UPDATE: OCTOBER 15, 2011: Please read through the comments on this entry. Some people have been reporting that this technique did not work for them. Others are reporting that it works with some registry cleaners and not others. I recommend uninstalling iTunes and cleaning your registry with CCleaner; follow the link below to download it if you don’t have it.
Another thing to consider: the handshaking of your iOS device and iTunes might have broken down for other reasons. For a simple solution, try restarting iTunes first to correct this some of the time. Try restarting your phone or iPad if that doesn’t work. If neither works, plow onward.
I eagerly awaited the arrival of iOS 5. I’ve wanted wireless sync for ages and it was finally possible.
Then I discovered lots of shit that it broke.
Then I literally couldn’t get Wi-Fi sync to work at all.
Finally after much wailing and gnashing of teeth, I offer solutions to two of the most annoying bugs I’ve found in iOS 5.
#1: “Sync will resume when (computer) is available”
This is the most annoying bug I’ve seen in ages. Wi-Fi sync is dangled in front of us and snatched cruelly away. It took me 30 hours to solve this one and you are welcome.
First, the usual crap that Apple will tell you to do:
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Connect your iOS device to your computer.
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Select it in iTunes
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Make sure the “Sync this iPhone over Wi-Fi” box is checked.
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Sync the device manually.
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Unplug the phone when complete.
In theory, the device should stay visible in iTunes, and let you sync over WiFi. Quite often that’s not the case, and I will explain why shortly. But before we go to my nuclear option, make sure it’s not a firewall problem. Easiest way of doing this is checking to see if the device has access to your shared libraries from iTunes. If you get the “shared” option in the Music and Video apps, then it’s not your firewall.
Now, for the nuclear option. As I hinted at back in my article about how to manually uninstall Quicktime, Apple does some nasty shit in their installers. They first try to uninstall everything instead of copying over it. The problem is they leave a lot of cruft in the registry that can screw up future installs. This is what broke Wi-Fi sharing for me, and I’m willing to bet is breaking it for a lot of others. To do Wi-Fi sync, Apple needed to rewrite the code it uses for networking (the Bonjour protocol) but some “upgrades” to iTunes 10.5 will not replace the Bonjour code completely and properly.
To perform this step you will need a registry cleaner and optionally an uninstaller. I use CCleaner for both and recommend it highly. The steps you need to take are as follows:
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Download an iTunes installer directly from Apple. Do not try using Apple’s software update; that way lies madness.
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Completely and totally uninstall iTunes. Do this from the Control Panel’s “Programs and Features” or through an uninstaller like CCleaner. I did the latter.
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Run the registry cleaner to get rid of the references to the old copy of iTunes completely. This should be automatic if you choose to “fix issues” (or similar language) from your registry.
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Reboot the computer, just to be safe.
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Install iTunes fresh from the program you just downloaded. This should make for a nice fresh install.
As soon as I finished installing the new copy of iTunes and clicked to run it, it found my iPhone and started synching it over WiFi.
And clearing up a common misconception: despite what is being implicated, your iOS device does not need to be plugged into your computer or a charger to sync. It needs to be connected to your computer before the first Wi-Fi sync so it knows which computer it will be talking to, and will know to sync over Wi-Fi. And if you plug it into a charger, it will automatically sync as soon as it has power (just as it would automatically sync as soon as you connected it to your computer). But you don’t have to have it charging before synching manually.
#2: Smart Playlists get scrambled
This is actually an old bug that keeps coming up every year or so at random, whenever Apple makes major changes. I don’t know why they don’t test this immediately before a release, and make a permanent note of what fixed it last time. Essentially, if you have a smart playlist that you reorganize in iTunes, your device won’t get your updated play order; it will re-sort the playlist the way it thinks it should be.
Credit for this one goes to TechGeekBlogger at the Apple discussion boards. I just include it here because odds are if you’re pissed off about the first bug you’re annoyed by the second as well.
There’s an interesting workaround that TechGeekBlogger discovered: a smart playlist on an iOS device will sort things the way it wants but a smart list composed of other smart playlists will work fine. I noticed this when I checked to see that my “smart shuffle” playlist (which accesses playlists for different star ratings with rules for each one) would let me re-sort it but my podcast playlist wouldn’t.
