cybillkd

Q: HELP - Greyed Out (Ghost) songs in iTunes Devices iPhone Music

I am so frustrated I am sure someone knows the answer to this question but I have yet to find it.  I just upgraded to IOS 7 on my iPhone and I upgraded my iTines to thelatest and greatest version.  Now when I connect my phone to iTunes and look at the phone under device I see that there are a number of songs listed...all are greyed out and can not be selected.  NONE of these songs are on my iPhone.  I AM using iTunes Match and have been since Jan 2013.  I had a similar issue with the last upgrades and for the life of me can not remember how I fixed it.  I have a feeling that I had to completely eliminate everything from my library which is something that I do not want to do.

 

Does anyone know of a fix for this problem?  I have tried everything that I can think of...from shutting off iTunes Match on my phone from reloading iTunes Match within iTunes.  This is what my screen looks like...

 

ItunesScreen.jpg

 

Most but not all of these songs are in my Itunes Music.  Originally the all were there but in my attempt to solve the problem I deleted some from my Itunes (on purpose) to see if any individual some was the problem. 

 

No suggestion is silly - I have tried many things - too many to list and I am truly getting desparate.  I truly believe that this is an Match issue but I can't find any resolution for the problem.  When I take all music off of my phone as it is right now the problem still exists.  If I add music the music that is added will be seen in black lettering beside the grey lettering listing...that is in iTunes.  I am sorry if I am not making any sense it is easier to show someone than to explain it.

 

Thank you for any assistance...

 

oh yes - I am using a Windows XP as my Operating...I know time for an update but my laptop works so well - so far anyway and I hate to invest $ where I don't need it YET.  ;-)

iPhone 4S, iOS 7, iTunes version 11 & iTunes Match

Posted on Sep 22, 2013 3:16 PM

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Q: HELP - Greyed Out (Ghost) songs in iTunes Devices iPhone Music

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  • by Christy Vastola,

    Christy Vastola Christy Vastola Sep 27, 2013 8:40 AM in response to cybillkd
    Level 1 (25 points)
    Sep 27, 2013 8:40 AM in response to cybillkd

    I see there are no responses...I have the same issue and my only difference is that I am using a MBP not a Windows PC. I will continue to troubleshoot and let you know if I find something that works. My songs are in my library and I just want the "ghost" songs out of my device listing. Are you looking to do the same?

  • by Christy Vastola,

    Christy Vastola Christy Vastola Sep 27, 2013 8:57 AM in response to cybillkd
    Level 1 (25 points)
    Sep 27, 2013 8:57 AM in response to cybillkd

    So far the only way I have found to get rid of them is to manually mange music, delete entire library on your iPhone and then add the songs back you want to have on your iPhone. I only want/need a portion since I use subscription music services. Good luck! Let me know if this helped you.

  • by cybillkd,

    cybillkd cybillkd Sep 27, 2013 5:33 PM in response to Christy Vastola
    Level 1 (2 points)
    Sep 27, 2013 5:33 PM in response to Christy Vastola

    Yes I want them out of the device listing.  It drives me crazy. 

  • by cybillkd,

    cybillkd cybillkd Sep 27, 2013 5:35 PM in response to Christy Vastola
    Level 1 (2 points)
    Sep 27, 2013 5:35 PM in response to Christy Vastola

    I would prefer not to have to completely delete the library and start from scratch.  Many of the albums in the library are loaded from my CD's and I had to manually enter in much of the information for the songs and would rather not go through all of the that again.  I am still trying different things  I will let you know if any of them work.

  • by Christy Vastola,

    Christy Vastola Christy Vastola Sep 27, 2013 8:31 PM in response to cybillkd
    Level 1 (25 points)
    Sep 27, 2013 8:31 PM in response to cybillkd

    I mean delete all the songs on your iPhones music library. The reload them from your iTunes library. It's a pain but they go away.

  • by coolsaya,

    coolsaya coolsaya Oct 13, 2013 8:03 AM in response to cybillkd
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 13, 2013 8:03 AM in response to cybillkd

    I travel a lot so streaming from the cloud is not always an option, especially on a plane, so I need to have my music and videos saved on the device. I had this same problem with ghost songs not going away on my iPhone, and videos that were dragged over on my iPad but still grayed out. I'd Sync in iTunes time and time again and items would still stay gray...

     

    Here's how I fixed it WITHOUT doing a Restore:

     

    - Connect device to iTunes

    - Save music/videos you want on the device to a Playlist(s)

    - Turn off the Manually manage music and videos on the device

    - Sync the Playlist(s)

    - Phantom/ghost songs and videos went away

     

    When I turned back on Manually manage music and videos on the device, the ghost entries stayed gone.  I could then drag over the stuff I wanted from the Playlist(s).

     

    Hope this works for you.

  • by Iguz,

    Iguz Iguz Oct 25, 2013 9:47 AM in response to cybillkd
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 25, 2013 9:47 AM in response to cybillkd

    Hope this helps. The ghost songs dissapear after several intents. I've used DiskAid and went to the file directory in the iphone (5). Deleted everything in music and purchased directory and the ghosts are gone.

