What does the dotted circle mean?

I had this problem recently, where every song I had ever purchased from the itunes store had the dotted circle next to it on my new iPhone5. I was syncing from iTunes on a Mac Mini. I tried the many things suggested including:

1. Turning off "sync music", applying and turning it back on

2. Turning off "wifi sync"

3. Signing out of Apple Account on both devices

4. Make a backup, restore, then setup as new device, then restore backup.

5. Deauthorize, then reauthorize my computer

None of this worked, but after thinking about it - I used a combination of 1 and 4 which worked for me as follows:

1. I turned off "sync music", and applied - removing all music from the iphone.

2. I created a new backup (which has no music).

3. I restored the phone to factory settings, setting it up in iTunes as a new phone.

4. Then restored it from the backup previously created.

5. Once restored I then rechecked the "sync music" checkbox, applied changes, and watched all my selected music copy accross perfectly.

I'm not even sure you need to set it up as a new phone TBH, you can probably restore it straight from the backup once it's restored now it has no music saved in it. If you do set it up as new phone, this makes a newer backup than the one you want to use, so don't take iTunes advice to "use a newer backup".

Grumpy_Bear wrote:

None of this worked, but after thinking about it - I used a combination of 1 and 4 which worked for me as follows:

1. I turned off "sync music", and applied - removing all music from the iphone.

2. I created a new backup (which has no music).

3. I restored the phone to factory settings, setting it up in iTunes as a new phone.

4. Then restored it from the backup previously created.

5. Once restored I then rechecked the "sync music" checkbox, applied changes, and watched all my selected music copy accross perfectly.

I'm not even sure you need to set it up as a new phone TBH, you can probably restore it straight from the backup once it's restored now it has no music saved in it. If you do set it up as new phone, this makes a newer backup than the one you want to use, so don't take iTunes advice to "use a newer backup".

This worked for me!

What alternatives do we have?

I purchased a new 64GB itouch 3 weeks ago. Synching my music worked up until 8/3/2014, when I noticed two newly downloaded songs did not transfer and had this GREY DOTTED CIRCLE...If I had known I'd spend hours and hours over the next 13 days trying to fix this issue with no avail, I immediately repacked the itouch and promptly returned this POS that day! SOOO FRUSTRATING!!! Searching the internet, reading thru several "fixes" has not brought any solutions smh. I've uninstalled/reinstalled itunes 2x(the most bloated useless software in the world), manually removed/added songs to my library 2x, wiped my itouch 4x, signed in/out/authorized/re-authorized numerous times. Nothing works.

It's amazing to me that Apple chooses to COMPLETELY IGNORE this KNOWN issue!! This issue has existed since 2009 in various forms. Apple is the only software/hardware company that uses idiotic symbols/icons with NO explanation at all. I've owned numerous ipods and itouch's over the years and this will definitely be my LAST. I will NEVER purchase another Apple device again.

For anyone with iPhone 6 and problem transferring recordings to iPhone.

I had a look and on the music app on iPhone at the bottom right '...' more icon is a shared option. Once i changed it from my old phone to my mac my songs synced straight away,

Hope this helps

I had the same problem (music not syncing, appearing as though it may sync from the cloud, only to have it disappear from the phone entirely, etc.), and I think I've solved it using a few steps. Some of these steps may have been unessesary, but I wanted to make sure my phone didn't try to receive information from anywhere but the active sync.

Firstly, I put my phone in airplane mode and I disabled "Automatic Sync" in iTunes on my iMac. I then unchecked "Sync Music". After applying this to my iPhone, I disconnected. Then, on my phone (after making sure that any iCloud syncing for music was disabled), I went to "General Settings > Usage > Music" and deleted ALL music from my phone. Ten manually added songs remained - no biggie. Plugged it back into the desktop and synced - the goal was to delete ALL music from my phone.

After the music was confirmed as obliterated, I reselected "Sync Music" and let it do its thing. This time it added ALL the music I had checked, with no gray dot circles or anything trying to load from atmospheric storage. Hope this helps someone. 😎

Here's my full "try this" potential solution (that has worked for me):

First delete all your music files on your iPhone, then re-sync without Wi-Fi being activated on your iPhone. iTunes doesn't always sync properly when your iPhone Wi-Fi is on. (God forbid Apple should tell you that).

Here's how you do it:

1. Uncheck all your iTunes so that next time you sync then all of your music will be deleted from your iPhone

2. Go under Settings/General/Usage/Storage/Manage Storage, click on Music... and delete music from there... Now you should be certain there are no music files on your phone.

3. Restart your iPhone

4. Go to re-sync (be sure to check the playlists/songs you want to sync; for the first sync, try checking only one playlist.)

5. BUT FIRST on your iPhone is in AIRPLANE MODE ... Again, iTunes doesn't always sync properly when your iPhone Wi-Fi is on. (Again, god forbid Apple should tell you that).

