 21, 2013 at 4:09 pmHello Meghan, it sounds like you’ve attempted pretty much everything to get your iPod to sync again. The specific problem you are having with the greyed out music sounds like it could be an issue with your USB cord. I’m not 100% positive, however in the past with the greyed out music it is sometimes related to the USB cord being faulty. If you have an extra cable laying around give it a try.
Alternatively you could try to sync it over Wi-Fi? iPod summary page -> Sync with this iPod over Wi-Fi.
May 22, 2013 at 12:25 amI’ve tried 2 seperate cables, they both did the same thing. I’ve been able to wifi sync before, but now when i go to the tab on my ipod the “sync now” button is greyed out, even though my computer is on and my itunes is up.
May 22, 2013 at 2:55 pmThere are only two things that I can think of that may be considered a solution.
1. In the music window of iTunes (not your devices summary page) are you able to drag a song directly onto your iPod (drag to the right, drop on iPod icon that slide in)?
2. I’m not exactly sure what happened, or why, but you may have to restore you device in order to fix this. (backup first if you do).
May 23, 2013 at 12:13 amwhen i try to drag a song onto the ipod tab, it hesitates for a second and the “meghan’s ipod” blinks blue a few times. i dont know if that is supposed to happen?
May 23, 2013 at 1:45 pmYes, it’s supposed to blink a few times. I just did it on my iPhone to make sure. In the status bar at the top you should now see a progress bar showing it being transferred over. At least that’s what my iPhone just did.
If even that isn’t working, I’d suggest doing a restore.
May 24, 2013 at 11:56 amThank you!!! I couldn’t get my Music and Movies to Sync and so many of the solutions I found elsewhere were so complicated and time consuming. For me it was as simple as you stated above… “If your music isn’t syncing, go to the Music tab in your iOS devices window in iTunes and uncheck “Sync Music”. Click Apply. Once done, check “Sync Music”. Try the same thing if it’s something else like your Movies that isn’t syncing.”
That worked like a charm and I shared this page on another site with similar complaints.
May 26, 2013 at 12:53 pmHi Damien, excellent piece :)
I tried every option in the suggested order (including a new USB cable), but form me reinstalling a backup did the trick.
Reinstall took under 10 min BTW (iPhone 4S – 64Gb)
All the best, Reinier
June 2, 2013 at 2:15 amHey Damian I’m having a problem where itunes starts to sync then on step 4 of 6 when its doing the apps it just stops and gives no explanation. (my ipod is connected to the computer thru a USB but I don’t think thats the problem because I use that USB to charge it) Any help would be greatly appreciated.
June 7, 2013 at 2:06 pmHello Tom, what opinions do you have selected under options in the devices summary page in iTunes? Also from the list above, what fixes have you attempted?
June 8, 2013 at 12:49 pmHi Damien,
I have an issue with my new iPad Mini that I can’t seem to fix. Basically, the iPad is brand new with a new Apple ID to go with it. I opened up my iTunes on my laptop (Macbook Pro) which is empty as my laptop is fairly new as well, and purchased a few songs and movies using my Apple ID and downloaded them onto my iTunes. I connected my iPad and set it up as a “New iPad” and then selected my preferences – sync over wifi, sync manually etc – and checked “Sync Music” and “Sync Movies” etc, however, when I went to sync, it got to Step 4/6 “Transferring Downloads from iPad” and then iTunes froze and I had to force quit. I had purchased a few apps on my device beforehand, and so to attempt to fix this, I downloaded these apps onto my iTunes via iCloud. Anyway, this kept happening and so I let it remain frozen and left my laptop alone for a while. When I came back it had “Synced”, but there was no new content on my iPad. When I navigate to the “On My iPad” tab on my iTunes, I can see the content there, however it is greyed out and all the items have little grey dotted circles next to them. I don’t understand why I can’t sync my personally purchased content over when I am using the same computer, Apple ID and a brand new device! I have tried unchecking and rechecking the content I want (Movies, Music etc) and syncing but nothing works. I am also at the point where I’m downloading the movies I downloaded onto my laptop directly onto my iPad which is currently taking hours for one 1.5GB movie. Do you have any advice? Do you think I should restore to factory settings and start again? Thank you.
