What does the gray dotted circle in iTunes mean?

I had the same problem. And I hope my solution will help you...

Thanks to aprezotto post it found out that when I wipe and restore iphone from iTunes backup (instead of iCloud backup) songs were properly sent from iTunes to iPhone. It works for me indeed.

In my opinion the problem lays a little bit deeper. When I turned on brand new device I decided to choose Restore from iCloud (which was iPad backup). I believe that this can be a reason, that iPhone restoring face problems when it is restored from different backup than iPhone backup itself.

I have just wiped this iphone then turned it on and chosen "New iPhone"

Ather that you can still join it to you Apple account and iCloud as well ( so you will still have you Contacts, Calendar etc.),

Unfortunately you will have to write down application which were instaled and install it again.

But the most important is: SONGS will appear on your iPhone 🙂

What do you think?

Cheers

I'm having the same problem.

17gb free on my phone

60gb free on the drive that holds my itunes libray and my overdrive library

but

2gb free on my c drive

If I let my c drive get less than that the uploads fail - selectively. Currently working on a book with 8 parts. It dropped 5 & 6 but copied 7 & 8.

My easy hit for space is to go to %temp% and delete what I can. Then I delete the tracks from itunes and transfer just those tracks back over.

Hope this helps.

My solution was to delete the bad selections, go to the summary tab in itunes and change the setting to "Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 ACC (I put a check mark in the section). I usually down load the books without this section checked. 2 out ten chapters would not load correctly. This solved the problem. I hope this is helpful. BTW, I am getting books from the library and use Overdrive to transfer them to itunes.

Using a PC with Windows 8.1

I''v actually spent HOURS on the phone with Apple over this problem. Other hours at the Genius bar and have emailed diagnositce to Apple (yesterday was most recent)!

Finally, went back today, played around and came up with something that worked, at least for me.

I'm synching from Itunes (latest version) to Iphone, mostly audiobooks Albums will synch to Iphone but some tracks will be grayed out.

What wotked for me was to:

1 right click on the 1st track with a grayed-out circle

2.. on the menu that comes up click on "Uncheck Selection" (or "Check Selection", if that appears)

3. Right click on the track again.

4. on the menu that comes up click on "Check Selection" (or "UnCheck Selection", if that appears)

The tracks should now begin synching. If they don't, go to the next unsynched track and repeat the process.

Now, somtimetime all of the unsynched tracks will synch and Duh!, some tmes only some will synch.

Keep repeating the process until all are synched.

Good luck.

Ed

I was unable to transfer songs from itunes 11 to an old ipod touch. Finally I deleted the dreaded gray out songs with their circle icon form the ipod, signed out of my itunes account at the itunes store, and dragged the album again to the ipod and voila, the songs were transferred. I hope this helps. Thanks all for the other suggestions, without which I would still be struggling.

MCS

I had this probably too & found, I think, that it was down to not enough memory to sync any new or additional songs across, even though the my Ipod Touch & Itunes was stating that there was still memory left.

Anyhow after trying some of the suggestions out on here & then still being frustrated as the problem didn't seem to resolve itself, I came across an option listed under the 'Ipod Summary' section in Itunes. In here I ticked the box listed under the 'Options' that states "Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps AAC' .

Itunes then readjusted the amount of memory left so there was more & then when I re-synced the Ipod to Itunes, all the songs 'greyed out with a broken dotted circle' started to reload right before my eyes lol!!! There was approximately, 2,400 of these songs so I left my Ipod syncing overnight & in the morning all the 'greyed out' tracks had been synced to Ipod fully & I have all my music as I wanted it... Not sure why this action did the trick but it worked & I'm now a happy little Ipod bunny.

Hope this works for you 🙂

So finally I found the solution! Go to ITunes and go to your phone summary, you have to check mark the box that says "Convert Higher Bit Rate Songs" click apply. Then next to you GB line click "sync". the songs should transfer!

Hey Chapess ... Thank you for sharing!

As soon as I "unchecked" the gray dotted tracks they started downloading! Wonderful! I didn't even have to do any of the other steps. It only worked on newly transferred audiobooks... but no problem, I just deleted the older ones (I had been trying to get them the day before) and re-transferred them from Overdrive.... then unchecked them and they downloaded no problem.

This has been making me crazy for months!!! I am so happy so have a solution! Thanks again 🙂

The problem I'm having is that I can't delete songs from my iPhone 6+ completely. I highlight and delete the songs, then when I sync again the "ghosts" of the deleted songs reappear on my phone. When in "random" shuffle mode, I've discovered that the music occasionally just stops unless I advance to the next song. I suspect these "ghosts" are the reason.

If anyone still experiences this problem, please check out this video on YouTube!

This is the best way to fix this issue and it works. I have tested and tried this method with a number of devices and computers and has worked every time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVbZZEZlGGY

All the best,

TheMusicKnowGuy

Hello,

This solution worked for me but it is specific to Mac users. I to had the checkered circle next to newly added songs in my iTunes and could not sync them to my iPhone. I searched the web and read long forums and wasn't about to dedicate that much time to it just to get a few new songs onto my phone. So I tried one last little thing and it worked. Here are the steps, remember I am a Mac user so if you are running iTunes on a windows computer these steps may work, but no guarantees they will work for you as they did for me:

1. Quit iTunes.

2. Wait 30 seconds

3. Re-open iTunes

4. Go to song(s) that had the checkered circle next to them and see if they are still there.

Final Notes:

Mine were there when I opened iTunes but in less than 10 seconds of opening it back up and locating affected songs with the checkered circles, which symbolize a final sync of the song to the intended playlist I believe( *Someone confirm this* ), loaded and went away and I could then sync updated playlist onto my device.

Hope this helps and I hope it isn't too confusing! If you are on a PC I am sorry I do not have solution to getting them to go away but I am looking into it now.

Enjoy!

Corey

I've tried many times deleting a song, disconecting from iTunes, reconnecting to iTunes, getting the grey dotted circle for the previ deleted song, disconnect from iTunes again, wait a bit then reconnect to iTunes. The previously deleted song with the dashed grey circle reappears on my iPhone.

So, your suggestion doesn't work as a solution.

Rob,

Please re-read what I posted. I never mentioned anything about deleting a song and disconnecting from iTunes. I think you misread what I said in my posting. What I did was Quit iTunes and then reopen about a minute later and the songs then synced completely to the playlist I copied them into and I was able to sync them onto my phone.

May I ask are you a Mac user?

If so,

What version of Mac OS are you running?

Clearly what I have posted does work as a solution because it worked for me.

Also I stated there was no guarantees that it would work for anyone else like it did for me. I may be running on a different Mac OS than other people and that may affect another users outcome if they try this solution.

Please do not get frustrated with me as all I was trying to do was help.

Look forward to hearing back!

Corey

I've used Macs for more than 30 years. I'm on 10.10.5 now.

My problem (now repeated several times, patience is growing thin) is that when I connect my iPhone 6+ to iTunes, I have grey circled songs on my iPhone 6+ that I previously deleted. The grey circled entries cannot be deleted. If I restore my phone (takes hours), the grey circled entries disappear, but as soon as I delete another song from my iPhone, I get a new grey-circled entry that I cannot delete.

In months of asking this question, no one has explained why I get these grey-circle entries, or what they mean, or how to permanently delete them short of a full restore.

Nope, does not work. This doesn't remove the ghost songs with the dotted circles on the left end of their lines.

Still hoping someone from Apple will provide an explanation of the dotted circle and a definitive way to delete songs from iOS 9.3.1.

It's been six months since I raised this issue on this community board.