[p120ph37]

I had my MacBook Pro stolen the other day, and now need to sync my iPhone with my new MacBook Pro. Unfortunately I cannot use the "Backup iPhone" trick because the backups are encrypted and the encryption checkbox is force checked.

So, here's my procedure:

Use a Windows machine to run iPhoneBrowser (is there an OSX equivalent?)
Downloads - iphonebrowser - Project Hosting on Google Code

Browse to the [root]/iTunes_Control/iTunes folder on the phone.

Right click on the file "iTunesPrefs" (not "iTunesPrefs.plist") and select "save as".

Use a hex editor (I prefer XVI32 when on Windows) to read bytes 12-19 in that file. This is the Persistent ID in reverse order.
Freeware Hex Editor XVI32

On the new computer, get HexEdit (or if your new computer is Windows, you can keep using XVI32)
Download HexEdit from SourceForge.net

Edit your "iTunes Music Library.xml" file (on OSX, that is in ~/Music/iTunes) to replace the "Library Persistent ID" value with the value you obtained from the iPhone. (copy the old value from this file for use in a find+replace in the next step)

Finally, use find+replace on your "iTunes Library" file (in HEX mode!) to replace the old Persistent ID you saw in the xml file with your new one.

And then try the phone sync, and it should accept your iPhone

[Frantyk]

lassem = genius

Hours and hours searching for a solution to this problem.

My songs on the iphone are no longer greyed out in iTunes and I can sync with out the computer wanting to Sync & Erase!
Thanks

[strongbad2797]

I followed the previous post by p120ph37 and I am still getting asked to reformat and resync. I understand that the library ID is in reverse order in the Hex file stored on the phone. Can someone please show me which cells to read when finding this ID. also, when I paste this into my itunes library and Itunes Music Library files where do I paste the new ID and in what order?

Thanks so much

I attached a Screenie of the Hex file read from the phone.

[strongbad2797]

Im dumb and cant count.... I was looking in the wrong place. All is good now, Thanks so much

[icedog187]

Originally Posted by lassem

Actually there's a 3rd way to obtain the Persistent ID from the iPhone. This method doesn't require a jailbreaked phone:

- Backup the iPhone using iTunes by right clicking on the device in the Devices list and selecting 'Backup'. This will backup certain files from your iPhone to somewhere on your system; depending on which OS you're using. %appdata%apple computermobilesyncbackup<unique identifier> on Windows. Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup on OS X IIRC.

- Inside the most recent backup-directory, find the file called info.plist and open that using your favorite text editor.

- Look for the iTunesPrefs key in there, and grab the content of its data element. This data is base 64 encoded. Decode the data using a base 64 decoder. I googled, found and used Base 64 Decoder

- Save the binary file from the decoder somewhere and open that in a hex editor like in the other solutions.

- If the first 4 bytes are now 'frpd' you're on the right track. The Persistent ID is now located at offset 12 (0x0c). 8 bytes in reverse order.

If someone wants to make a proper guide from this. Go ahead.

I followed your guide and someone elses in this thread and still not able to get this this for iTunes to work. I used iphone browser and saved the itunescdb and pref files and got the code, did the edits and still didnt work.

I attached a zip file with the 2 files and if you can tell me what to code to use cause Im fed up trying for the past 3 hours. Ive tried 3 differnt codes and still no luck. I have a iphone 3GS with firmware 3.1.2.

Thanks

[lassem]

Icedog, your persistent id is BA491FFF47134247, taken from the iTunesPrefs file you attached.

[p120ph37]

There seems to be a lot of frustration in trying to find the Persistent ID. So I am working on a tool to do some of the work for you... Here's the beginning of it. (just threw it up in the last few minutes)

iPhone Persistent ID revealer

I'll add more to it later (like editing your iTunes conf files for you), but for now it works well enough to tell you the Persistent ID, in the correct order, given the iTunesPrefs file. (it is my goal to replace lassem with a small script :-P )

-P120ph37

[lassem]

Nice work!

May I suggest, however, that you drop the 'requirement' of iPhoneBrowser as it's really not neccessary. As I stated in 'guide' all you need is a backup of your iPhone. A backup made by iTunes, and iTunes backs up whatever is connected to it, regardless of whether it's 'paired' or not.

You could even have your iPhone Persistent ID revealer parse the Info.plist itself, base-64 decode the iTunesPrefs key and display the persistent ID to the user.

If the Info.plist contains the persistent ID elsewhere, this could be used to sanitize the process.

/ Lasse