     

    Regards

  • by Codyqubei,

    Codyqubei Codyqubei Oct 29, 2013 12:55 PM in response to cybillkd
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 29, 2013 12:55 PM in response to cybillkd

    I got mine to work after navigating through all the panes, I noticed that I had "Convert Higher Bit Rate Songs to ____ AAC" checked (Underscore being your selected bitrate). So my computer was having issues converting my high bitrate songs down to AAC 128. As soon as I unchecked that and resynced my iphone 5 all the songs began to transfer back over to my phone. Hope this helps some of you!

  • by Alissa G,

    Alissa G Alissa G Nov 3, 2013 10:27 PM in response to cybillkd
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 3, 2013 10:27 PM in response to cybillkd

    Just chiming in to say that I had this same problem, I would drag music into my IPhone after updating and it wouldn't show up and then when I checked the "On my IPhone" tab I found a majority of them there greyed out. I did what Christy suggested and selected all of the songs and deleted them from this box. They stayed in my actual Itunes but were 'deleted' from the phone I suppose. When I tried to drag songs in again Itunes said they copied and sure enough they showed up on my phone. Thanks for the help Christy =] I hope this worked for the OP too

  • by Harry Brindley,

    Harry Brindley Harry Brindley Nov 11, 2013 1:43 PM in response to cybillkd
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 11, 2013 1:43 PM in response to cybillkd

    I too have suddenly have sync problems with music between my Mac iTunes 11.1.3(8) on my iPad mini under iOS 7. Many of my tunes show up as "ghost songs" on my iPad. I initially had a problem with Movies and TV Shows not syncing up (they showed up with zero byte length) so I restored from backup -- which fixed my video problem but then created the Music nightmare.

     

    I can't vouch for whether this proposed solution will stand the test of time, but I've managed to get back all my PURCHASED songs that were ghosted.

     

    On your WiFi connected device (iPad or iPhone) launch your iTunes app (not the Music player app). I did not have my device tethether to my Mac, my device was logged into my iTunes account and it had an active WiFi connection.

     

    Launch iPad iTunes ...

    Purchased>Music

    Select "Not on this iPad" then "Download All"

    ... wait for the download to complete.

     

    Launch iPhone iTunes ...

    More>Purchased>Music

    Select "Not on this iPhone" then "Download All"

    ... wait for the download to complete.

     

    After you sync with your Mac you'll see that for many of your "ghost songs" you have a duplicate real song -- so I do not think this is elegantly fixed. Fortunately my Playlists all still work in spite of the ghosts.

  • by alexfrombarrie,

    alexfrombarrie alexfrombarrie Nov 15, 2013 3:31 PM in response to cybillkd
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 15, 2013 3:31 PM in response to cybillkd

    Same issue recently happened to me HOWEVER i might have a fix. (iphone is currently syncing but songs that were greyed out earlier are now able to play.)

     

    Greyed out songs using iTunes 11.1.3


    What i did to fix:

     

    -Under the "summary" tab (when iphone is connected to itunes)

    > under "options" check off "Mannually manage music and videos"

     

    -Begin sync

     

    -Under the "on this iphone tab" (where you can see all of your greyed out music)

    (at the bottom of this tab you will see your iphones designated file's via colour and the "sync" button to the right of this bar.

    >Above the sync button there is a "settings" and "autofill" buttons.)

    >Click "settings"

    >Uncheck everything

     

    after i unchecked everything all of my songs began to sync.

     

    IMPORTANT:

    under this "on this iphone tab" some songs/albums are greyed out still, however when looking on my iphone under music the songs/albums that are greyed out on itunes are on my iphone and do play even though they are greyed out on itunes.

     

    I do not remember EVER turning autofill on. I did however recently update itunes to 11.1.3

     

    Very odd. It might only be a temporary fix, i have 5500+ songs on my iphone will update if i notice this fix does not work.

     

    Ive found about 10 pages since (september alone) on the apple support forms regarding simmilar syncing issues with itunes across multiple iphone models. So if this is exactly the issue you are having you are not alone.

     

    Try it for yourself.

    Hope I've helped at least one person.

  • by Odomirishtwins,

    Odomirishtwins Odomirishtwins Nov 20, 2013 8:20 PM in response to alexfrombarrie
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 20, 2013 8:20 PM in response to alexfrombarrie

    Thank you! This is the ONLY fix that has worked for my iPhone/Macbook. I cannot thank you enough!

  • by jewellltone,

    jewellltone jewellltone Dec 4, 2013 5:55 PM in response to Christy Vastola
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 4, 2013 5:55 PM in response to Christy Vastola

    i have the same problems and i cant delete the whole libray of songs cause the greyed out ones wont delete

  • by Yellow2121,

    Yellow2121 Yellow2121 Dec 8, 2013 8:22 AM in response to cybillkd
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 8, 2013 8:22 AM in response to cybillkd

    I found that I only got greyed out songs when I would try to add music manually to my iPhone while it was backing up other things to my computer (e.g., apps, settings, etc.). If I wait until the backup is done then I an add songs without a problem. I had to delete all the greyed out songs from my iPhone and add them back from my iTunes library to fix the problem.

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