iPhone/iPod Freezing on Connection Attempt

[h4rk]

I just started experiencing this issue today and wanted to know if anyone has any troubleshooting tips. My iPhone itself works fine. iTunes runs fine on my computer by itself. When I connect my iPhone it begins charging but iTunes will lock up, in force quit it will show as not responding, and I will get the beach ball of death indefinitely. The iPhone will not appear on the left bar as it does when properly connected. When I pull the iPhone USB cable out of the computer, iTunes instantly begins working properly again without needing a restart or anything. I have rebooted my MacBook Pro and I have restarted iTunes itself several times as well. I checked the software update and I have the latest version of iTunes. I'm a big podcast listener and I'm trying to get some new episodes over onto my iPhone so if anyone can help me with this issue it would be greatly appreciated.