Capacity display wrong in iTunes10

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Level 1

54 points

Capacity display wrong in iTunes10

I've seen 1 or 2 threads that vaguely reference this problem, but it doesn't seem to be widespread.

When I connect my iPhone 4 to iTunes and click on my device, the capacity display at the bottom of iTunes for Music shows more than it actually has. There's a discrepancy in the actual number of songs & the space they take up between when I click on my device's name and when I click on Music within my device. This throws off the amount of free space & makes it difficult to know how much free space I have left.

When I click to put a check in the check box to add an app, the amount of free space goes up (when it should go down) but once the app is added to my phone, the free space goes back down.

I was hoping this bug would be fixed with 10.0.1 but it isn't. Anyone else experiencing this?

Posted on Sep 26, 2010 10:14 AM

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Answer 1

tab1075 Author

Level 1

54 points

Sep 28, 2010 2:38 PM in response to tab1075

No one else is experiencing this or has any idea?

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Answer 2

lee p.

Level 1

15 points

Sep 29, 2010 11:41 PM in response to tab1075

I have no idea of the exact cause, but I can confirm that I'm having probably the same type of problem as you.

One example:

I synced my ipod nano and the capacity bar in itunes showed 0.26 GB space free.

I then deleted 92.5 MB from the nano playlist. The capacity still said 0.26 GB free

I then clicked on Music on the laptop (started playing a song I think) and then went back to the nano capacity bar. Now I was over capacity by 0.40 GB.

I cliked Sync and it went back to 0.26 GB. I could then keep doing that (play song on laptop, go over capacity, Sync to "clean up" the capacity, etc.).

Really annoying.

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Answer 3

tab1075 Author

Level 1

54 points

Oct 4, 2010 8:24 AM in response to tab1075

I didn't have this problem with iTunes 9 and don't really want to downgrade back to it, even though I'm not too fond of 10's UI in addition to this problem.

When I click on my device name, the display at the bottom of iTunes shows that it contains 1806 songs, but that was the number before I deleted some. When I click on "Music" within my device, it shows the actual number of songs on my iPhone (1736). This in turn affects the amount of space it shows the music takes up & available free space.
When I download an app & check it off to add to my phone, the free space available increases. Obviously adding an app should decrease free space. But once I add the app, the amount of free space goes back down to how much it showed before I checked off the app to be added.

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Answer 4

Nov 5, 2010 1:48 PM in response to tab1075

I agree I have the same problem using an iPhone4 and iTunes 10.0.1.22

It the capacity bar displays Capacity 14GB and then Audio: 3.7GB, Video: 0.01GB; Photos: 5.9Gb; Apps 0.80GB; Other 0.57; FREE: 9GB? It does not add up. Apple what is with your math? 😉

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Answer 5

mr. rock

Level 1

0 points

Nov 16, 2010 9:41 PM in response to AppleDiode

Truth is, this is actually an INSANE bug that the big people over at Apple haven't gotten around to fixing yet. Maybe they don't know about it (which is unlikely) or maybe enough people haven't complained about it to warrant a fix right away, but I find this to be a HUGE problem that does not just pertain to PC users. I've noticed this issue for over a few months now; some say it came with the upgrade to iTunes 10, but to put it in layman's terms: it's over time, your iDevice getting confused and not being able to accurately keep track of the data on it. What ends up happening is that it thinks that free space is actually NOT free space and so it tells you that it's used up, and for all intents and purposes it is because you can't access it. You'll notice that when you uncheck an item within a category with a discrepancy in it, the bar goes down to what it actually SHOULD be (I've done the math many times), but then when you try to sync it, it blows back up (according to my capacity bar, there was over 1gb of data unaccounted for). I've done numerous tests and this is definitely what the issue is. You'd think that they would have attended to this in iTunes 10.1, but I guess not. The only temporary fix I found is to take the category with the data discrepancy off your iDevice (for me it was my Apps) and put them back on, but the worst part about this is that though it fixes it (for only so long), any games saves you have will be lost. -_-"

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Answer 6

akbarali

Level 1

8 points

Nov 21, 2010 1:00 AM in response to tab1075

Hi guys even me facing the same issue. iphone4 32GB itunes 10.1
When i connect my iphone to itune, it shows 11.7 GB of music. though it should be 8.7GB after calculating bit-rate and total music time from the itunes music list, I have checked the option to auto convert to 128kbps in itunes. Surprisingly it shows 8.7GB when i hit sync, and while its syncing. but as soon as the syncing is over capacity indicators move back to showinf 11.7GB. where is 3GB? Album artwork would not take that much space.

