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Level 6

11,155 points

"Ghost" Songs Create Sync Error in iTunes

CDMA iPhone 4 w/ iOS 5.01 (since the day it was released)
Auto-sync to select playlists (either over wi-fi or USB)
Windows7, iTunes 10.5, only one iTunes account for this library
Backing up to iCloud (as of yesterday) but not using iTunes Match

Recent purchases I've made directly to my iPhone have been creating "ghost" entries on my iPhone -- they're not visible on the iPhone until connected to iTunes and I open the iPhone contents (see screen shot below). Each one of these ghost entries are grayed out and have what looks like a sync wheel next to them which doesn't move. Each time I sync to iTunes the iPhone displays an error message saying that "9 items failed to sync, see iTunes" (no error number). These 9 items are the tracks of the album "Canyon" which are the ones that appear as ghost entries, although the number of errored songs sometimes includes two other iPhone purchases.

This started after purchasing this album and tried to transfer it to my library later that night. I did not get an error message, but my library showed these same grayed out ghost entries, which are not playable. I tried to re-sync and they still didn't transfer, nor did they go after selecting "Transfer Purchases" from the iTunes menu. On iCloud they showed up as already downloaded to my computer and my iPhone. So I manually deleted the entries in my library, and from my iPhone by swiping each song left to right. I re-downloaded the album from iCloud to my computer. Great, no ghosts. I sync'd the songs to my iPhone, but now I have two entries for each song (as in the shot below) and I get this error message from iTunes on each sync. On the iPhone itself there is only one copy of each song, I only see the ghost entries while connected to iTunes.

This isn't a show-stopper, but annoying since two other purchases are occasionally showing up as ghost entries. So far I have done the following with no success:

Reset, Restored from Backup, Restored then installed backup
Changed sync settings to not sync music at all, then sync'd to remove all music, then reversed the process to put it back on
Went into Settings/ General/ Usage/ Music/ and swiped across "All Music" and selected Delete

The only thing I have not done, which I'm trying to avoid, is doing a restore as new iPhone ... I don't want to re-do all my settings, especially if the ghosts only come back.

Any suggestions?

iPod touch, Windows 7, "Cogito, ergo iPod." (I Think, Therefore iPod)

Posted on Jan 13, 2012 1:51 PM

42 replies

duncboy

Level 1

0 points

Sep 9, 2012 7:53 AM in response to rockmyplimsoul

So I've had this problem for a number of months and have searched all over the web trying new things to no avail - resyncing, unsyncing, deleting, resetting my phone, yada yada yada. For some people those things worked, for me they did not....and then I figured out something else to try.

1. On your iphone, goto iTUNES (not your Music, but iTUNES)

2. In iTunes, goto More > Downloads

3. Delete the downloads causing duplicate songs in your Library here - you can delete a song by swipping your finger across the song name in the list of downloads.

For me, this is what was causing the duplicates.

leeg330

Level 1

0 points

Sep 20, 2012 3:55 AM in response to rockmyplimsoul

So after a lot of messing around with iTunes on my mac and iPhone I finally got rid of them (ghost songs in iTunes that aren't showing on iPhone). Hopefully this will help other people too.

I followed the instructions in another thread and downloaded a program called PhoneView (the demo version worked fine, no need to pay).

Connect your iPhone to mac, open PhoneView, go to Settings>Show entire disk. Here I would recommend you back up all the contents of your phone.

Now this isn't my most technical piece of work but I went on a bit of a deleting spree (again make sure you've backed up everything).

I deleted the contents of the following folders:

Purchases,

Downloads,

iTunes Control>Sync>Media,

iTunes Control>Music

Then I deleted the following files from iTunes Control>iTunes:

MediaLibrary.sqlitedb
MediaLibrary.sqlitedb-shm
MediaLibrary.sqlitedb-wal

(and maybe a couple of others but these are the ones I remember).

I then reset the iPhone (Hold the Home and Power buttons for 5 secs), synced with iTunes and they had gone. Rejoice.

Sep 30, 2012 8:57 AM in response to leeg330

Thank you, leeg330! Your advice (Sep 20, 2012 3:55 AM) worked!

I used i-FunBox instead but any iPhone file manager application will work for this issue. Also, I just had to delete the 'Purchases' folder to remove all the "ghost" songs. Thanks, again!

Lowpro71

Level 1

4 points

Dec 22, 2012 12:29 PM in response to leeg330

Thanks leeg330. Your suggestion worked for me as well. Finally got rid of several ghost music entries on my iPhone which I was unable to remove via any other method short of a restore. Thanks again!

AppleLiv

Level 1

0 points

Dec 29, 2012 6:36 AM in response to rockmyplimsoul

the second one made ALL of my music become grey :/

Yin26

Level 1

15 points

Apr 29, 2013 11:07 AM in response to duncboy

Thank you! This was exactly what solved this problem for me.

duncboy wrote:

So I've had this problem for a number of months and have searched all over the web trying new things to no avail - resyncing, unsyncing, deleting, resetting my phone, yada yada yada. For some people those things worked, for me they did not....and then I figured out something else to try.

