Playlists not syncing to iPhone 4S (but the songs are there)

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Level 1

27 points

Playlists not syncing to iPhone 4S (but the songs are there)

I noticed recently that none of my playlists are showing up on my iPhone. They were there and working fine until recently. I subscribed to iTunes Match a month or two ago, but I'm not using it on my iPhone (it's turned off in the iPhone settings). However, I can't help but think this problem has something to do with iTunes Match.

When I plug in my iPhone and view it in iTunes, it looks like the playlists are there, but when I go to the Playlists tab on the iPhone itself, it only shows "Genius Playlist" and "Add Playlist."

All of the songs in the playlists are available on the iPhone; only the playlists are missing.

This is super frustrating, and I'm really sorry I ever signed up for iTunes Match because all I've encountered since subscribing is problem after problem.

iPhone 4S, iOS 6, iPhone 4S

Posted on Oct 31, 2012 8:33 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

randers4

Level 9

63,519 points

Oct 31, 2012 8:43 AM in response to HeroBoy

Sometimes problems like this can only be fixed by syncing all the music off your phone, the back on. This will often restore playlists that previously refused to sync.

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Answer 2

HeroBoy Author

Level 1

27 points

Oct 31, 2012 12:51 PM in response to randers4

Took a while, but this worked.

One weird thing (before I tried this method) - I originally had my iPhone set up to sync "selected playlists." I switched it to my entire music library, which managed to get one of my playlists to show up. I switched back to sync just "selected playlists" and the one that had appeared was gone, but a different one was there. Obviously something was seriously glitched up.

Silver lining, I guess, is that I took the opportunity to clean up my playlists in iTunes, deleting the ones I didn't need anymore, and after unchecking "Sync Music", syncing to remove all of the music, and then re-checking "Sync Music", waiting over an hour for it all to re-sync back to the phone, it's all there along w/ the playlists.

Thanks for the tip!

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Answer 3

randers4

Level 9

63,519 points

Oct 31, 2012 12:53 PM in response to HeroBoy

You're welcome.

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Answer 4

Jan 10, 2013 12:31 PM in response to HeroBoy

DId you have Itunes Match on or off when you did this? I'm having the same problem but Itunes Match is on. I've turned it on and off on the phone and the playlists still won't show. Do I have to turn off Itunes Match, then sync all my playlists? What was the point of subscribing to Itunes Match?

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Answer 5

HeroBoy Author

Level 1

27 points

Jan 10, 2013 12:55 PM in response to shannon alyssa

I'm pretty sure I had Match on (in iTunes, not on my phone—I don't use Match on my phone, preferring to have all my music stored on the device) when I did this.

As for the point of subscribing to Match, I'm not sure. I thought I'd give it a try, mainly to "upgrade" my library to higher quality songs, but apparently for $30 I bought a bunch of headaches and wasted time spent trying to correct issues that were caused by Match. The latest issue I'm having is that when I "upgraded" the songs in my library, apparently iTunes decided that I should have the clean versions of songs rather than the unedited versions. Not only that, but there's no way of knowing which songs were affected without listening to them and noticing the censored words. It's incredibly frustrating, and I strongly regret ever signing up for iTunes Match.

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Answer 6

Jan 10, 2013 3:53 PM in response to HeroBoy

Yeah it comes down to false advertising since the apple page for Itunes Match claims it will sync playlists across all your devices. An apple suport technician just found a way for me to get off the phone with him to try one of the methods of fixing the problem, it didn't.

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Answer 7

Jan 10, 2013 8:02 PM in response to shannon alyssa

I am having the exact same problem Shannyn. I have had iTunes Match for about half a year and never had a problem before. In my car I went to play one of my playlists off my iPhone 4S and it wasn't there. My other ones were though. So I went home. Checked my Mac and the playlist shows. I made sure iTunes Match was on. It was on both devices so I turned off iTunes Match on my phone as another post suggested it and then back on and then ALL my playlists were gone off my iPhone now. I still see them on my Mac and all my music/songs show up on the phone but *** my iPhone will not show the playlists. Pretty fudging frustrating as that is about the only thing I use my phone for besides calls.

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Answer 8

Jan 10, 2013 9:25 PM in response to LunarTempest

Yeah the technician told me to reset my phone which actually got rid of all the playlists that somehow were on my phone (about 4) altogether. So now I have zero playlists. It's a pretty big problem it seems cause there are lots of people making message boards about it, so far I haven't found a solution and apple better fix it soon or they will have a lot of dissatisfied customers especially considering we've paid extra for this service.

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Answer 9

Jan 10, 2013 9:26 PM in response to LunarTempest

Also I tried hero boys suggestion of just physically syncing my playlists and turning match off on the phone an still no playlists, which is really weird.

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Answer 10

Jan 11, 2013 7:05 AM in response to shannon alyssa

Yeah, I have tried that - no luck at all. SUPER frustrating, thinking I might go to the apple store this evening...

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Answer 11

jcnypen

Level 1

20 points

Jan 11, 2013 10:03 PM in response to HeroBoy

You may want to try it again. Turn off match and turn it back on. Many people have had this issue over the last few days, but Apple appears to have fixed it. Good luck!

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Answer 12

jd2020

Level 1

61 points

Jan 17, 2013 11:59 AM in response to LunarTempest

A solution I've mentioned in other threads for iTunes Match not syncing playlists to iPhone is to log out of your iTunes Account (Apple ID) in the iTunes & App Store page of Settings, turn phone off, then on, then log in again. This has solved problems for a number of people. Cheers.

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Answer 13

BigKidSF

Level 1

0 points

Jan 22, 2013 9:21 PM in response to jd2020

Struggled for hours with this, and also found solution was:

1) Delete music content off iPhone 4S under Settings, Usage

2) Log off of iPhone 4S by going into Settings, iTunes & App Stores, click on Apple ID at top of page, option to "Sign Out" comes up & click on it.

3) Shut down iPhone by holding button on top until phone turns off

4) Reboot phone

5) Re-sync over wifi (if use Match) by going to Settings, General, iTunes Wi-Fi Sync

Ta-Da - finally my playlists are just like they appear on my main computer, a MacBook Pro. I could not figure out why my Playlists were scrambled, incomplete, lost, etc & the oldest trick in the book - unplug the computer is the the trick that worked like JD above mentioned. Hopefully the album art does not scramble again like before... have to wait & see on that.

Thanks JD 🙂

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