My iPhone Won't Sync!

Question

Whenever I try to sync my iPhone I get this error “The iPhone cannot be synced. An unknown error occurred (13019). How do I fix this?

Answer

There are several things you can try to fix this. They range from “easy and might work” to “more work but should fix your problem”.

USB

Make sure your USB is connected directly to the computer and not a USB hub. Sometimes there is not enough power and it won’t work right.

Voice Memos

Easy and Quick: Voice memos from your iPhone can cause a problem syncing. Especially if you have been changing their names in iTunes. Try deleting your memos from your iPhone and your iTunes and then resyncing.

Music

Easy and Moderate Time: If deleting the voice memos doesn’t work, you can open iTunes with your iPhone plugged in and uncheck the “Sync Music” and then sync your iPhone. Then, recheck “Sync Music” and sync again. If you have a lot of music, this could take a while. If you get an error, you need to move on to restoring your iPhone.

Restoring your iPhone

With your iPhone connected and iTunes turned on, go to the Summary page under Devices for your iPhone. Click the “Restore” button. This will wipe your phone. The good news is iTunes creates back ups so it’s easy to restore your phone with all your music, etc. when done. After your iPhone is restored it will ask you if you want to use the latest backup. Say “yes”. It will take some time to move all your apps, music, contacts, etc back to your iPhone. Especially if you have a full iPhone. So, go watch a T.V. show or grab some lunch. This has always been my last resort but has worked for me every time.

If that doesn’t work, I suspect you’ll need to wipe the iPhone and not allow it to use any backups. Just configure it manually. Much more of a pain, but it should fix the problem. Fortunately, I haven’t had to do this.