superuser crowd,

I've found a number of threads about this, but have yet to find a satisfactory answer. Perhaps I'll have better luck on this site?? I hope so...

I'm having a problem with iTunes where syncing my iPhone ends up seeming to basically finish, but it says "Waiting for items to copy" after everything else, and just stays there for... well, a very long time, if I let it. Oh, and I'm not sure this is always the case, but at the moment, it's doing this while "Syncing Genius Data to [my iPhone] (Step 8 of 8)".

If I click the little x in iTunes, it then gets stuck on "Canceling sync", for an equally indefinite sort of period.

If I simply unplug the phone, everything seems to be synced and happy, but the next time I sync, it happens again.

I presume this is a bug of some sort on Apple's part, but it seems like people have found workarounds... I'm just having trouble tracking one down that (a) is well described enough that I can actually follow it, (b) has enough detail that I can do it without losing data (i.e. tells me pathnames that I might want to copy first, or the like, before telling me to remove something) (note: see also point (a) -- I can't remove it if it's telling me to remove something that I don't know where it is!), and (c) otherwise seems sane.

I'm hoping that here perhaps I'll get better luck -- with either a workaround, and/or debugging tips for figuring out how to find myself a workaround.

Note: I'm busy with some other things at the moment, but can try to add some additional information later, if necessary.