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itunes won't let me put music onto my iphone

desperately need help.


I have just updated my iphone 3Gs as well as my itunes so that they are both perfectly up to date as of january 24, 2013.


For some reason itunes is not letting me put music onto my iphone. everything else works perfectly, i have my apps, my contacts, everything is fine. but i cannot drag music onto my itunes.


things i have tried:


1: i made sure that the box "manually manage songs etc" was ticked off.


2: i made a playlist and tried to let it autofill/sync from that


3: i gave up and set it to just sync automatically.


none of these worked.


when i say that it will not allow me to put music on i mean just that. there is no error message, there is no fanfare, it just does nothing. i select a group of songs, an artist, an album, whatever it may be and drag it over to my phone, or choose the optiont that says add to... and select ______'s iphone, and it does absolutely nothing.


everything worked fine on my old computer. which was running an ancient version of itunes that i knew and understood. however that computer was really on it's last legs and started to become in danger of falling apart. so now i've installed the software on a new computer, done a full upgrade and it's giving me all this trouble. my next phone is going to be an android.


i am extremely fed up at this point. i don't know what they are trying to do with this new format of itunes, i have a lot of faith in Apple products and i've always found them to be so easy to use that a mentally handicapped four year old could figure it out. suffice to say, i've tried everything i could think of and i am throwing this problem at the forum at large. any assistance is welcome.


kind regards,


Jasko411

iPhone 3GS, iOS 6.0.1

Posted on Jan 24, 2013 1:04 AM

Reply
16 replies

Jan 24, 2013 2:01 AM in response to jasko411

You may find it helpful to change the interface to something your familiar with


Ctrl B to turn on the Top Menu

Ctrl S to turn on the sidebar

Ctrl / to turn on the grey status bar at the bottom

click on the black arrow in the Search box and untick Search Entire Library


Itunes should now have a more familiar look and feel


Your iPhone 3 should show up in the left hand side.


You can then click on it to select it and then n the right are all the sync pages


Or you can drag playlists on to the iPhone ( Songs, Albums, Artists etc) without setting the manual sync

Jan 24, 2013 8:05 PM in response to Steve Taylor1

Hey steve,


thanks for the answer, but my issue is not my knowledge of the program, i did more than a couple searches as to how to add music in the new format,


however, just to be thorough I tried it that way as welll, with the traditional view. this didn't work either, when i drag a playlist, or even just an individual song over to the ipod it gave me the small red '(/)' sign, indicating that it would not add my music.


anything else you think might help? i'm getting desperate lol


thanks,


Sam

Jan 27, 2013 10:09 PM in response to fromsouth

ok.


so in answer to the last two answers,


I misspoke before i know it has to be ticked ON, that's what i have been doing. it doesn't work.


and the content is on an external hard drive. it was on said hard drive before and i simply dragged it from the hard drive into itunes such that it can only be accessed when the hard drive is plugged in. i have added the computer as one of the authorized computers for my iphone, this is not the issue.

Feb 28, 2013 11:04 PM in response to jasko411

My old computer died and I did the same thing as you. I "authorized" this new computer and had the same problem. I even chose to back up the iPhone on this computer. Had the same issue.


What I did was click manually manage like an above poster said to do. Then, I tried to simply drag and drop and it said that the iPhone can ONLY be connected to one computer library. It asked me whether I would agree to sync the phone just to this library and I said OK.


What happened is that it seems to have erased all my songs on the phone except for those songs i purchased from itunes directly from my iphone. Now I can drag and drop as usual.


Nothing makes me feel more aggravated than stupid iTunes. NOT user friendly. Like I have the time now to transfer and recreate my music library - it has to take hours to download from the cloud to my computer before i can add the songs back to my iphone. I am an aerobics teacher and this is really terrible. It will take me hours to reconstruct.


The fact that Apple does not contemplate that someone's old computer will die and makes every effort to destroy data so people don't steal music is just plain wrong.

