IOS 8 won't sync music with itunes

Whether or not you understand it or it makes sense to you doesn't really make any difference. You have clear and present proof from at least 4 people that this permanently and completely fixed the problem, but yet you (and others) refuse to do it.

Also the sense of entitlement in this thread specifically is astounding. Computers aren't perfect. Sometimes you have to manually tweak things.

And Greg posted a very simple method for searching the folders. It literally could not be easier, and yet people are so insistent at having hurt feelings about this instead of just following the steps. Why? What is the point? Either fix your libraries or don't, but don't expect any sympathy when you stubbornly refuse to take the advice freely given to you.

What a load of garbage. I've cleaned my library. This is a step I should NOT have had to take, as I never had problems syncing before. I found three PDFs in the entire library. Gone.

Now I am able to PARTIALLY sync, and it is not always a successful process. Sometimes, as I try to slowly, delicately add music to my phone, it get stuck and refuses to sync at all. Other times, I will get 10 songs out of an 11 song album to load. The 11th? For some mysterious reason the delicate, imperfect software refuses to work as advertised.

The "fixes" are not easy, they also do not work without fail.

If you are happy to bend over and take it from Apple, go have a ball. But don't pretend you have delivered pearls to swine, too stupid and ungrateful to accept your wisdom.

'Taint so.

This is NOT a solution. It is a work around and not a very good one at that.

I will not be deleting any non-music files in my Library. I want them there and it has never been an issue prior to the latest versions. If this is a new requirement with IOS8 and iTunes 11.4 then it must be confirmed by Apple themselves not some randoms who want to shut down the conversation.

There are legitimate reasons why someone would want to keep "files and folders that don't belong" with their music folder. The infamous U2 album shipped to us against our will by Apple comes with a PDF! So certainly the concept of things not belonging is irrelevant. This solution is absurd.

Does anyone know if Apple has confirmed this is a software bug? If not I believe every user affected by this needs to start harassing Apple executives on Twitter.

When I changed from the iPhone 5s to the iPhone 6, I also simultaneously upgraded to iOS8 and iTunes 11.4. It to figure out how to download the music on the computer to my iPhone 6. I'd never had any problems syncing music to my iPhone 5s with the older software. I use a windows 7 PC.

After many failed attempts, the solution (as you had also mentioned) was rather simple and involved clicking on the "summary" tab, then looking under "options" and clicking on "Manually manage videos and music". I also checked the "sync only checked songs and videos" box, but I'm not sure it that made any difference.

For anyone else, here's what worked for me. I've had this issue a few times, between iOS 6-8 and iPhone 5S to 6 (just today with the new phone).

FIRST - BACKUP FIRST

1. Make sure your iPhone/iPad/iPod is backed up using iTunes. Use the cord (not WIFI).
2. Be sure to "Transfer Purchases" as well.
3. Sync and backup the device.
   

NEXT - FIX MUSIC SYNCING ISSUES

1. Now, in iTunes, highlight the device, click the "Music" tab, and uncheck (click to uncheck) the "Sync Music" check box.
2. Sync again.
3. Then, turn off the device and restart it.
4. Also close iTunes and restart the computer.
5. When everything is ready, open iTunes and Sync the device again.
6. After this time, highlight the device in iTunes, click the "Music" tab, and check (click to check) the "Sync Music" check box.
7. Uncheck all of the previous music items in the list below the check box. Try only one playlist, artist, or album in the beginning.
8. Sync again and you'll see it works.

Hope this works for you!

Update:

When I changed from the iPhone 5s to the iPhone 6, I also simultaneously upgraded to iOS8 and iTunes 11.4. It took a long time to figure out how to download the music on the computer to my iPhone 6. I'd never had any problems syncing music to my iPhone 5s with the older software. I use a windows 7 PC.

After hours of failed attempts, the solution was rather simple and involved clicking on the "summary" tab, then looking under "options" and clicking on "Manually manage videos and music". I also checked the "sync only checked songs and videos" box, but I'm not sure it that made any difference.

To change my music selections, on the "summary" tab, I unclick on "manually manage music and videos". It will give a warning box about changing your selections which I accept. Then go to the "music" tab and click or unclick the music I want to transfer. Then go back to "summary" and click to turn back on "manually manage music and videos". Then click on "sync".

It's worked every time for me. I didn't have to uninstall or reinstall anything. I didn't have to delete any music or book folders on my computer.

BTW, this discussion board should not be closed, since Apple obviously needs to make changes in the software to make this less confusing and more intuitive for their users.

My latest and greatest update -- last night's two step fix (see my last post) resulted in a full day's worth of uninterrupted performance, no issues with music whatsoever. All the songs were there, they played fine no matter how I diced and sliced them, everything worked fine all day, through a depleted battery, recharge and even a SYNC. THEN, I got bold and decided to turn on Bluetooth for the first time all day and pair up an earbud. And that's when the problems happened again. On a sync. Basically, it spent a lot of time thinking on that step "Waiting for changes to be applied", then proceeded to try and sync 600 pieces of album artwork out of 6000 tracks (uh oh), then it finished and I went to music and it just zoomed from the first track I selected and raced through all tracks until it got to the first one I had purchased via iTunes vs. ripped on my own to the iTunes library (uh oh). Went back to the overall song list, they're all gone. Little red boxes surrounded by little red circles, again. ***. So, I've started the process all over again, obviously turning off Bluetooth as I'm starting to think that it has SOMETHING to do with all of this, and now I'm just trying to sync back the music to the phone. The funny thing is that without unchecking/checking music and just doing a sync with Bluetooth turned off, it looks like I'm getting back ALL of my music. I'm able to test it right now while it's syncing, I wouldn't be surprised if it's all there when I'm done with this sync. *** is going on?? Why would BLUETOOTH cause my ripped vs. purchase music to disappear after a sync? I am at a total loss, I had a call scheduled with an Apple tech this evening but I've pushed it out until Monday due to personal reasons. Until then, should I manage to get everything in the way of music back on this iPhone, I will NOT be turning on Bluetooth, and I will NOT be syncing this iPhone.

