Solving the Windows Phone synchronization error in Zune

Today, I ran into an interesting problem with my Windows Phone 7.5 device: when trying to connect the phone with a USB cable to my development PC and starting Zune to let Visual Studio deploy an application to my phone, Zune simply reported: "Read Error. The Zune software can't access important data on your phone. Try disconnecting and reconnecting it. If the problem persists, contact customer support."

This error naturally stopped Zune's communications with the phone, and so Visual Studio couldn't work with the phone. At first, I thought this would be a transient communication problem with the USB cable, so I unplugged and the plugging in my phone again. As this didn't help, I presumed this was a Zune problem, so I restarted both Visual Studio and Zune.

Unfortunately, this didn't help, so I tried binging for some information, and ran into multiple posts on this topic, for example this one.

Luckily, in my case, a simple reboot of the Windows Phone device helped, and after this, Zune and Visual Studio started behaving. For me, there was no need to reinstall any drivers, Zune and so on. Just restart the phone.

If you need further information, there's a Microsoft support article #2410177 that lists Zune error codes and gives then textual descriptions. For example:

• C00D1193: Content has moved since last sync
• C00D124F: Not enough space
• C00D124D: The phone is not responding to the Zune software
• C00D12EC: Too many registered devices
• C00D1365: Need to check usage rights
• C00D1371: Need to check usage rights in Zune Marketplace
• C00D2772: Format necessary
• C00D27E1: No longer available at Zune Marketplace
• C1010032: Too many small files
• C00D11E4: Security information couldn’t be validated

Good luck!