Fixed iPod backup/sync error

I finally sat down and figured out what was behind the errors I was getting every time I tried to sync my iPod. I'd plug my iPod Touch into my Mac, iTunes would pop open as per usual, and the device would start to sync. After a few seconds, I'd get a dialogue window with the message "iTunes could not back up the iPod "iPod" because the backup session failed".

This has been happening for several weeks now, and I started out by hunting through the logs. I spotted the following in /var/log/system.log:


com.apple.iTunes[7462]: Exec for child /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/MobileDevice.framework/Versions/Current/AppleMobileDeviceHelper.app /Contents/Resources/AppleMobileBackup failed or inexplicably returned

com.apple.iTunes[7462]: Exec for child /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/MobileDevice.framework/Versions/Current/AppleMobileDeviceHelper.app /Contents/Resources/MDCrashReportTool failed or inexplicably returned

When I went to look, sure enough, the MDCrashReportTool was missing, as was the AppleMobileBackup. I searched through my Time Machine backups, and these files disappeared on March 12, right around the time I did a software update for iTunes. Bah! Restoring these files fixed the problem.

Comments

Thanks!!!

This is brilliant -- I had the same problem but never thought to check in the console. A friend suggested I try that and thus I found this post. Great stuff! It also seemed to go wrong for me following an update (there seemed to be a few OS X and iTunes updates around a month ago). Hooray for Time Machine, and your post, anyway!

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