What does the gray dotted circle in iTunes mean?

I have the exact same problem! I’m downloading AudioBooks from a Library using OverDrive Media Console V3.2.2.0 and when I transfer the parts to my Iphone 4 with iOS6.0.1 in iTunes some of the parts show the dotted circle and cannot be played.

It looks like if the DRM was not transferred correctly.

I have Windows Media Player v 12.0.7601.17514 and Windows Media Player DRM v 2.9.0.1

I tried deleting the buggy parts and downloading them again, both from the library and to my iPhone and it is the same no matter what I tried.

I have 1 Audio book where only 1 out 10 parts is like this but you might as well not having at all.

It happened on 2 different AudioBooks.

To be honest these DRM are just a real pain.

Anyone has a suggestion?

I've figured it out!

It is when you've dragged the file say, from your Mac to your iPhone, but you don't have enough memory free on your iPhone for the song to copy accross.

Happened to me when I was copying a whole playlist across, and there were some new songs in it. Don't know if that effects it in anyway... (it might say there's no space if you just individually try to copy a song to music).

It also doesn't seem to work in a way in which iTunes copys the songs in the same order as they are in. For example, if there's only two which won't copy then it doesn't mean it'll be the last two songs in a playlist or album, it could be the third and seventh!

Anyway, I hope this helps and finally solves the mystery of the dotted circle!

Hi!

Think I have figured it out 🙂

Firstly, I went into the 'On This iPad' section and noted all the tracks that had dotted circles.

In the 'Music' section, I un-checked/de-selected all the tunes I had taken a note of.

I then applied and sync'd the changes.

Once that completed I then re-checked/re-selected the same tunes I had just un-checked/de-selected in the 'Music' section.

When I applied and sync'd the changes again, and went back into the 'On This iPad' section, all the dotted circles had gone and all the tracks can be played.

I hope this helps 🙂

That symbol os not shown in iTunes Hep. However, it does shows

Thus it may mean that the download is not complete

nightmare of a time with this one.

sorted it on my iphone4. there was a few tracks that did not have album artwork correct. highlight the whole album, and right click for get info, and when you get to the info paste the album artwork into the album artwork window that is empty. now drag and drop. worked for me!!

no help from apple though!

OK you are right. I freed some space on the iPhone and restarted the OverDrive Media Console Transfert and it worked!

I love Apple OS. You never ever get a proper error message. The error management code of every app is the same “On error exit App” and by all mean never bother giving any useful error message!

There are so many things that can go wrong with getting WMA books from Overdrive to an ipod/iphone. However, I figured I would share that in my case, the problem was solved by following through with the instructions on changing the import settings in itunes to "spoken podcast". I was ignoring that window because I didn't care about the longer transfer time, but eventually I realized that was what was causing my problem.

I hope that helps someone out there. I live in MD and our public libraries seemed to think this was the right service to deliver audiobooks. 😟

I've been having a ssimilar problem with WMA audiobooks. However my WMA files haven't been showing up on my iPod Touch at all. I can see them in the Audiobooks section when I view the iPod contents through iTunes but scrolling through on the iPod all I get is a black screen when I select Audiobooks. I too have been ignoring the "Spoken podcast" setting but in my case it was because I couldn't find it.

I ended up using the iTunes Help search function and here is how to find it (if anyone else is as clueless as me):

- Open up Preferences (under the Edit menu)

- Under the first tab, General, click on Import Settings (next to the insert CD options)

- I left the first option alone for now but change the second option in that new window to Spoken Podcast

Still not sure if it fixes my problems but hopefully someone else will find it useful!

As a follow-up to my previous comment, WMA audiobooks are still not loading in the Audiobooks section. I am having the same experience as other users in that a new playlist is being created and the WMA files are being automatically loaded there.

I am seeing the same issue where the gray circle is appearing next to files that have been "successfully" transferred. I simply deleted these files and tried to load them again. For my current audiobook, they loaded with no problems on the second try.

As long as I can listen to the audiobooks, I'm happy. So far, I'm not running into any show-stoppers. Good luck all!

I accidentally sync'd my whole library to my phone.... I have these gray dashed circles that show up in iTunes, but my phone shows I have no music and directs me to the Store. I would like to put some music on manually, but when it's plugged in, iTunes shows I have a ton of songs on my iphone 5. it won't let me remove this mess, and it won't let me add anything either.

irritating. I went to general, usage, and under music it says - no data...any suggestions?

Hello all, i've tried to do everything you guys suggested, still have the grey dotted circle on my musics when its viewed in the iphone tab, i cannot add any musics to the iphone 4S, I even tried restarting back to the original factory configuration, it still didnt work either!!

Im running a itunes 11.

This must be a bug!!

Anyone found the solution?

I have this same problem with audiobooks and Overdrive. There is plenty of room on my iPhone and all my settings are right. The kicker is that if I delete and try transfer again, it will eventually fully convert. BUT parts that previously converted won't. It also creates a new playlist for the book instead of putting it in audiobooks. I haven't been able to get my last three books to fully convert all parts at the same time. I have dropped back to using my old Philips MP3 player.

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.

Hello Guys,

After many trials, I figured out my problem...

First, like Zewall above, I tried everything you guys suggested, still did not work...

The problem was in my icloud sync process!

I mean, I’ve rebooted the iphone back to original factory many times, but I always synched to my icloud just afterwards to get all my contacts and apps.

After I was trying to add the music in all possible ways, no success, the damm dotted circle was there and no songs from the library was loaded to the iphone.

Just by mistake, this last time I did not logged in with icloud in the rebooting process of the iphone, and thus no apps nor contacts were synched with my icloud account, so the iphone was just like new!

I tried now to synch the songs and WORKED !!!

The songs from the library was loaded to the iphone!!!

Well, I had to add my contacts again, had to download all the apps one by one again..

But at the end solved my problem!!!

For me, I had only to right-click on one of the songs with the circle and uncheck it; then right click on the song again and check it. After that, the transfer of all the songs to my Iphone 5 resumed.