Essentially here’s a workaround Create a new smart playlist with the following rules (and only the following rules):
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Playlist is (your old playlist)
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Limit to (however many) items (ordered as you like)
Then sync the new playlist to your iOS device. This new one should be able to be re-sorted in iTunes and have its new order updated on the device as well.
Hope this prevents some of you from pulling your hair out like I’ve been doing.
1.) Thanks for your Tipp. it was the first sensible solution I found on the web since I started investigating this last year after iOS 5 came out, and thw WiFi Sync I was so much lookiong forward to did not work.
2.) Like for many others here, your fix worked for me initially. However, when I try to copy something manually to my ipAD some time after iTunes found it, I get “Looking for iPad” whgich never stopps. I thought maybe it does not work when the iPad went to sleep, but after waiking it up, it still does not work
I then closed itunes and restarted “Apple Mobile Device” services (Win 7 64 it) and started itunes again. This seems to fix teh problem for some time, but it keeps coming back, so I assume there is some problem with that service.
I considered writing a batch file, that restarts the srevice after the windows start (or before iTunmes starts maybe) but I have to figure out how to that still.
Maybe iTunes 11 will improve things.
how to fix iTunes/iPhone Sync over Wifi :
Create a file called Start_iTunes.bat
and place this text inside :
start here :
net stop “Apple Mobile Device”
net start “Apple Mobile Device”
echo for 32bit:
“c:\program files\itunes\iTunes.exe”
echo for 64bit:
“C:\Program Files (x86)\iTunes\iTunes.exe”
END HERE ^^^^^^^^^^
courtesy of VyCO Systems – Intelligent IT.
Damn! It worked!
Thank you very much!!!!
How and where do I do this? Sorry for the noob question.
Tonimoroni,
Go to “Start”, and then type in (in the search box) “cmd” and hit enter. Then paste the “net start” commands above into the DOS Prompt.
Thank you! Much appreciated.
hey guys,
my former comment works also on the New released iTunes.
Coby – Any chance you can post more instructions? I tried pasting what you had in the command prompt but that failed for some reason. I then went to the task manager, went to the services tab, then clicked on the services button in the bottom right. In there, I found the “Apple Mobile Device”. I stopped it, then started it. It didn’t seem to have any impact on the wifi sync. I also tried restarting my PC, Iphone and Router. First at different times, then all at the same time. None of this seems to make it sync again. Thoughts?
Well, coby’s fix kinda worked for me too – although not entirely, check the bottom of this post for more.
For those who are struggling to paste the the instructions coby posted – I also had errors when trying to do that. I suspect it’s two things:
1. The odd set of quote marks – probably a web font thing or something. Try typing the commands instead of pasting them – that way you’ll definitely get the right type of quote mark.
2. The command prompt may need to be “Run As Administrator” – for Windows 7 you can right click on the command prompt and select “Run As Administrator”.
FYI, here is the result of me pasting the instructions into a command prompt:
C:\Windows\system32>net stop “Apple Mobile Device”
The syntax of this command is:
NET STOP
service
And here is the result of me typing it in:
C:\Windows\system32>net stop “Apple Mobile Device”
The Apple Mobile Device service was stopped successfully.
Similar deal with starting – here is the result of the typed command:
C:\Windows\system32>net start “Apple Mobile Device”
The Apple Mobile Device service is starting.
The Apple Mobile Device service was started successfully.
Opening iTunes you will need to retype as well to avoid the same quotation problem.
However, and here is the ‘kinda worked’ thing. Once I did the above, iTunes did indeed open and I could start a sync over wifi. However, the sync didn’t complete because after about 5 minutes I ended up back at the same old problem of “Sync will resume when (computer) is available”. I don’t as yet have a solution to this problem – although this investigation has got me closer to the culprit – which now seems to be something to do with the “Apple Mobile Device” process failing after a short period.
My PC is a Windows 7 64-bit OS in case that makes a difference to anyone else investigating.
Hi Cody.
Once you create the Start_iTunes.bat files and copy the text into it, what location/folder do you put it in?
TIA.
Ron
rjmoose79@yahoo.com
Good question Ron. And on top of that I’m terrified of cmd type stuff (I’m no techie). So excuse the stuidity of this question, but do I copy and paste right down to END HERE ^^^^^^^^^^ ? Thanks for the help.