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Answer 7

cag8f

Level 1

4 points

Dec 4, 2010 10:56 AM in response to mr. rock

I am also experiencing this problem. Here are the details:

iphone 3Gs, 16GB capacity. The phone says I have 3.5GB free.

2 separate computers, both running itunes 10 and both of which are authorized:

Computer 1 (Win XP Pro): When I first start up itunes and plug in the phone, itunes correctly says I have 3.5GB free. The 'Manually manage music' box is unchecked. When I check it, it then says I am ~1GB over capacity. When I subsequently uncheck it, it says I have 9.8GB free. Curious.

Computer 2 (Win 7 Pro): Exhibits similar behavior to Computer 1, only with very different numbers. Instead of 1 and 9.8GB, both numbers are less than 1 GB.

Message was edited by: cag8f

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Answer 8

Feb 1, 2011 4:00 PM in response to cag8f

I had this problem with my ipod nano - un-checking songs made no difference to storage capacity remaining. However, in iTunes if you click on on your ipod device on the left side menu and click on music you will see all the items that are being synchronised, probably a lot more than you thought. To resolve this problem, I just wanted the ipod to synchronise with items ticked in my collection, so I checked the radio button - synchronise entire collection. That worked and only showed the correct memory being used.

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Answer 9

Mar 26, 2011 7:45 PM in response to tab1075

I have also had the same issue since the iTunes/iPod I upgraded was done back in early January. Whenever my iPod is connected, it shows a capacity of 148.48. Now, I've replaced the iPod and the capacity showed 148.48 before I even added my music. Now that I've added over 5,000 songs, it still shows the same capacity. Very annoying and frustrating. Some of us like to keep up with our iPhones and iPods regularly and expect things to work as they promise.

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Answer 10

PDXgeek

Level 1

0 points

Apr 22, 2011 4:39 AM in response to tab1075

I'm also having this issue, and it's a MAJOR problem. Sometimes my iPone thinks it's full, when its not. Sometimes it thinks its full of audio and video, but I have no podcasts sncd. Hopefully Apple is working on a fix asap because this is a serious user experience problem. Not good.

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Answer 11

Drud

Level 1

0 points

Apr 27, 2011 12:48 AM in response to tab1075

Have the same problem with my iphone 3GS 32GB . It says it has 3,1 GB free, but when I sum up the content there should be 10,6 GB free. Have had no other choice than to clean up stuff on it.

In Itunes the bar changes to the correct size after having clicked on my iphones podcast and film folder. But after having synchronized its back to the wrong size. This is indeed a MAJOR problem.

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Answer 12

PDXgeek

Level 1

0 points

Jun 13, 2011 5:03 PM in response to tab1075

STILL an issue. Just deleted all podcasts and camera says i have 4.5GB of videos on it. I don't have a single video taken with the camera. 4.5GB of WHAT videos?

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Answer 13

Jun 25, 2011 3:05 PM in response to tab1075

I'm new to this. Have just got brand new iPhone 4 32GB. Followed instructions. Updated iTunes to 10.3.1.55. Then connected iPhone to update software too and it has instantly said capacity of new phone is 29.06GB. Where has the other 3GB gone???

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Answer 14

Jun 25, 2011 3:07 PM in response to esmelechat

Perfectly normal. See below.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2419

Stedman

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Answer 15

Jun 25, 2011 11:23 PM in response to tab1075

Might be perfectly normal, but it isnt perfectly fine. This crappy bug is now a hgorrible one; its warped my tpod touch into thinking that there literally isnt much left on the device, as a result of this i am unable to install applications thats above a few mb. In tunes it shows that i have 6.2gb of audio/1840 on my 8 gb ipod touch. I then go and cut it down to 5.9 gb. Still not able to isntall anything. Then i cut it down to 4.9gb. Still unable to install anything. Now i cut my library down to 3.9 gb/685 songs. Now i look in the capacity bar and it stil says that i am using up 6 gb of audio, 0.08gb of other and 0.47gb free. Now thats bull**** to the extreme times 100. I dont bother with storing any videos or photos on my device, and i have 1 game isntalled on the thing! i Had a couple of other games installed on it, but deleted those to see if i could fix this issue. Now i cant even reinstall wat i just deleted. I hav enothign but 685 sings and a 17.2mb game, and im not able to download anything. Despit having 0.47gb free im not able to download an 8mb app. And i notice that you lose storage space after faled syncs. i tried to sync 7 gb to my device and it was too much. Sync stopped and deleted whatever music was synced over form the 7gb adn fpund that i lost about 4mb of data. And then after sync was failed because of 945mb file was too big to fit, lost another 8mb to other. I know this verrrrrrrrry long but this is weeks and weeks of bloody frustration. Anybody got any ideas on this?

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