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

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

Hi I have the same problem but no "download all" symbol whatsoever.

That just hides them. How do I actually put them on my device & play them again?

REMOVE RED CIRCLES WITH SQUARE IN THE MIDDLE AND PLAY SONGS:

1: Connect your iDevice.

2: Navigate into your device and on to your Music tab. Uncheck Sync Music.

3: Check that all of your songs are being imported by going in to Music on the On This Phone tab.

The gray text songs represent that they have to be manually installed inside your device by pressing the iCloud button where the "red circle of death" used to be .

HAPPY SYNCING!!!

         -GlexAomes

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.

Erik - THANK YOU!!!   This worked and finally, the end of the red circle & greyed out songs.

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.

Reinstalling itunes every time I update my library is the only way I've figured out that fixes this.

I have manually downloaded my two my recent album purchases onto my iPhone about 4 times now. Every so often when I sync my phone to iTunes I have to download them again.

I followed your instructions and I have two versions of the same songs. Why can't I have the already downloaded versions on my phone? Why do I have to keep downloading them??

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!

Your solution is to delete songs? What if I like those songs? :S

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.

Okay, but the songs that were next to the red circles/squares just disappeared, too. I own those songs. I want those songs and have never taken them off my iPhone.