[dgold105]

Usually every day or two when I plug my iPhone in to my Mac to Sync (ios 4.1, iTunes 10) it hangs during the backup phase - even if I leave it for hours. I then disconnect the iphone and shut it down but it hangs when it shuts down (just a spinning wheel). I then force restart it and then it syncs with iTunes and but at the end says it was unable to back it up. I then unplug it and plug it back it and then it syncs and backs up fine again. As I said this doesn't happen everytime I sync my phone but usually once in 4-6 syncs. Any ideas on what might be going on here? It has also happened to me once or twice on my iPad so am wondering if it might be an issue on the iTunes side.

[ghporter]

I'd get through a good backup/sync, then "restore" the phone. It sounds like there's something goofy going on with iTunes processing your backups and even if it's only every now and then it's not a good thing. A restore should start the phone itself out as a clean slate, which would remove one potential source of problems in the process.

You don't mention which iPhone you have, just the iOS you're running. Not that I think there's something specific about one phone or another, but someone else may have a similar experience to yours, and knowing which phone it is could help bring that information to light.

[dgold105]

I have an iPhone 4.

I have tried a restore a couple of times and the problem persists.

[subego]

I was going to say restore phone, and if that didn't work, reinstall iTunes.

[dgold105]

Thanks. Will try re-installing iTunes. Is there a log at all where one can look at what iTunes is doing while it is backing up the iPhone so I can see if it is a specific app or file that is causing the problem?