After updating to iOS17 my iPhone 14 Pro lost my music library and is unable to sync. It says syncing is now off but every attempt to turn it on fails. There’s no error message, it just goes back to showing that syncing is turned off. This is a major problem for me as I’m a dance teacher who needs access to the playlists.
iPhone 14 Pro
Sorry, mario49. Your answer isn't specific enough for the "Best Answer" tag.
There are several discussions describing failed syncs between iTunes and iOS 17 in macOS Mojave or earlier. Either sync hangs or the iPhone does not show up as a connected device, which is a problem because until macOS Catalina (or later) a connected device isn't visible in the Finder, either.
Linking to pre-iOS 17 Apple support docs fails to address the issue. Even if the "Trust" prompt is answered and the software update (if any) is applied, the iPhone may not show up as a connected device in iTunes.
Similar discussions include:
Can’t sync with iTunes after iOS 17.1.1.u… - Apple Community
since apple is unable to update ios in a … - Apple Community
Stuck in “Preparing To Sync" - Apple Community
For a sync that hangs, a potential (but tedious) workaround:
Open the Activity Monitor app and Force Quit "MDCrashReportTool".
However, for an iOS 17.x device that cannot be seen by iTunes, I am not aware of any solution apart from hoping that Apple receives enough "feedback" (launch iTunes, select "Provide iTunes Feedback" under iTunes menu) to release a fix in a future iOS update.
At least one Community forums user suggests that iOS 17 has forced the minimum supported macOS to increase, even for older phones for which Apple's original technical specifications indicate they are compatible with macOS operating systems as far back as El Capitan.
Sorry, mario49. Your answer isn't specific enough for the "Best Answer" tag.
There are several discussions describing failed syncs between iTunes and iOS 17 in macOS Mojave or earlier. Either sync hangs or the iPhone does not show up as a connected device, which is a problem because until macOS Catalina (or later) a connected device isn't visible in the Finder, either.
Linking to pre-iOS 17 Apple support docs fails to address the issue. Even if the "Trust" prompt is answered and the software update (if any) is applied, the iPhone may not show up as a connected device in iTunes.
Similar discussions include:
Can’t sync with iTunes after iOS 17.1.1.u… - Apple Community
since apple is unable to update ios in a … - Apple Community
Stuck in “Preparing To Sync" - Apple Community
For a sync that hangs, a potential (but tedious) workaround:
Open the Activity Monitor app and Force Quit "MDCrashReportTool".
However, for an iOS 17.x device that cannot be seen by iTunes, I am not aware of any solution apart from hoping that Apple receives enough "feedback" (launch iTunes, select "Provide iTunes Feedback" under iTunes menu) to release a fix in a future iOS update.
At least one Community forums user suggests that iOS 17 has forced the minimum supported macOS to increase, even for older phones for which Apple's original technical specifications indicate they are compatible with macOS operating systems as far back as El Capitan.
my iphone will no longer show up in itunes after updating it to 17.3.1
Tried everything, different cables, different versions of itunes, called apple support (they couldn't fix it either), and I know it has to do with 17.3.1 because if I plug an older phone it works just fine. but two phones i have both on 17.3.1 do NOT show up anymore once plugged in and only itunes, if I open photo app or image capture app the phones show up there...... I even just tried wiping my phone and lost everything, because itunes cannot see the phone to restore it from a backup........ this is straight rediciulous considering you wont let me downgrade my iphone back to a previous version because you no longer sign previous versions..... I'm bassically screwed now until you patch it or fix it please....... literally spent hours trying everything, soft reset, restore mode, you name it nothing works. plugged phone into different pc and boom pops up right away. it refuses to work on my macbook itunes that has ALL MY DATA......... and only phones with 17.3.1................ let me downgrade back to 17.2 or something at least................
i just want itunes to work as promised and every update something changes....Now my iphone reciently played music does not sync with my IMAC
After the update, most of my iTunes library disappeared from my phone (13 pro max 1TB). Some of the library is there, but will not sync with my Mac. All the suggestions have NOT worked.
Fix this Apple. Or at least send instructions on how to fix it. What you posted in this thread isn't helpful.
Hey Adwiz,
If you are subscribed to Apple Music and your library is missing after turning on Sync Library, you can follow If songs are missing from your music library after you turn on Sync Library.
If you music was not from an Apple Music subscription, you can resync the iPhone with the computer that has the original songs by following Sync iTunes content on PC with your devices.
Hope this helps.
Take care.
Since updating to ios17, all of my ringtones and the tones I have purchased have disappeared. I go to iTunes to redownload and they will not do it. Help please.
