Q: Greyed out songs on iphone after iOS 5 update

I didn't read all 7 pages of the thread as many replies did not apply to me or seemed to not work for subsequent posters but I did solve the solution by trying a couple things and thought I'd add to the thread in case what worked for me might work for others. I apologize if this was already mentioned.

So, like many previous posters, I suddenly discovered that numerous albums I'd loaded onto my iPhone 4 had all but the first track of the album greyed out. While starting to read this thread, I began poking around in my phone and went to my largest playlist and began scrolling through it to see just how many albums were affected. It turned out to be most of those I'd added in my latest 2 update sessions so I figured it wouldn't be that many songs to edit manually. This is where I got the idea to simply manually delete all the greyed out songs and then just try again.

While I was deleting the greyed out songs, I also noticed a couple things:

1 - Every album that had been affected seemed to have 3 or 4 occurences of itself. By that I mean that I didn't have to just delete the album once but, rather, 3 or 4 times as it showed up more than once.

2 - A few of the unaffected albums (no songs greyed out) had also been added multiple times

So, not only did I delete every greyed out track but I also made a note of which albums had been added multiple times. Once I was done, I did a few things that may or may not have contributed to the successful fix but I just sort of intuitively did them just in case they may have helped. Not sure one way or the other.

First, I connected to my computer but immediately interrupted the attempted sync so I could go make a few changes to my music sync settings in iTunes. Here's what I did:

1 - I removed one of the smaller playlists of an artist who'd had some greyed out tracks. As soon as I did this, iTunes reacted strangely and said my selected sync songs were way over the size limit. It appeared to be recognizing the existing data on my phone as 'Other' and saw me trying to add a similar amount of new music. This is where I got the idea to do the next step

2 - I turned my phone off and then back on again while connected to iTunes so that it would sync as soon as the phone was turned on and (I hoped) would recognize the existing songs correctly rather than as 'Other'

So, long story short, iTunes then added about 125 tracks and they're now all fine and back to normal. I hope this helps at least a few of you.

Good luck & cheers!

I upgraded itunes to the newest version, fired it all up again, and it worked perfectly.

I dont know if it has been mentioned but I have just fixed the problem by checking the box, "manually manage music" and did a resync and it solved the problem.

Sooo this just happened to me and I just plugged my phone into a different USB port on my computer and it synced correctly and all the songs work now. Worth a shot for all of you.

what is the name of the Free App everyone is using?

I had about 8 songs that were grayed out, 8 out of 5000 so reloading them all isn't practical... but I suddenly realised that I had duplicates of all 8 songs in my itunes library. So, I deleted the duplicates and removed the relevant artists from my phone - synced, then synced again with them resestablished. Admittedly it wasn't a perfect fix - some have grayed out, redundant versions as well as the functioning versions but they all play somewhow...

So simple, try this first...

hey guys, this never happened to me while using an iphone4.  when i got my first iphone 4s, i had lots of trouble syncing my library (it's huge, though I only was attempting to sync about 45 gigs or so).  what would happen is that sync would be interruped, and a track would be identified as not being able to load.  this would lock up the sync process.  i'd have to recycle the power of the iphone and then reconnect, and start over.  this would require 5 to 10 recycles to load the entire batch of playlists.  inevitably, there would be certain songs that were grayed out with the little sync icon stuck next to them.  i couldn't ever fix, so i sold the 4s on craigslist.

i then bought a 2nd 4s on craigslist, and hoped against hope that it wouldn't happen again.  well, this phone synced fine.  last week, i'm not sure what happened but during a sync, the syncing locked up.  when i reattached, the phone's music library went down to nothing.  i tried to resync, and it started from scratch and proceeded to load the 45 gigs of music again.  the issue of sync stopping, and grayed out songs after many sync and reboot cycles happened again.

i just figured out how to fix the grayed out song issue.

i selected manually manage music, and hit apply within itunes.  then i started deleting the individual grayed out songs in some cases, and the entire albums in other cases that had multiple grayed out songs in that album.  i did this for probably half of the grayed out tracks (out of 6000 songs approx, maybe 50 to 75 were grayed out... maybe 100).   i then manually started re-adding the tracks i deleted.  i did this for maybe 40 tracks.   most loaded (even the formerly grayed out tracks).  at some point, some of the tracks had the circle with exclamation point next to them (the newly added tracks)... i was frustrated and unplugged the cable.  i plugged back in, then switched back to sync music from manually manage music, and hit apply.  then i hit sync.  the whole collection of selected playlists synced, including all the formerly grayed out tracks. 

there is definitely some kind of syncing bug in iOS5 or the latest version of windows itunes. VERY frustrating problem, with no clear resolution or acknowledgement from apple.  i hate to admit it, but this has very much tarnished my faith in the "stability" of the apple ecosystem.  the one thing that apple has for me over android is the music management... with this lack of stability, i'm doubting that is still the case.

