IOS 8 won't sync music with itunes

Although you're referring to a newer iPhone and a newer version of iOS, Apple has still not fixed the sync bug as of October, 2017.

If you need a reliable iPhone, do not sync music to it from iTunes.

The bug could affect you at any time, forcing you to spend hours on a full restore operation. Imagine if you were traveling, didn't have access to a computer (necessary for full restoration), or had slow Internet access (the iOS restore download now stands at 3 GB)!

The Media Library Daemon -- software that manages music in iOS -- accesses memory inappropriately, which causes a crash known as a "segmentation fault". The software cannot recover: you will be left with (at best) phantom tracks on the iOS device or (at worst) all in-use storage marked as "Other", a Music app that won't launch at all, and no possibility of syncing again.

Crash log documenting the bug: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8120395

The present discussion now stands at 58 pages, and there are countless more threads about the same problem, both in the Apple Support Communities and on other Internet forums. It should be clear by now that Apple has no intention of fixing iTunes-to-iOS music sync.

I have the same problem with an iPhone 6, iOS 8, iTunes 11.4 (18) and Mac OS X 10.9.4.

I can’t transfer any music on the iPhone with iTunes, except for two of my about 17 000 tracks, both of which are just over 100 minutes in length. I have iTunes Match (which I turned off on the iPhone) and all matched audio files are already re-downloaded from the iTunes Store. Audiobooks do get synced, although some chapters that iTunes shows as transferred aren’t available on the iPhone. Podcasts seem to sync normally.

For now, I turned on iTunes Match on the iPhone again to at least be able to listen to Music, but this has the major disadvantage that playlist management doesn't work at all (playlists can't seem to be deleted on iTunes Match, iPhone “flattens out” the folder structure and shows all playlist on the top level). A solution for this would be great, I don't think everyone has iTunes Match and the “widescreen iPod with touch controls”-feature was one of my main reasons to buy an iPhone.

Hi Coveholli,

If you are having an issue with your iPhone not showing your music after the iOS update, and you have attempted to sync it with iTunes, I would suggest that you troubleshoot using the steps in these articles -

First, close all applications and try again -

iOS: Force an app to close

Next if the first step doesn't resolve it, turn your iPhone off and back on again -

Turn your iOS device off and on (restart) and reset

And again if not resolved, restore your iPhone as a new device, after backing up any data on it -

iOS: How to back up your data and set up your device as a new device

Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.

Best,

Brett L

I am having this problem too. I upgraded to iOS 8 and iTunes 11.4. The sync button on the music tab in iTunes s missing completely, and I can't drag and drop songs from my iMac to my iPhone. There appears to be no way of getting music from my computer to my iPhone. I have tried all the suggested solutions, but nothing has worked. If I hit the sync button at the bottom of the iTunes window, it says that the phone is synced, but not music is copied. Under the summary tab, I no longer have the option to manually manage music, only videos. It is incredibly frustrating. Judging from the online chatter, this is a major problem with iOS 8. When can we expect a fix?

No, that doesn’t seem to be the problem. I can locate and play songs in the iTunes library, but I can’t get it to sync with the iPhone. Interestingly, after much backing up and restoring, I could get it to sync with my iPad, but I don’t know what is different. Both iPhone and iPad have iOs 8 installed.

I am restoring for the fourth time. My music all downloaded but after a sync, all of it shows as 'other'. and it shows me over the size limit by 34 gb., which is ridiculous and unachievable. It also shows that I have 400+ songs on my phone when I have over 21000 downloaded. Previously, iTunes would stall at waiting to update files after transferring some files successfully, which led to the first restore. The second restore was because iTunes would not transfer files to the iPhone.The third and fourth restores are due to it showing huge amounts of 'other. Resets and restoring from backups did not resolve. Clearly there is a problem with the way iOS 8 and iTunes 11 interact, at least with the iPhone 6. Why does this stuff get rolled out?

Not on am I having the same issue, but I am showing 14GB under "other" after they sync process got stuck on the step "waiting for change sot be applied" and I canceled it.

iPhone 6 - 128GB

I finally figured out my particular problem, and the solution is stupidly easy. On the summary tab, I clicked "Manually manage videos" and presto, I was able to add music to my iPhone and the button changed to "Manually manage videos and music" and I am now able to sync the the music. Can it be that this was a simple oversight that nobody caught?

