About a week ago iTunes began crashing each time I synced my iPhone. Initially it happened right at the end of the sync and so, although irritating, it was possible to ignore it while simultaneously searching for a solution online. The problem started immediately after I had installed the new version of Google Earth and so my initial thoughts were that it was in some way related to a change that had been made as part of that install. But uninstalling Google Earth had no effect.
The nature of the problem was that the more I ignored it the further forward in the sync process it got until eventually iTunes would crash immediately on recognising the iPhone and display the "iTunes has stopped working" popup.
The Apple support forums were of little help. They seemed to contain little in the way of advice from Apple and a lot in the way of posts from similar and confused iTunes users who were experiencing similar problems to me.
One apparently useful suggestion from the forums was that the issue might be resolved by uninstalling QuickTime and then re-installing iTunes+QuickTime together. This had no effect either.
Following another line of hope I performed a restore on the iPhone which reloads the firmware and attempts to recover the iPhone settings from the most recent backup. Again, no solution.
After a number of frustrating evenings of tinkering I stumbled on the solution that worked for me: From the iTunes store menu choose "Deauthorize Computer…" followed by "Authorize Computer…". I have no idea why that solved the problem but I can now sync again and if you have stumbled upon this post because you have the same problem I really hope it works for you.
I can’t understand how Apple can produce such a wonderful user experience on the iPhone and Apple TV and such an awful one on iTunes and the Apple support web site.
Worked for me… thanks!
Comment by Rod — February 23, 2009 @ 12:35 am
You are the man I have been trying to figure this out for weeks and almost decided to unplug this 7 month old PC and get rid of it.
Thanks again for posting this.
D
Comment by Sully — February 24, 2009 @ 6:27 am
I have been trying to figure this out for 2 months. It worked! Thank You.
Comment by KCD — March 2, 2009 @ 12:57 pm
You’re the f’ing man! I had the same problem with my iPod and this worked.
Comment by Mike — March 4, 2009 @ 12:05 am
No joy here I’m afraid :( Seems to bomb out at the “Genius sending information to Apple” stage
Comment by paulbyrne18 — March 12, 2009 @ 8:00 pm
I am having the same problem. When the Genius sending info to apple is when I am getting the error. I try to turn Genius off, but I am unable to.
Comment by Jeff — March 18, 2009 @ 12:39 am
Ok this worked for me. For some reason all my movies were set to open in realplayer. So I moved my movie file so that when itunes opens it will not access it, and itunes worked. I then changed my movies to open in itunes and moved my movie folder back. itunes still works. The only time itunes doesn’t work is when I try to turn on Genius. I never use Genius so I just keep it off. So far itunes is working fine. I hope this helped. Sorry for the non tech lingo as I am not really a computer person lol.
Comment by Jeff — March 18, 2009 @ 6:24 pm
Can’t get this to work for me… Any other suggestions??? I tried to turn off genius but it will not let me! HELP!!!!
Comment by Carrie — March 21, 2009 @ 12:34 am
OKAY, I figured it out for those of you who it’s not working on… He has the right idea, but if it doesn’t work for you here is what you do… You have to VERY QUICKLY, If Genius is on, on the status bar at the top, you will see an X as it is starting up, immediately click on the link, then go to the store menu and turn off genius! IT WORKS!!!! You can thank me later. .lol
Comment by Carrie — March 21, 2009 @ 12:47 am
To Carrie,
Thank you very much for the advise. This has troubled me for days now and your last post did the trick!!!You Rock!!!!!!
Comment by Anonymous — March 24, 2009 @ 10:55 pm
Thank you very very very much, this has been driving me crazy!!!!
uninstalling itunes and quicktime and then re-installing worked!
Why is this not on the itunes site as a fix?
Comment by donna — March 28, 2009 @ 10:23 pm
Thank you. It really worked.
Comment by Me — June 15, 2009 @ 10:13 pm
How would you be able to de-authorized and authorize when you cant even launch the itunes properly? can you give more details?
