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Resolved Automatic wifi sync not working

C

chemistry76

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 22, 2011
65
6
I have set up my iPhone 4S and iPad 2 to sync to iTunes over wifi - and it works fine as long as I manually sync. They do not automatically sync when I plug them in to a power source overnight however.

What am I missing?
 
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First you need to enable it on each device under the Summary tab in iTunes. If you've done that, have you tried going into Settings on the iPhone and try forcing a Wi-Fi sync? Also, you need to make sure your iPhone is listed in iTunes before it can sync. If it's not in there, there will be no syncing.
 
Manually syncing over wifi works fine. I intentionally didn't manually sync yesterday, and I plugged in my devices as normal yesterday evening. Woke up this morning and neither one had synced since the day before yesterday.

I added quite a few album covers in iTunes last night, so there was data that needed to be synced to my iPhone.

I'm using OS X 10.7.2 on an iMac 2011 with a 2011 Time Capsule as my wifi router.
 
chemistry76 said:
Manually syncing over wifi works fine. I intentionally didn't manually sync yesterday, and I plugged in my devices as normal yesterday evening. Woke up this morning and neither one had synced since the day before yesterday.

I added quite a few album covers in iTunes last night, so there was data that needed to be synced to my iPhone.

I'm using OS X 10.7.2 on an iMac 2011 with a 2011 Time Capsule as my wifi router.
Click to expand...

I'm using a 2011 mini with the 2011 TC as well and I haven't had too many issues.

Honestly, I don't remember ever hearing about automatic Wi-Fi syncing. I mean if you're in iTunes and want to sync something, you just drag it to your device and it syncs. What would be the purpose for auto syncing? I understand the need for Wi-Fi backups, but not for syncing. Help me understand.
 
From: http://www.apple.com/ios/features.html#pcfree


"Wirelessly sync your iOS device to your Mac or PC over a shared Wi-Fi connection. Every time you connect your iOS device to a power source (say, overnight for charging), it automatically syncs and backs up any new content to iTunes. So you always have your movies, TV shows, home videos, and photo albums everywhere you want them."
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

Having the same issue.
My setup is correct.
Can sync manually no problem.
Just no automatic WiFi sync.
 
chemistry76 said:
From: http://www.apple.com/ios/features.html#pcfree


"Wirelessly sync your iOS device to your Mac or PC over a shared Wi-Fi connection. Every time you connect your iOS device to a power source (say, overnight for charging), it automatically syncs and backs up any new content to iTunes. So you always have your movies, TV shows, home videos, and photo albums everywhere you want them."
Click to expand...

Ahh, thanks. Is it possible it's not syncing since you only updated the art? Have you tried checking more music boxes to sync?
 
I know it s stupid question, but is your computer on, and iTunes open? Because that needs to happen.
 
Oh wait.. I have to have my computer plugged in? /jk

Yea, the computer is on and iTunes is always open. I was afraid it may not sync because the computer might be asleep, but this morning, before I touched the iMac, I checked my iPad 2. It still hadn't synced since the day before yesterday, but I was able to do a manual sync while my iMac was asleep (at least the display remained off).

That being said, it appears that the automatic syncing should happen whenever you plug your iOS device into a power source and are on the same wifi as your iTunes comp. My iOS devices do not begin syncing when I plug them in, and my iMac is most definitely awake.

I charge my iPhone off a wall charger, and the iPad off a dock attached to my iMac.
 
LxHunter said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

Having the same issue.
My setup is correct.
Can sync manually no problem.
Just no automatic WiFi sync.
Click to expand...

Yep, I'm having the same issues. Everything works great, except that it's not updating automatically when the iPhone is plugged in. My wife's isn't, either.
 
LxHunter said:
Just found this solution which worked for me - the last post by "Mr Tyrell"

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3395963?start=0&tstart=0
Click to expand...

For the lazy, here's the text.

Ok, i finally got automatic sync working. I had the same problems as others - could do a manual wireless sync from the iPhone Settings App, but automatic sync would not start when plugged in and charging. The iPhone showed up in the iTunes sidebar, the "Sync with this iPhone over WiFi" option in the iPhone settings in iTunes was checked, the iPhone and Mac were on the same network (over WiFi - no ethernet connection), and the "Prevent iPods, iPhones and iPads from synching automatically" option was NOT checked, and i still couldn't get automatic syncing to work.



