iPhone 5 sync won't complete, stalls at waiting for changes to be applied

Question

I have an iPhone 5. Since the latest update to iOS 7, my ripped music won't sync to my phone. The sync stalls at "waiting for changes to be applied". I've run the sync diagnostic, and it indicates there are no problems. I have plenty of room on my phone, and had nearly 2000 songs on it prior to the update. Now, only the purchased tunes sync.

Answer 1

From this macrumors.com post:

1. Close iTunes, unplug your device and reboot the computer.
2. On your iDevice, connect to your Wifi network & leave it on and reboot it too. Now plug your iDevice back to the computer.
3. If you have any voice mails, delete them first.
4. Everything will sync and the problem goes away.

Answer 2

'Waiting for changes to be applied' is a problem with a mismatched app or music library. If you deleted an app from your phone that you normally sync from iTunes, then reinstall the app on your phone or delete it from your iTunes library before syncing.

Music is more complex. If the song was deleted from the phone then delete it from iTunes, or else it may be a corrupt sound file that you will have to locate and delete. Sync one artist at a time and work down to the album and then the track or tracks that won't sync. Make sure iTunes can locate all of your music. If iTunes can't locate the track or tracks you will see an exclamation point on the left side of the track name.

A mismatched library can also occur if you disconnect your phone before a 'cancel sync' is finished. In this case you have to 'reset sync history' on a Windows PC, or on a Mac backup the phone and restore from backup.

Answer 3

I had over 1500 apps on my iPhone 5, and I saw this error several times. After I installed iOS Console (free download) on my Mac, I could see some error messages in the iOS Console.

Several apps had quite a long name and/or weird characters in the app title. This was stopping them from copying. I think a service zips them prior to copying, and it was jammed on this step.

My next step was going to be deleting these particular apps. Do any of your song or album titles have any weird characters in them?