June 9, 2013 at 11:29 pmHello Emily, here are a few quick things that may fix the issue.
1. First just restart both your computer and iPad.
2. If that doesn’t work, open iTunes, in the menu bar select Store -> Authorize this Computer.
3. Try dragging the content you want from iTunes directly into your iPad. (Select media, drag to the right, drop it on the iPad icon that appears).
Let me know if any of these work for you, if not we’ll try to figure out some other ways to get your iPad and Macbook syncing properly.
June 9, 2013 at 11:42 pmHi Damien. Thanks for your reply! In the end step 3 did the trick – at first it resulted in iTunes being frozen and rainbow wheel, but it worked out! Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.
June 10, 2013 at 12:32 amDamien,
I”m having a huge issue with my iphone. Some background info: Everything was working fine a few days ago, then it told me that there was no service on it, i turned it off and when i turned it back on it showed the IOS 6 operating screen. I connected it to Itunes and was told it needed to be updated (my phone, itunes was already updated to the newest version the day before), once i did that, Itunes told me it couldn’t read my iphone and to restore it, tired doing that 3 times, and it sent me into recovery mode. went into the apple store and they tried but said it was a gonner. I bought a new phone, as mine was out of warenty and got it home today. I used my ipad cloud backup when i got this new phone, when i was still in the store, and got my contacts, and most of my apps. When i got home, i synced my new phone to itunes and got the remainder of my apps attached. Ive tried all day but cannot get my music to transfer over. when i click on the music icon on my iphone it says no contact, when i click on the on this iphone button on my itunes, everything is grey and wont let me play it. Ive tried everything you’ve already listed above and looked at the comments others have made, nothing seems to get my music moved over. not even music ive bought through itunes will transfer. I really have no desire to go back to the apple store, as ive been there twice this week already, other then restoring my phone (which is now less then 24 hours old), do you have any other options?
Jenn
June 13, 2013 at 4:08 pmturning off Automatic Downloads, then unchecking Sync, then checking Sync did it for me. For a while, I just thought my iPhone was rejecting Black Sabbath…
Much Thanks.
June 16, 2013 at 2:20 ami tried every steps above but i couldn’t sync apps on my iphone..my itunes neither install nor remove any further apps to and from my iphone..have u got some solution??help me plz
June 21, 2013 at 6:14 amHello!
I recently installed the trial version of Senuti to transfer ripped and non-purchased songs from my iPhone 4 to my MacBook Air. Most songs transferred, but there’s about 100+ songs that either appear “grey” or completely deleted. The songs used to play on my iPhone, but after running the program, the songs no longer play on either device, and have an exclamation point on Mac’s iTunes. Please help!!!!!
June 25, 2013 at 2:12 pmHello Brianna. Right click one of the greyed out songs in iTunes and select “Show in Finder”. The songs may appear greyed out because they were not transferred or they are not in the folder that iTunes thinks they are in.
Also I wrote an article earlier on with instructions on how to transfer your music from your device to your Mac that you may want to check out. http://appducate.com/2012/12/copy-music-from-your-ipad-iphone-or-ipod-to-your-mac/
June 26, 2013 at 10:44 amHello Damien,
Nice post!
Have you ever seen a case where the neither the APPLY nor the SYNC button works? They are simply always disabled.
I had an iPphone 4s for over a year and never had this kind of problem. And now I got an iPhone 5 and I simply can’t make it sync with iTunes. I’ve tried all the attempts above (even restoring the phone), and even tried diffenrent versions of iTunes, and still nothin.. would you have any ideia?
Thanks a lot for your attention.
Jr
June 25, 2013 at 6:51 pmdeauthorizing worked for me as well. it was a great help, thanks a lot.
July 3, 2013 at 6:31 amThanks for the feedback Mike, glad to hear it helped you out.
