Q: Greyed out songs on iphone after iOS 5 update

I had this same greyed out music issue after upgrading from 3GS to 4S but found the easiest way to fix it was to de-select the "sync music" option, do a sync, then re-select it and sync again - all the music transferred fine - all the orginal settings like selected playlists etc were still selected so no loss there.

Good luck.

m@

Thanks Matsby but no luck!

I've been having the same problem.  My solution isn't really a solution as a temporary fix.  I took all the songs that were greyed out and removed them from my phone.  I then was adding those songs back one by one until I found that only one of the songs was causing everything else to not sync.  So after removing that song, all the rest of the songs that had been greyed out went on fine.  It doesn't fix that there is a problem, but if you can live without the one or two songs that are preventing all the others from working until they fix the issue, this should work.

Hope it helps a little.

Finally! I found a solution to fix mine!  Been having the same problem you described and tried all fixes in this forum - no luck.  Just by chance, I stumbled on a solution.  Here's what I did...

1.  Plugged in my iPhone 4S into my computer to sync.

2.  On the music tab, I kept the "sync music" button selected, but unchecked every playlist, artist, album, and genre that was previously selected. 

3.  This time when I hit sync it erased all remaining music from my phone.

4.  I then reselected a playlist to test it out and it worked!  I then selected some more...and they synced as well. 

Hope this helps

****, wish this worked but after syncing the 4th or 5th playlist they start dropping out grey again.

Also, this would take forevever to sync my music!

Guess I'll have to listen to whatever goes across and wait for an update/fix...

Thanks again for response.

I tried multiple resets / resync's to no avail with my iPhone4 / iOS5. In the end, the solution was to complete a full restore. Now all music tracks / playlists are correct, and videos are not greyed out.

Same for me as DaveDT.  First few playlists came across OK, but by the end they were dropping.  I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the "canceling sync" that pops up prematurely.  Seems the list never fully transfers.  I wish there was some log file that would tell my why it mysteriously cancels that sync.

I'm also thinking it has to do with a premature termination of the sync. I have tried several times to do the whole restore-backup-sync routine, and each time the sync ends about halfway through transferring my music files. The remaining untransferred tracks are listed on my iPhone in iTunes, but are all greyed out. Is there any way to go back to iOS 4? This *****!

So had a tinker with meta data and have found that a lot of the tracks that won't sync have 'album artist' set to Various Artists. Changing this to the artists name enables them to be transfered over. But again, not en masse. So not really a fix - but might be useful for someone.

Same thing, a random selection of tracks just wouldn't sync, sync cancels before the end. Tried all the fixes, didn't work. One thing I'd noticed in the Summary window when the phone is synching was there was a lot of "Other" content on the phone (data, operating system etc - shown as the yellow bit in the bar graph) - it should only be about 0.75 G or so but I had 7.9 G's worth and it kept going up. The Apple phone help guy I spoke to for an hour tonight suggested this was because the operating system was buggered since I'd updated to iOS 5 and not restored the phone. So I did that. It took an hour and restoring the phone made NO DIFFERENCE!! Still the same, greyed out songs.

What worked for me was:

1. ending the music app

2. restarting phone

3. Download free app on itunes (computer)

4. Plug in device.

I think they have changed the way iOS5 handels id tags, someone else had a problem with tracks not syncing correctly.

I always tag mine like this

Artist = Neko Case

Album Artist = Neko Case

for a compilation albums I tag the tracks:-

Artist = Song Artist

Album Artist = Name of album

All my music syncs as it should

mp3tag is very good and tags other formats too and its free

It seems to me that syncing between iTunes 10.5 & iOS5 is very suspect

I've had problem's with tracks not copying (the greyed out songs)

I'm also having problem's with tracks that it says have copied just not playing

The only solution I've found to that is to remove them from the playlist, sync, add them back & re-sync

Also, the amount of free space it says is avaiable varies wildly

I spent two hours on the phone last night with Apple, after trying each and every trick on the many threads about this problem, including Restoring my phone, but nothing worked. Every person I speak to at Apple (six so far) says they haven't heard about this problem. Do they not read these threads?

I had the same problem. New iPhone 4S with iOS5. Certain tracks wouldn't sync and remianed grey on phone.

I tried everything on this chat line & even took it to Apple's Genius bar. My old iPhone 3G and iPod continued to sync without problem,

I tried the check & then uncheck Convert higher bit rate method. No success.

I tried back up to iCloud (no music) then restore phone and then reload music. No success.

THE ONLY THING that works was SB7523's suggestion. Woked like a charm. Thanks SB7523!

1.  Plugged in my iPhone 4S into my computer to sync.

2.  On the music tab, I kept the "sync music" button selected, but unchecked every playlist, artist, album, and genre that was previously selected.

3.  This time when I hit sync it erased all remaining music from my phone.

4.  I then reselected a playlist to test it out and it worked!  I then selected some more...and they synced as well.