Stuck 'Waiting for changes to be applied', takes 2 hours to START syncing

Every time I sync my iPhone 4S with iTunes, it goes fine up until 'Waiting for changes to be applied'. I dread having to update content on my iPhone on my computer because I know it will take ages. Every time I sync, it gets stuck on 'Waiting for changes to be applied' for about 2 hours, then it will START adding the new content I want (which is not a significant amount). I have tried restoring from backup, I even wiped the phone and started fresh, and still, to update my music library on my phone, it takes me a few hours. I am not talking updating hundreds of songs, I am talking a few dozen songs or maybe adding a few podcast episodes or audiobook chapters.
I have a large iTunes library so I have checked off genres and artists I want synced because there would be no room for the entire library.
What causes the sync to get stuck on 'Waiting for changes to be applied' for so long. What (if any) solution is there to this issue? Would really appreciate any tips.

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Brand new iphone 5 says waiting for changes to be applied forever, every time I sync my phone.

I previously had an iphone 4, and after backing up everything, i bought an iphone 5 and transfered everything to the new phone when i was at the apple store. i brought my laptop to get help syncing the music, but it gets stuck in a perpetual loading screen and gets stuck on waiting for changes to be applied. i cannot cancel the sync unless i eject my phone. and when i do, all of the music is greyed out, when i plug my phone in again, it starts syncing and stops when it says waiting for changes to be applied, or sometimes copying files. ive restarted my computer, my phone, un-plugged and plugged back in, everything is up to date, i un-installed and then re-installed itunes and nothing seems to work. i could sync everything fine before when i had the ophone 4. i have an HP laptop with windows 8 and i core 7, and theres a label that says nvidia geforce gt 635 (hopefully the info helps)
Can anybody please help me with this?

so i went back to the apple store and the only solution was to trade in your phone for a new one because there was a faulty conector in the microport. hopefully you have a waranty and your stuff backed up!

Itunes 11.1.2, iOS 7.0.3 - stuck @ waiting for changes to be applied - Its getting on to nerves !!!

All was working fine, until I updated to iOS 7 and connected to itunes. All my music was wiped off my device, god knows what happened. Since 3 weeks I have been failing to sync my music back again, but with vain.
For people whom the troubleshooting steps have worked, have been really lucky. Unfortunately nothing worked for me, spent hours together doing the below steps
1. Re-Install iOS - restore, which took hours to download and install
2. Uninstalled itune 3 times and chose multiple locations to install
3. did a setting reset on the iphone
4. tried syncing playlist by playlist
5. tried installing/uninstalling an app while sync in progress, no luck
6. tried syncing over wi-fi, no luck
7. restart, hard reset, no luck.
This is getting onto my nerves now, APPLE, hope your developers are looking into this, this can never be a fault with the device hardware, this has got to do something with the crappy iOS7 or the itunes 11.1.2
Haven't seen anyone even caring about this topic, where hundreds of people are shouting on the same issue.
Battery back up ***** after OS upgrade. Overheating.
Please do something, before I move out to a Windows Phone.
Many Thanks for all the trouble your new OS and itunes has given to its consumers.
Rgds,
Ravi

Oh, also want to add that the PC I'm currently using is:
Windows Vista Home Premium Service Pack 2
My other PC was:
Windows 7 Ultimate
My MacBook is:
Max OSX 10.5.something (the last update available for it. .8 maybe? haha)
Not sure if this stuff is important, but I thought I'd add it.

I cant sync downloaded music to my iphone, itunes stuck at waiting for changes to be applied

I have a iPhone 4s ios 7.0.4 and i download some mp3 songs from mp3skull.com, but when i try to sync them to my iPhone from itunes it gets stuck at waiting for changes to be applied. and the songs wont sync. PLEASE HELP

