Almost all songs deleted from iPhone after plugging into computer

The iPhone is meant to only connect to one computer, even if you manually manage your music on the iPhone. Connecting to another computer will delete music, surely there was a warning when you first connected your iPhone to a new computer.

***...if this is true, then it's one more fork to stick into the Apple turkey! Absolutely unacceptable, and it will send me right back to the open-platform competition.

It's been this way since the original iPod released in the early 2000s. It hasn't changed in all these years.

Onnect to one computer that has your music, music stays on device. Connect to anothet computer that may or may not contain all the same music, lose the music on your device if you then synce with the second computer.

This is done to prevent piracy.

Well, sort of ... the iPod and iPad can be moved from computer to computer (and add content from the other computer) if you manually manage music and video. Not so with the iPhone for some reason, every other i-device allows this in manual mode but the iPhone never has. The only way around it is to trick the iPhone by using the same .itl library file on the other computer.

I have had my iPhone/iPad/iPods set up this way for years. I have the same itl file on both Macs so I can backup on both without losing anything.

There was a time when I used one Mac to sync apps and pictures, and the other to sync music.

Try going in to the iTunes Store and on the bottom it says more with this icon (•••) click on it then click on purchased then click music not in this iphone and click the download all button at the top

This user tip should be of use when you want to sync your iPhone / iPod to a new computer in the future.

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3141

Actually this just happened to me, and I only sync with one computer, so that blows the synching to more thatn one computer theory out of the water. What I think may have happened is that my phone was synching and I 'cancelled' the sync before it was done. In any event nothing should have changed, so this is a bug with iTunes or the IOS.

4037209731 wrote:

Actually this just happened to me, and I only sync with one computer, so that blows the synching to more thatn one computer theory out of the water.

No, that part is still true. It may not have been your situation, but it is still true that you can't sync to multiple computers without some trickery.

4037209731 wrote:

What I think may have happened is that my phone was synching and I 'cancelled' the sync before it was done. In any event nothing should have changed, so this is a bug with iTunes or the IOS.

Is it possible you pulled the plug before it finished cancelling? You would have to wait until all sync activity has completely stopped before disconnecting, otherwise you risk corrupting the device's database. Also, once syncing starts, even if you cancel there will be changes based on whatever sync activity had occured before stopping.

rockmyplimsoul wrote:

No, that part is still true. It may not have been your situation, but it is still true that you can't sync to multiple computers without some trickery.

Yes, that's true, but it's neither rockmyplimsoul's situation, nor SpicyKeychain's one, so it's unrelated to this thread (re-read SpicyKeychain's message, it's being said it worked on day one and iTunes crashed on day two; looks a lot like a couldn't-finish syncing problem, like rockmyplimsoul's description).

I've had the exact same problem today. I was simply listening to music on my iPhone, like I do other days (iTunes was used to play the songs). Suddenly, iTunes stopped playing (no dialog or output in the Console). I looked at the panel at the top of the iTunes' window and saw “Syncing iPhone…”; at the same time, I unlocked my iPhone, got in the iPod player, and saw all my musics going away, by chunks. When iTunes finished “syncing”, my iPhone had only 50 MB of audio (I had 6 GB 5 minutes before that); I could see the tracks in the playlists, but greyed out and (almost) all with the “!” symbol.

What I did then was to press the “Synchronise” button; iTunes attempted to copy back the musics (iTunes froze once, I had to force-quit). Now, some tracks are still missing, but I've recovered 589 out of 614.

I'm really upset against this lack of reliability; since I upgraded to iOS 7, two months ago, I've had a ton of problems.

First, I don't have a "situation" -- I was trying to help the OP.

I did read the OPs post again, and I still conclude that they were using a secondary PC (1st day on new job = new computer, not the original computer that the iPhone calls "home"). Connecting an iPhone to a new library will cause music to be erased, even if the iPhone is set to manually manage music. How it worked on the 1st day I do not know, perhaps it was just a matter of time before the deleting commenced.

In your case if you only use one computer (or more specifically, one library) then you have a different cause than the OP. If you are connecting to more than one library, then like the OP that is the cause.

rockmyplimsoul wrote:

I did read the OPs post again, and I still conclude that they were using a secondary PC (1st day on new job = new computer, not the original computer that the iPhone calls "home"). Connecting an iPhone to a new library will cause music to be erased, even if the iPhone is set to manually manage music. How it worked on the 1st day I do not know, perhaps it was just a matter of time before the deleting commenced.

That's one possibility. I continue to think that the crash he had on day 2 caused a syncing issue and the iPhone worked fine until then. Neither on day 1 or day 2 would he synchronise his iPhone (iTunes won't erase your iPhone's library unless you ask for syncing (if manual syncing is set, at least)).

Both our interpretations are valid. The OP may tell.

I've got the same problem with my iPhone and deleting tracks as Anic264b

I've been playing songs from my iPhone through iTunes on different machines for years without any problems but as soon as i updated to iOS7 this issue has occured with no fix?!

I'm getting fed up of having to resync my phone just to get my music back on every other night so if anyone can shed some light on this it would be much appreciated.

thanks

Bump, this has happened to me.

JTSkywalker wrote:

I'm getting fed up of having to resync my phone just to get my music back on every other night so if anyone can shed some light on this it would be much appreciated.

There's nothing you can do other than find another means of music playback from your iPhone.

If you insist on using it with iTunes from another computer then use a workaround: Copy your "home" iTunes library file to this other computer. Either replace the existing library file, or keep both library files and boot iTunes using the copied library file anytime you want to connect your iPhone to this computer. Your iPhone will think it is connected to the home library, but of course the actual content of the library isn't the same, which shouldn't matter since you manually manage music on your iPhone.