July 3, 2013 at 12:10 pmhi,
i have follow you bt nothing changed…
my 3gs is not syncing. At top, shows everything is done bt @ 3gs there have nothing changed.
i am in big problem cause of this.please help me and reply me ASAP.
THNKS,
(India)
July 3, 2013 at 12:51 pmHi there hope you can help me, I have a iPod classic that won’t connect to iTunes each I plug the USB iTunes freezes then I unplug it and error massage appears (corrupted iPod) What should I do? Please let me know.
July 11, 2013 at 12:36 amHello Juan, sounds like your iPod Classic somehow got corrupted. You could always restore it in iTunes. Unless it’s some hardware issue, restoring should fix your issue.
July 11, 2013 at 12:39 amPlease let me know if you’re looking for a article writer for your weblog. You have some really great articles and I think I would be a good asset. If you ever want to take some of the load off, I’d really like to write some material for your blog in exchange for a link back to mine.
Please blast me an email if interested. Regards!
July 11, 2013 at 10:47 pmDamien , i have read your article and been working on my new Iphone 5 for a week now.been on chat with Apple tried restore and every trick in the book. All maps apps etc I can transfer on sync and play around with. The music just will not transfer , even cant download from the cloud, I can see it it attempts to download and goes through the process but alas no content.
Changed cables but as the apps transferred after restore not an issue.
I tunes states the phone is a approved device
When I click on the iphone when connected to I tunes and select music it is all greyed out on the phone and on left of screen there is a dotted circle. It is really weird , my Ipad syncing perfectly so the issue is not with Itunes. Deautorised computer , purchased I tunes match and tried all these things , still no music.
July 18, 2013 at 9:26 amHey Glenn, it’s not even working over iCloud/iTunes Match? What did Apple have to say about it?
One quick thing I’d try is to uncheck sync music in iTunes. And then sync. Restart all your computer and iPhone. Then go back to iTunes and try syncing the music.
What option do you have selected under the device summary page?
Another thing you could try is simply dragging and dropping music onto your iPhone. Just click a song in iTunes and drag it over to the right, a sidebar will slide into view. Just drop the song on the iPhone.
July 18, 2013 at 10:13 amI’ve been trying to download music to my iphone5 through iTunes. I have managed to put all my songs to my ipad….. But the iphone just wouldnt sync. It starts the syncing method and looks like its going fine but in the end it wont sync anything to the phone. The sync list on the iTunes screen appears grey and there is nothing on the phone! Tried all the suggestions above but no luck. Please help…. Almost at the stage of regreting buying the iPhone :(
July 22, 2013 at 4:27 pmSo I had an iPod nano originally and I had some songs on that. Then a couple years later I got and iPhone 3GS and when I plugged it into the computer it basically messed everything up. The songs are all greyed out on the iPhone every time I try to sync it, but they still go on the iPod. Plus i haven’t been able to download any new songs from the computer onto either of the devices. It won’t let me access the iTunes store. It’s very frustrating.
July 28, 2013 at 1:30 pmHaving gotten a new computer and ported all of my music to it I found (to my dismay) that my iPod Classic would connect but not recognize any of my music. I unchecked the “manually manage music and video” box and WHOABAM! Problem solved. I almost feel silly for having had such an issue. Thanks for the pointers, wonderfully useful person!
July 31, 2013 at 10:07 amThanks for the comment and feedback on what fixed the syncing issue for you. I like to try to keep track of what’s most successful in resolving these syncing issues. WHOABAM!
July 31, 2013 at 10:10 amIs there a this helped button or something? I feel like an idiot for not trying it because normally I do this stuff on my own but I had a brain fart haha.
August 1, 2013 at 9:39 pmMy iphone 4 won’t sync the songs on my laptop – only those in the Cloud. Have tried restoring, authorising/de-authorising, manually updating, trying to drag songs (iphone symbol not visible top right, only in the side bar).
Any ideas?
August 3, 2013 at 2:41 pmHi there, hope you could help me, i cant sync my ipad2 with my laptop. Tried to download the latest itunes and and tried syncing through wifi but it says” sync will resume when laptop name is available. Hope someone could help me
August 14, 2013 at 7:42 amAre you using Windows or a Mac?
