A really pain in the ass thing happened for many of us who updated iPhone 2.2.1 and even more who updated to 2.2.1 and also installed iLife ’09.

I Twittered the problem and found out that I wasn’t alone. Syncing the iPhone would cause iTunes to crash. Right after the backup procedure was complete a fatal exception would crash iTunes completely.

For a few days there were no solutions for this but many theories and it came down to a DRM problem.

Any apps or songs with DRM from the Apple iTunes Music Store would cause the crash as they were synchronized with the iPhone/iTunes.

One solution was to uninstall all the apps and create a playlist of just DRM free music. That’s what I did while I waited for Steve at Apple, no, not Steve Jobs, to call me back with a solution.

Steve called me today and the solution was remarkably simple!

Here’s how it works.

Open iTunes and click

• Store – Deauthorize Computer
• Store – Sign Out

Then click

• Store – Authorize Computer
• Store – Sign In

Here’s what it should look like if you are a visual person.

That’s it. Sync your iPhone again and all your problems should be fixed.

Well those related to the iPhone 2.2.1/iLife ’09/iTunes DRM. I find it incredible that this ever happened but it really shows the power of good customer service and a bulletin board. Every Apple technician and engineer I talked to did not know about this problem until it was brought up on their forums.

Klipsch Audio Technologies has had an online bulletin board for years and years now. It has had a huge influence in the direction the company has gone and dramatically helped promote the company. Their customer service is human because of it, not just a 1-800 number.

SmugMug, Klipsch, InCase, Apple, Amazon.com… These are all companies I love and a large portion of my love comes from their customer support.

Hope this helped fix your iPhone syncing issues. If any other problems come up, let me know!