Friday, February 10, 2012

Your iPad/iPhone/iPod not showing up on wireless sync on iTunes in Windows XP?

UPDATE: This solution appears to work for Windows 7 as well. As the problem is likely in the Apple software, the solution should work across Windows operating systems.
Last year for my mom's birthday, we bought her an iPad 2. When iOS 5 came out, she took advantage of the cool wireless sync feature to iTunes running on her Windows XP machine. It worked great for a few months, but then suddenly her iPad stopped showing up in the sync list unless it was physically plugged into her computer. On the iPad, it said it couldn't see her computer.

After tweaking some settings and doing a few reboots, I managed to get her computer to start wireless sync'ing again. I had an idea about what it was, but I wasn't sure.

Then, after a few weeks, I hear from her that it has started again. So I did a little more searching, and after combining multiple people's error reports and extracting the common thing that seemed to fix them all, I think I came up with the fix. It's a simple fix, and she's able to do it herself whenever the iPad loses connectivity. For the last few weeks, every time the iPad stops talking to her computer, she's able to recover immediately. So I think we've figured it out.

The fix? Restart the Apple Mobile Device service. Here's how:
  1. Quit iTunes.
  2. Right-click on "My Computer" and go to "Manage".
    • Alternatively (e.g., on Windows 7), open up your "Control Panel". Then click to see "All Items." Then look for "Administrative Tools." You should find "Services" in there. That's the ultimate destination we're heading to.
    • Alternatively, click on "Start" and then "Run" and type "services.msc" (without the quotes) and hit enter.
  3. Click on "Services and Applications" inside the "Computer Management" console.
  4. Double-click on the "Services" that shows up.
  5. Find the "Apple Mobile Device" service in the list and select it by clicking on it.
  6. Click the link that says "Restart the service".
    • Alternatively, you can right-click on the service and select "Restart."
    • Alternatively, you can double-click on the service and then click the "Stop" button and then the "Start" button.
  7. Close the management console.
Now that you've restarted the "Apple Mobile Device", your system should start working like normal again (you may want to start up iTunes again though). Eventually when your iOS device starts looking again, it will find your system and sync as needed.

This problem appears to be caused by some sort of race condition dealing with the Apple Mobile Device and the network. As the computer starts, the order in which things start is non-deterministic. Due to some random delays, the network may not come up quick enough. Consequently, the Apple Mobile Device gets confused by the network being in this state. Re-starting it manually later when the network is definitely up and running seems to fix this problem every time.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

My New Ipad stopped syncing a few days ago and couldn't figure out what to do. Ticked all the right boxes but no go UNTIL I tried your FIX. I'm using windows 7 64 by the way so your solution works for Windows 7 also. Terrific help!! Thanks very much. As soon as I stopped and restarted the Apple mobile service within 5 secs after opening iTunes automatic sync began as my iPad was in my other room charging. I never rebooted my ipad.

Ted Pavlic said...

Anonymous -- That has been my experience too. No rebooting of the iPad is necessary. All you have to do is restart the Apple Mobile Devices service.

It makes sense that this solution would work across Windows operating systems as the problem seems to be with the Apple software and not Windows.

Unknown said...

THANK YOU! This was the fix I was looking for. After hours scouring the internet and month pondering why it didn't work... It finally worked.

You are a lifesaver, I hope more people find your article so they can solve this problem too!

Marc Sabatella said...

Count me another satisfied user of this tip!

Richard said...

I didn't have any problem mentioned above until after the latest updates to iTunes 10.7. Now my iphone doesn't show up, even after i reboot my computer and iphone. I did the restart thing in service.msc. it seems to work, but only one time. i hate have to restart service everytime i want to sync through wifi. anyone know any other solutions?

Anonymous said...

Thank you, your tip helped me resolve iPhone not showing in iTunes mystery.