Same situation for me: the Manually Manage toggle is my kludge, I went from a 5S on 8.0 to 6 and both are now on 8.0.2, and also have Windows 7.

I was at the Apple Store today, getting my daughter's 5 replaced due to a broken screen. Brought up the iPhone 6 Sync issues and gave the tech a summary. His suggestion was to go to Settings --> General --> Reset and use the first "Reset All Settings" option to not remove data, but to get the phone back to standard selections / settings. Ok, I said, and waited. Got home, did a Google of "Reset All Settings" and what do you know? There is a bug in iOS 8, confirmed on MacRumors, that wipes all the iWork documents the user has in iCloud, and then proceeds to demolish any other stored locations of the same files on further sharing/syncing by the user. So, I won't be trying the "Reset All Settings" any time soon.

The same happens for iPhone 5. This is not an iPhone 6 matter, seems to be a problem with iOS 8.0.2 and iTune 11.4.0.18. I use iTunes on Windows 7 Professional. So, as long as I have read the problem happening with MAC, I guess that the problem is not related to hardware, but with the new iOS version.

Now I managed to put the musics into my iPhone. I shut down the iPhone and closed the iTunes. Then I turned the iPhone on and opened the iTunes. I put the iPhone in flight mode and selected the albuns that I wanted to upload manually on iTunes. Then I synced and it worked. Nevertheless, if I want to put more musics, I have to follow all the process again. Definetly there is a problem in iOS 8.0.2 with iTunes 11.4.0.18. Things are not working smoothly and elegantly as it did before.

Cancelling the e-mail notifications for this discussion didn’t work, so one more post.

Jawfrey: drag the e-pub files to your desktop, open iBooks, drop them there. Now you have not only saved them, but you will actually be able to read them. Obviously you haven’t read them for a while because it’s impossible to open them as long as iTunes or the iPhone tries to read them as music files. Fixed!

Again: don’t wait for Apple to fix this. They can’t and they won’t. Something went wrong in some of your folders. Can be the iTunes update. Can be a system update. Can be because you haven’t restarted your computer for a while. Can be because you’ve installed an app or a script that screwed up something in your system. Can be there is some malware on your computer. Can be your computer is hacked and is part of a botnet. Anyway: there can be thousand of reasons why there is something wrong. That influenced the updating proces of iTunes. It’s impossible for Apple to make af fix for this: it’s different for everyone, so you have to clean up your own mess. Result is the Music folder contains files that don’t belong there (movies, pdf’s, epub-files even apps or .ipa files). Remove them. Repair disk permissions. Fixed!

I don't believe "it's impossible for Apple to make a fix for this".

Having said that, I've restored my phone to factory settings, restored an old backup (just got it unlocked, since my contract ended, so had to do that anyway), removed all music from iTunes. Uninstalled iTunes. Installed iTunes from scratch with a new library location. Told it to add the old location to the library (thereby copying all of the music to the new location), and deleted the old location. That should ensure only music files are in the music folder.

We'll see, now, whether adding music to the 4S works as it's supposed to from now on...

So you believe I'm right that the problem is a corrupted library, but you don't believe the rest of what I say. Mmm. Well, I believe your shortcut to tackle this problem won't work. But I'm not going to explain why, because you probably won't believe me.

Wow - so after countless restores and re-installs and the like, repairing my disk permissions within disk utility on my MacBook Pro actually worked! I repaired all of my permissions that were out of whack I guess and a copious amount noted "iBooks" within the string of permissions. After repairing the permissions I ran CleanMyMac 2, which I try to use at least once every couple of months and then I restarted my Mac as well as my iPhone. Upon opening iTunes after the restart, I connected my iPhone 6 and deselected all the playlists that I have had checked for YEARS and did a sync with no music. After this, I re-selected all of the playlists I wanted and did a sync. I have been able to change artwork and sync and add music to the 4100 tracks and numerous playlists that I now have on my phone. I have 30,000 songs in my library and I have added up to 10,000 songs just to see what would happen and I'm STILL good. I'm just glad this is over for me - may the odds be ever in your favor, hopefuls!

Add folder to library should only add media files, should it not?

Being that I don't have a Mac, looking through each folder for a non-music file isn't as easy as was previously indicated. Additionally, there's no simple way to "repair disk permissions".

As for what I do or do not believe, I meant only that Apple could probably identify how/why this issue is occurring, and also find a way to fix it, if they wanted to. Whether they want to or not, or whether it's a big enough problem to warrant investigation, remains to be seen.

Truly, I'm not intending to be contrary, and just want this to work like it did up until the recent update. If I have to go through each of several thousand folders to make sure there aren't any non-music files in them, well, maybe it's time to admit I won't have music on my phone, and I'll just use Pandora from now on, instead.