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I got the pop up and I hit install, it’s been sitting at “downloading” with a full bar for several minutes and there seems to be no movement. Any thoughts?

Edit: Over five minutes have passed but now it’s moved to installing, I guess it’s just very slow moving.

Yeesh, it took over 30 minutes to download and install but the update is finally applied and my phone is restoring!
 
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Having the same issue here. It's super annoying.

I've successfully backed up on iTunes my 8plus yesterday, it was on ios12. iTunes version is 12.8.0.150 and the pop up installer happened, I was able to install that hot fix.

Fast forward to today, picked up my new XsMax this morning, get home after work this evening and connect my new phone to my iMac so that I can restore my data. The pop up appears again, I've tried and tired but it keeps saying the server is not reachable. Great job Apple !

iMac is on high sierra 10.13.6
 
Having the same issue here. It's super annoying.

I've successfully backed up on iTunes my 8plus yesterday, it was on ios12. iTunes version is 12.8.0.150 and the pop up installer happened, I was able to install that hot fix.

Fast forward to today, picked up my new XsMax this morning, get home after work this evening and connect my new phone to my iMac so that I can restore my data. The pop up appears again, I've tried and tired but it keeps saying the server is not reachable. Great job Apple !

iMac is on high sierra 10.13.6
Reinstall iTunes
 
I had a similar problem when I got my XS Max today. Was trying to restore from iTunes when setting it up but it just wouldn’t recognise the phone when I plugged it in via USB. Took me about 5 hours of talking with Apple support and updating iTunes (twice) and my Mac OS before it finally worked.


The weird part was in the morning I had already gone into App Store and updated iTunes but when I spoke to apple support they said this wasn’t the latest version of iTunes and they gave me a link to download the latest version.
 
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I had a similar problem when I got my XS Max today. Was trying to restore from iTunes when setting it up but it just wouldn’t recognise the phone when I plugged it in via USB. Took me about 5 hours of talking with Apple support and updating iTunes (twice) and my Mac OS before it finally worked.


The weird part was in the morning I had already gone into App Store and updated iTunes but when I spoke to apple support they said this wasn’t the latest version of iTunes and they gave me a link to download the latest version.
And by version numbers, they gave us downgrades... but they're calling it upgrades... Whatever. As long as it works.
 
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I got the popup immediately after plugging in my Max today, after reading the thread I was looking for it ;)
Installed, no problem connecting it to iTunes.

What is the risk to the current music database, and my iOS devices backups. Will they remain there ?

I just did it and didn't notice one thing amiss when it came back online
Pretty sure not related.. But.

After doing my restore on the Max today, I have two playlists, 1 copied 100% fine. The other.. copied 1 damn song. Total.
Missed the other 156 songs in it..
And it erased it from iTunes as well, replaced the same named playlist with that 1 damn song.

Glad I put my old iPhone into airplane mode after I switched the Max with AT&T, it still had the entire playlist intact. Had to scroll the playlist on the old iPhone, rebuild in iTunes.
And yet again.... Apple found a way to remove cover art from me. So annoying. Open the miniplayer.. and the artwork shows, but does not transfer to the Max nor shows in iTunes library. I know delete/add each album fixes 99% of them.. but still.
 
And by version numbers, they gave us downgrades... but they're calling it upgrades... Whatever. As long as it works.
I had a similar problem when I got my XS Max today. Was trying to restore from iTunes when setting it up but it just wouldn’t recognise the phone when I plugged it in via USB. Took me about 5 hours of talking with Apple support and updating iTunes (twice) and my Mac OS before it finally worked.


The weird part was in the morning I had already gone into App Store and updated iTunes but when I spoke to apple support they said this wasn’t the latest version of iTunes and they gave me a link to download the latest version.

And by version numbers, they gave us downgrades... but they're calling it upgrades... Whatever. As long as it works.

I was approx 2hrs with Apple support, one with two people with online chat, and a further hour on the phone.

I was given a link to a "different" version of 12.8 iTunes, but I'm not sure if it really was.
https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1977?locale=en_US
Tried it, and still it had the popup installer, and my new Max wasn't showing up.

I shared pretty much everything with apple, screenshots etc.