Mar 1, 2013 5:45 AM in response to gifried


The fact that Apple does not contemplate that someone's old computer will die and makes every effort to destroy data so people don't steal music is just plain wrong.


Apple, Microsoft, HP, Lenovo, Acer - they all confident your old computer is going to die. The fact that you are aerobics teacher, while very important to all of us here, does not mean that you exempt from necessity to make back up of you personal info. If you don't know how, you can hire someone to teach you or find free info online. The quality of the back up is going to be different (kind of just like me learning aerobics from you or online). But one way or another that was a learning experience. Not to back up your information is ignorance that no one in our computer age can forgive. Not to back up the phone is even more ignorant - given vulnerability of the phone.

Mar 15, 2013 10:27 AM in response to fromsouth

Hi,


It's really incredible to me that I take the effort to try to help others and some person takes it upon himself to insult my intelligence.


1) computer A died. I fully backed up my phone on that computer so that is dead now. I have carbonite service so maybe the files are still in my folder backed up somewhere if I have the time to figure carbonite out. This is a side issue and irrelevant to this conversation.

2) get new computer B. plug in iPhone to computer B. authorize computer B as an authorized device. back up iPhone to computer B.

3) still doesn't let you build new playlists and transfer it to the iPhone. The extra step is marrying the iPhone to this particular library on computer B, and divorcing it from computer A.

4) click the button marrying it to computer B library. The result is that the backup of the iPhone that I previously made disappears and is totally gone. The iPhone now matches this new library which only lists songs in the cloud. You then have to download everything from the cloud again. The songs I got from amazon are separately in that amazon cloud and I totally have to reload it again.


It's ridiculous - once you authorize a device that should be IT.


Posters who insult others' intelligence by saying I didn't back up my device are discouraging people from helping others. But you can't read precisely so I doubt this gets through to you.

Mar 15, 2013 11:13 AM in response to gifried

gifried wrote:


Hi,


It's really incredible to me that I take the effort to try to help others and some person takes it upon himself to insult my intelligence.


I am soo soo sorry.


1) computer A died. I fully backed up my phone on that computer so that is dead now. I have carbonite service so maybe the files are still in my folder backed up somewhere if I have the time to figure carbonite out. This is a side issue and irrelevant to this conversation.


Talk to carbonite then, why are you here?



2) get new computer B. plug in iPhone to computer B. authorize computer B as an authorized device. back up iPhone to computer B.


That is all you need to do to get itunes purchases autorized. Done to make sure that DRM companies do not sue Apple ( is your intelligence OK so far or should I stop?)



3) still doesn't let you build new playlists and transfer it to the iPhone. The extra step is marrying the iPhone to this particular library on computer B, and divorcing it from computer A.


it does not let you build playlists cause you didn't move library and if you did, then it does.



4) click the button marrying it to computer B library. The result is that the backup of the iPhone that I previously made disappears and is totally gone.


Back up has nothing to do with music, sorry. Please let me know if I should insult your intelligence again by explaining difference.


The iPhone now matches this new library which only lists songs in the cloud.


Yes you didn't move your library you "Intelligent human"


You then have to download everything from the cloud again. The songs I got from amazon are separately in that amazon cloud and I totally have to reload it again.


You do not have to download, just move those files from you back up, you intelligent you. Reason: itunes does not contain actual files - your old computers back up does.

itunes just hold you info about library. You can play your music with itunes or "windows media player" , but it does not mean if you open window media player it will contain your intelligent's person library.


It's ridiculous - once you authorize a device that should be IT.


of course it is, who am i to say otherwise, I am not intelligent enough for you. Perhaps not intelligent at all. Why am even doubting that fact, I know I am not.


Posters who insult others' intelligence by saying I didn't back up my device are discouraging people from helping others. But you can't read precisely so I doubt this gets through to you.


Who are you going to help? Only to doctor Spock, if he gets here.


