What does the dotted circle mean?

Well, with a few times actually contacting apple support, the only thing that seems to have worked is erasing all settings and content on the device, then connecting it and all the songs seem to be going on.

First: Backup your device to iCloud or your computer, unplug the device, Go into Settings/General/Rest/ and hit erase all content and settings. Set up as new iPod or iPhone etc. After that connect your device to your computer, and set up as new device. Then it should work and copy all the songs. At first I thought it didn't work, but at step 4 it started downloading them all on. Now I was told to just restore from the backup with all your pictures etc and the songs should still be on, if not, I was also told I'd have just sync all the songs back on, which I'm fine with waiting. I have over 5,000 songs, just as long as the songs work now is all that matters. Thanks Apple Support!

Depending on how many songs, etc you have, it may take awhile for them to download. I kind of wish it was how it was before the update where the songs would have to be downloaded while connected through usb, or at least that's how I used to do it and they always synced. Now the sync ends before all the songs are actually downloaded and you get the red circle with the square in it next to the songs on your device. I'm not even entirely sure if they're even downloaded cause no progress has been made. Plus it's not showing certain songs if they're in the process of downloading either. New isn't always better -_-'

Actually that solution ended up failing as well. I'm seriously starting to give up. Restoring it once again right now and hopeing that does something. Started a new discussion on it. Apple, get your act together.

This worked! Thank you. That is a breath of fresh air.

pcguywithaniPhone: the greyed out songs do not appear on my phone

pw74: I have the same problem and I do not have iTunes Match

So I was having the same problem as everyone here with these rings, and it looks like I've gotten them to go away. (fingers crossed it stays that way). Here's what I did.

Plug in iPhone, cancel sync.

Go into iTunes library, delete problematic songs from library.

Find files in finder, re-import them into the library.

Go to iPhone tab-music-uncheck sync music

Sync iPhone

(Now when i looked at the music again it had changed to "selected playlists" and synced like 60 songs. Don't know what happend)

Now I re-checked the sync all music

Sync iPhone

After a few seconds the gray circles on the music list in the "on this iPhone" tab began to load and dissappear one by one.

(Have no idea what of this was necessary and what wasn't so I figured I'd just put everything in.)

Hope this helps.

Thanks ... I guess this way will lose the songs in the playlists, though, right? You have to re-insert all your re-imported songs into all your playlists?

Probably, I only had them in one playlist so it wasn't a big deal for me, but I think you can save playlist song lists if that'll help. not sure about it

Had this problem too - songs showed up in iTunes, but even after a sync would not show up on my phone despite the fact I have "sync entire music library" selected in my settings. Tried a lot of the suggestions on this discussion thread with no success.

Then I tried unchecking the "sync music" box, did a sync that alleged it would remove all the music off my phone (it didn't), then re-checked the "sync music" box, synced again and the songs appeared on my phone.

Well, I experienced the same problem. When I tried to sync my music via iTunes, there was this dotted circle and it was impossible to transfer my music, while I could sync perfectly my pictures.

When I bought my iPhone I used iCloud to set it up and sync my files from my iPad. And aparrently there was some kind of problem with this, because when I restored my iPhone and used iTunes this time to set it up and sync my files, the dotted circle dissapeared.

I hope this is helpful.

Morning all...

I'm pretty rubbish when it comes to technology and phones... I had this same problem when trying to put 2 new CDs onto my phone... I recalled that when I downloaded the latest version of iTunes that they asked if I allowed iTunes to have access to my account to see what was in my library and all that... I clicked No...

I uninstalled iTunes from my laptop and reinstalled this time clicking 'Yes'... It works fine now...

I'm sure this is just chance but if it helps anyone then it was worth the 5 hours off fury I went through...

Hey, this was an issue for me this week too...

I managed to fix it by un-selecting the 'Sync Music' button, then syncing the iPhone. This wipes all the music off unfortunately, but it works. Once it's synced re-select the 'Sync Music' button and pick and choose what music you want on your iPhone as you would normally.

Time consuming but it worked for me!

I can confirm that doing one sync with music "off" and then turning music sync back and syncing again will rid your eyes of those terrible little grey circles.

I have had my share of maddening frustration in syncing my iPod and am still far from satisified with it's unpredictability. But after reading through a lot of this and another thread here I have been able to get rid of the dreaded "ring of dots" and have been able directly sync audio files from my PC to my (brand new) iPad mini (and am a complete newbie to it). Here is what I did which worked:

1. I authorized my PC for use with my iPad mini

2. Then selected all the files with the "ring of dots" (RODs)

3. As soon as this was done all the files with the RODs started syncing with my iPad

Hope this solution continues to work for me and any others who try it.