iTunes Failing to Sync Music

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Level 1

4 points

iTunes Failing to Sync Music

I use a windows computer and have an Iphone. Some time back I started putting songs I got off bandcamp into my itunes list to sync it with my phone. One issue that's been on the rise in my device is that itunes won't properly sync my music. Some songs not on the list of songs I wanted synced to my phone are being added in, and a lot of the ones I do want added aren't in there. This includes entire albums of music. When I went into itune's record of the songs of my phone, it says they're in there, but when I clicked on said songs this was my result:

Clicking on them further garnered no results. No information is provided by the ! symbol other than that there's an error afoot. Can anyone tell me what this error is and how I might fix it?

Posted on Jul 30, 2023 8:37 PM

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Answer 1

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the fiend

Level 7

22,614 points

Jul 31, 2023 11:46 AM in response to Rhynerd

To add to what javaliga has told you;

- to successfully add songs (including Bandcamp ones) to your iTunes Library, a copy of the file of each song needs to be stored on your computer and you then use the File/Add File to Library (or File/Add Folder to Library) command to navigate to that location. This tells iTunes where the files for the songs are located
- if the location that you identified is no longer available (i.e. you deleted, renamed or moved the files, or renamed or deleted the path to the files after adding them to iTunes Library), that is that cause of the problem

FYI, there is nothing unique about Bandcamp music, I have a lot of it in my Library. It's simply how iTunes works.

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Answer 2

the fiend

Level 7

22,614 points

Aug 25, 2023 1:08 AM in response to Rhynerd

I believe the view you have shown us now is of your phone, but through iTunes.

The dotted circle can mean one of two things:

1. that a Sync is still in progress and the dotted songs have still to be added to your device, although note that the display changes so you may have to wait for the appropriate message to appear
2. once the Sync has completed, the dotted circle means that the song has not been added to your device. (I wonder if it actually means that a marker for the song has been added, but the file itself did not get copied over?) In other words, an incomplete Sync or erratic syncing

There has been an erratic sync issue for some time now, although I think we've seen fewer posts about it, which suggests that the situation is being resolved.

Try a further Sync to see whether the missing songs get added. Fellow user turingtest2 has a few pointers intended to deal with erratic syncing, see his response in the following discussion: I can transfer a playlist from iTunes to … - Apple Community to see if it helps you.

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Answer 3

javaliga

Level 10

119,467 points

Jul 31, 2023 11:19 AM in response to Rhynerd

The exclamation mark usually means that the song could not be found in your library. See the 'An exclamation point' and 'If a song is grayed out' sections in:

If songs are missing from your music library after you turn on Sync Library - Apple Support

or the 'Locate your iTunes files' and 'If a song no longer appears in iTunes' sections in:

Change where iTunes files are stored on PC - Apple Support

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Answer 4

Rhynerd Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 24, 2023 9:51 PM in response to Rhynerd

Thank you both very much for the advice.

I finally found some time to do as suggested. Looked through my whole library, found most of what was missing, and deleted what iTunes thought was missing when it had a copy that it knew the location of. That helped get a bunch of songs onto my phone that were previously missing, but there's still an issue:

The greyed out songs with the dotted circle symbol next to them are apparently on my phone but cannot be found via the music app. What does this symbol mean? How I get these songs to become accessible on my phone?

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iTunes Failing to Sync Music

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