I have had this problem and I hope this works (it did for me and I also had an iPhone 4S - 7.1.2)
1) Plug your iPhone in to iTunes.
2) If it automatically starts syncing click the 'X' to cancel the sync as quickly as you can.
3) Once the Sync has cancelled, navigate to:
'File' > 'Devices' > 'Transfer purchases from "_______ iPhone"
4) Wait for Purchases to transfer.
5) Update Apps on iTunes.
6) Wait for that to finish.
7) Try and Sync again.
8) This time it should work.
----CONTINUE READING IF THIS DOESN'T WORK----
9) Click 'Restore iPhone'
10) Let iPhone restore (could take 20 minutes)
11) Set up as a 'New iPhone' and sync your music.
----OTHER THINGS TO CHECK BEFORE YOU RESTORE----
1) Is your iPhone running the latest software version?
2) Is your iTunes running the latest software version?
3) Are your songs in an unsupported File format?
4) Are your songs corrupted?
5) Have you transferred purchases and updated all apps on iTunes?
-----OTHER THINGS YOU COULD DO-----
1) Re-install iTunes (could work - probably won't but you can give it a try)
2) Delete all music off phone (again probably won't work but you could give it a try)
3) Re-start your phone by holding the 'Home/Touch ID' button and the lock button at the same time and hold until the Apple logo appears.
----NOTES-----
Since updating to iOS 8 and iTunes 12 I haven't had this problem. You might want to update to iOS 8.1 and iTunes 12 - this could solve the problem too.
Thanks
iPad iPhone Help.

IPhone 6 stuck on "waiting for changes to be applied" when syncing.

I got a new iPhone 6 a few days ago and I put everything onto it (music, photos, contacts, etc) with no problem from a previous iPhone backup. This morning I tried to sync my phone with iTunes and while the music is listed on the music app on the phone, NONE of it will play and every track has the square with a circle around it that shows its download progress while syncing.
Why is this happening and how do I fix it? All I want is my entire library on my phone but it won't sync. (Also I should have plenty of room on my phone, I got the 128 GB and only have ~30 GB of music) Now on the status bar it says I have 30 GB of music and 30 GB of "other," but none of my songs will play. Also iTunes will get stuck on "Waiting For Changes to Be Applied" and won't finish syncing.
I'm syncing a new iPhone 6 128 GB running 8.1.2 with a Mid 2012 MacBook Pro with Yosemite 10.10.1.
Any help fixing this problem via link or advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

The warranty entitles you to complimentary phone support for the first 90 days of ownership.
If you bought the product in the U.S. directly from Apple (not from a reseller), you have 14 days from the date of delivery in which to exchange or return it for a refund. In other countries, the return policy may be different. If you bought from a reseller, its return policy applies.

Cannot Sync - Waiting for changes to be applied

Cannot sync iphone. It recognizes the phone and will perform the backup upon connection but I am getting a message that says "waiting for changes to be applied" and it will not sync. I have iphone 4 with OS 5.1.1 and Windows 7 with SP1. I had to dump my Windows 7 and reintall. All software seemed to have installed correctly and without issue.
Restarted iPhone, Restarted computer. Made sure computer is authorized and iPhone is recognized in iTunes. Transferred purchases from iPhone may or may not have worked.
Please help!

Alright, so I reset my computer and suddenly it then recovered. Other times it wouldn't recover after resetting the computer, so I have no idea how it happened. I just restarted the computer lots of time and finally it worked.
Okay, back to square one. Now to transfer music, I tried my previous acknowledgable solutions but they didn't work. The iPod touch does not feature a hard-disk mode, and windows media player doesn't support iPods.
I've tried multiple programs to transfer music but none of them work properly and keep giving me error codes. So my iPod still gets stuck at Step 4: Waiting for changes to be applied or whatever it said.
Thanks in advance ._. (Please help)
p.s - Apple is useless. If I don't get steady answers tomorrow I'm going to end up calling them and get this problem fixed first hand. Second hand? I don't know, over the **** phone.
juiceb0xk signing out for the night. Bye. >:(

How can I fix waiting for changes to be made and error -54 during sync with 7.1.2

After updates my iphone5, ipad mini and ipad 3 to ios 7.1.2 cannot sync any of them due to error-54 or waiting for changes to be applied. Was able to sync all before this update. What is wrong? How can I fix?

Eject the device.
Close and relaunch iTunes.
If the problem continues, restart the computer and the device.

