IOS 8 won't sync music with itunes

Yeah, I think I'm just about done here too. You can only repeat something so many times.

For Windows users - even though explicit directions aren't posted here it is possible to search in a directory (and it's subdirectories) in a similar way to what was posted for Macs. Maybe if you asked instead of constantly arguing with people who are trying to help you someone might be kind enough to post how.

Repairing disk permissions probably isn't necessary if you just follow in instructions given.

I've never seen such a group of people so willing to inconvenience themselves to this degree based on some principle that they are owed perfect devices that should work perfectly 100% of the time.

Do not listen to @Schmrtzzz.

He is not an authority on either iOS 8.0.2 and iTunes 11.4.0.18. Unless I am mistaken he was not a developer for either project and he does not speak for Apple.

There is no evidence to suggest that this is a problem directly caused by a "corrupted library." The solution he supports requires you to remove files from your library that have never been an issue before. That is not a solution. That is a work around for an existing bug. And even within this forum there are people who tried the library solution and are still experiencing issues.

The course of action each of you should take is to submit this thread to Apple in as many formats as possible. If this bug is brought to their attention it is likely a solution will arrive in the next update. Most likely in an iTunes 11.4.0.19 release.

@Errk! “I've never seen such a group of people so willing to inconvenience themselves to this degree based on some principle that they are owed perfect devices that should work perfectly 100% of the time.” Fair, but... People pay Apple's inflated prices, rightly or wrongly, because they want to own products that “just work.” The mythos surrounding Apple is that bugs are rare and the company always makes sure every t is cross and every i dotted. The reaction you see here is justifiable. You want to blame anyone blame Apple's pricing and marketing department.

Do not listen to schmrtzzz! He's no authority at all. There is no evidence at all that the problem is caused by a corrupted library! Except that my solution just works. Well, that's not good enough, apparantly. Apple is to blaim, Apple *****, Apple is doomed. I find it unbelievable that people come here with this problem, get an easy fix, and just refuse to try it. You don't want your iPhone to work properly or what? No you don't. Crybabies. Buy an Android.

From Schmrtzzz: "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!"

Thanks for the note. Yeah, I actually did just that yesterday. (For the record, I had accessed those files on my iPad Air without an issue, though not since updating to iOS8.) I also previously removed a lot of PDFs (album booklets, mostly), as well. After moving the epub files yesterday , I ran Disk Utility (again) and restarted everything, but the problem remains. Actually, the only workaround that's had *any* success for me is the person who suggested that you turn "Manually manage" on, sync, off, sync again. That wasn't a perfect fix, as I still have files not transferring, just a lot less of them.

“Except that my solution just works.”

Yeah but it doesn't. Users have posted that your solutions has not solved their problem. Further it doesn't work because it requires removing files that should not be removed. Perhaps you don't like, need or want liner notes but many people do.

“Apple is to [blame], Apple *****, Apple is doomed.”

I am unsure where you coming from with this hyperbole. I think it's fair to say that Apple released either iOS 8.0.2 or iTunes 11.4.0.18 with a minor bug. That doesn't imply that Apple is doomed, nor does it mean we should abandon our devices. The only rational solution is to bring the bug to the attention of Apple and wait for a break fix. Drastic measures altering a Library are not ideal and certainly not recommended by Apple (at least I cannot find any documentation supporting your solution).

“...get an easy fix, and just refuse to try it...”

I believe I have made a compelling case as to why one would refuse to alter a Library that was working up until the latest OS and software releases. People should not try your "fix" if they do not want to alter their Library forever. Those who do not care about legacy files will probably give it a try but as we have seen, even your "fix" doesn't work for everyone.

“You don't want your iPhone to work properly or what? No you don't.”

Such absurdity and arrogance. I am starting to believe you are a troll.

So far, here is what worked for me. It was a combination of 2 pieces of advice. I downloaded ifunbox and deleted the folder called ITunes control. then I played with the manually manage music toggle. I have done this with my iPhone 6plus and am i the process of syncing my iPad Air. No grayed songs, and they all play. (So far!)

I don't plan to re-sync with the computer until iOS 8.03 or 8.1 comes out . Hopefully the music will stay on the device until then.