August 14, 2013 at 11:17 amI cant do it on my Windows!
August 19, 2013 at 7:58 pmHi,
I spent last couple of weeks increasingly frustrated with the sync problem. When my new iPad mini refused to take music from my iTunes library – I thought I would survive, it’s not the handiest pod for music in the end. But when my new iPhone did the same – that was too much.
3 evenings and endless number of forums later – it worked! It’s actually still working while I’m writing it, beautifully synchronising everything, including all my tracks I’ve been collecting for the past few years. It’s a real relief to actually see the covers appearing and being automatically (and well) ordered, one by one.
I’ve done few things today, so can’t say whether it was just this or that, but it was a rather clear process – maybe will be helpful for someone.
So: I’ve got an old MacBook, an iPad mini, and an iPhone 4s – all Apple.
First, I upgraded the software to the available maximum. Downloaded iOS 7 to my iPad and iPhone and all possible upgrades for my MacBook (it still operates on iOS 6 but I got the latest iTunes – 11.1).
Then I connected the iPhone to the laptop, via cable. Switched off the option of synchronising by WiFi. Switched off the option of automatic sync. Switched on the option of manually deciding about what music to sync. Ticked ‘sync all library’. In the meantime, before syncing, I deleted all my playlists (luckily didn’t have that many), as it appears to be an outdated format – leaving just the basic structure of albums/artists/songs.
When I tried syncing after all the above – it didn’t work. What’s more, iTunes started behaving in a mad way, showing nearly nothing on the iPhone sync progress bar while in fact there’s been lots of stuff on the phone already.
So I disconnected the iPhone, switched it off, and restarted. Restarted iTunes too (not the whole computer though). Connected them again, via cable. Double-checked if all crucial options are ticked (no WiFi sync, manual sync for music, entire iTunes library – as they’ve been a bit jumpy, going on and off). And finally I clicked ‘sync’. AND IT WORKED. STILL WORKING!
So good luck!
September 19, 2013 at 4:16 pmThanks for letting us know what worked for you Magda. I’m sure other people will find this useful.
September 21, 2013 at 11:46 amI have an iPhone 4, update to iOS 7.02 and iTunes 11.1 a few days ago. My iTunes is on my work laptop (hp) and when I plug the phone and go to summary, the bar at the bottom (where it shows space available and contents of the phone) only shows “other” content, in yellow, covering about 3/4 of the bar. The Sync button is shaded, not allowing me to click on it to sync the phone. However, if I go to podcasts and select or un-select a few, the “revert” and “apply” buttons become active. Once I click “apply”, the bar goes back to only displaying “other” content in yellow, and the sync button is not available again. Also, no matter how many podcasts I select or un-select, the bar shows that I still have 3.15 GB free. I have pictures, podcasts, music, and apps on the phone, and I can access them on the phone, so I am not sure what is going on here. I have uninstalled iTunes and re-installed already. Any ideas on how to fix this?
October 8, 2013 at 11:01 amHello Valeria. Your iTunes bar shows only “Other”, even though your also have music, podcasts and apps? It should also show the the songs and podcasts in the bar along with their own colors. First thing, it sounds like that “Other” space causing some trouble, my other article could help you with that: http://appducate.com/2013/01/reclaim-other-storage-space-on-ipad-iphone-and-ipod/
On the Summary page, under Options, what do you have selected? And could you include a screenshot of what you are seeing with the iTunes bar? And finally, are you able to drag media from your iTunes library right onto your iPhone? (drag music to the right, sidebar shows up, drop on iPhone)
October 8, 2013 at 11:26 amyes, Damien, you read right: even though I have other stuff on the phone, only the “other” category appears on the bar (should have ‘audio’ in blue and ‘photos’ in green if I am not mistaken, can’t remember the color for the apps). Under options I have clicked
– automatically sync when phone is connected
– sync with this iPhone over wi-fi
– sync only checked songs and videos
– convert higher bit rate songs
– manually manage music and videos
I’ve just deleted the browser cache as per your advice on the article you mentioned.