I posted earlier about what I thought the fix was but, since then, it happened again and I realized the cable for connecting my device to my pc was old and a bit worn at the point where the cable and plug are connected. Used a newer cable that I had and it quickly and automatically fixed everything without any manual editing required whatsoever.

I'm optimistic that this was the source of the problem all along. Buy new cables folks!!

I had the same problem. The solution for me was to connect my iPhone to the computer again and re-sync it. Supposedly my songs were not finished syncing the last time I did it, so all it did was continue. All my greyed out songs are back now (: Try it and see if what I did works for you.

Hi - I bought a new mac, laboriously transferred everything from windows (as migrate *** wouldn't work) using usb drives, home shared all apps (so in app purchases would work) and then faced updating the iPad to OS5 and resync'd the lot.

EVERY single music track and podcast bar one are greyed out.

The playable track is in the middle of a ripped album???

All my music is from CD's I own. I've never purchased DL music from iTunes as I prefer to own the CD itself.

10 hours I spent on it yesterday and I'm miffed to say the least.

...at least I've still got the bl***y sumerfberries though eh?

OMG! I have been battling with this issue for 3 days now. I have had no trouble with syncing my iPhone 4S since I bought it a couple of months ago, although hadn't done one for a while, but this week none of my music would sync, it was all greyed out under my device, with my music library on my iPhone completely empty, and I have tried everything suggested on about 5 different threads and help web-sites, short of the restore option.

Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you Scnickr!

Your solution worked, or most of it did:

1. Close down all running programs on the Iphone (tap home button twice, then hold an icon until they wobble, then press close). (********Never knew this function existed....)

2. In Itunes, click your named device, then summary and check the box that says "manually manage music and videos".

3. Under your named device, click music, ctrl+A to select all. Right click one of the songs and deleted them all. Just make sure there's no greyed out songs showing. (*****I couldn't do this one - there was no way it would let me delete anything in the greyed out area under my device)

4. On the Iphone, select Music. I had this running so it was actually displayed on the screen which is what I haven't done before but don't know if it made any difference. (******This seems to have made all the difference.)

5. In Itunes, click your device and then click the music tab and select Sync Music and apply, then Sync in the bottom right hand corner.

And it worked. I am currently restoring all my gb's of music back onto my iPhone, and can look forward to everything getting back to normal tomorrow. Hurrah!

Thank-you again!

Yes. I did this (as advised in this thread)

In Itunes, click your named device, then summary and check the box that says "manually manage music and videos".

And just did a re-sync.

Worked.

I was having the same  problem and tried the various things listed.   What finally worked for me was going into the info on each song (command I) and unchecking "part of compilation" on the info tab.    After that when I synched all the songs were uploaded from my mac to my phone.  

This has been bothering me for over a month now but just tried out FinalFantasy's solution and worked for me! The issue I was having was that there were a number of greyed out songs listed that were waiting to sync as well as the songs that were transferred manually that played fine.

Tried the reset and wipe scenario a few times however I backed up through iCloud - every time I did this, the greyed out songs reappeared waiting to sync but not actually doing so.

Tried the iTunes backup instead tonight and worked first time, need to install all my apps again but worth it for not having 900ish songs listed on my phone that weren't there/syncing! :-)

JQ

The problem is that everyone's solution is different, even though we are all experiencing some variation of random tracks not syncing and then causing a lock of the whole process.  I wish apple would address this and let us know because it substantially devalues the apple product since apple typically wins on music management and playback.

I had the same...I corrected it by plugging the phone back into itunes, click on summary and scroll down to options...I then ticked   Sync this phone over... and sync only ticked songs and videos.....

I actually thought this was already ticked but when I looked it wasnt....try it...worked for me, songs are now playable :-}