The library simply wouldn’t sync. Most of the time, when pressing the option to turn syncing on, it would immediately return to the message that syncing was turned off. On two occasions it went to the “iTunes is syncing your library” message (but with no progress bar). After some hours that would end with no syncing taking place and back to the “syncing turned off” message. Restarted phone numerous times, logged out of iTunes and back in without resolution. The second time I got the “iTunes is syncing “ I left it in that state for 30 hours. Eventually it stopped and still hadn’t done any syncing. I eventually gave up, deleted all contents on my phone and started all over. Annoying to lose four full days but at least it’s working now.
I had the same thing happen and it confused me as I lost all my purchases. But I discovered that the system update had reset my itunes account. I have two accounts, one for iCoud and the other for iTunes (media and purchases). Apple had oddly changed that one and logged me into the iCoud account during the update. After changing it back all was good.
The same thing happened with my music library. At first it was just that the songs that played on my phone app were not showing as played on the computer. Now nothing is syncing from phone to Mac, or vice versa. Everything was going great with it, and after the update to 17, Apple Music is useless.
itunes on a PC Windows 11 Pro latest update, iPhone 15 Pro running Ios 17.3
SOLVED (at least for me with a library of almost 4000 tracks in it)
Having just experienced a similar problem. My itunes music library is stored locally on my PC and I had just added a new track to my itunes library, went to sync my phone with the PC itunes and it was really slow and appeared to hang on stage 3 of 5 - 'preparing to sync'. After leaving this for about 30 mins it was clear that something was not right. So stopped the sync. Looking at the iphone media under the iphone tab in the side menu in itunes almost all of the existing music would not play and were greyed out with a dotted ring alongside each track.
After inspecting the Windows system process logs a lot of trial and error trying to identify the source ofthe problem I came down to the conclusion that for whatever reason the sync process had got corrupted and this had resulted in the itunes internal data being corrupted and was now blocking any subsequent attemp to sync from that point on. All my music was in my itunes 'home' library and would play perfectly, but the iphone library tab obviously had a problem.
My solution....which works perfectly if your home library is on your PC and is complete and okay - check the number of tracks it displays and compare it to your phones music count in settings/general/about. If they are as expected then proceed. Mine was 3927 on the PC and 3926 on the iphone, the missing track was the new one I had just added to my itunes library.
1: If you have an iwatch - turn it off completely, only turn it back on after the complete process is done..
2: Put your iphone in aeroplane mode
3: Reboot your phone.
4: On the PC, do a full reboot and do not load anything.
5: Connect your phone to your PC with your data cable, and wait for Windows to "ping" which says it has seen the iphone is connected vis a usb port.
6: Start itunes
7: Click the iphone icon in itunes and look at the summary page
8: Make sure for now that you have the local source selected for the backup and not the cloud - again for now.
9: Click the music tab immediately under the summary tab in the vertical menu on the left.
10: Unclick the Sync box outside the details box and accept the warning that this will clear all your music from the iphone - again you should only do this if your library is local to the PC and complete and woking.
11: your ihpne should now have been cleared of all tracks and references to it, and more importantly the itunes database of the iphone library will also have been reset.
12: Close itunes and reboot both your PC and iphone.
13: Reconnect your iphone to your PC after it has booted up and wait for the connection "ping" on the PC.
14: Open itunes on the PC, wait for the iphone icon to appear and click it.
15: Click the music option under the "summary" tab and re-enable the Sync tab on that page, and make sure you have the complete liabrary option selected in the info box.
16: Return to the summary page ensure you are still set to local storage for the backup, then click the Sync button 17: Now just wait, the backup should proceed and run fairly quickly, then the syncing of the tracks should run very quickly - m,y 4000 tracks took approx 3 mins to complete. Close itunes.
18: Check your iphone music app to see that the tracks are there and play correctly,
19: Disable aeroplane mode on your iphone, and reboot both the ipone and PC.
20: Restart your iwatch, and give it a few minutes to reconnect to your phone.
All the restarts are essential to ensure that the drivers and system service processes in memory that handle the communicatrions between the devices are cleanly loaded each time.
Good luck, this worked for me and I apologise if my instructions aren't phased exactly as per the various screens but I just typed this from memory!
I was having this syncing issue as well. late 2015 27" iMac running Catalina. Once I updated to iOS 17, I was unable to sync with the computer and load my music and photos onto the phone.
iOS 17.3 was released yesterday and has fixed the issue!!!!!!!! I am successfully able to fully sync with no issues!
Thanks you Apple!
Yes the new Mac OS update and then updating the phone's iOS did seem to fix the issue.
unable to sync iTunes library after iOS17 update
