Problems with IOS 5 Music App

Hi there. I'm frrustrated as well with my Music app crashed (and I'm on holiday and no way to wipe my music again and at least get it to launch!)

This is the second time now (ios5, then 5.0.1) and have never had the iPod/music app crash before.

I'm suspecting too large a playlist that has been mentioned before, as it seems to be fine (especially after restore and reload except for a 20GB random playlist I add,works for a few times, then crashes from then on). I don't THINK it's a corrupt file per se as I've re-randomised and tried a different set.

But we shouldn't HAVE to break it up into smaller lists, search for too large album art, etc. when these haven't been issues in the past. This is new software bugs plain and simple.

Here's hoping 5.1 will actually fix this.....meanwhile I'm stuck musicless on vacation :-(

elxr wrote:

Hi there. I'm frrustrated as well with my Music app crashed (and I'm on holiday and no way to wipe my music again and at least get it to launch!)

This is the second time now (ios5, then 5.0.1) and have never had the iPod/music app crash before.

I'm suspecting too large a playlist that has been mentioned before, as it seems to be fine (especially after restore and reload except for a 20GB random playlist I add,works for a few times, then crashes from then on). I don't THINK it's a corrupt file per se as I've re-randomised and tried a different set.

But we shouldn't HAVE to break it up into smaller lists, search for too large album art, etc. when these haven't been issues in the past. This is new software bugs plain and simple.

Here's hoping 5.1 will actually fix this.....meanwhile I'm stuck musicless on vacation :-(

If you have your iTunes library (or at least some of it) sync'd to your iDevice you can use Groove or Groove for iPad in lieu of the Music App. It works quite well including handling Playlists and Smart Playlists (but not podcasts or iTunes Match - can't stream/download from iCloud).

Groove also has a Pandora-like feature that creates custom playlists for you...brings up a lot of old music I had forgotten about for me which is kind of nice. Anyway, it's totally stable and useful until they get the Music App back up to speed.

richsadams wrote:

If you have your iTunes library (or at least some of it) sync'd to your iDevice you can use Groove or Groove for iPad in lieu of the Music App. It works quite well including handling Playlists and Smart Playlists (but not podcasts or iTunes Match - can't stream/download from iCloud).

Can you assign ratings within Groove? And does it update play count and last played back to iTunes?

Mike Connelly wrote:

richsadams wrote:

If you have your iTunes library (or at least some of it) sync'd to your iDevice you can use Groove or Groove for iPad in lieu of the Music App. It works quite well including handling Playlists and Smart Playlists (but not podcasts or iTunes Match - can't stream/download from iCloud).

Can you assign ratings within Groove? And does it update play count and last played back to iTunes?

Unfortunately no on all counts.

Removing the 3000+ track smart playlist on my Mac - which is the last thing I was attempting to use on the iPhone when the Music app started crashing - and resynching fixed the problem. The Music app now runs again.

By the by, the reported 'random ordering of playlists' issue appears to go away if you explicitly order the tracks in your playlists and then sync.

Friendly Pete wrote:

Removing the 3000+ track smart playlist on my Mac - which is the last thing I was attempting to use on the iPhone when the Music app started crashing - and resynching fixed the problem. The Music app now runs again.

By the by, the reported 'random ordering of playlists' issue appears to go away if you explicitly order the tracks in your playlists and then sync.

I had to do the same thing. I mentioned it here somewhre...can't recall if it was this thread or another one. I had five playlists and any that were larger than 1,500 tracks or so made the Music App slow to a crawl, freeze up or crash. I broke them up into nine "bite sized" Smart Playlists, none over about 1,400 tracks and there were no more problems.

Glad it's working for you now too.

My largest playlist is ~1400 songs and ~8GB, won't load at all. However, the rest of my music app works fine (after a COMPLETE system wipe/restore, though); all albums and songs are sorted correctly (My artists list has always been a horrible mess since I get a lot of songs from stuff like Newgrounds, so I can't comment on that). So is it basically that Apple needs to fix big playlists not working?

wantfastcars wrote:

My largest playlist is ~1400 songs and ~8GB, won't load at all. However, the rest of my music app works fine (after a COMPLETE system wipe/restore, though); all albums and songs are sorted correctly (My artists list has always been a horrible mess since I get a lot of songs from stuff like Newgrounds, so I can't comment on that). So is it basically that Apple needs to fix big playlists not working?

If just the one playlist won't load it may be a particular track that's causing issues. You could try breaking it up into a few separate lists and see if hangs on any one in particular. (You can always pull everything back together later.) Viewing the iCloud status can sometimes narrow it down. Hard to say what it might be though.

I had some older custom-ripped CD's and some oddball music I had collected from here and there over the years. I ended up having to delete about 40 tracks out of about 8.000. They were ones's that I either still have the CD or ones I no longer cared about. I still have a copy of everything...might re-rip some of the CD's to a more friendly format and see if they'll upload.

Best of luck!

I too have the problem, think the only way to get the playlists in the correct order is to delete everything off the iPhone and resync (which can take flipping hours!!).

Apple really do need to test their software more thoroughly. They seem to have taken their eye off the ball with the Music app as it appears to be less than ready for public use.

