Not all song in playlist sync with IPod

You imply that you "Sync the whole library" more than once - you shouldn't need to - and even then, only after a Restore, (which shouldn't be often!)

Take one playlist that hasn't fully Synced. Check the songs in that list;
assuming that you have *Sync only checked songs and videos* marked, do the missing ones have a check-mark in the box to the left of the title? If not, that's why they're not Syncing. Put the check mark in and Sync again. Do they appear now?

If that wasn't the problem, is there anything different about the songs? Is there an exclamation mark next to the missing songs (which means iTunes cannnot find them, so they won't get Synced), or are they ripped differently? Are the missing ones all from one album or located on a different hard drive to the rest of your library?

By the way, I suspect the real reason that the Apple Store staff were of limited help is that they probably don't use PCs - after all, they are Apple staff! My own experience of a Mac is that it has very weird ways of doing something very simple for us Windows users - I spent ages trying to save pictures (in the place I wanted) on my friend's Mac, I couldn't believe what a faf it was. (I know - the Mac does have it's merits!)

As for their other fixes; since "re-installing software on an iPod or PC" (5 times, wow!) is very time consuming, it's the very last thing I'd try - did you take your computer into the store? "Mark all files as music" - why, are they marked as something else?

Phil

You haven't got to "check/uncheck" any songs, let alone all of them - simply look at your playlist and make sure the check-marks are on for the songs that are missing! If a missing song hasn't got a check-mark - and you are using the *Sync only checked songs and videos* option, that's why the songs are missing.

When you look at the playlist, no matter how large it is, spotting a box without a check-mark should be easy - it'll stick out like a sore thumb. And lets' face it - if it's in your playlist, it should have a check-mark (in the box next to the song title).

Although the *check-mark on* is the default, I'm trying to eliminate that as a cause, because none of us know what has happened to your iTunes in the past, or who else may have altered it. What I'm attempting to help you do is look for the easiest, simplest and quickest thing you can do to (possibly) fix your problem. Often, that's all it takes. Certainly much quicker than re-installing iTunes five times.

Unitl you do this no one can rule it out as the problem. Since, despite what some people would have you believe, iTunes is an excellent programme, so the chances are that it's a setting or configuration that's the problem, not iTunes and there is therefore nothing for Apple to fix.

Oh, and one last thing. You ask for suggestions on who can fix it for you. The answer is you - and I've offered assistance on how to do this, using my time, which I have given freely. Since you yourself have ruled out the Apple Store as a source of help (and I stick by what I said about the reasons for that), I suggest you think twice before type out your next post.

There is one possibility that has not been brought up -- if some songs are tagged as "Skip when shuffling" they will sync to the iPod but they will not show up in the total count within a playlist if you're playing that playlist in shuffle mode. An easy way to tell if this is the case is to play the playlist with shuffle mode ON vs. OFF. If the total song count in the playlist changes, then you know that one or more songs is set to be skipped.

If that is the case, iTunes does not make it easy to tell which songs in your library are tagged to be skipped in shuffle mode -- there is no column to view or smart playlist criteria to find these songs. But if you don't want any songs to be skipped, then you can select your entire library, go to Get Info, select the Option tab, then set the skip option to NO.

I'm having a similar problem - I just upgraded to 4.2.1 last night, and now several songs do not show up on my iPod Touch (Library or Playlists). Here are the peculiarities:

- All songs show up in iTunes on my MacBook Pro, all are checked to sync
- All songs show up in my Library and Playlists for the iPod Touch Device list in iTunes
- If I search the iPod Touch for songs/artists that do not show in Library/Playlists, they do show up as results of the search!
- ...But, when I go to play them from the search list, one or two will play (somewhat random which ones do or don't), but it mostly kicks me back to the Library, where the song is not listed
- All these songs are ones that are marked "Clean" - while all songs not so marked do copy over. Sounds like an iTunes bug?

I've tried the soft reset on the iPod. Also confirmed these songs were not "skipped" in Shuffle. Any other suggestions? Very strange that the music shows up on iTunes and in a search on the iPod, but can't seem to be associated with the Music app.

Please help - Thanks.

Message was edited by: LilMawr

OK, quick update - I did the hard reset and reloaded everything. All music shows up in iTunes as well as in Library and Playlists in Device menu for iPodT.

But ALL music marked CLEAN does not show up in Music app on iPodT in Library or Playlists. SEARCH can locate music by artist or song, but not play it (clicking on song takes you back to Library, where song does not display).

This seems like an odd bug. Guess Apple doesn't want kids to purchase CLEAN music.
Any suggestions other than wait for 4.2.2 or 4.3?

I have the SAME PROBLEM. My 13 year old is screaming at me like I purposely took off his iTunes Gift Card birthday songs from his iPod (rap/hip-hop marked CLEAN). Sure enough, all 10 songs in his library are now gone after the iOS 4.2.1 update. APPLE...help!!!!

UPDATE...UPDATE...if you go Settings...General...Restrictions...(Allowed Content:) Music & Podcasts and turn to ON the Allow Music & Podcasts Rated EXPLICIT...your CLEAN songs will now sync to the iPod. Go figure, in order to listen to CLEAN music, iOS 4.2.1 now requires you to allow EXPLICIT music. Hopefully this is a mistake/bug and will be fixed PRONTO!

Good find, you can report this bug here:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipodtouch.html

Done, thanks for the reminder.

Yes! That's it. What a ridiculous bug - having to allow Explicit songs in order to sync Clean songs! But that solved it. Thanks M.A. Stough!

Apple CLEARLY needs to fix this.

Does it help to have more than one person report the bug?

LilMawr wrote:
Does it help to have more than one person report the bug?

Sure, couldn't hurt 😉

I have been having this exact same problem for 3 weeks now. After scouring the interwebs and coming up goose egg for solutions I did some digging. In the iTunes Media directory where all my music resides on my MacBook Pro I found countless duplicate music files. These were named appropriately "some song 1.mp3" or "some song 2.mp3" in the same directory as the original "some song.mp3". Those duplicates were made by iTunes and were corrupt. Not a single one would play or transfer over. After deleting all the duplicates and attempting to sync again it worked perfectly. This is a very time consuming process (took me about 2 hours for a 23GB library) but it did resolve the issue. While this did make my music sync properly with my iPhone, my iPod Touch apparently has only half its capacity now which is why it wasn't syncing properly. So there could be many reasons this still isn't working for you but I suggest giving that a shot. Check out your music directory and erase those funky duplicates leaving just the original. Post back with the results and I will try to help troubleshoot. I understand how frustrating this is.

Any idea how those duplicates were created? Whatever it may be it sounds like something to avoid.