iTunes: The required file cannot be found

Lately, I always get an error message when I try to sync my iPhone in iTunes. The message simply says “The iPhone cannot by synced. The required file cannot be found.”

Unfortunately, iTunes doesn’t say exactly what file is missing. While playing with the sync options in iTunes I found out, that the problem is related to Apple Aperture 3 in my case. If you’re using iPhoto instead of Apple Aperture, you may find a solution in this Apple support note. If you’re getting this error message in iTunes and you’re syncing your Aperture 3 library (or parts of it) to your iPhone, I may have a solution for you.

  1. Make sure Aperture, iTunes and iPhoto are closed. Use cmd-Q to terminate them if they’re still open.
  2. Open Finder
  3. Navigate to your Home -> Pictures folder
  4. Right-click the “Aperture Library.aplibrary” folder and select “Show Package Contents”
  5. You should see a folder named “iPod Photo Cache”
  6. Delete this folder
  7. Start iTunes
  8. Re-enable photo synchronisation in the photo sync tab
  9. Click “Sync Photos” in the dialog that pops up
  10. Choose Aperture to sync sync photos from
  11. iTunes will say that your iPhone is synced to another photo library. Click yes to overwrite the old settings in iPhone.
  12. That’s it! Your iPhone should be syncing without errors now!

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9 Responses to “iTunes: The required file cannot be found”

  • Karin Nelson says:

    Thank you so much! This worked perfectly!

  • Cid Gerardo says:

    I was also having that same problem. I thought when I went to an iPhone 4 the problem would be fix. Well it was still their. I did some looking on the web and I found your instructions. Well it worked!! Thanks you so very much.

  • Christophe Ravier says:

    I encountered exactly the same problem since yesterday and have tried many solutions (from Apple Support for most of them) unsuccessfully.
    Thank you very much for this ‘simple’ fix. Everything works great now.
    I will keep your site in my bookmarks ;-)

  • iMaddin says:

    This seems to work. Thanks a lot for the help! You saved me a lot of trouble

  • Christophr says:

    Much appreciated. Thanks for sharing the tip!

  • Ralph says:

    Wow….looked everywhere to resolve this issue and found your site. Your instructions did the trick. Thanks so much!

  • peter m calloway says:

    Thanks a lot !
    I’ve been crawling the Apple support forum without any success.

  • Stuart says:

    Thank you so much for this advice!

  • Charles says:

    Thanks a lot. It worked perfectly!!! Aperture 3 was the issue. I followed the instructions and this is now fixed.

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