It does not let me drag media from library to phone.
And I am not sure how to include a screen shot on this message. :(
October 8, 2013 at 11:42 amFirst off, your iTunes installation seems a bit buggy. I know you said you already did an uninstall and reinstall, however did you do a COMPLETE uninstallation? A regular uninstallation of iTunes leaves behind traces of files. Here is an article from Apple that explains how to completely remove iTunes: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1925?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
I highly suggest you completely remove every trace of iTunes and then reinstall. Your iTunes library folder can be left as is (where all the music and videos are stored. Usually in your Music folder). Only after removing all the traces of files should you reinstall.
As for removing the “Other” space you should not just only remove the browser cache, that’s just a small part of it. I’d recommend also using the PhoneClean method (free app, that works well – used it myself).
October 8, 2013 at 12:14 pmUgh! I want to break something! I uninstalled everything and installed iTunes again. Now when I click on the iTunes icon on my desktop it says “the file iTunes Library.itl cannot be read because it was created by a newer version of iTunes”. How can that be possible?
October 8, 2013 at 1:10 pmIf you installed the very latest version of iTunes, that shouldn’t be happening. You can fix it by closing iTunes and dragging the file called Library.itl to your desktop (move don’t copy). Once moved, open iTunes and it will automatically create a new Library.itl file for you.
October 8, 2013 at 4:10 pmI have a syncing question I’m hoping you can help with. I have an iPhone 5 running iOS7.0.2 and iTunes 11.1.1. I plus my phone in and it starts automatically syncing as normal, but gets to “step 8 of 8, waiting for items to copy” and does not complete the sync, even after half an hour. I’ve tried restarting my device as well as my macbook, to no avail. None of the changes made through iTunes (such as playlists or photos) show up on my phone, except iTunes reads the new song count and photos and such from my phone, so I’m not sure where the problem is. Any help would be lovely!!
October 9, 2013 at 11:20 pmHey there Veronika, that does seem to be quite the odd issue. I’m guessing iTunes syncs the data from your iPhone, such as play counts during one of the previous steps. As for iTunes not syncing to your device, I’m not entirely sure. If I were in your position though, what I’d do is unsync the media from my iPhone completely, then try to sync it again.
So for example, to unsync your music, head over to the Music tab and unselect “Sync Music”. Once it’s done and fully unsynced, re-enable it and see it syncs properly. None of the content will be lost if it’s already stored in your iTunes library.
If that doesn’t work for you, let me know and we can try something else.
October 9, 2013 at 11:36 pmHi,
When i plugged in my iphone to the computer and on itunes, it doesn’t detect my iphone at all. Can you advise what i should do. I’ve authorise the computer but it doesn’t seems to work either.
Fyi, I use the same computer and plug in my ipad mini, it works perfectly.
Am thus very puzzled why it happens.
Also, the usual pop up from the explorer asking if we want to download the photos is also not shown on the computer.
Pls help… thks alot !
October 11, 2013 at 2:49 amTo start off, I have some personal videos on my ipad that were working. Over the weekend, I was in the process of adding one more personal video to my ipad. I plugged in my ipad to my computer but it asked me to update my iTunes to the newer version, so I did. I connected my ipad back and started the syncing process but when it got to step 7 or 8 (waiting to copy)it just sits there for hours. However, while in the process of syncing, I moved the video I was trying to copy. I could see the title in itunes but it’s grayed out. After long hours of waiting to complete syncing, I forced stop it. I now realized all the videos that are in my ipad (were originally working) are now not working. Every time I click on the play button, it will say “loading” for millisecond and stop. The same goes with all the music in my ipad. They are now not working. What should I do to get them to play again? Please help! I’m so frustrated.
