iTunes / iPhone Help, anyone?

[Keef]

Having worked out how to change the computer my iPhone syncs to, from laptop to desktop, I've hit a snag...

When I try to sync the iPhone with the desktop, iTunes crashes or glitches. It will go different parts of the way each time I try. Most times, it stops somewhere along the first stage - Step 1 of 4, Backing up. Sometimes it goes all the way to step 4, then freezes and tells me the iPhone has stopped responding. I've not completed a sync since swapping computers.

Desktop iTunes has managed to delete most of the music on the iPhone (not that I much care) and reload it from the desktop. I know it's done this, because the playlists on laptop and desktop are different. It's never completed the whole process to put all the music on the iPhone or to sync the diary and contacts etc. The intention was to update to OS4.1 once I've got a backup and sync.

Right now, it's showing "Sync in Progress" and "Charging is not supported with this accessory." I would have thought those two are mutually exclusive, but...

Earlier, I fished out the laptop and connected it to that, and it went straight through the whole process without a hiccup, except of course that it didn't sync the Apps or the Music because they now come from the desktop.

I really don't want to uninstall iTunes on the desktop and reinstall, because there are about three weeks of non-stop music on there (40GB or so) in thousands of tracks and I couldn't face re-creating the playlists etc that go with that.

The problem seems to be with the desktop, since the laptop has always worked fine. The iTunes on the desktop also feeds the iPod that I use on long journeys - does it matter that there are two devices connected?

Another strange thing: after each failed attempt, iTunes shows a device backup called "Unknown" and dated 1/1/2001 00:00 with a serial number 00000000. I've tried leaving that there, and deleting it. Nothing seems to change it, and it recreates it after each attempt.

Does anyone know a solution? Google seems not to. Pesky Apple stuff...

[10W]

Keef,

I kept getting similar problems with the 'freezing' sync. The solution I found (online) was to temporarily disable my firewall (Zonealarm) until the sync was completed.

Not sure if this is something you will be able to use, but it certainly works for my system.

Cheers

10W

[Keef]

Thanks, D.

After much muttering and spluttering and a modicum of curses, I hooked up the laptop and it all worked fine on that - except that I'd "transferred" most stuff to the desktop. It helpfully offered to wipe all my stuff on the iPhone for me, which offer I declined.

Conclusion: something wrong with the iTunes on the desktop (a later version than on the laptop).

Solution: "Repair" the iTunes on the desktop. No need to uninstall and reinstall, which I've done once and will not do again if I can help it - it lost all the music settings and took me ages to sort out the iPod.

Result: All is well. The iPhone is now at 4.1 - I've lost MyWi unless I jailbreak it, but since I have a Voda dongle and don't use the laptop that much now, I can live with that.

Phew!

[IO540]

There seem to be various ways to get up the ***t creek with an Iphone+Itunes.

When you do a firmware upgrade, Itunes supposedly does a backup/restore - as you would expect.

Unfortunately the way it works is not what you might expect. The Backup function which you see when you right-click on the device's name in Itunes, doesn't actually do a backup of the phone, in the conventional sense. It merely does a sync with media etc stored on the PC; for example mp3 files are supposed to live under My Music. For Iphone users who don't use the My Documents directory hierarchy in the "approved" manner, this is a big gotcha because it is easy to lose stuff from the phone.

I have found hundreds of old IE7 bookmarks copied to the phone after connecting it to Itunes. I do not use IE7 but have it installed. Somehow Itunes decided to sync the two...

I also cannot see any backups listed in Itunes (under Preferences / Device) despite having done a number of them.

I can see this is a well dumbed down system which works for most people, but.....

Not sure if I will be upgrading to 4.2 firmware (despite it supposedly supporting printing, which would be useful) because I don't want to reconfig the whole damn thing.

[crewmeal]

After much muttering and spluttering and a modicum of curses, I hooked up the laptop and it all worked fine on that - except that I'd "transferred" most stuff to the desktop. It helpfully offered to wipe all my stuff on the iPhone for me, which offer I declined.

I had exactly the same thing happen to me. When I downloaded music movies photos etc it dumped everything onto my desk top. itunes does that by default and you need to alter the destination of downloaded music to a file of your choice. Maybe you could set up a folder in my documents and then point to software to go there instead.

Go to edit - preferences - advanced tab then media folder location and alter it. I presume you are using Windows??

[Keef]

No, I didn't mean the desktop of the PC, I meant my desktop (as opposed to laptop) PC. Itunes puts the music, the pictures, the apps and the rest where I tell it.

The issue was that I'd been syncing the iPhone to the laptop computer, but for various reasons changed it to sync to the desktop computer. That was when I discovered that the desktop PC wouldn't back up the iPhone properly. Eventually I solved that with the "repair program" features of Windows 7.

IO540
Backups only "appear" when the relevant device is connected. Plug in your iPhone, start iTunes, then when the iPhone appears in the devices list, click Edit - Preferences - Devices. You should see "IO540's iPhone" and a date and time in there.

It won't back up the music on the device, because that's in the iTunes library on the PC, but it will back up everything else. If your iPhone glitches, or you buy a new one, you can restore all that stuff to the new one. It even keeps text messages, call history, settings, photos and so on.

If you feel the need, and if other folks have access to your PC, you can even encrypt the backups.

I've never bothered to look to see where on the PC the iPhone backups go. The way mine is set up, it keeps only the most recent. I've also not bothered to look for a way to keep several. Most of the stuff on the iPhone is duplicated elsewhere in my system anyway.