Problems with syncing

[cstromme]

A colleague of mine just called me over for some help syncing his iPhone and iPad. He's used the same iTunes library on the same computer all along to sync them both, but he has never had it automatically sync music etc before, and have had it set to manual.

What is weird is that when I try to set it to automatic I get notices that there's apps and music that will disappear from the device if I try to synch. Normal syncing works fine, and doing a "Transfer purchases" doesn't transfer anything. He has a lot of music and apps bought on the device, and his iTunes library is authorized with the same account, and he's logged into the iTunes Store in iTunes with that account as well.

So why would iTunes want to delete his apps and settings (for those apps) when trying to change the music sync to automatic? A normal sync now works just fine, but the apps he has bought won't transfer over for some reason.

 

[CSMchris376]

When you make the comment "automatically sync" versus "manually sync" are you talking about changing from "manually manage music" in iTunes to a "sync" feature? If so, in my experience with iTunes, this change will warn you of iTunes deleting things, but it will then resync material you have selected. It seems as though it, meaning iTunes, looks at the process differently and almost needs to reset itself.

If you are talking about changing the settings to prevent the iPhone from syncing automatically when you plug it in, versus syncing when you click on the sync button, I've not noticed any difference. I've always set mine to not sync automatically, in case I plugged someone elses phone/device in just to charge.

The change from manually manage to sync may be what is affecting the transfer of purchases, however you should be able to transfer those purchases by right clicking on the iPhone in the device pane and do that before you make the changes to syncing.

 

[cstromme]

I'm talking about letting it automatically sync all music versus how he has it now where he manually managed it. The music isn't what's weird though, it's the fact that his app purchases won't transfer over, and that when changing a setting related to sync we are warned that 21 of his apps will be removed and their settings deleted.

 

[cstromme]

Anyone?

 

[cstromme]

We're kinda at a loss here now. It appears there's no way for him to set it to automatic synching, and if we do anything with the library then he'll loose all his savegames and settings.

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

This is easy. Do a complete backup and restore from that backup. Maybe even restore to factory settings and sync using the backup. Then this time, set it to auto sync his stuff.