Here's what i did

- made sure the iPhone was showing in the iTunes sidebar

- turned off WiFi on the iPhone, leaving it still showing in the iTunes sidebar

- Ctrl-clicked on the iPhone in the iTunes sidebar and selected "Sync "iPhone"" (the name may be different depending on your device and what you've called it)

- Let iTunes work trying to sync the iPhone it couldn't find until it showed an exclamation mark where the eject symbol is in the sidebar

- hot the eject/exclamation symbol and waited until the iPhone wasn't showing in the sidebar

- Connected the iPhone with a cable and let iTunes re-recognise it

- in the iPhone settings checked "open iTunes when this iPhone is connected" option and hit Apply (NOT Sync)

- Ejected the iPhone in iTunes

- turned the iPhone WiFi back on and let it connect to the WiFi network

- made sure it was showing in the iTunes sidebar

- connected it to my charger

- and wireless syncing started automatically!



Probably not all of this is necessary - I'm not sure which step fixed the problem, but my guess is the "open iTunes when this *** is connected" preference is the important one. Also i hadn't synced my iPhone in a couple of days, so that might be important. My guess is it won't start automatic sync if you've synced it relatively recently.
 
I tried those steps listed and it worked with my iPhone. Sweet!

With my iPad (having the same problem), I just checked the 'Open iTunes When this iPad (or iPhone) is Connected' option, hit apply, then plugged in the iPad. It worked, too.

So it sounds like that's all you need to do to get the automatic syncing when the device is plugged in to work.

On a similar note, I wish Apple would allow for some customizing, like 'Don't sync if the device has by synced within the last 24 hours' or something like that. If your phone is plugged in and it syncs, then you quit iTunes and relaunch it (or have to restart your computer -- whatever the reason), the phone will immediately sync again when it mounts to iTunes, even if you just synced a few minutes earlier.

A minor annoyance, though.
 
Just checking "Open iTunes when this xxxx is connected" on the device summary page appears to work for me too.

Thanks for the find!!
 
I ran through the steps for the hell of it and sure enough, it auto-synced immediately when it hit power. +1 to the above poster that provided the link.
 
I have received some errors when it tried to sync, saying it couldn't complete it. Not sure why, though.
 
Tried all your steps but my iTunes Wi-Fi Sync always say "Sync will resume when "COMPUTER" is available"

Will only sync when connected :mad:
 
There is also a place in iTunes on your device page or info page can't remember. A box to check that says sync this device with wifi.
 
Making progress.
Props to Fatboy71 for the following:
I'm on Windows.

I went into Services and looked for the service called APPLE MOBILE DEVICE. I then right clicked on it and choose RESTART from the menu. Since doing this I've been able to wirelessly sync again on both the iPad and iPhone. Perhaps the APPLE MOBILE DEVICE had crashed or stopped working for some reason?

Mine will sync now but comes back with an error on the PC "itunes cannot sync apps because the apps installed cannot be determined"

Resolved (via apple discussion board)
i went to device manager (control panel - view by icons - device manager) then right clicked my pcs name and clicked "scan for hardware changes" i then restarted itunes and everything iss working
 
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See comments interlineated within the quote

HazyCloud said:
For the lazy, here's the text.

...

Here's what i did

- made sure the iPhone was showing in the iTunes sidebar
I did this, but it will only show in the iTunes sidebar if I have it attached via sync cable.

- turned off WiFi on the iPhone, leaving it still showing in the iTunes sidebar
When I pull the attached sync cable, it isn't showing in the iTunes sidebar any longer.

- Ctrl-clicked on the iPhone in the iTunes sidebar and selected "Sync "iPhone"" (the name may be different depending on your device and what you've called it)

- Let iTunes work trying to sync the iPhone it couldn't find until it showed an exclamation mark where the eject symbol is in the sidebar
I couldn't reach this step because of the phone disappearing from the sidebar when I unplugged it. What am I missing?

- hot the eject/exclamation symbol and waited until the iPhone wasn't showing in the sidebar

- Connected the iPhone with a cable and let iTunes re-recognise it

- in the iPhone settings checked "open iTunes when this iPhone is connected" option and hit Apply (NOT Sync)

- Ejected the iPhone in iTunes

- turned the iPhone WiFi back on and let it connect to the WiFi network

- made sure it was showing in the iTunes sidebar

- connected it to my charger

- and wireless syncing started automatically!
...
Click to expand...
 
Ok, WiFi syncing was working like a charm for my iPhone 4s and iPad 2.

I was bothered that iTunes would launch on its own everytime it saw my iPhone on the network.

I wanted the option to manually synch over wifi.

Well, I changed a setting, I think it was, don't launch itunes when this device is connected or something like that.

Now, it never sees my devices and only syncs if I connect to my PC.
I even went back and turned the setting back on.

I checked and unchecked the use WiFi sync in the device settings.
Still, nothing.
Am I being punished for not letting iTunes load itself every 5 minutes???
 
One more thing...

If you open iTunes/Preferences/Devices, you also want to make sure that the line just below the window that prevents devices from syncing automatically is UNCHECKED! Just an added note. :)
 
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