Music not syncing after iOS 7 update

I have been reading all the responses on here for the last several months about this issue and have not tried any of the suggestions but I think I might give your theory a shot @jareth123. I am kinda curious to see if it will work!

Also after you got your phone to sync, did you try to move music out of that new playlist you created and place it into a playlist you already had? If so did you sync your phone again and was the music still there in the "old" playlist?

I tried most of them barring a full reset as I'm going on holiday this weekend and couldn't risk 15 hour flights without music! At least I have what was there before and a bit of new stuff for now. None of the other suggestions worked for me sadly.

In the melee of mucking around with it, I somehow lost my playlists but not the music. So I don't have the playlists to add to. When I added the playlist back, it appears, but every song on it is now duplicated on my phone (ie show up only once each in the playlist but are listed twice under their album if I go look there) (IMO because there's the copy 'stuck' on my phone + the freshly synced copy in the playlist), so I figured it was just easier to remake the playlist manually on my phone, which I haven't gotten around to yet.

So my best answer to your question is that all the music from the new playlist is visible in the artist tab (ie not just playable through the playlist) so I'd assume they'd function just like all the other songs on your phone - able to be added and removed from playlists - not sure about they sticking around after a sync, you might have to let us know how you get on!

I ended up not doing what you suggested @jareth123 but I did something else and to my surprise IT WORKED FINALLY!

Now I did create a new playlist and put new music from after the ios7 update but I didn't uncheck any of my other 35 playlists. I kept toggling between Sync with Wi-Fi and Manually manage music and videos. I noticed when I checked the box for sync with wi-fi it said I had 10.3 GB of free space and then when i unchecked that box and checked manually sync music it said I had 3gb of free space! So then I went back to sync over wi-fi and I noticed my phone was syncing!

After it was done all my previous songs were there and the new songs in that new playlist were there as well.

It was not my plan to toggle back and forth with the options but by doing that I was able to finally sync my phone after months of not being able to do so.

Oh congrats man, I tried your toggling and it does make the bar fluctuate in free space but then I try and sync and still nothing to do with my music changes. However it did make my videos sync to my phone so I know it's not the communication between the devices, I'm sure my music is just all stuck on there, which isn't the end of the world seeing as I have plenty of free space and only add a few songs to it so should manage until I decide to get a new phone (or Apple fixes the problem... so I guess til I get a new phone 😝)

Actually.. are you sure your phone is properly syncing and not just adding the new songs without syncing the existing iPhone library? Cos I still have all my old music too + the new songs. Try add a song you already had on there, does it appear as a duplicate? As in, my phone still completes a sync, and new stuff can still be added, just can't remove the old songs by syncing, only by manually doing it on the iPhone screen

When I took another look at my phone this morning, I noticed it had duplicated 1 of my playlists. The duplicated one only had 30 songs in it and the original had 35 songs so I deleted the duplicated playlist. So maybe I will go ahead and try your theory this weekend with unchecking all my playlists except that newest one and see what happens.

You mentioned in your post that you know your new music is on your phone but you have to go to the artist tab to here it?

At the top of the screen in your playlist on your phone there should be a Edit button or it might be a + sign. Hit that and scroll through the alphabet to search for your music. Once you find it just click on it and it will automatically be added to that playlist. That's one way I add music that won't sync but I know is on the phone.

The problem is when I go and attempt a sync it will remove songs from my playlists on my phone that I just manually added even if the song is in the same playlist on my computer! It's so annoying!

True, I could do it that way, but they're smart playlists, so the songs will disappear once I sync my phone like you said. I'm not willing to do that every single day; it's too annoying for my tastes! 🙂

Firstly Apple this issue is not acceptable considering the Iphone has came from the success of the Ipod, so music surely is important.

on the Iphone, I had to go to:

-Settings

-General

-Usage

-Music

You then have to slide and manually delete the music from your phone, next time you come to sync it should work fine.

This worked for me, I hope it solves other peoples issues.

I recently got this problem and tried most of the solutions on this thread which lead to me losing all my music on my phone and no way to sync new music back on. From what I gather this sync issue is caused by multiple reasons and there isn't just one 'fixes' and even the 'fixes' are inconsistent. Unfortunately apple has not taken the time and effort to lend aid to the apple community and provide some documentation on how these issues could be resolved. Apple's software when it works is amazing but this is issue is unbearable and for sure will impact any future decision I make when purchasing a new phone!