6. Make sure settings/music "group by album artist" is selected and green.

7. SIGN OUT OF iTUNES on BOTH your devices and your computer.

1. Backup to iTunes (NOT iCloud)—be sure to backup Apps

2. Reset/Delete all content on device (so it's left "as new")

3. Set up as new—doN't restore from backup

4. Restore from iTUNES backup (NOT iCloud!)

5. Then re-add your content.

This worked for me. How often are we going to have to do this? Or once done and it's fixed? I am group fitness instructor and use my iPhone to play music for classes. Today I was embarrassed when an update I had made to playlists on my macBook pro did not sync properly to my iPhone. I bought the first iPhone the week they came out in 2007 and have used iPhone exclusively since then. However, I am just about ready to make a change for quirks like this.

This won't get rid of the dotted circle or answer what it means but will get the music that won't load from your iTunes account onto your iPhone (etc.).

If you go to iTunes on your mobile device and then go to the "...More..." section (bottom right) there should be an option to hit "Downloads". Once you enter this you should be able to download the music that has been purchased on your particular account to your mobile device. You can also go to iTunes on your mobile device and go to "...More..." and then "Purchased". Once you reach this you hit "Music" and then "Not on This iPhone" to see the songs purchased on your account but not added to your iPhone. From there you should be able to download the music of your choice.

This was how I got around the stupid dotted circles that tricked me into thinking that I had music on my phone that I really didn't. It would be really nice to know what those mean if anyone has an answer to that. I haven't seen anyone from Apple on this feed helping with this annoying problem which is a little disappointing. I hope this solution helps in the meantime.

GOOD LUCK!

I have an iphone 4s, same problem, i fixed my doted circles easily, i dont know much about it but if its about some of your songs, its simple to me.

1. uncheck your songs, and apply is,

2.recheck them and the circles dissapear, sync and its fixed

Zewall wrote:

I had the problem of the 'Dreaded ring of dots'

I looked endlessly for a solution. All I wanted to do was put music (that worked perfectly fine on my itunes) onto my phone. I tried many things unchecking boxes, rechecking boxes, connecting the phone, unconnectig the phone, making a human sacrafice to the gods of itunes. None of it worked. I happened upon a mystical peice of information contained within the catacombs of the internet.

The problem that I was having was that my phone wasn't synching to my computer. Granted it showed up on my itunes and i could interact with the various tabs but i couldn't add any music onto my device. So I followed the steps contained on this website http://www.geeksquad.co.uk/articles/Mobiles/2012/08/why_won_t_my_iphone_sync_wit h_itunes ..... low and behold.... I could transfer my songs onto my iphone.

I followed all the steps and the one that worked for me personally was the step where you rename your 'sync services' folder to 'old sync services'.

Hope this helps people as I was ready to take a hammer to both pc and phone and reverting back to a walkman.

Thank you Zewall,

You have saved me from throwing my iPhone 6 out of the window in frustration! The "oldsyncservices" option worked perfectly and now my music is transferring beautifully.

Apple should give you, and geeksquad a medal, a salary AND a payrise! 😉

I'm now your number one fan

KathSue

After trying several of the suggestions with no success, here is what worked for me.

There was a playlist for my iPod that about a dozen songs I'd just downloaded the day before, wouldn't sync and had the dreaded dotted circle.

1. I went to the iTunes store and downloaded another song.

2. I synced that song and it worked.

3. That led me to the conclusion was that the problem was the the songs themselves (that wouldn't sync).

4. I went into iTunes and unchecked all the suspect songs.

5. I went to the device and synced it and those songs disappeared from my iPod.

6. Then I went back to iTunes and rechecked the songs.

7. Then I went back to the device and re-synced my device and playlist.

8. The songs reappeared without the dotted circle of death! 🙂

Hope this helps....

mcreevesr wrote:

3. That led me to the conclusion was that the problem was the the songs themselves (that wouldn't sync).

If you simply unchecked then checked the songs, that nullifies your conclusion the songs were the problem (since you didn’t redownload the songs).

But yes, thats kinda how I solved it too.

I had even restored the iPhone as new and it didn’t correctly sync all the songs (in addition to taking hours to re-encode a few thousand songs to 128 kbps when syncing).

So my issue is I have a few songs (all recent purchases) that have the dreaded dotted circle. But, I've made some changes to a few other songs (e.g. changing artist name) and they aren't updating AND my album artwork isn't updating. Basically, any changes I've made in the last few days to my iTunes simply isn't syncing at all.

I have latest and greatest of iTunes, iOS, etc...

I have just found a few of these appearing again - oddly the tracks ARE on the iPhone and can be played there, they just don't appear to be "synced". But here's the good part - in every case the album is a hybrid of some kind!

I'll explain - Glorious by Foxes - I was given the CD, ripped it to iTunes for Mac and synced onto iPhone. Then I found the deluxe version in iTunes and added the "missing" tracks only then edited the album name so they all appear together in Album view. Now the extra tracks have the dotted circle!

Another example - a while back I bought a track from an album from a different iTunes store. Subsequently the rest of the album was added to my "native" store so I bought the album. Those extra tracks all have a dotted circle.

So it looks as though iTunes is trying to cross-reference to iTunes Store (or not) and failing to get a match for some of the tracks. Oddly, it's the Store tracks that seem to be having the most trouble...