"Computer serve me Dinner"

Mar 16, 2013 2:33 AM in response to jasko411

Is this serious? My god, fromsouth you are a child.


what is so terrible about your life that you come post on an itunes help forum in order to prove your intellectual superiority to others? his comment about being an aerobics instructor was a minor personal detail in an otherwise helpful answer. you are ridiculous. I personally hope you are actually still in high school because if you are an adult there is absolutely no excuse for this kind of unhelpful dickishness.


what is wrong with you?

Mar 16, 2013 6:18 AM in response to jasko411

jasko411 wrote:


Is this serious? My god, fromsouth you are a child.


what is so terrible about your life that you come post on an itunes help forum in order to prove your intellectual superiority to others? his comment about being an aerobics instructor was a minor personal detail in an otherwise helpful answer. you are ridiculous. I personally hope you are actually still in high school because if you are an adult there is absolutely no excuse for this kind of unhelpful dickishness.


what is wrong with you?

So many things.

Mar 17, 2013 6:29 PM in response to jasko411

Both Jasco and I had the same problem even after we authorized the new computer. This does not automatically move the library from computer A to computer B. I hope someone else who finds this thread finds it useful and I am sorry you have to be exposed to fromsouth's drivel. Perhaps Apple could make their devices more user friendly by reading this conversation. Good luck!

Jun 17, 2013 12:37 PM in response to gifried

I am having similar issues where I can't transfer music to my iPhone 5 from iTunes. I have updated to the latest software for both iTunes and my iPhone. One thing I noticed for me is that the "Manually manage music..." is not checked, but when I go to check it, a box pops up saying my phone is synced to another computer and will be wiped and synched to this computer. I have had many computer issues in the past, so it's viewing my current computer as something like the 5th computer my phone has been plugged in to.


I am sorry to say I have no answer to your issues, and I am just as confused and annoyed with my issue (which seems to be similar).


The only thing I know for sure is that I am through with Apple and the remaining months with my 5 can't come soon enough, so I can switch to the far superior Android market.

Jun 30, 2013 6:27 AM in response to gifried

I am having a similar problem with an Ipad, Itunes will not let me drag and drop music from Itunes to my Ipad.


I have not changed computer.


None of my music comes from Itunes, it was imported from the original CD onto my PC and then into iTunes, always used to work but once again Apple ruins the user experience with its software.


One problem I did have was C partition becoming full because Apple STUPIDLY puts data in the Windows profile (which makes windows slower) rather than choosing the generic windows share MyMusic or offering the user an option to change it.


I have lost count of the number of people I have help recover their PC after iTunes screws up their PC. I guess I should not have bought an Apple iPad.


Probably best that the bitter FROMSOUTH does not reply, trolls like him are just agrieved because their own life if not going well, they would be better to post a reply to a question unless they want to help.


If anyone an recommend an open sources or 3rd party software I am at the point where I would be prepared to jailbreak this because it does not do the most basic task.

Oct 13, 2014 9:46 PM in response to jasko411

I was having this same issue. I thought that maybe I had the account setup on my laptop (which is a MacBook Pro) and then the MacBook said that it was setup on my desktop (Windows 7 PC). My phone showed all this music on it, but nothing would show up on my Windows iTunes AND it wouldn't allow me to add new music. When I plugged it into my Mac it showed the music, but wouldn't allow me to manipulate any music.


Ultimately I did a restore on my Windows 7 desktop (because I use this machine for a dozen hours a day). And... although the music was gone, I still couldn't drag the music from my playlists onto my iPhone. I was about to give up, but then I accidentally found that I had to not only drag it over to the iPhone (where the panel on the right slides out), but I also had to hover over the iPhone name. It then highlighted it and copied it over. I could have sworn that you could just drag it over to that panel and it'd load them onto the phone... but either I was wrong or something's different in this latest iTunes version.


Either way I hope that my solution will help someone out, saving them the hours that I wasted trying to figure this freakin thing out.

itunes won't let me put music onto my iphone

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