iPod/Music App in iOS5 not sorting artist list alphabetically

Anyone come accross a fix for this? Man, huge pain. Mine just started today, thank god I'm not the only one, heh.

I don't know. Earlier on in the thread somebody said if you backup and restore and then put all of your music back it fixes the problem. However, it was never confirmed if the problem went away for good or if it came back. I think some people were thinking that once newer music is synced after the initial syncing the new stuff will start to get out of order again.

I never tried the backup and restore and re-sync because the one day I sat down to give it a whirl I got some sort of error with iTunes telling me it couldn't connect to Apple to verify my install or whatever. I don't know what that was about, somebody gave me a command line command to flush DNS or something to try to fix that problem but I just don't have time for this crap anymore. I just need this thing to work on its own. Isn't that Apple's thing? They make stuff that works? Well, stuff isn't working right now.

I wonder if the new 5.1 update offers a solution for us. I also wonder why this isn't happening to everyone. What makes those of us in this thread so special?

So I ended up having to restore cause my 4S was acting weird and like other people said, it solved the problem...until I synced it again adding new music and it screwed everything up again. ***!!!! How is this even an issue?!?!?!? The lastest technology in smart phones and this stupid thing can't alphebatize the artists and, by the way, the genres too?!?!? Seriously? Seriously? I agree with Rubberchicken17, what is it about us in this thread that makes us have this problem? Why doesn't everyone have this problem? Is there a type of music file that messes things up? What is that WE have in comon? This is NOT a small trivial problem, this is huge! Why? Cause when you show this to anyone with an Android or Blackberry or any other device that contains music, you will be laughed at. This can't be more basic! Apple revolutionized how we interact with our music...AND MY ARTISTS ARE OUT OF WHACK?!? C'mon!!! I hate to pull this one out but Steve Jobs must rolling...nay spinning in his grave. Is this acceptable for an $800 device? A device that "just works"? And by the way, I won't even get into some of the other problems I've had. iOS 5.1 had better fix some things cause this is getting to be all kinds of silly. Other than that, I don't have a strong opinion on the matter.

In addition to my previous explanation about restoring my iOS devices and having the data display correctly, there is another data point that may be a factor:

I'm using iTunes Match with iCloud syncing. I no longer sync my music with iTunes directly — I download songs I own from iCloud directly.

Of course, Apple should still fix the bug. But maybe that's why things work for me, but not for people manually syncing with iTunes directly. *shrugs*

rubberchicken, as several people have stated, it returns to the unalphabetized state once you add any new music to the iPhone.

I posted on Saturday, February 25th that a supervisor told me he would give me a return call "in a few days" after speaking to an iOS software engineer. Well, I waited a week until Saturday, March 3rd and never received the call.

I called them and spoke to another supervisor. The guy was really nice and understood that in addition to wanting to know when this bug would be fixed, I also wanted to help in any way possible, including doing some troubleshooting. The reason I would want to do that is because it seems apparent to me that Apple has no clue about this bug.

So the guy asks me to create a new iTunes library. I do so. I add about 1,110 songs to it (not my full collection). I get off the phone with him at this point, because we had been on the phone for an hour and a half. All I needed to do at this point was wait until it synced, see if it was alphabetized, and if so add new music to the iPhone and see it remains alphabetized.

I honestly couldn't believe what happened next. A new issue was created that I had never even heard of before. The vast majority of my songs were grayed out. I couldn't play them. Here's a thread regarding the issue: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3376325?start=0&tstart=0

I tried every possible solution to no avail to fix these grayed out songs. I couldn't even get these grayed out songs off my iPhone. I unchecked Sync Music and then synced. Nope. I checked "Manually Manage Music" and synced. Nope. I had to do a full restore to fix the new problem. At least my music is alphabetized now -- until I add new music. Sigh.

I emailed the supervisor that I spoke to on Saturday, March 3rd regarding what all I went through after we got off the phone. Yet to receive a response in five days.

As some have suggested, what is it that makes us special? I think we need to collect some information.

Are you using iTunes Match? (No.)

