Want to highlight a helpful answer? Upvote!

Did someone help you, or did an answer or User Tip resolve your issue? Upvote by selecting the upvote arrow. Your feedback helps others! Learn more about when to upvote >

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

User profile for user: ELFritzen
ELFritzen Author
User level: Level 1
7 points

Syncing Issue with iPod Nano 6th Generation-Albums and Songs

I recently received an iPod nano (6th Gen) and decided to manually manage my music, since I have music on both an iMac G5 (OS X 10.5.8) and a MacBook Pro (OS X 10.6.5). iTunes on both computers are up to date. I dragged a number of albums from my iTunes library located on my iMac to the connected iPod nano. All the songs transferred fine. However, once transferred to the iPod, I noticed for some albums, each song appeared as an album, so if I looked on my iPod for a particular album, I'd see it listed there for each song on that album and I couldn't see the songs all listed under that album. I've tried to delete and reload these albums and the same behavior is seen. These albums often contain many different artists. In some cases, I've listed the artist for each track in my iTunes library, in other cases, I've used a generic term like "various artists" for each track. It doesn't seem to matter, since I've seen examples in each case where album grouping is lost upon import to my iPod. I'm not sure this is an iPod issue or a corrupt iTunes music data base. Has anyone experienced this? Is there a solution? Thanks!!

iMac-G5, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Jan 4, 2011 4:59 PM

Reply
18 replies
User profile for user: OkPanky
OkPanky
User level: Level 1
1 points

Jan 5, 2011 4:36 AM in response to ELFritzen

I have same issue. I uploaded some albums on cd's and went to the trouble of typing the info for each song naming each song as the same album. When I sync to an old iPod no problem but when I sync to the Nano 6th generation, each song appears as its own album. Not good if I want to listen to the album in its entirety. I have scoured the posts but found no answer.
Reply
User profile for user: ELFritzen
ELFritzen Author
User level: Level 1
7 points

Jan 5, 2011 5:56 AM in response to OkPanky

Thanks for your reply. I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees this. Like I said, it doesn't happen will all my albums. Like you, I did list the artist for each track in my iTunes Music Library for some of these albums. Some of these transferred as they should to the iPod nano, others didn't. I can't find any difference when I look at the albums on my iMac and iTunes Music Library. I had thought I had not entered the information correctly, but that doesn't seem to be the case. You're right, in that it is hard to listen to one of these albums in it's entirety. Maybe some others will come up with a solution.
Reply
User profile for user: OkPanky
OkPanky
User level: Level 1
1 points

Jan 15, 2011 7:05 AM in response to iPod Whisperer

The songs appear within the correct albums on iTunes AND on my other ipod. Only on the Nano 6th do they separate. So if I have 12 songs in an album called ABC, on the Nano, when I search for the album ABC, there are 12 of them. I cannot listen to an entire album, only one song at a time. And this is only with cd's created by a friend and uploaded by me. I uploaded, hit Get Info, typed in the song and album name for each (yes they are correct with no typos) and the problem occurred. I did a full Nano restore and resync and the same thing happened. So it is obviously some kind of Nano bug.
Reply
User profile for user: ELFritzen
ELFritzen Author
User level: Level 1
7 points

Jan 16, 2011 7:26 AM in response to OkPanky

Yes, this is exactly what I've been seeing, OkPanky. In my case, the albums are commercially produced. It doesn't seem to matter what iTunes has listed as artists when I do a "get info" for a particular track. I know it's correct in iTunes. I haven't tried to restore the nano. I've tried deleting all the individual tracks on my nano, and re-uploading the albums from iTunes, and the results are the same. I'm glad I'm not the only one who has seen this, but it can't be a very wide spread problem if we're the only two who have experienced this.

Ed
Reply
User profile for user: iPod Whisperer
iPod Whisperer
User level: Level 3
785 points

Jan 20, 2011 2:02 PM in response to OkPanky

Since most others are not seeing this, it has to be specific to your nano or some other item unique to your setup.

Lets try a quick test. Create a new user account on your computer. Then open itunes, maybe bring in two albums and try this all again. If it works correctly, we know it has something to do with your original itunes library or something unique to your original logon account.

i
Reply
User profile for user: Cheweyhead
Cheweyhead
User level: Level 1
0 points

Feb 25, 2011 6:56 PM in response to macewindu420

I am having this same issue on my Nano 6th generation. "Playlist A" in iTunes on my iMac has 141 songs. And if I sync this same playlist on my nano and it is the ONLY playlist - all of the 141 songs transfer. Once I had another "Playlist B" from my itunes the number of songs in "Playlist A" decreases to 94 songs.
"Playlist B" originally had 389 songs on the IMac but only has 360 songs on the Nano.

How can this be fixed?
Reply
User profile for user: Nikolai72
Nikolai72
User level: Level 1
0 points

Mar 26, 2011 9:24 PM in response to Cheweyhead

I can't figure it out either, but it makes me HATE this product. There is no reason why we should have to listen to one song at a time by advancing each one manually if we want to listen to an entire album. 6th generation is a colossal disappointment. I wish my 4th generation hadn't broken, otherwise I would not keep this one. I hope Apple can figure out a way to fix it in it's next update.
Reply
User profile for user: mtnhigh799
mtnhigh799
User level: Level 1
4 points

Apr 3, 2011 4:48 PM in response to ELFritzen

I am having huge problems synching my new Nano 6th Gen to my Mac while 2 other earlier Ipods work perfectly. My problem relates to the fact that I use smart playlists and their contents get all messed up on the new Ipod when I try synching. Symptoms include both missing songs on the Ipod and songs in artist name sequence instead of sequence on Itunes, both problems that raise questions about quality of software released for 6th gen. I went to talk to genius at Apple store and he indicated that Apple is moving away from smart playlists on Ipods and so suggested that I create dumb playlists on Itunes and copy the contents of my smart playlists to the dumb playlists and then synchronize those to the Ipod. That does work but it's a pain in the behind each time I add any songs to Itunes that get added to the smart playlists as I have to go through this whole time consuming process just to get the songs to show up on my Ipod. I also hope that Apple gets the synching problem fixed quickly.
Reply
User profile for user: iPod Whisperer
iPod Whisperer
User level: Level 3
785 points

Apr 4, 2011 4:57 PM in response to mtnhigh799

How to deal with this really depends on whether you are manually syncing or auto syncing.

If you are auto syncing, if you change the sort order in the smart playlist in itunes (not on the device itself) then hit sync, the Nano will inherit that new sort.

If you are manually syncing, you can sync your playlists by dragging and dropping them onto your Nano in iTunes. Then click that playlist ON THE NANO. You can then change the sort order as it will appear on the device. Then click sync.

I just tried all this out on my nano and it worked as I describe above when using smart playlists.

i
Reply

Syncing Issue with iPod Nano 6th Generation-Albums and Songs

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.
Learn more Sign up