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iPhone synced with another iTunes library?

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brig2221

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 18, 2010
396
184
I'm hoping I can get a few questions answered by the wizards at mac rumors.

I recently purchased a new iPhone 5, which I restored from a backup, bringing everything over from my old 4S.

One thing that does not come over however from an iCloud restore are your media files, namely movies.

I just got around to synching my new iPhone 5 to my computer via iTunes, and I went over to the movies sub-tab to bring all the movies over to my new phone. When I attempt to do this, I get the following message:

The iPhone "Eric's iPhone" is synched with another iTunes library. Do you want to erase this iPhone and sync with this iTunes library?

An iPhone can be synced with only one iTunes library at a time. Erasing and syncing replaces the contents of this iPhone with the contents of this iTunes library.

I'm super confused as although I have multiple Apple devices (iPhone 4S, new 5, and iPad 2), I only have one iTunes library (that I'm aware of anyway) on my laptop computer. Also, I went through all the trouble of restoring my iPhone 5 from my iCloud backup, which worked perfectly, I don't want to erase and re-sync.

As it stands now, iTunes won't let me simply bring over my movies without apparently erasing the contents of my iPhone 5 now, and replacing it with whatever is in my current iTunes library.

Can anyone tell me what is going on here, and how I might go about bringing over the movies to my phone without having to blow everything out and start over? Thanks!
 
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RebelSyd

macrumors newbie
Sep 30, 2010
11
0
I am having the same problem! This is what I did:

1 - Backed up iphone 4
2- bought iPhone 5
3 - plugged in iPhone 5 to iMac, said I needed iTunes 7. Did not realize b/c when I pressed the check for updates, did not say I needed to update
4- updated to iTunes 7
5- restored iPhone 5 to latest backup
6-everything restored except movies,photos,music
7- when I try to sync those get the synced to another library error

Any help would be great!
 
S

St8kout

macrumors regular
May 17, 2010
151
0
I had that message about it belonging to another library when I had to reinstall Win7 and my library backup failed. Then itunes erased all my apps from my phone but I still had my music and photos. Had to email apple support and we went back and forth several times trying everything they suggested. Was a very frustrating experience not having any apps. I would use the phone to download them, then itunes would erase them again when I tried to sync. The apps still showed up in itunes but I just could not sycn with them.

I think what finally worked was they deauthorized my computer on their end, and I re-authorized my computer on my end. Then it finally loaded my apps onto my iphone, much to my relief. Wasn't sure I'd ever get to use itunes again. You might try deauthorizing and reauthorizing yourself.

Before all this someone had suggested that before you sync (make sure it doesnt sync automatically when you plug your phone in), RIGHT CLICK on your phone on the left side of itunes and select BACKUP, then after it finishes RIGHT CLICK and select RESTORE. DO NOT USE THE BUTTONS WHERE IT SAYS BACK UP TO ICLOUD or BACK UP TO THIS COMPUTER. That's where I had messed up.

It seems when you backup and restore using this method, it links your phone to your library. Remember, right click on your phone under 'Devices' for backup and restore, do not use the buttons in the middle of itunes for this.
 
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