October 15, 2013 at 11:02 amhi i read the whole blog before asking this, hoping maybe someone might have the same problem.
i got an iphone 5 it was syncing with itunes probably 2 weeks ago and then this week when i tried to sync my itouch and my iphone, this page kept popping up giving me options to import videos, pictures, etc.
so i tried to find a fix. i did everything that i think was related to my problem but my itunes cant see my phone or my itouch. it can’t detect any device. my pc can detect the phone but itunes cant. pls help. T_T
* updated my phone to ios7.0.4 awhile ago (11/23/13)
* updated my itunes to 11.1.3.8 (11/17/23)
* I’m using windows 7
* tried uninstalling itunes, reinstalled it, restarted pc and devices
* tries using different cable
* tried using diff. version of itunes
* tried authorizing and De-authorize
November 22, 2013 at 10:23 pmHey Jo, sorry to hear your having syncing problems. This article seems to be about the exact issue you seem to be having with iTunes not detecting your iOS device: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1363
Hope it helps.
November 23, 2013 at 5:07 pmhahah i tried following the link but i’m not really techy so i gt about halfway till the part where its about usb port in device manager. it can’t see my usb so researched some more, then it saw my usb but it had exlamation sign on it, so following the guide i updated the usb. annd it just went back to my computer opening up pictures, video HAHAHAH i give upXD
i think i might have to get my boyfriend to do this for me thnxxx Damien^^
November 24, 2013 at 9:53 pmhi^^ my boyfriend fixed it for me these are the sites he used.
***** Registry edit fix
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-hardware/error-code-52-usb-ports-not-recognizing-connected/2379017c-d513-478c-a184-0d1b7cd408b2
*****How to disable driver signature below:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/666-advanced-boot-options.html
* my boyfriend hates apple…HAHAHAHHAAH :))))))
November 26, 2013 at 1:50 amThat’s great to hear he was able to fix it for you. I really appreciate that you can back here and posted the solution that worked for you. I’m sure someone who has the same syncing issues will find this very helpful.
November 26, 2013 at 10:14 amThe wifi on my iPad classic is greed out. I have done a restore and a dfu restore. iTunes is able to sync with he IPad but The wifi is still greed out. The 3G wireless connection works and connects to the internet. Any help would be appreciated.
November 23, 2013 at 5:02 pmHi there. I upgraded my Itunes to 11.1.3.8 tonight and now it doesn’t recognise my iPhone 3GS at all. It doesn’t appear where it used to in the sidebar, and I had no way of syncing the app updates i was somehow still able to download. They were loaded with nowhere to go!
IS there a bug fix out here in the ether that can put this back the way it was?
January 15, 2014 at 6:05 amomg. after trying for 4 hours straight to figure this problem out, i have to THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for telling me to switch the MOTHER BLEEPING iPhone cord. The MINUTE i changed it it worked. Thanks. Good lord.
January 25, 2014 at 4:09 pmGlad to hear it was able to help you out Amy. Thanks for lettings us know what worked for you.
January 25, 2014 at 10:50 pmI have been working at trying to get my music back on my iPhone 5c for hours. It all started when two songs I downloaded (from another place then put into itunes) wouldn’t go my on phone. After changing the file types, and restoring my phone nothing from my library will go on my phone. I can only get the music I bought on itunes to go on my phone by downloading it directly, I can’t get my music from my CDs on there. This is so annoying!
February 5, 2014 at 12:34 pmHello Damien – I have a problem I’m hoping you can help me with. I have an iPad 2 wanted to update from ios 4 to ios 7 (yes, its been a while since I updated the OS). I backed up my iPad to my Windows PC, updated to iTunes 11.1.5.5 (the latest) and now my iPad is wanting to set up again. I walk through the first steps on language, location, wifi network, etc. just fine. When it gets to the Set Up iPad step, I’m choosing Restore from iTunes backup (I’m not using iCloud). It asks me to connect to iTunes, which I do and it looks on iTunes like it is synching. But my iPad remains on the Connect to iTunes or Connected to iTunes screen and won’t budge.
I’ve tried Deauthorizing and Authorizing my PC, changing the USB cord, restarting iTunes and rebooting my iPad, but nothing seems to work. I guess I could do a factory setting restore but I was hoping to avoid that in case there is something that didn’t get backed up properly (not trusting iTunes and Apple at the moment.) Any ideas?
Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.