ITunes stuck on "Waiting for changes to be applied"

Here are the symptoms I'm seeing:
- If I restore my phone, or delete/reinstall iTunes, or uncheck "Sync Music", wait for a sync to complete, recheck "Sync Music", ONE sync attempt will complete. I try adding one additional song and re-syncing the device, it gets stuck.
- If a sync doesn't complete, it gets stuck on "Waiting for items to copy" or "Waiting for changes to be applied". Via fs_usage, it seems like nothing is happening during this phase. I've left it for two hours and it doesn't move on from this phase unless you manually cancel the sync.
- It's manifested itself on two different phones - an iPhone 4S and a iPhone 6.
- Each phone has enough space for the items I'm syncing
- Sometimes iTunes or gets confused and moves the entire music library on my phone into "Other". Recently I had 42GB of "Other" on a 55GB device. See attached screenshot: http://monosnap.com/file/AaDzqWpgtNXtfTYdy8iscfTKrkZGWC
- The problem has persisted across multiple versions of iTunes (at least versions 11 and 12)
Here are the things I've tried to solve the problem:
- Restore the device - as mentioned, works one time, further syncs fail
- Turn my laptop off and on
- Turn my phone off and on
- Replace "iTunes Library.xml" by moving it to the Desktop and rebuilding the file (really fun as I lost all playlists, import date info and most played information by doing this)
- uncheck Sync Music and recheck it - as mentioned above, this works one time, this method is also error prone (takes 3 or 4 canceled syncs before it decides to actually transfer the songs)
- signed out of Apple Store
- repair disk permissions
- repair disk
- trace iTunes process with fs_usage, will try dtruss next
- remove the SyncServices/Local directory - didn't do anything
- remove iTunes and every trace of it I could find (com.apple.itunes and related plist files) and reinstall from the Internet - I got one good sync after this and then it got stuck again.
I would appreciate your help as I'm at wit's end here. If there are any debugging logs or further information I can post, please tell me - I'm a software engineer by trade and have a fairly good idea of how to operate a machine (though not really how to debug a closed-source binary, maybe I should learn how).
Thanks,
Kevin

This problem started last year when ios 8 was released. I think apple is trying to force users to buy music on iTunes store and that's why it's impossible to sync other music and also that's the reason why they haven't solved this serious problem. That's really disappoints me and i'm angry with apple because i have like 10 gb of music in mp3 and i can't sync music from iTunes to my iPhone.

IPhone 4 w/iOS 5 stuck on "waiting for changes to be applied" any solutions?

So far I'm loving iOS 5 on my iPhone 4. Most everything is working great except for the fact that when I sync my phone it gets stuck on the final part of the sync (which was never part of the sync steps in the past) "waiting for changes to be applied." It happens anytime I make the iPhone sync: Transferring purchases, backing up, or making new changes like adding songs or apps.
So far I've just cancelled out of it and it's usually put everything I had synced onto it. But why does it get stuck on this? Has anyone else noticed this on their iOS devices?

I had the same problem. I updated yesterday, and ended up leaving the phone plugged in overnight, only to wake up in the morning and find it still "waiting for changes to be applied." One website suggested doing this inside the phone:
(Settings>General>iTunes Wi-Fi Sync), and CANCEL/TURN OFF the sync.
I found that for the first sync, or reboot of your iPhone after the iOS 5 and iTunes 5 updates, it's better to do that straight through USB and not over WiFi at all.
I was trying to do it that way, BUT even though I did indicate that on iTunes, the phone was still set to sync over WiFi until I disabled it as described above. My thought is that it was trying to do both, or something like that and could get past it. I hope this helps some of you. After you've done that, it would make sense to sync again straight through USB. Now, my sync takes a minute or two.

My iphone 3GS no longer syncs with iTunes. The phone is recognised, backs up but then I get an error message: "Waiting for changes to be applied". BUT unlike other people, it doesn't stay stuck on it, instead the process closes down immediately

Hi all,
Apologies: I've just joined the community and didn't quite figure how to write a msg! Hope it works...
Anyway,
I read many posts on this annoying error message (Waiting for changes to be applied) in the last 2/3 days, but they all refer to the sync staying stuck on it.
Mine doesn't.
I read the message, then it quickly shuts down the sync and the iTunes progress bar only shows the apple...
As suggested by many, I removed voice msgs, turned off/on, tried to sync in individual stages (calendar only...) but nothing works.
I am up to date on iTunes (11.1.1.11) and have IOS 6.1.3 on my phone, to sync on a Win8 pc (all worked fine until recently).
I have had this phone for several years and it has never done this.
It worked absolutely fine, until I loaded the latest version of iTunes it seems...
Any suggestions?
Many thanks

