iPhone disappears from iTunes while syncing music

[big_malk]

My iPhone syncs all the contacts and things fine, but when it comes to sync the music it just disappears from iTunes, with no error. But on the iPhone screen it still says syncing.

All the advice I've found so far is to do with corrupt contacts, not music, and haven't helped anyway.

Any advice?

Thanks

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

I'm having the same problem with an iPod Touch. It starts syncing the music and the iPod Touch will disappear randomly during the transfers from the device menu and the iPod Touch says it's still syncing but iTunes shows NO SIGN of it and will quit normally without complaining it's in the middle of something (because it isn't). I then sometimes have to DELETE *all settings* on the iPod Touch to get iTunes to recognize it again (it'll just give a spinning beach ball of death until I delete all settings if I unplug it and then plug it back in again). Other times it'll come back up again and I can try again.

I also seem to lose my $20 extra apps when I have to restore the thing. The last time they magically showed up again at some point. Right now they're nowhere to be seen. It's extremely frustrating. It was working fine until I decided to sync new photos and change a few songs. I plan on getting the 2.0 firmware later today. Hopefully, that will do better.

I did think it might be my former ULTRA brand USB 2.0 card in this PowerMac the last time I had problems since it did turn out that card had some serious issues (Logitech 9000 camera glitched, a USB 2.0 hard drive got errors and my Canon A590 often refused to transfer files at random intervals or failed in the middle of transferring them). The new Sonnet card I put in a few days ago cured all those issues and even works as a 1.1 card in OS9 and works at boot time with the boom menus (the Ultra didn't work with either). So if it's STILL the USB card there's not much I can do other than use slow USB 1.1 to sync with. And syncing up to 16GB at those speeds WOULD be SLOW.

Update: After reading on the Net some more I found a thread that suggested the iPhone and iPod Touch do NOT like unpowered USB hubs. Well, I've been plugging it into the front panel hub I installed where the old Jaz drive used to be. That's probably the cause of the problem. I'll try it again with my powered USB hub on top of my desk (and/or the one on the back of the card itself i that fails).

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Well, it didn't like my powered USB hub either. I'm now 1200+ songs into the attempt to sync it from the USB 2.0 card's own ports on the back of the PowerMac. So far, so good. I don't really understand why Apple's product can't use a USB hub (powered or unpowered). Now I have to leave the cable draping from the back of the computer and rest it on top or something since it's a pain to disconnect it in the back (the whole reason I put a front mounted hub there in the first place where the jaz drive went and bought a powered desktop hub so I'd have plenty of easy to get to ports on it).

Update: The iPod Touch just finished syncing. So far, it seems to sync OK with the direct rear ports on the Sonnet USB 2.0 card, but not either of my hubs (one powered and one not).

 

[vvebsta]

The same thing has happened to me ever since I got the new version of itunes. I have trouble with large transfers of music or movies. Sometimes it takes several syncs to get it all on there. Very bizarre.

I read this blog and tried attaching the cable directly to the computer and it seems to be working.

This is still something Apple should address.

 

[lucidreverie]

Sorry to revisit this if it's been taken care of, but I'm still having this problem (using the latest-and-greatest version of iTunes). Calendars, Contacts, and all that good stuff syncs, and I even have the music sync part only syncing a specific Playlist, but just no dice on the sync. Most of the time the iPhone just drops from the device list in iTunes right when it starts syncing the music, but sometimes I get a 'disk cannot be written to' as well.

I have noticed I have better luck after a fresh reboot, but still, it's annoying.

By the way, I have autosync turned off.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

B.

 

[fentor]

If I plug in directly to my iMac the problem goes away - if I go via the USB port on my hub (happens to be on the back of my external drive) then I experience problems with long syncs

 

[MaTr3o]

I am having the exact same problem. My iPhone is 3.1.3, I'm using Windows XP SP3. When I sync my iPhone, it will appear like syncing for a couple of seconds and than it simply disappeas from iTunes and the screen of the iPhone remaining with "Syncing".

I reinstalled Windows, I deleted all my settings and content on my iPhone and I am still having the same problem. I am not using any USB hub. THe sync works on another computer, I've tried it.

 

[MaTr3o]

Come on, nobody knows how to solve this problem?

 

[PraetorianXX]

I too get this problem but was able to mitigate it slightly by disabling automatic backups. There's a way to disable auto backups - Google it. For Windows users it involves editing the iTunesPrefs.xml file and adding a new user preference. In my case I don't think the cable is the problem, as the cable is new, and the problem persists with other sync cables - even a belkin cable, which in my opinion are slightly higher quality.

The other thing I have found helps is doing a full reboot of the phone - complete shutdown and reboot.


I'm on a Windows XP machine
iTunes 9.2.0.61
iPhone 4, running iOS 4 (8A293)