iTunes does not open up automatically when iPhone plugged into system

Hi, x509.

So, when you open Itunes does the Iphone show up?

Maybe make sure you have this option enabled. You can do so by opening iTunes and then selecting your device in the upper left of iTunes. Then, go to the iPhone Summary page and locate the “Open iTunes when this [device] is connected" option and place a checkmark in the box next to it.

-James

In my experience this is often caused by the Window's registry. It records USB-connected devices and, after a time, fails to recognise a device's capabilities, even if it has been connected many times before.

The most effective way I know of resolving this is to use Nir Sofer's USBDeview.

Try this:

1. Disconnect your iPhone from your PC.

2. Download/unzip USBDeview (make sure that you choose correctly between x32/x64 versions) then right-click on the USBDeview executable and choose Run as administrator.

3. Sort on the Description column then select all entries beginning with Apple.


4. Right-click on the selected entries and choose Uninstall Selected Devices.

This will uninstall the Apple device drivers and - more importantly - cause your PC to 'forget' which USB port/hub your iPhone was connected to and the iPhone's capabilities. (Even better would be to remove the history of all unattached USB devices - but let's not go there... yet.)

5. Re-boot (so your PC re-reads the 'local machine' registry hive in full).

6. Connect your iPhone.

Whilst it may take several minutes, Windows will enumerate the new hardware connection and go out looking for the drivers (supplied by the installation of iTunes) and, more importantly, the driver's ability to run iTunes automatically when your iPhone is connected (which I believe is a hidden AutoPlay setting that does not show in Settings > Devices > AutoPlay).

PS - @Bastet makes a good point. In theory there shouldn't be any difference between the Windows Store version and the version obtained directly from Apple... but I believe there are. In practise I've had more success resolving iPhone/iTunes issues with the Apple version than with the Apple-via-Microsoft version.

Hope this helps...

x509 said:

Directly from Apple. iTunes automatically updates itself, in my installed version.

My opinion? (Not that you've asked for it...)

• Directly from Apple? good.
• iTunes automatically updates itself? bad. (Why would you automatically install a potentially problematic update? I suggest manual updates, after reading bug reports.)

PS - I like your sig: "All my systems are Win 10 Pro 64. All are managed well, thanks to all the great help from this forum." I may add a sig to my own profile: "Some of my systems are Win 10 Pro 64. All are dodgy, 'cos I can't stop fiddling."

TL;DR - After a lot of testing and Googling I've come to the conclusion that iTunesHelper.exe's ability to auto-open iTunes has been removed deliberately by Apple for end-users' protection. As a result, it's not possible for us to fix this behaviour (without resorting to 3rd-party tools).

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More info: I went to test this on my day-to-day laptop, using Process Monitor (ProcMon) to watch what happens to iTunesHelper.exe. This is the tiny 'helper' app (triggered by Apple's Mobile Device Service which watches for the connection of an iDevice via USB) that auto-opens iTunes. Nothing happened. I updated to the latest version of iTunes... and still iTunes didn't automatically open.

I re-imaged my test laptop with Windows 10 20H1 and installed the latest iTunes from Apple (I NEVER use the Store version.), connected my iPhone and waited until there was a notification the device was ready, i.e. all drivers installed. (I checked Device Manager to be sure.) I disconnected my iPhone, re-booted laptop then connected iPhone again. I dismissed the AutoPlay notification (What do you want to happen?) as none of the three options were what I wanted. iTunes didn't open automatically even though iTunesHelper.exe had been running automatically from Startup.

I Googled this and found loads (several hundreds) of people complaining about the same issue, i.e, that Apple have removed the auto-opening of iTunes, including the checkbox where you could toggle auto-open on and off.

To test this further I uninstalled the latest version of iTunes from my test laptop and installed iTunes 11 from OldApps. It wouldn't open, complaining that the iTunes library (which wasn't uninstalled) was from a newer version. I re-imaged the laptop again, installed iTunes 11... and found that it opened but wouldn't actually work... because Apple has now prevented that version from connecting to the Apple Store.

Conclusion: Some of my Google searches found posts (like this Apple Support one) that suggested auto-open had suddenly stopped after a Windows Update and that Apple Support couldn't help. However, this doesn't explain why the auto-open toggle checkbox in iTunes > Device has been removed. To me this showed the change was deliberate behaviour by Apple. (I looked through the iTunes 12 changelog on Wikipedia and went through every one of Apple's iTunes security bulletins but could find no mention of any change of functionality to 'auto-open' or iTunesHelper.exe itself.)

I can think of only 2 reasons why Apple may have changed the behaviour - profit or security.

Profit - Most people use the default sync to iCloud rather than change settings to sync and backup up to their local PC. (In my experience most people don't even know you can change this. However, if you have ever had to suffer the pain of restoring from iCloud, particularly if you have poor wifi reception or a meagre data plan, then you'll know that this is a good way to waste many, many hours of your life instead of restoring within minutes from a local backup.) The default iCloud 5GB storage can soon be used up even with one iDevice... so it's often usual to buy into an Apple iCloud storage subscription plan for more storage. (Cynical? Moi?)

Security - One iTunes security bulletin for v12.10.4 showed an issue with Apple's Mobile Device Service. The Mobile Device Service is a USB driver and is used to detect and communicate with iDevices that are connected to the computer. I searched further and found a snippet of info that "Very little knowledge or skill is required to exploit" and that "Authentication is not required to exploit the vulnerability.". The issue "was addressed with improved permissions logic". It doesn't take a huge leap of imagination that white hat security consultants may have found a way to leverage detection of an iDevice to traverse the file system and launch something other than iTunes via iTunesHelper.exe.

My best guess is the latter, i.e. that Apple removed the ability of iTunesHelper.exe to auto-launch applications due to a security issue which it's keeping quiet about publicly. At the same time it amended the iTunes GUI so the auto-open toggle checkbox was changed to only refer to auto-sync. If I'm correct then there's no 'fix' that we can carry out ourselves.

Hope this helps... it's only a guess but I can't think of anything else to try.