Thanks for the tip. I also got the Music app to stop crashing by deleting the large smart playlist that I was using last. Actually, I was able to preserve the playlist settings by duplicating the orginal playlist and then deleting the orginal before syncing. After verifying that the Music app started to work again, I renamed the duplicate playlist to its old name, synced one more time, and everything is working fine, including my smart playlist.

iPod Touch with IOS 5.0.1 (9A405) and still experiencing the Music app crash whenever cover flow is attempted. If I read previous posts correctly, resyncing did not solve this particular problem. I have 4800+ songs (24Gb), some with album art I scanned myself from the CD covers that iTunes knows nothing about.

I'm loath to try resyncing without some sense that it solves the cover flow problem.

Please advise if iPod IOS 5.x Music app crashes due to cover flow / artwork issues are affirmatively fixed by syncing without music, then resyncing to reload music back in.

My Music app has been giving the white screen crash intermittently ever since I upgraded to IOS 5. I recover by removing/resyncing music, but the Music app runs very slowly, and then crashes again after just a couple of uses. I went to the Apple Genius Bar today. They said Apple is aware of Music app crashes due to

1. Large smart playlists, and
2. Songs with no cover art

I just made "dumb" copies of my smart playlists, and made a smart play list with "Album Art is false" to find all my songs with no artwork, and then put some in. I then synced my iPhone including only the dumb playlists.

It's too soon to tell if this fixes my crashes, but the Music app sure runs faster now. Crossing my fingers...

Dave Lasker wrote:

My Music app has been giving the white screen crash intermittently ever since I upgraded to IOS 5. I recover by removing/resyncing music, but the Music app runs very slowly, and then crashes again after just a couple of uses. I went to the Apple Genius Bar today. They said Apple is aware of Music app crashes due to

1. Large smart playlists, and
2. Songs with no cover art

I just made "dumb" copies of my smart playlists, and made a smart play list with "Album Art is false" to find all my songs with no artwork, and then put some in. I then synced my iPhone including only the dumb playlists.

It's too soon to tell if this fixes my crashes, but the Music app sure runs faster now. Crossing my fingers...

Thanks for the post. I ran into the same thing and ended up creating more/smaller Smart Playlists each with less than 1500 tracks or so... I also found that some of the large cover art that I had added, 1000 x 1000 pixels or so were causing problems. The standard from Apple is 300 x 300 and once I reduced the larger ones down it made a pretty big difference as well. FWIW the smaller cover art is still hi-res and looks fine on our plasma using my Apple TV2.

Making those modifications also helped with iTunes Match which seems to suffer the same challenges.

Best of luck and let us know how it goes!

Follow up to my Dec 13, 2011 post - resync did not resolve Music app and iPod crashes for my IOS5.01 iPod Touch 4th gen.

Coverflow crashes the Music app, sometimes coverflow crashes the iPod. Music is not even playing.

No smart playlists. No playlist with over 300 songs.

Of the 4800+ songs, maybe 10-15% have no album artwork. Maybe a 100 or so have artwork I scanned and pasted into iTunes on the PC. Sure, some of those jpeg scans might be more than 300 x 300.

What makes one believe the "standard [album art] from Apple is 300 x 300"??? My iTunes mostly contains albums I loaded into iTunes in 2006 from CDs I owned, encoded with iTune v4.6 at the time. I know I didn't load artwork for most of them, there are over 4800+ songs. Most of the artwork came via iTunes (Edit/Preferences: Automatically download missing album artwork). I measure the artwork at about 572 x 572.

Are you seriouly suggesting the album art supplied by Apple is the problem?

I think the software supplied by Apple is the problem!

perrygraph wrote:

Follow up to my Dec 13, 2011 post - resync did not resolve Music app and iPod crashes for my IOS5.01 iPod Touch 4th gen.

Coverflow crashes the Music app, sometimes coverflow crashes the iPod. Music is not even playing.

No smart playlists. No playlist with over 300 songs.

Of the 4800+ songs, maybe 10-15% have no album artwork. Maybe a 100 or so have artwork I scanned and pasted into iTunes on the PC. Sure, some of those jpeg scans might be more than 300 x 300.

What makes one believe the "standard [album art] from Apple is 300 x 300"??? My iTunes mostly contains albums I loaded into iTunes in 2006 from CDs I owned, encoded with iTune v4.6 at the time. I know I didn't load artwork for most of them, there are over 4800+ songs. Most of the artwork came via iTunes (Edit/Preferences: Automatically download missing album artwork). I measure the artwork at about 572 x 572.

Are you seriouly suggesting the album art supplied by Apple is the problem?

I think the software supplied by Apple is the problem!

Correction to my earlier post, iTunes issued cover art 600 x 600. Their "recommended size" when creating podcasts is 300 x 300 - that's what stuck in my head. No idea why there's a discrepancy.

I wasn't suggesting that the cover art from iTunes is problematic, none of mine is. In my case large cover art (1000 x 1000 or higher) caused problems. YMMV.

Did you try resetting (not restarting) your iPod?

Resetting iOS Devices: Press the Home button and the Sleep/wake switch on the top the case and hold them down together for at least 10 seconds, until you see the Apple logo. The device should then reset itself. The boot up process takes a few minutes and then it should be responsive again. More here:

iPhone, iPad, iPod touch: Turning off and on (restarting) and resetting