Same thing happen to me. The 1st sync went off without an issue and after it showed the content as other. Which at the second sync placed me over the allowed. I have never has an issue with any Apple product. But the reason why I purchased the 128gb iPhone was to take all the music I have with me. In addition the fix can't be to uncheck this or make sure you check this. My iPad with retina display (3rd generation iPad) doesn't have an issue and it is running iOS 8.

I solved my problem yesterday and forgot to post it here: None of the suggested solutions of Brett worked, but I found a tweet by one Wes Pickering (https://twitter.com/wespickering/status/513190762675068929) who proposed unchecking “sync music”, apply the changes, recheck “sync music” and apply again. I did this and turned off the “Convert higher bitrate songs to 128kbps”-option in iTunes and it worked. Also, I restarted my iPhone and MacBook after each “apply changes”-step and this seems to have helped, too.

I don't understand what the problem was, especially since restoring my iPhone did not help. I have the suspicion that the problem was with iTunes, because the syncing process took ridiculously long each time (especially the steps “Start Sync” and “Apply Changes”) – but whatever, now it works.

So here is the final steps I took to finally get the 79.15GB (15,389 songs) that is my music library to sink.

1. I had to restore phone to factory setting after multiple attempts to sync my music library only to think it was complete, but find 40GB of something under the category of "other".
2. I did not restore my iPhone from a back up, I did it as a new phone.
3. Once I finished restoring and before I plugged it in to sync, I downloaded all the apps I use to the phone itself from the app store. So my plan was not to sync apps via iTunes on my iMac. I only was going to sync music and movies and that is only because I has a ton of CDs converted to MP3s before I started buying everything through iTunes.
4. Since I have a large library typically I check covert songs to 128kbps AAC, however this time around I did not do that.
5. Once I plugged in the iPhone for the first time to my iMac, using the cable provided with the iPhone, I told iTunes to only sync music and movies. I checked all the playlist and movies I wanted on the phone. I did not do entire library. Also, my intent was to check everything I wanted to do it one big swoop and not return for second.
6. I then hit sync and it worked.

A few things to note. I never interrupted the sync. I allowed for the iMac to think however it long it needed in what ever step it was. I didn't get inpatient this time around. I also did not check sync via WiFi (which I regret). I regret this because now I don't intend to plug into the iMac for fear that it will put some content back under the category of "other" as it has in the past. Restoring and uploading and do it again has been a 3 day process that I don't wan to do again. I intend to use the phone like it had no home base and only download straight to the phone from the music / app store. Anything I purchase on my computer or phone will be available via the cloud to download onto my other devices. This is where I stand now, the hope is that the next iOS or iTunes update will fix whatever error is creating all this loop jumping.

Same problem. Spent several hours with Apple Support and they had no ideas other than to keep resting my phone.

I backed up my iPhone 4s, then tried to set up my iPhone 6 as that phone.

If I restore from iCloud, I get all my apps and settings back, but iTunes refuses to give me any of my music back. When I try to sync, iTunes just skips over actually adding the songs and says the sync is complete, or gets stuck in "waiting for changes to be applied." Then it lied and said my phone had the 17bg of music on it when my phone said it didn't have any songs. I couldn't get it to reclaim the phantom space. After that point, iTunes just seemed to assume the phone had everything.

If I restore from iTunes, I lost 95% of my apps/folders, but iTunes will sync. It now has assumes the phone has 400 additional songs that the phone can't account for, but at least the majority of my music is in fact there.

My husband tried to restore my iPhone 4s as his iPhone 4 and hit the exact same problem. We don't use the same laptop, nor share any content or Apple IDs. We weren't even on the same wifi networks when attempting this debacle. When I talked to the Apple Genius today in the store, they said they hadn't heard anyone else having this problem.

another issue with Itunes and my music library on iphone: it looks like only playlists are not sync.....just bought a new album, added t a playlist but then it is not in that playlist in my iphone (although the album is in my iphone, but I have to search under "albums".

On the other end I have many playlist in double or triple versions ....I don't know where they are coming from....

Sorry to say that, but this ios8 has a lot of serious bugs..... (I've already posted another topic regarding Photo app which is a mess as well).

This is definitely not the way Apple is supposed to work....too much attention to iOS as a stan alone software....if I put music in a certain order, with some playlist or I tag faces or put picture events in a certain order I would expect to have the same features on my portable devices....VERY DISAPPOINTED!