MK
March 15, 2014 at 5:28 pmHey! Would you mind if I share your blog with my facebook group?
There’s a lot of folks that I think would really appreciate your content.
Please let me know. Thanks
March 21, 2014 at 5:03 ammy iphone is disable plz help me to enable my iphone my iphone says that “iphone is disabled connect to itunes” plz help me
May 14, 2014 at 9:51 pmhi i have a ipad 2 that does not want to sync music at all videos and apps transfer occasionally my music list and movie list show up in grey when i check whats on my ipad i have restored my pc and ipad alot so far to no result i have authorized and deauthorized with same results just changed format for music awaiting results this all started when my ipad upgraded to ios 7 it has been a very frustrating 6 months just to put my music back on my ipad any more ideas on how to fix will be grateful i have brand new usb plug so that can not be the issue
May 18, 2014 at 4:41 pmHi,
I am trying to get an audiobook onto my iPod shuffle. I have downloaded it into my iTunes but I can’t drag it onto my iPod. Any ideas what the correct step is? Thanks for any help…
June 25, 2014 at 1:44 pmiBooks purchased for iPad4 were not showing.. read your tips and did what I had forgotten, restarted the iPad.. and problem was solved. I had phoned AppleCare and they hadn’t suggested this either..
Thanks for the support
June 26, 2014 at 9:00 amThank you for your feedback on what worked for you Christopher. I’m glad to hear the guide was able to help you out.
June 26, 2014 at 9:09 amHi For the first time I am trying to purchase/rent a movie from itunes and download them on to my macbook. On itunes it says “renting xyz” but it is not showing a progress % there is only black and grey lines running. Is this normal? Is it working? Should it show a % or time remaining? Thanks for your help.
July 19, 2014 at 12:09 pmOk, maybe you can help me where nobody else has been able to. I have an ipod touch 4th generation that has suddenly stopped allowing me to add any music to it. It worked absolutely great with no problems for about a year and suddenly when I load it up on itunes I can’t add any music to it at all. if I try and drag any music from my computer on to it, I get a no icon (circle with a dash through) and can’t add anything.Same if I try and add music from my itunes library. It’s recognized by windows and by itunes but I just can’t add anything to it at all. It starts to sync but then stops without adding anything
I’ve done pretty much everything I can think of to try and fix this, I’ve completely wiped itunes from my computer using revo uninstaller and re-installed, I’ve also completely uninstalled itunes manually, following an online tutorial telling me how to remove absolutely all traces of it before re-installing it. I’ve made sure that my ipods ios is up to date, I’ve reset my ipod, I’ve completely erased my ipod and restored it to factory settings.The driver is correct and up to date. I have an old backup but it fails every time I try and restore it, saying that the backup session failed. I’ve tried resetting the lockdown folder as recommended but when I delete it, itunes can’t connect to my ipod, so I ended up restoring the lockdown folder back to where it was from my trash can. I’ve made sure all my drivers are up to date and my computer is AMD so i know its not an intel chipset/ipod issue. I’ve turned off my antivirus and computer security programs and that made no difference at all. If I set it to sync music with my library it will start and then stop instantly and nothing gets added to it at all. Same if I tell it to sync over my wifi.
The weird thing is that this ipod works fine if I take it to my parents house and try it on their computer. I can’t drag and drop music into it but it will add music through syncing the library, so I’m pretty sure the issue is with my system instead of the iPod itself. I’ve been told I should just re-install windows on the apple ipod forums, but I don’t have an external hard drive or anyway to back up my files, so I’m willing to do that if it’s the only possible fix, but I’d like to try other solutions first. Also using system restore to before this all happened did nothing to fix the problem
I have an old ipod mini that has absolutely no problems at all using the same itunes and computer so I’m pretty sure this issue is just with this ipod, possibly because it’s an ipod touch instead of an older regular ipod? I bought it used on amazon so the warranty and service coverage have already expired, so I kinda have to figure out how to fix it myself..
