IOS 8 won't sync music with itunes

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!

Thank you!!! Such an easy solution and it seems to have fixed my problem.

The best way I've figured out to do this is to uncheck the box that says sync music, hit apply, then sync music again. My iPhone 5 was having the same problem, not syncing music and having phantom storage, and was getting stuck in the "waiting for changes to be applied" step.

Another thing I'm hoping to use so that I don't have to do this again (syncing all my music takes forever) is to uncheck the box that says "sync every time this iPhone is connected to this computer". That way it won't try to sync every time and continue to do this. This sync will mark the third time that I have had to put all music back onto my phone. Hopefully they fix it with an update to iTunes.

My music was not removed but when I created a new play list in Itun it does not sink to the Iphone 6

I close all apps turned off the phone and it still does not sink the new playlists.

Update: I braved sync my phone again to add another movie and all went bonkers. Had to restore phone again to factory setting and start over. Now that I am back to having my library back on, certainly waiting on next iOS update before I sync again. Silly to have to restore everytime I want to sync.

....only one word: a mess.... Biggest asset for apple has always been protect clients and now.... ridiculous!

I've been having this exact same problem on an iPhone 6 since I got it on Friday. I am not having the problem with my iPad Air running iOS8.

I thought it might have been due to a corrupt backup so I installed a clean iOS 8 on the phone. It worked up until this afternoon, although there were sometimes long delays.

In fact, it seems like the more new or modified music I'm trying to add to the device, the longer it gets. A lot of times this is simply edited lyrics.

I've tried every other recommendation I've seen here and other places; kill all apps, stop and restart the sync after unchecking sync music - nothing.

I also had the issue where there was a ton of "other" occupied space on the phone. I believe this to be music that is on the device but is not recognizzed by the phon'e smusic app, because the amount of music displaying on the device does not corralate to the amount of space being used.

This is a huge mess. I've never had this problem before, but then I've never tried to sync this much music. Maybe iTunes just can't handle syncing a lot of music? I have about 16,000 songs in my library. I sync the whole library to the phone but not to the iPad.

I'm having the exact same problem. First time ever for me involving an Apple upgrade. This is a mess. I have tried everything. I want my music and playlists back on my phone and iPad!

An update: I let iTunes go and eventually, after about 30 minutes, it synced and was ok. However I synced again a few minutes later and it synced about 100 songs that it must not have gotten on the last sync. It did these fairly quickly with no real delay.

I see something strange and I don't know if it indicates where the problem lies: under General>About it says the phone has 2 videos on it. But it doesn't. The video app shows zero videos on the device and no videos are shown when the phone is connected to iTunes. So I'm wondering if there is some bass information somewhere that is causing iTunes to try and sync videos that it isn't supposed to be syncing.

Same problem here. It shows all the playlists, but the only songs there are the songs I bought at the ITunes Store. Strange thing is it says the iPhone contains 57 GB of music. Clicking on the video checkbox and unclicking it again had som result: it added 52 GB of 'Other' content to the iPhone, well at least in the bar in iTunes. Now ITunes doesn't keep hanging in step 5, but immediatly in step 1. Oh boy.

Strange thing is: even when I unplug the iPhone, it keeps syncing, or so it says in the topbar. Major bug. [Wifi-syncing isn't enabled.]

Edit: o well, maybe it was because iCloud back up was enabled. Don't know how that happened, I'm not very fond of clouds so I use them as little as possible.

I did a reset of all my settings on the iPhone. After that, the iPhone showed not only all my playlists, but also all the songs. Not playable, but with a download button behind them. As if it automatically was trying tot sync with iTunes Match (wich I have never used). It keeps getting stranger. But maybe there's a clue somewhere?

Did a factory reset. Unchecked the box 'Convert to AAC 256kb' so everything is now in Apple Lossless. Unchecked almost all the playlists. And checked only five or so. That worked. Lame hand from unchecking. And I know what I'll be doing the next few hours: getting all the settings right on the phone an unchecking all the feaures that cause the battery to drain. Well, it's getting a routine by now. Thanks Apple!