1. On your iphone, goto iTUNES (not your Music, but iTUNES)

2. In iTunes, goto More > Downloads

3. Delete the downloads causing duplicate songs in your Library here - you can delete a song by swipping your finger across the song name in the list of downloads.

For me, this is what was causing the duplicates.

rockmyplimsoul Author

Level 6

11,155 points

Apr 29, 2013 11:09 AM in response to rockmyplimsoul

rockmyplimsoul wrote:

2- If that didn't apply or didn't help, go to Settings/ General/ Usage/ Music, then swipe across "All Music" and press Delete. This does not delete the music off your iPhone, but seems to have fixed similar problems for others. It didn't help me, but I did this too prior to logging out of my iTunes account on my iPhone.

Too late to edit my original posts, but do NOT do this. I have since learned that doing this will make your music non-playable on your device, forcing you to erase and re-load your music. Sorry for the misinformation.

Nov 11, 2013 1:43 PM in response to rockmyplimsoul

I too have suddenly have sync problems with music between my Mac iTunes 11.1.3(8) on my iPad mini under iOS 7. Many of my tunes show up as "ghost songs" on my iPad. I initially had a problem with Movies and TV Shows not syncing up (they showed up with zero byte length) so I restored from backup -- which fixed my video problem but then created the Music nightmare.

I can't vouch for whether this proposed solution will stand the test of time, but I've managed to get back all my PURCHASED songs that were ghosted.

On your WiFi connected device (iPad or iPhone) launch your iTunes app (not the Music player app). I did not have my device tethether to my Mac, my device was logged into my iTunes account and it had an active WiFi connection.

Launch iPad iTunes ...

Purchased>Music

Select "Not on this iPad" then "Download All"

... wait for the download to complete.

Launch iPhone iTunes ...

More>Purchased>Music

Select "Not on this iPhone" then "Download All"

... wait for the download to complete.

After you sync with your Mac you'll see that for many of your "ghost songs" you have a duplicate real song -- so I do not think this is elegantly fixed. Fortunately my Playlists all still work in spite of the ghosts.

rockmyplimsoul Author

Level 6

11,155 points

Nov 11, 2013 2:52 PM in response to Harry Brindley

iOS 7 introduced a new feature that (by default) shows all items you've ever purchased from iTunes even if they're not currently on your device. You can turn that feature off (thankfully) so that your iOS device only shows you what is actually installed.

Is that what you're referring to, or do you actually see duplicates of some songs (either on your iPad, or on your iPad as viewed from iTunes)?

Nov 11, 2013 3:10 PM in response to rockmyplimsoul

@https://discussions.apple.com/profile/rockmyplimsoul

Yes, I believe so, to the first and when my iPad is tethered to Mac iTunes, where I once saw mostly ghosts in my Music library, I now see the ghost and a duplicate by the same name (presumably from the purchased download I just got from the cloud). I got back nearly 180 songs, most of which I still wanted.

You could selectively download which songs to download from the cloud but what a schlep that would be -- for me, anyway.

Jan 7, 2014 12:00 PM in response to rockmyplimsoul

I NEED HELP! I have tried deleting some of my purchased music and it still shows up on my ipod through my iphone. It has a little icloud download next to it, but doesnt show up on my itunes account through my lap top when I log into itunes. I went to my "downloads" setting through my phone and they're all listed there under "purchased" and "not on this iphone" , I just want to know how to delete them completely. I also have two or three songs that are showing up on my ipod, however not my itunes account through my lap top.

rockmyplimsoul Author

Level 6

11,155 points

Jan 7, 2014 1:25 PM in response to noelboling03

noelboling03 wrote:

I NEED HELP! I have tried deleting some of my purchased music and it still shows up on my ipod through my iphone. It has a little icloud download next to it, but doesnt show up on my itunes account through my lap top when I log into itunes. I went to my "downloads" setting through my phone and they're all listed there under "purchased" and "not on this iphone" , I just want to know how to delete them completely. I also have two or three songs that are showing up on my ipod, however not my itunes account through my lap top.

It sounds to me like you're having the same issue as Harry above, which is different than what I was seeing at the beginning of this thread 2 years ago.

If you're on iOS 7, then on your iPhone go into Settings/ iTunes & App Store and under "Show All" turn Music and Video OFF. That will hide purchased items which you do not have on your device -- the "Cloud" you see is an indicator of that status, but you can hide these things with this setting change.

Jan 23, 2014 7:49 PM in response to rockmyplimsoul

Thank you for "Settings/ General/ Usage/ Music, then swipe across "All Music" and press Delete" That fixed my issue and it was driving me crazy!

rockmyplimsoul Author

Level 6

11,155 points

Jan 23, 2014 8:36 PM in response to FrankiLogan

Uh-oh, look at my post above from 4/29/13 ... doing that will corrupt your music playback, as I later learned but could not edit in my post. You will likely find that songs will skip, and maybe display the wrong artwork. Sorry about that, but there's no way to edit a post after a short period of time.

Jan 25, 2014 10:03 PM in response to rockmyplimsoul

Thanks for the reply, I totally missed that entry. I had those issues (skipping, artwork, etc) before, let's see what happens now. Wish me luck :)

"Ghost" Songs Create Sync Error in iTunes