Using Windows Phone for Desktop App to Sync with an iTunes library.

[Ftruck90]

Hey Guys Sorry if this has already been discussed but my searches haven't been able to find a solution to my problem. My windows phone for desktop app just errors out whenever I want choose to use an iTunes library, loads about half of my playlists, displays this error:

something happened that we didn't expect. but if you call support, you can tell them you saw this error code: 8300300B;

then the sync button stays greyed out. Have had a Lumia 920 since May and have never been able to sync a single song from my iTunes library. Have tried reinstalling iTunes and windows phone for desktop and tried deleting my iTunes XML and Windows Phone local app data but no dice. I've actually done a fresh install of Windows on this machine, copying across my iTunes library and still the same issue. Just wondering if anyone else has had this issue.

 

[Kris Simundson]

Just use explorer. Drag and drop your music files. It'll be easier.

 

[Laura Knotek]

Are the songs DRM protected?

 

[Ftruck90]

I know I could drag them onto the Lumia in explorer but that's an awful lot of time then spent making playlists on my phone. I have a rather large iTunes library around 120GB of music with 100 odd playlists organizing it into genres, sub genres and albums and It'd definitely be a lot easier if I could just pick which playlists to sync straight from my iTunes library as opposed to copying the music across then making playlists on the phone. I'm considering buying a Lumia 1520 and this would be even more time consuming with 64GB of music on the Micro SD card.

No none of the music is DRM protected. Is it possible that my iTunes library simply has too many playlists and it is freaking out the Windows Phone desktop app?

 

[vaderag]

I'm having this problem too - did anyone find a solution?

 

[pigburner]

Just got Lumia 521 phones for the family. I found the same problem with the error 8300300B and the sync button greyed out when trying to sync my wife's phone to Itunes. I tried many suggestions from other forums including deleting the iTunes library xml file and the Windows Phone folder in the appdata\local\Microsoft folder.. None worked until I found a file in the C:\users\yourusername\appdata\local\Microsoft\Windows Phone called "lastexception" or something like that, which gave me the clue to the problem. In this text file somewhere, it said "Illegal characters in path." So I went through all the playlists in my Itunes and changed any playlist names which had potentially illegal characters (things like !>:/, don't know about &, but I changed it anyway). Then I deleted the iTunes library xml file and the windows phone folder in app data as suggested in other forums. After doing this, the Windows Phone desktop app read the playlists without an error and the sync button was black. Yea!

I repeated this with my daughter's phone/computer, and all that was necessary was to change the playlist names to eliminate the illegal characters. After changing the playlist names only, her phone synced right up! Only a few hours wasted on Christmas morning, but problem solved. Hope this helps others out there!

 

[Thrust247]

Just got Lumia 521 phones for the family. I found the same problem with the error 8300300B and the sync button greyed out when trying to sync my wife's phone to Itunes. I tried many suggestions from other forums including deleting the iTunes library xml file and the Windows Phone folder in the appdata\local\Microsoft folder.. None worked until I found a file in the C:\users\yourusername\appdata\local\Microsoft\Windows Phone called "lastexception" or something like that, which gave me the clue to the problem. In this text file somewhere, it said "Illegal characters in path." So I went through all the playlists in my Itunes and changed any playlist names which had potentially illegal characters (things like !>:/, don't know about &, but I changed it anyway). Then I deleted the iTunes library xml file and the windows phone folder in app data as suggested in other forums. After doing this, the Windows Phone desktop app read the playlists without an error and the sync button was black. Yea!

I repeated this with my daughter's phone/computer, and all that was necessary was to change the playlist names to eliminate the illegal characters. After changing the playlist names only, her phone synced right up! Only a few hours wasted on Christmas morning, but problem solved. Hope this helps others out there!

The above is completely correct but I'm going to add EVERYTHING I did to solve my sync issues since last year (and that's 3 phones later !! 900 / 920 / 1020)

Here it is, start by doing the above, I removed any 'illegal' characters from my playlist titles - eg Rock/Pop/Indie now reads Rock Pop Indie, take out all characters as pigburner states.

Next, go to control panel and uninstall ANY programmes that would potentially use iTunes, this would include (and I list what I removed) iSyncr, Kes, LG PC Suite, Double Twist, or any third party apps that use iTunes for music.

Next, unplug any external hard drives you may use for back up purposes, eg - I have a 500gb Hitachi hard drive with my iTunes backed up to it

Next, follow this Wiki article link and do EXACTLY as it says, Fix sync errors between Windows Phone and iTunes (Windows) - Microsoft Community

Next, restart your PC for changes to take effect and connect your phone via the Windows Phone App and complete the new phone registration, obviously selecting iTunes as your library choice.

At this point the Sync button had changed from the ominous GREY tone to a glorious BLACK tone so I selected the playlists (5 to start with, was a bit nervous !) and pressed Sync........

15 mins later it was done......now I'm no techno wizard, far from it and I'm not saying this is the cure but it worked for me. Basically a mash up of every attempt everyone has had to Sync their iTunes so if it works credit the entire Windows-Sphere forums as they all played a part in my solution.

Fingers crossed it works for you, cheers larsy babies

 

[Joel Boudreau]

Thank you