I always use the "Manually manage videos and music". I too bought a 128GB iPhone 6 to be able to store my 23K tracks. I started off with one artist with some 200 tracks and I get maybe half on the iPhone. The copy/sync never completes and when I look on the iPhone via iTunes, the tracks are still in that grayed out mode showing they have not been copied. I ma going to take my iPhone 6 back and keep using my iPhone 4. I have had a Mac since the Mac Plus so have faced every type problem over the years but this one just makes me sick.

I've been having this same issue with my iPhone 5s on iOS 8.0.2 and iTunes 11.4. I have my phone set to sync only selected playlists, artists, albums and genres. I tried pretty much all of the suggestions in here short of reinstalling iTunes or the iFunBox suggestion. I finally stumbled upon that seemed to work for me was:

1. Unsyncing music through combo of deselecting the sync music box in the music tab and hit apply (all while connected via USB)

2. Manually removed purchased tracks that for some reason were still on my phone

3. Powered off phone and started back up, shut down and restarted iTunes

4. Reselected sync music but before hitting sync, I deselected all the playlists, artists and albums that had been previously selected, then clicked the very first album in the albums pane and hit sync. That album synced

5. I've been gradually respecting more albums, playlists, and artists in chunks of about 500 tracks.

Through a half dozen syncs, this seems to be working. Previously when I blew away all the music and then added it back all at once (about 5200 tracks) the next time I went to add a single album the sync failed.

Hope this helps

I tried an experiment today, with the iPhone 6. I had my Bluetooth headphones connected, so Bluetooth active and linking / communicating to another device from the iPhone 6. Plugged it in using the Lightning cable to USB. Typically, when I get to the point of un-clicking the "Manually Manage" box (standard syncing is expected here) and Bluetooth was off, this would run through some stages of the syncing of various items, including backup, and then quit. Nothing would transfer to the device, I've gotten used to this.

While the Bluetooth was active, however, I tried to sync with the "Manually Manage" off, and iTunes proceeded to spin, for over three hours, while the Bluetooth headset was blinking active and I left it, only checking frequently for any change, before I cancelled it. Meanwhile, the iPhone 6 was not registering the little toilet icon at the top of the screen that shows it is syncing. I turned off Bluetooth, and it went back to a short cycle of syncing, toilet on the phone, no change, but then closed within a few minutes. Turned on Bluetooth with nothing attached, and it did a short sync cycle also.

It would take several days to validate this, but the Bluetooth has been mentioned by others as a trigger for problems. I think there is something to that. Without the Bluetooth I'm back to the regular "Manual" "Not Manual" "Manual" and sync success... cycles.

Also, not clarified earlier, I am running Windows 7 64-Bit. Not sure that makes a difference, but another configuration item.

A brief followup to my earlier post, in case it is helpful to others.

It turned out that the problems identified to me by iTunes in synching with the iPhone 5S were due to various files *not* being in the iTunes Music library but elsewhere on the disk(s). This was a hangover from moving the iTunes library around a bit in the past. I consolidated the iTunes library (as in iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer), fixed up leftover issues by hand, and since then, synching with the iPhone has not been a problem. Note, however, that the above was only a problem synching with the iPhone and not when synching with an iPad mini.

A second issue was that there was some 20GB of memory on the iPhone marked as "Other" - pretty much the same as for Music. I figured that this was probably some garbage and so I followed the suggestion of using ifunbox to delete the iTunes_control folder and restore to an earlier backup. It took a few goes to get there, but at least I never had to go through the pain of Resetting to factory settings.

My conclusion is that these iTunes synch problems are subtle and are probably due to a combination of things rather a single cause. Irregular iTunes library structures (I think "corrupted" may be too strong) may be one significant contributing factor. I suspect that hardware or device dependencies may be another.

Today I was talking throw the apple chat with a technical about the issues trying to sync music and videos with iTunes 11.4 and iOS 8 with my iPhone 6. Last friday I had an iTunes crash, syncing music with the message "Waiting to apply changes" who gaves me a 20GB of Others.

The technical solution to this problem, Apple already knows and working is on it, is to connect the iPhone to iTunes, go to Music Tab, deselect sync music, press ok to the message that this would erase all your music content, then select sync music and select all you want to sync.