How old is your iTunes library? (Four years.)

How much space is left on your iOS device? (2.3 GB)

How many songs are on your iOS device? (2,822)

About how many albums contain album art? (Every album for me.)

If anyone can think of more relevant information, feel free to include it. We need to collect information and see where our similarities lie.

I will remain in contact with Apple. Not going to give up on this one.

5.1 hasn't fixed this or any other of the problems I am having.

Poor show

Well done Bios! I'm really hoping you will find the solution to this problem!

My information:

Are you using iTunes Match? (No)

How old is your iTunes library? (Two years)

What iOS device do you use? (iPhone 4)

iOS version is on the device? (5.1)

How much space is left on your iOS device? (4.3 GB)

How many songs are on your iOS device? (3730)

About how many albums contain album art? (Roughly half)

I hope others will send their information as well.

Kind regards,

Wouter

Good idea Bios, maybe this will help. iOS 5.1 fixed my problem...and by "fixed my problem" I mean "did absolutely nothing. Ice Cream Sandwich was more useful than iOS 5.1. Congrats Apple, I'm officially dissapointed. Maybe I'll just go get a Zune.

My information:

Are you using iTunes Match? (No)

How old is your iTunes library? (Two weeks)

What iOS device do you use? (iPhone 4S)

iOS version is on the device? (5.1)

How much space is left on your iOS device? (7.4 GB)

How many songs are on your iOS device? (6878)

About how many albums contain album art? (a few, i removed albums info on most songs)

Does new music you add appear on the songs list? (no)

If anyone else can think of anything to add, maybe we'll figure it out...or not.

Personally, I think once you start to edit your stuff and rename and delete artists and tracks etc, the bug will happen for everybody.

I am astounded that 5.1 hasn't fixed a single one of my iphone/ipad bugs after months and months of the 5.0 being released. I thought the whole point of incremental updates was to release little but often.

My information:

Are you using iTunes Match? (Yes)

How old is your iTunes library? (Oof, super old)

What iOS device do you use? (iPhone 3GS)

iOS version is on the device? (5.1)

How much space is left on your iOS device? (16.3 GB)

How many songs are on your iOS device? (Right now only 6gigs worth)

About how many albums contain album art? (Majority)

Does new music you add appear on the songs list? (Yes via Match)

I wanted to add that I believe the best course of action for us would be to to call 1-800-MY-IPHONE and tell a supervisor about this problem. Furthermore, direct them to this thread.

Also, for those who do not have AppleCare, you may have a bit of a problem talking to anyone at Apple, but rest assured I have a solution. I own an iPhone 4 that I got back at launch in June 2010, so I didn't have AppleCare. The only option for me to speak to someone was to pay $30. Well, of course I'm not going to pay Apple $30 for an error in their product, and I told them exactly that. Be dilligent and strong regarding this. You shouldn't have to pay for wanting to report a flaw in iOS, and I didn't have to. Also, if the initial customer representative directs you to apple.com/support/feedback, tell them "No, I want to speak to your supervisor." That's exactly what I had to do.

Tossing my hat into the "me too" ring.

Woah! My 3GS just fixed itself! Everything falls under the corresponding letter again! I changed nothing, I was just adding new music to iTunes Match, looked at my phone and poof, everything is right.

Sort of ironically enough, my iTunes library on my computer is all wonky now with the alphebetization but that's fine, music on my phone gets gone through much more often than my desktop.

I don't know if mine self corrected or what (maybe they're doing something in iCloud or iTunes Match), but my information is now sorted correctly.

However... - I DID take steps within my iPhone and iTunes Match settings. I don't know which one worked (or again... could it be in iCloud...), but I first set the "Group by Album Artist" to "Off" (it was "On"), and also set "iTunes Match" to "Off".

This seems to have reset something - I turned "iTunes Match" back to "On", checked my sort order - and all is well!

This worked for me before the 5.1 update, but the minute you start to delete or rename stuff in iTunes the order will mess up again.

Try having a mess about for a couple of days and let us know if it is still fixed.