Music not syncing after iOS 7 update

I KNOW THIS LOOKS FREAKIN LONG BUT IF NOTHING HAS WORKED FOR YOU IN THE PAST 65 PAGES, THIS MIGHT HELP!

The problem is with iOS7 I think. I haven't had any problems with my iPhone 4/iOS5/iTunes11 combo until I updated to iOS7 a couple of weeks ago. Since then I've been having problems adding new music to my iPhone. Even when I unselect sync music, it's still all present on my phone.

I think the problem is when you update to iOS7 and have music on your phone, it consolidates it to the phone's memory and makes it untouchable. Then when you try and sync, the phone tries to sync it all over again. Hence why you see duplicated and have problems with playlists. Also this is why a full reset of your phone works - you're installing iOS7 with essentially a wiped memory.

My fix was to place all music I wanted to add to the phone in a separate playlist and only sync that playlist, nothing else. All my music from before I updated to iOS7 is usable on my phone, but in addition, so is the new music I just added.

When I tried to add an older playlist, all of the songs from that playlist are now duplicated on my phone (because they were already there before and that music is now permanently stuck on the phone + it gets re-added)

When I tried to sync as normal, it was telling me there was insufficient space on my phone (the bar shows 8Gb free). I think again this is because the music on your phone pre update is visible/playable but not affected by syncing and it's trying to add them all over again. For some people the other hotfixes may work because they have used less than half their memory and hence the phone will have sufficient space to add all of the songs for a second time.

This explains why some fixes work for some and not others, why a factory reset is the only true fix, and why you're able to add certain sized playlists and not others (and why you can only add songs via playlists now)

In conclusion, my fix:

-You have to manually manage music. Untick all boxes.

-Put all music your from after iOS7 update you want to add to your phone into a playlist

-Only select that playlist to sync.

-In your phone you should see all your old music + anything from that new playlist

Sorry for the long post, hope it helps at least someone else

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.

Like the rest of you, I continue to have problems with this bug. I've had it appear every time I attempt to add new music for at least six months, so it has persisted through some iTunes and iOS updates. The work arounds I've found are annoying and massively time consuming but maybe they'll help some of you.

What I'm experiencing:

• Newly added music will not appear in my playlists on my iPhone, even though they're appearing properly in iTunes. This is mostly with Smart Playlists; static playlists *usually* work, but I rarely have added new music to static playlists so I'm not entirely sure. Also, music that has synced properly in the past sometimes goes missing from playlists.
• The newly added music *is* on my phone, but I can only access it by going to the Artists or Songs tabs in my Music App. Not what I want since I never listen to only one artist at a time-- I listen to my playlists.
• If I delete my smart playlist and re-create it, *sometimes*, but not always, it will snyc properly. At least until the next time I add new music. This is not a good option for me since I have at least 30 smart playlists that I run, but if you only have one or two, it's worth a try.
• If I do eventually get things to snyc, even if I don't update my iTunes or iOS the problem returns the next time I try and add new music.

Here's the process I've found that usually works:

1. Add new music to iTunes. Everything looks good so I sync my phone, forgetting that this problem exists.
2. Go to work, find all my playlists missing the new songs, and others. Curse.
3. After work, go home and sync my phone. I just let it do it's initial sync when I plug it in. Why not? It's already screwed up.
4. Go into the Music tab in my Phone settings in iTunes. I already manage my music manually, but I uncheck the box so no music is syncing to my phone. I hit sync and let it do it's thing.
5. A very long snyc later, iTunes is saying there is no music on my phone and I have aproximately All the Gigs of free space. I unplug my phone.
6. I go into my settings on my phone. Go to Settings > General > Usage. Chances are good I'll see that "Music" still says it has 40+Gigs of space used, even though it should have none since I just deleted it all via iTunes.
7. I have to manually remove this from my iPhone by tapping into Music (still under Usage), swiping left on Music, and deleting the information there.
8. It takes forever but eventually it deletes. I go back out to General >Usage and make sure the amount of free space my phone thinks it has is appropriate.
9. Restart my phone, for good measure. Also, restart my computer. Why not?
10. Resync my phone to iTunes.
11. Go back into the phone music settings in iTunes and re-check "sync Music". Sync again.
12. Let it sync overnight (I have 40 gigs of music that syncs-- it takes forever)
13. Pray it works the next morning.

Generally one round of this will work. The biggest part is having to go back and manually delete the music from your phone. For some reason even though you've told it to delete it via iTunes, it still keeps all that space stashed away, so if you attempt to resync your music without this step you'll get the Not Enough Space error.

Hopefully that helps some of you. It's not a fun process but it's relatively reliable. In the meantime, I'm going to struggle through my day stuck at Step 2. 😟

iPhone 5 running iOS 7.1.1, syncing to MacBook Pro running OS 10.9.something, running iTunes 11.2.2. I believe. I'm still at work so my computer and iTunes numbers might be a bit off.

Edit to my previous post:

So, just for kicks I tried skipping ahead to step 6 and 7 that I just posted before doing numbers 4 and 5... and it worked. So, at least this time, there was no need to remove the music from the phone first, all I had to do is delete the data for Music on my phone (which did not actually delete any music or free up space), and then re-sync the phone. Everything is now working properly again.

So, the real steps:

1. Go into my settings on my phone. Go to Settings > General > Usage.
2. Tap into Music, swiping left on Music, and deleting the information there. (Your music will still be on your phone but something magic happened behind the scenes).
3. Sync the iPhone with iTunes.

Can anyone else replicate this? I'm hoping it's not just me.

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! 🙂

Stephen Jobs-

Worked like a charm.

Thank you!

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!

^^^ I use Itools & Phonetrans and it works. I never sync my Iphone again once since I started to use those 2 software few months ago. Dotted songs problem disappear.

A few things I think are key before syncing your music are the following:

• always connecting to your PC, not over wi-fi
• turning off wi-fi/blue-tooth altogether when syncing
• closing all running apps and settings when syncing
• NEVER have Genius on

I have added several cds over the last few months and this has worked for me every time...First, I do the things listed above and then I start by backing up to my PC. Once my 5S is backed up, I sync (manually manage music is selected). It syncs like it used to before I started having these issues (once I installed iOS 7 😟) with the exception of one thing, I get a warning message saying that certain songs could not be synced. This is where I click on the "on this iphone" tab at the top right and I scroll through to see which songs have the dotted circle next to them. It is SO random as to which songs they are (and the number of songs), it changes each time I sync and it's never the same song(s). Once I review this (not really doing anything) I go back to the main summary and sync again. It goes through the sync process (fairly quick) and then "magically" it puts all the songs back on including anything new I added at the time with no issues and no warnings. I double check my phone to see that the songs are there and they play just to be sure but I have not found any issues. I have never needed to do anything with playlists to have this work either.

Like I said, this has worked for ME consistently over the last several months, every time. It may not work for everyone. I think there is some sort of issue with iOS 7 and iTunes and how they talk to each other. Using wi-fi when syncing really seems to send it into this "waiting for changes to be applied" issue. Once I turned it off, that is when things started falling into place. Granted, I should not get a warning on the first sync and need to sync again but I can live with it rather than restoring my phone to new every time I want to add music. I do have a large music collection and I think everyone who has a large collection will experience these same issues. The last thing I will say is that I won't be upgrading to iOS 8 anytime soon after the issues I had with this.

Good luck, hope this helps someone, somewhere!