It works but i don't till when.

Hope this would help you!

I haven't read through all of the thread, but .. I was having a small problem with no album art, and smart playlists not updating onto the iPhone. So attempting to fix that led to a cascade of problems, which led to a full factory restore of the iPhone 5. (Restoring from backup had failed.) And, the music all synced properly. Happy days, except with the big hassle of reorganizing my phone and setting up all my different app accounts again. But, after a couple of successful syncs, smart playlists once again weren't updating. So I tried syncing twice, because for whatever reason that often seems to work. And now ... none of the songs will play; I just get the red circle. Oh, one album, and just one album, will play - the new U2 one, which isn't even in my iTunes library so how the heck did it get on my iPhone?! None of the other music will play - not the CDs I ripped, and not the music bought through iTunes. Just the U2 album.

So the immensely frustrating weekend repairing my iPhone, which I thought at least ended in success, turns out to have been a waste of time. This is ridiculous. I am certainly not eager to wipe all the music off my iPhone, and then re-sync it again, having already done that twice only to find that the "solution" seems to stick a day at most.

I'm also curious why I don't seem to have seen this problem in the news or media at all. Judging by this thread, the issue doesn't seem to be that unusual!

EDIT: Oh, for what it's worth, that last sync did restore a lot of album art to the iPhone, so that was progress. Too bad the music stopped working.

I have this EXACT same issue. If I restore my phone, do a clean sync with all of my music (mostly ripped CDs to Apple Lossless), then allow it to finish, I can play *all* of my music. But on the next sync (the next time I plug it into my Macbook Pro Retina 15"), it screws up and does this again. If I play a song on my iPhone 6 Plus, it will skip over any song I've ripped and only play those songs I've previously purchased from iTunes. This is ridiculous! I've restored my phone FIVE times now since last Thursday trying to figure out why the new iPhone 6 won't play ripped music!

And every single track I have in iTunes is legitimate - either ripped myself from CDs I own, downloaded from band websites, or purchased from iTunes Store.

I'm very, very frustrated. I have an open case with Apple as of this morning, but the tech said, it was the first time they or any of the engineers have heard of this issue. Really? Do they read their own support forums? GRR!!!! Not happy with Apple right now. I got the 128GB to replace my iPod Classic, and now they don't even make the Classic anymore! Sheesh.

biffnix - I'm having the exact same problem. Very disappointing. Apple apparently cares little for it's users at this point. I have about 15,000 songs. I can only access what has been directly purchased from Apple. I've been with them for many years and never had this problem. My whole family is complaining now because they have lost many of their favorites. It appears the songs are there but they aren't. Very frustrating.

Just to repeat - iPhone 6 128GB 8.0.2. upgrade from 4S, about two weeks ago. Nothing but music and Bluetooth headaches ever since.

I have spent way too many days working through these issues, and I am no closer to a solution than anyone else on these boards or Apple. I wish I could spell out a silver bullet solution or two and contribute, but I'm not griping about it, these are Apple's issues, Apple needs to step up and resolve. I am not on their beta staff, and I don't have the time to resolve these issues for them. All that I can say at this point is that I am frustrated beyond belief, nothing seems to be working and I'm running out of cycles to try and resolve these issues.

Here's what I do know from personal experience:

• It has something to do with Bluetooth, particularly handsfree/wireless audio systems in vehicles. Maybe.
• It has something to do with the order in which you make Bluetooth connections relative to syncing music. Maybe.
• It has something to do with the syncing of album artwork. Maybe.
• It has something to do with the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. DEFINITELY. Time and time again I can get everything working 100% perfectly on every other Apple device I own, including my old iPhone 4S running 8.0.2. So I'm not buying this whole notion of cleaning up my library or making any other changes until Apple says do it or else, because it's working fine everywhere else.

I'm also not buying into the closing of this discussion, or the notion that Apple isn't going to fix it. They will. They have to. It's not going away, all the Techs on their entire staff can stick their heads in the sand and say they've never heard of this issue. They have. And they will fix it. You can count on it.

Would love to stay and pontificate further but I have to resync 6000 songs. AGAIN 🙂 Good luck everyone.