Based on what I was told, version 12.9 will be released with Mojave on Monday - and this should address the issue that iOS 12 devices are having with iTunes. I really did not want to wait this long to get my backup onto my new phone - but I have no choice.

Anyway I'll try to repeat connecting to itunes over the weekend, check for updates etc.

Thanks to those people who chimed in, much appreciated.
 
I had this issue this morning.
Update iTunes
Restart new phone
Plug in phone with iTunes closed
Trust the computer
Software update prompt will come up(for phone I believe)
Update that software
Restore from iTunes prompt. Not phone prompt

I think I got this error because I did a settings update from my old phone through the camera when it was in close proximity and then also tried to restore.

Not saying all these steps are needed, but it’s what I did and helped me
 
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Those of us who sync our apps with iTunes on a computer, there is a new iTunes update (12.6.5) that supports iOS 12 with the new iPhone. It allows restores from backups. Until I updated to this version of iTunes, i was not able to get the iPhone xs max to be recognized to perform a restore from a backup. Hope this helps others.
 
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Ok so this manual back up and restore is a complete mess. I managed to backup my iPhone 7 Plus and restore but after the the restore was completed my iPhone xs just became bricked and stuck on a screen that says slide up to upgrade. Had to put it back in recovery mode and restore to factory. After several tries with the same result I just gave up and decided to just setup as new. Trying my wife’s iPhone xs max right now, but yea even with installing the update after the pop up chances are you will still run into problems and brick your phone at the final steps of the restore.

Edit: btw all my devices were on iOS 12

Update: so my wife’s iPhone restored without a problem. The thing I did differently for hers was to initiate the restore from iTunes itself after plugging the phone into the computer first. All the times I did it for my phone it was initiating from the phone first the plugging into iTunes. Not sure if that had anything to do with it. Anyway, this info might help someone. I will try it with my phone tomorrow and see if it works.
 
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I do.

Confirmation of the issue. Apparently iOS 12 is not compatible with iTunes 12.8.0.150 so you won't be able to manually backup a device on iOS 12 if you have that version (the current version) of iTunes.

It's not just me affected, it's everyone. So anyone looking to manually back up and restore cannot do it until Monday when iTunes 12.9 is released. They have, however, released iTunes 12.9 for Windows.

So, I'll be doing an iCloud backup and restoring from that to my new phone. When it eventually finishes. Just 1 more hour remaining.

Thank you to everyone who posted and tried to help me out.
This exact same thing is happening to me on my iPhone X and Xs Max. I spent 2 hours on the phone with support. Nothing they did worked. They told me for now use/do iCloud back ups until Monday when a new update will be out.
 
This exact same thing is happening to me on my iPhone X and Xs Max. I spent 2 hours on the phone with support. Nothing they did worked. They told me for now use/do iCloud back ups until Monday when a new update will be out.

Reinstall iTunes. You'll get an update to allow you to sync.
 
Reinstall iTunes. You'll get an update to allow you to sync.
Thanks....that what I did. Thanks to this thread and everyone that posted! The Apple agents I spent 2 hours on the phone with did not know this simple fix. Both X and Xs Max are syncing with iTunes now
Thanks guys! :)
 
I had this issue this morning.
Update iTunes
Restart new phone
Plug in phone with iTunes closed
Trust the computer
Software update prompt will come up(for phone I believe)
Update that software
Restore from iTunes prompt. Not phone prompt

I think I got this error because I did a settings update from my old phone through the camera when it was in close proximity and then also tried to restore.

Not saying all these steps are needed, but it’s what I did and helped me

Wow, this is absolutely what was needed.

I had gone through my troubleshooting with Apple yesterday, over 2hrs of work. Reinstalling itunes etc did not work.
After reading your post this morning I decided to try again.

"
Plug in phone with iTunes closed
Trust the computer
Software update prompt will come up(for phone I believe)
Update that software
Restore from iTunes prompt. Not phone prompt"

This is exactly what works, key thing is to have itunes closed. When I plugged in my iPhone first it was recognized and iTunes came up ok and I was able to restore my new iPhone Max. A lot of data to restore from my 8 plus 256gb onto my X Max 512gb, been working for two hours on my iMac. It's almodt complete now.
 
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