Any help at all with this would be greatly appreciated
September 2, 2014 at 10:40 pmHey there Mort, it sounds like you’ve tried everything under the sun to fix your syncing problem. This may sound a bit odd, but try using a different cord to sync your iPod. I’m not sure why but there have been times in the past when someone has tried pretty much everything to fix a syncing issue and solution was simply to use a different USB cord as your current one may be faulty now.
Let me know if it works for you or not.
September 4, 2014 at 12:07 pmOn 10.9.4, iTunes 11.4(18) my iPhone, when connected to my MBP just will not back up. Each time I try, the phone (name) drops out of the device list and the phone itself shuts down and enters an endless reboot loop until I disconnect it. I’ve updated everything, restarted everything, different cables, 3 different Macs . . . if you have any suggestion I’d surely appreciate it! If I can’t get this sorted I’ll just have to start from scratch when my iPhone 6 gets here (sigh)
Thanks, ~N
September 16, 2014 at 3:01 pmHi,
So, I just experienced this, my iPhone 4 suddenly can’t sync into my laptop (I used windows 7), at first, the laptop wont recognize the iPhone though I already plug-in my iPhone’s USB as usual, it wont charge. So I was uninstall-ing the apple usb device thing and install it back, it worked perfectly, I can plug in and it recognize my iPhone. But, the question of trusting the computer always popped up on my iPhone since then, every time I plugged the iPhone’s USB.
And then I tried to sync the iPhone with my iTunes, I already used the latest iTunes, but the iPhone wont showed up. Now, I can’t sync my iPhone to my iTunes, it was fine before, I don’t know why this thing happened suddenly. I already borrowed my friends’ USB cords, but nothing happened. Can you help me? I already tried everything, but I’m stressed out since nothing good happened to my iPhone or my iTunes.
October 23, 2014 at 12:26 pmI’m getting this same problem once I upgraded to Yosemite and iTunes 12 on a MacBook Pro.
November 8, 2014 at 6:00 pmHi Damien,
I started having problems syncing my iPod touch 4 about two months or so ago. Usually I would sync via wifi without problems, but that suddenly stopped working. I tried syncing over usb but the same thing kept happening. Whether I try syncing from iTunes or from the iPod itself it says it’s starting the sync but then after less than a second it stops and nothing happens. I have already tried wiping the iPod and restoring it, both with a backup restore and as a new iPod. I’ve deactivated and reactivated my Apple ID, and restarted my computer and iTunes several times to no avail.
For awhile it was displaying only the yellow “other” section on the bar at the bottom, on iTunes, now it is displaying the audio, video, etc. sections as well but the “sync” button is still greyed out. I feel it may be a problem with iTunes itself rather than the iPod, I bought it on ebay refurbished about a year ago and it worked just fine for me until it stopped syncing. The iPod itself works just fine, is it a problem with iTunes? I’m running version 11.4.18 (which is the latest version according to software update) on a Mac OS 10.6.8.
Any idea what might be causing this problem? (And how to fix it?)
November 10, 2014 at 5:30 pm^^^ [continuation] Also worth mentioning, after having done a full system restore on the iPod, if I go to sync it via wifi from the device, it says that wifi sync is not enabled. However it’s connected to my home wifi network just fine, the “sync with this iPod via wifi” box in iTunes is checked, and safari opens pages without a problem on the iPod.
November 10, 2014 at 5:47 pmOK trying to get music from my laptop onto my mini. Had to update software on mini 1st according to iTunes. There IS a connection between iTunes and the mini as I see it, but I keep getting an error box pop up saying iTunes can’t sink with the iPad. How can I move my music from my laptop to the mini WITHOUT WiFi cause I only have so much and then it really costs me or also transfer music so I can avoid iTunes. Never liked you had to do all this bull shit with apple. I can hook up an mp3 player and don’t get this much trouble. I bought the iPad cause it could hold more songs and it’s big enough I don’t lose it. Your going to ask me what I have checked etc. On iTunes on the computer or on the ipad??
Thank you. Sorry I’ve just spent 3 hours and most of my WiFi and I’m no further ahead. Frustrating!!!!!
March 1, 2015 at 1:58 am