Comment by Anthony — July 8, 2009 @ 2:11 pm
I could do that because the de-authorizing and re-authorizing were done without my iPhone being `connected’
to iTunes. My problem only arose once the iPhone was connected. Until then iTunes worked fine.
Once I had performed the re-authorizing I could connect my iPhone and sync without
the problem re-occurring. If iTunes fails for you before you connect your device then,
I’m afraid, you must have a different problem.
Comment by vextasy — July 8, 2009 @ 4:44 pm
Thank you!!! It was killing me. In my situation I had just got a new computer and transferred my library over. The first time I tried to sync on the new computer it would ask me if I wanted to, “… transfer purchases…”. Regardless of what I selected there it would crash. Your solution got me back up and running… thanks a million!
Comment by Aaron — July 15, 2009 @ 12:55 am
I tried all the tips here without success. Read in another discussion to delete all Podcasts on the iPhone. Seems to be the only solution which worked for me.
Comment by Rembo — July 16, 2009 @ 6:54 am
Aaah, thanks a million man. I was having trouble getting music to my iphone after a format of my pc + firmware update to 3.0 on my gen. 1 iphone.
Itunes just kept crashing during the iphone sync. But not anymore…. :D
Comment by The Hoff — July 18, 2009 @ 8:39 am
It worked!!! Thanks!
Comment by Jim — July 18, 2009 @ 1:42 pm
if you run a diagnostics test found in advanced this seemed to work for me
Comment by Matthew suter — August 13, 2009 @ 11:26 am
Deleting the podcasts did the trick… hope this never occurs again!
Comment by Patrick — August 15, 2009 @ 3:01 pm
Experienced this problem for the first time today, did a Google search for [iphone vista "itunes has stopped working"] and found your fix. Worked like a champ. In my case, I hadn’t yet authorized my computer (new install) – and once I did, it was all good.
Thanks a million for sharing your experiences – and helping the rest of us in the process. :)
Comment by V-Man — August 16, 2009 @ 4:46 pm
hey dude thanks so much for posting this, I’ve been looking for a solution everywhere!! Can’t wait till Windows 7 is released because Vista is horrible….well it was until now that i got my iphone to finally sync!!!!!!!!!! THANKS DUDE!!!!
Comment by chris — August 18, 2009 @ 1:22 pm
You’re the best, problem solved! I’m so happy it is working again.
Comment by Floris — August 19, 2009 @ 9:41 pm
Deleting the Podcasts did the trick for me!!! Tried everything on this site… Thanks everybody for all the tips!
Comment by Kyle W — September 18, 2009 @ 2:19 am
De-Authorizing cleared up the problem.
How weird!
Thanks for posting this information…
Comment by doodude — September 20, 2009 @ 3:36 am
No luck, I’m afraid. I’m really, really fed up.
Comment by Jon — September 21, 2009 @ 5:15 pm
thanks so much!!! my problem wasnt with synching but it was solved and therefore i am thankful
Comment by Anonymous — October 3, 2009 @ 3:51 pm
I left it alone for some days, and just as I was about to take the laptop bodily back to the shop, it worked. Presumably Windows found an answer to the problem.
Comment by Jon — October 4, 2009 @ 7:48 pm
Hey, I’ve had ths problem for a couple of weeks with my iPod touch 1g. I just got my 3g, and I was hoping that would solve the problem but it didn’t. I de and re authorized my computer, but that didnt work. then i tried turning genius off (it is definately off) and de and re wuthorizing and i still have the same problem. did I do something wrong? anyone have any insights?
Comment by Thor — October 6, 2009 @ 11:00 pm
Thanks guys….deleting podcasts, de authorizing then connecting ipod and reauthorize worked for me..Thanks!!
Comment by Chris — October 13, 2009 @ 1:56 am
Why can’t they just let you copy mp3s directly? I hate itunes, and apple!
Comment by G — October 17, 2009 @ 1:33 am