This issue seems to have started after I upgraded to iOS 15 on my MacBook Pro and iOS 18 on my iPhone 15 Pro. When I try to sync, it gets to Step 4 "Waiting for changes to be applied" but never finishes. I restarted both devices but still have the issue.
iPhone 15 Pro, iOS 18
I waited for close to an hour before I gave up. It wasn’t an initial sync. The progress bar reached the end on Step 4 but then it just got stuck and nothing happened.
I waited for close to an hour before I gave up. It wasn’t an initial sync. The progress bar reached the end on Step 4 but then it just got stuck and nothing happened.
Yeah, think that's the MDCrashReportTool process which was a culprit last year. I haven't found/seen that process running at all. If it's similar but a different process I've not seen any comments to that effect.
Did dig through console to see if there were logs which would help but couldn't find anything clearly connected.
I also faced same problem rightnow. Waiting for 3 hours but still unable to sync.
Same here. Gets to step four of four and makes no progress. Left it for several hours and progress didn't even begin. Mac Studio & iphone 14 pro on current OS (both).
Inelegant, but did get back to a state where the two are talking. Tried a bunch of things (creating new iTunes library, reinstalling Music on the iPhone) which didn't work.
Ended up removing all music (~650 GB) from the iPhone. Settings was crashing when I tried to do it in bulk through the Settings -> Storage -> Music path. I removed some of the artists manually where I had a lot of content. With less (~300 GB) it didn't crash and completed the removal.
Today I'll sync some of it back. The first playlist is just finishing now so confident it should work.
Wish Apple didn't treat non-Apple Music subscribers as secondary. I am happy with managing my music myself but things like the 100K song bug (present for years now) remain discouraging. I bought a large iPhone for this specific use, too bad it's not built for purpose.
Yes, current on both the phone and the Mac Studio. Rebuilt the Mac Studio over the weekend as that was one noted solution. Didn't make any difference, getting stuck at the same point.
Should it be relevant, at times the iphone is showing up in iTunes & Finder briefly and then disappearing. Can't reproduce consistently but happened across three different cables and different ports on the Mac Studio. Pretty frustrating.
timojhen wrote:
Yes, current on both the phone and the Mac Studio. Rebuilt the Mac Studio over the weekend as that was one noted solution. Didn't make any difference, getting stuck at the same point.
Should it be relevant, at times the iphone is showing up in iTunes & Finder briefly and then disappearing. Can't reproduce consistently but happened across three different cables and different ports on the Mac Studio. Pretty frustrating.
I am stumped, then. I haven’t see this issue since updating Mac OS over a year ago. There was a workaround to kill a background process in Activity Monitor that only appeared when syncing, but unfortunately I’ve forgotten its name.
How long are you waiting? For an initial sync it can take several hours.
Do you have the very latest version of MacOS that your Mac supports? There was a bug in one version that caused this problem, it was fixed in the next version.
iPhone sync stuck on "Waiting for changes to be applied"