ALSO, on the iPod under Settings>General>iTunes Sync, you may need to back out of the "iTunes Wi-fi Sync," and reopen it to get it to update.
(I use iTunes 11.1.5.5)

Stuck on "waiting for changes" to be applied during a restore from backup

I am on an iPhone 5s and before installing iOS 8, I made sure to create a backup of everything on my phone onto my laptop. The iOS 8 download completed and during the install, it would get stuck on a white screen with a black apple and a status bar 1/4 complete. I waited several hours and nothing changed, so I talked to someone at Apple and they said that I needed to restore the iPhone, get iOS 8 up and running, then restore my phone from my latest backup which was made with the most recent version of iOS 7. The restore on the phone worked fine to bring it back to factory settings, then I went to restore from my backup on my laptop and this seemed to be working fine as it had my text messages, emails, etc., but it only has 1.5 pages of app icons (half of which are blacked out) and my iTunes remains on Step 5 of 5 "Waiting for changes to be applied". After several hours, I cancelled this backup restore and attempted to do it again, but the same thing happens. Is it possible to have a corrupt Backup? and if so, what should I do?
Thanks.

Try this previous discussion:
"Waiting for changes to be applied": Apple Support Communities

When syncing after recent update, sync is stuck at "Step 4 of 4" "Waiting for changes to be applied" and will not complete, even after hours. How can this be fixed?

I completed the most recent software update for both iTunes and iPhone recently. I am now trying to sync my iPhone to add newly purchased audiobooks and the sync remains stuck at "Step 4 of 4" with the message "Waiting for changes to be applied" I have tried everything to correct this. When sync is cancelled a failure to sync message is generated. Any ideas????

Alright, so I reset my computer and suddenly it then recovered. Other times it wouldn't recover after resetting the computer, so I have no idea how it happened. I just restarted the computer lots of time and finally it worked.
Okay, back to square one. Now to transfer music, I tried my previous acknowledgable solutions but they didn't work. The iPod touch does not feature a hard-disk mode, and windows media player doesn't support iPods.
I've tried multiple programs to transfer music but none of them work properly and keep giving me error codes. So my iPod still gets stuck at Step 4: Waiting for changes to be applied or whatever it said.
Thanks in advance ._. (Please help)
p.s - Apple is useless. If I don't get steady answers tomorrow I'm going to end up calling them and get this problem fixed first hand. Second hand? I don't know, over the **** phone.
juiceb0xk signing out for the night. Bye. >:(

Can no longer sync from Itunes to my Ipod. It stays stuck on "waiting for changes to be applied".

I get to the part where it says "waiting for changes to be applied". And it stays stuck on there. It's been going on since yesterday. I've never had this problem before.

"Waiting for changes to be applied": Apple Support Communities
Also look at the previous discussions listed on the right side of this page under the heading "More Like This"

Itunes sync stuck on waiting for changes to be applied

I recently updated itunes to version 12.0.1.26. I have an Iphone 5 - with ios 8.1.1.
When I tried to sync my iphone to itunes, it constantly gets stuck on "step 6 of 6 - waiting for changes to be applied"
The only songs I now have access to on my iphone are songs I have downloaded through itunes - none of the music I previously had on my phone from CDs or other sources. It also made my videos unaccessable.
I am really frustrated as I have spent hours trying to fix this. Every time I update my itunes I have a different problem. I have read many other questions with the same issue over the years - but there never seems to be an answer or solution.
Thanks in advance for help!

I really don't appreciate the fact that no one from Apple seems to be dealing with the many, many threads that have started on this topic since iOS 7 came out. In any event, I seem to have solved my problem with a full software restoration -- that is, iOS software restoration.
I clicked on "Restore iPhone..." which does a complete reinstall of the iOS but also all apps, photos, songs, etc. Took about 45 minutes, but seems to have worked.
I had previously tried reverting to a backup of my iPhone, but that did not solve the problem. Only a full restore solved it.

Stuck with waiting for changes to be applied to syncing?

Am stuck with waiting for changes to be applied to syncing?
what can I do?

Did yo try all of these:
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Stuck 'Waiting for changes to be applied', takes 2 hours to START syncing

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