What are these red circle symbols that suddenly appear in my iTunes library on my iPhone?

Hello. I've been reading all your posts to try to get all my music to play (I have had the red circles issue and my phone will only play selected songs these days - it's maddening). I solved it (I think) by deleting all my playlists, then going to the Summary page in iTunes and clicking the "Sync only checked songs and videos" tick box. I then went back to the Music tab and re-ticked all my favourite playlists, and they now seem to be loading. Hope this works for you.

Hello. I've been reading all your posts to try to get all my music to play (I have had the red circles issue and my phone will only play selected songs these days - it's maddening). I solved it (I think) by deleting all my playlists, then going to the Summary page in iTunes and clicking the "Sync only checked songs and videos" tick box. I then went back to the Music tab and re-ticked all my favourite playlists, and they now seem to be loading. Hope this works for you.

NDJerry - thank you. Your fix worked like a charm. Took a few extra minutes to resync all my music, but it looks like everything is working. I will have to monitor to see if the problem happens again since this is a new iPhone and I had already synced all my music to the new phone a week ago. AND I had imported music from a couple of CDs since the original sync. But for now, everything is fine.

Thanks!

I reset my phone, turned off icloud, only selected certain playlists and still I have the dreaded cloud icon with the arrow in the middle. I've just done what Swraith01 suggested and that's fine for me. I just can't stand to see them. Much appreciated.

OMG! This literally just happened to me a few seconds ago. And to the same album posted by the OP... how weird is that! I've discovered half the music on my iPhone 5 playlist have stopped playing... with the red circle + square next to the song. And this is really really frustrating because just yesterday they were playing! I haven't dont ANYTHING with my phone since yesterday... not plugged it into my laptop, didnt perform a backup to the cloud NOTHING. I've read somewhere that the music files probably got currupted mid-sync but in my case, how does that happen? It was fine yesterday and today it isn't. And my custom ringtones have also gone and today I'm stuck with crappy standard iphone ringtones that irk me to no end. The ringtone thing has happened twice since updgrading to this awful iOS7, I go home connect my phone to the laptop, drag and drop the ringtones i want and it's there again. But now it's dissappeared...along with half my music... what is going on?

I had this problem too. and everytime that I tried to listen to a song that i downloaded (legally off of datpiff.com), it would skip the song a the red "stop" icon would show up. What i did was transfered the purchases, backed up the iphone, and then restored from the back up and everything worked again! good luck

I have had the red square problem for two weeks with my 4s phone and do not have the skill to follow the many suggestions. However as a complete non-techno went into settings to music to "show all music" which I turned to off.

Then synched in the usual way -and, for now at least, all squares have disappeared and plays as before - no idea why -and so now I only have to sort out those exclamation marks which are depriving me of 1/3 of my iTunes library. Maybe it will work for you.

I just opened itunes and went on to devices so this is where you iphone has synced to. I clicked the music tab and unchecked 'sync music'. I then went on to the music tab underneath 'library', and highlighted every single song and clicked uncheck resulting in nothing being synced to my iphone. Then sync your phone and nothing should appear in your music library. Resync your phone, and drag the music manually to your device. This worked fine for me and no more red squares with circles! Hope this helps.

i opened "music" on my phone. At the bottem there is an icon "...more" i clicked on it and then....

I clicked on "Shared" and noticed that there were two entries: One was called "iphone" and one was called "library" There was a check mark next to iphone so i tapped library and a red circle appeared. i went back to my music and all the red circles were gone and my tunes all play. Hope this helps.

Okay, I tried it all and nothing worked. But, I figured it out.

1. With the iPhone connect to computer, open iTunes

2. Under "File" on toolbar go to devices

3. Select Sync phone

That's it. This worked for me. Good luck.

FIXED IT!

I was having this problems for MONTHS (thought it was my phone! so I bought a new one! I needed on anyway, it was time this was just a perfect excuse)

HERE IS HOW YOU GET RID OF IT FOREVER

1. plug in your device

2. let it sync

3. unsync it and let it erase all the music on your device

4. resync and this time when its reloading all your music onto your device, WATCH THE STATUS BAR. When it gets to the song that causes problems, go in and delete that song from your itunes (I know it ***** but this is worth it)

4. repeat syncing the music and watching it. when it hits another song that stops the sync, delete the song

5. keep repeating until you complete your sync and voila! youre all set!

This fixed the red square issue for me. Along with the songs not playing, the syncing operation from iTunes no longer worked at all.

Connect the iPhone to your computer with the cable.

Go to iTunes, to DEVICES in the left hand panel, select your iPhone.

In the screen on the right, select Music from the tabs at the top.

You should now see the syncing options. If a sync is in progress, wait for it to finish.

At the top of the screen, uncheck the box next to Sync Music.

Apply, and let the sync finish. All songs should be removed from the iPhone.

Now check the box next to Sync Music, and let that process finish. I have 4700 songs, and it finished within a half hour.

Disconnect the iPhone as usual and check the Music app for your songs. In my case this fixed the issue.

Well, if this isn't the solution for you, maybe someone else's is. I had tried unchecking Sync all songs and then rechecking it. They were still on there after both operations, including the songs with the red circles/squares. But when I opened my Music icon, and opened the list that appears on the bottom of the screen on the far right (icons for Radio, Playlists, Artists, Songs and then three dots in a row) a list of items appeared: Albums, Audiobooks, Genres, Compilations, Composers AND Shared (interesting since husband's iPhone doesn't have that tab). I opened Shared where it listed the name of my iPhone and the name of my iTunes Music. I was sharing only with my iPhone. Now I am sharing again with my iTunes and all songs are appearing. YAY!

I'd like to try all of these options but all of a sudden I have playlists disappearing from iTunes on my computer and random songs being removed from other playlists, also on my computer. Before I try and get my iPhone to sync, I need help figuring out whythis is also happening.