ITunes match is keeping my phone from syncing.

Question

So I've been stumped the past couple days as to why my phone would not sync.
It would get stuck at the "Waiting for sync to start"
Then I would get some error about how the Sync couldn't start.
So I restore my phone. Set up as new phone hoping this would fix the problem.
It did, restoring and setting up as new phone allowed me to sync my phone.
So I sync a couple of my apps to my phone and decide to use my phone for a while.
Turn on iTunes match on my phone so I can hear some of my music.
Then I decide to sync more apps to my phone that I had forgotten earlier when I was Syncing my phone.
And no luck. Stuck back at "Waiting for sync to sart"
This has happened a couple times now, I've had to restore multiple times.
Everything is up to date, my iPhone is up to date, so is iTunes.
My phone syncs perfectly fine until I turn iTunes match on via my iPhone.
THIS IS REALLY ANNOYING.
Anyone have a solution?
Or having the same problem?

Answer 1

Same deal, seemingly. iPhone 4S 64GB, Lion, iTunes 10.5.3, iTunes Match On (i.e., all the latest, but nothing beta).
What I've just found strong evidence of is a connection between this "waiting for sync to start" issue and the whole "loads of empty playlists" issue. Whether this ties in to the faux-over-capacity issue I don't know, but I've got that bug too.
Here's the lowdown:
Noticed my capacity / over-capacity fluctuating awhile ago, but it always seemed to sort itself out. It still goes back and forth, but now I've noticed I just hang on "Waiting for sync to start." Actually, it's been doing that for a few weeks I think, but I wasn't paying close attention since all I cared about syncing during that period was getting music onto the phone, which iTunes Match managed to handle in its own ham-fisted, not-ready-for-prime-time way.
Just a minute ago, though, I looked at the iPhone's "iTunes Wi-Fi Sync" info page (wi-fi sync is off; iCloud sync has been long on, and seems to do its thing nicely in the background; last time 4am this morning). Guess what? Last direct iPhone to iTunes sync was on 20 January 2012. And guess what that corresponds to? It was the last sync before I created a playlist on the iPhone that subsequently spawned 32,000 blank playlists of the same name (I created the problem playlist whilst staying at a hotel with no Wi-Fi; a lack/breach in solid internet connection has been linked to the cause of this problem, according to other forums).
Side note: I used a script someone published to delete all these blank playlists. It took about a day to do it. And it worked, insofar as all the blank lists disappeared from the Mac version of iTunes (they stayed on the iPhone, alas, or some did -- it's impossible to gauge the quantity of them). Alas, about 2,000 of them re-appeared this morning on the Mac iTunes, but running the script deleted them within 30 seconds; they're still on the phone as far as I can tell.
Anyway, I might wait for iOS 5.1 or go ahead and RESET ALL SETTINGS (as was suggested on another thread) and restore from iCloud backup (possibly chancing it by going with iOS 5.1 beta 3 while I'm at it). I've never tried restoring from iCloud before, but imagine it "might be some time" as the Brits facetiously say, especially here in Outer Mongolia with good but not brilliant internet speeds.