Stuck at "preparing to sync"

what happens if you try to manually transfer a few photos using the + button on the home screen?

I would try the following and see if that helps

  1. double tap the home button and swipe the iXpand sync app up to exit it completely

  2. power cycle the phone

  3. connect the ixpand and open the app and see if the issue is still there

if so you can contact sandisk support and send them the logs from the app and they can see if the logs have any info on why the sync is getting stuck.