Thank you whoever suggested this.

Go into music in settings and uncheck show all music.

Then go to general, usage, the click music, top right hit edit and delete all songs.

Last check or do whatever you do to pick your music and hit sync.

Only taking about 30 minutes tops to transfer 2580 songs.

As for my phone details:

5S Gold running 7.1.2 with a restore from icloud.

No touch id or passcode, but icloud is.

Device has auto lock on, doesn't seem to affect sync, I can even play a game(scared).

So, I will base this issue on an icloud issue from what I can see. Again not taking credit for who found this solution or the icloud problem, not going through 65 pages again.

I will try again to resync more music once the current sync is complete. Update asap.

I got it!

So I tried the only sync "Selected playlist, artist, albums..." and it worked! BUT I'M NOT DONE DESCRIBING THE BUG

I removed all voice memos from my library and tried to re-sync everything -> FAILED TO SYNC....DIAGNOSTIC INFO...blah, blah

I followed another recommendation which was to remove all songs from the library and rebuild by dragging all songs back in. THIS WORKED

When I rebuilt my playlist -> FAILED TO SYNC

So I started to go through my playlist until I found the problem.

SPECIAL CHARACTERS in Playlist name!!!!!

iTunes will allow you to name a playlist with special characters in the UI:

In my case, this was a playlist called "Beyoncé"

Notice the "e" has an accent over it. When I renamed the playlist to just "Beyonce", all my sync issues from the last year were resolved.

The bug only affects Playlist titles, the album info can have the "e" with an accent, in fact it even stores properly in the iTunes media folder (on Windows) with the accented "e" but special characters in the playlist title cause syncing to break.

This would explain how all the solutions that people have posted may have worked for some and not others, as when you selectively chose playlist you may or may have not unchecked the problematic playlist.

It also explains why deleting and recreating libraries has worked for some.

This is a bug because the UI allows you to name playlist with special characters, but device syncing does not handle it properly.

I was able to break and fix my issue repeatedly by adding and removing special characters from playlist titles.

HOPE THIS HELPS EVERYONE

I thought it might have been fixed with the latest update. But still I cannot synch my mac iTunes playlists with my i-phone. This is about the simplest and most basic procedure users of Apple would expect to be able to perform. APPLE - wake up!!! If you want to have customers in the future, the minimum to expect is that the basics work. Like so many other people in this post I am quite angry - and there is no proper solution in sight. Apple - fix your software problems, now!

Only just updated to ios7, as I don't like what was done to the Music app. Finally thought I'd better bite the bullet. Big mistake. Wish I'd seen this thread first. Iphone4S won't sync music, even after erasing content and setting up as new phone. It just spent three days syncing music, which now appears as "other." Words fail me.

Manually Manage music looks hopeful. Notably now it says Step x of 7 instead of x of 6. I think this may actually put the music I requested back on the phone now. Why do they even ask allow you to check boxes for songs, artists and play lists if they just put all through the cloud, and none on the phone. So strange. I had to replace my iPhone 5 under apple care because the thing was hot enough to cook an Egg on. Hopefully this one is better and can get my stuff on it.

I think I've figured out a way.

I had this problem and believe me, it's super frustrating. But somehow, the answer was incredibly simple.

This is what I did:

1. Connect device to iTunes.

2. Let it do its syncing business.

3. Once done, go to your playlist. If you haven't already, add all the music you want to sync into your device on this playlist.

4. Command+A (select all the items in the playlist).

5. Once you do, everything becomes highlighted right? Next to the names of the song, there should be a white circle with a blue-grey > .

6. Click one of them and it'll come up with a mini window. The first thing it should say is: Play Next.

7. Look for the 'Add To' selection on the window.

8. Press it, and it should list 'Devices' or 'Playlists'.

9. If your device is there, click it.

9. To make sure it works, check the top bar where it usually tells you how many syncing steps are next.

10. It should say three steps, and the first is (Waiting for sync to start) (Waiting for changes to be applied) and finally (Preparing to copy items).

11. It then should show you a progress bar of your songs copying into your device.

Hope this helped, I was so relieved when it worked. I had spent three hours trying to find a solution. 😀