IOS 8 won't sync music with itunes

Very well said. You have described my frustration perfectly. I am a HUGE music fan and the inability to sync my music is infuriating. This isn't a small bug. This is a complete regression of one of Apple's most relied upon features.

I am baffled something as stupid as bendgate gets so much coverage but something like this has been crickets. Are we syncers in the minority at this point compared to the streaming services and thus being ignored?

Solved it. For me anyway.

Recap: iPhone 5S, 64gb, was used as the backup / restore when I activated my iPhone 6, 128gb. All playlists, podcasts, photos, everything went over as-is. iPad Mini Retina, 128gb was activated last December, off of a backup / restore from my first iPad Mini, 64gb. No issues on the iPad Mini Retina transition. All were at 8.0.2, updated to 8.1 when that came out. Windows 7 PC with latest iTunes.

iPhone 6 has been able to sync apps and photos and Audiobooks, and I’ve worked through Podcasts by making some changes to the individual Podcast settings on the iPhone 6.

Music was not synchronizing consistently. I tried de-selecting synchronize music (the top check box on the Music tab for the iPhone 6 directly) which did not change the underlying selections in that same Music tab for Playlists, Artists, or Albums. They would gray out when I deselect the “Synch Music” check box, then come back when reselected. That and some other check boxes seemed to do something, but not solve it.

On many sync’s, the Album Artwork would be moved over in a 2,000 some update, and that meant the songs were not on the phone. They would look good, but press the first song in a playlist, and only album artwork zips by, no music, no registration back to iTunes that the song has a play completed. So, there was no music file on the phone.

For the last several weeks my kludge of choice has been to plug in the iPhone 6 with the iTunes Summary page clicked with “Manually Manage
Music and Videos” set to ON. Then immediately deselect (OFF) this “Manually Manage” check box, sync again, and usually break the files on the phone. One more time, click the “Manually Manage” check box to ON, sync again, and usually it would update the usual files in the selected playlists. It would have to go through how many thousands of songs to rebuild the files correctly. This is really wrong, because Manually Manage means, iTunes should move nothing over to the phone, you are dragging and dropping. But, that’s what worked for me.

All the while, the iPhone 5S and iPad Mini Retina are syncing with no issues. wth.

I appreciate all the others on here who have gone through efforts to wipe the phone, make drastic changes to the computer and files, but I did not feel like doing that. I’m either an optimist, or lazy.

I tried something a little different. I synced with the Summary tab “Manually Manage” box turned OFF, deselected, which means it should do a normal sync of Playlists and such. This gives you the view on the Music tab to Playlists, Artists, Albums and Genres to select from. I am syncing Selected Playlists, Artists, Albums and Genres, that is turned ON (stayed turned ON during this entire exercise). I changed “Include Music Videos” and “Include Voice Memos” to both turned OFF. Automatically Fill Space with Songs has always been OFF.

So, I went through the list of all the Playlists, and made sure I deselected every last one of them. No Playlists.

I went through all the Artists, and deselected every last one of them. No Artists.

I went through all the Albums, and deselected every last one of them. No Albums.

I double checked they were all Deselected, Playlists, Artists, Albums, and Genres. Nada.

Also deselected all the Podcasts episodes, Audio books, E-books, Movies and TV Shows on each of those tabs. I left Photos alone. Each of the tabs remained ON to be syncing with the iPhone. No changes to the files themselves, no deletion of artwork anywhere.

Then, on the Summary tab, I clicked Apply to start the sync.
It thought about it for a while, like half an hour or more. The phone got hot, probably because I insisted on keeping the screen on to see the spinning sync
icon (you may want to remove the phone from any case before you start this, or let the screen go dark) but eventually it finished.

I think I hit sync again, for good measure, once it was done with the long sync.

I turned off the iPhone 6 (hold down the On/Off button, swipe the screen), not any hard reset.

At the end of this, I had only songs on the iPhone which were purchased from iTunes Store. I did not bother to delete these.

I have now left the Summary tab “Manually Manage Music and Videos” as deselected, OFF. I’ve started adding Playlists back, including the largest
one with a number of goofy-sized artwork and it is syncing the phone correctly. A TV show synced correctly. I think the copy out from the iPhone 5S Backup probably did something with the files when they got on the iPhone 6 initially, either the playlist or the way the playlist relates to the songs. Synchronizing them so they are removed off the phone lets the iPhone 6 file system have some space to start over again, I think.

Others have deleted the files from the phone directly, I just let iTunes do it for me.

I will check back with an update, but I’m pretty sure I now have joy. Lots and lots of joy.

I had got mine (5s 64g) to work using a fix a while back - thanks. I was even got cocky enough to try a few syncs which seemed to work. I will hunt back through the posts to remind myself how I did it (it involved deleting music on the face of iTunes and from the phone entirely and adding the folder again to itunes without non music) but given that it has started to happen again clearly there needs to another way.

HOWEVER, I has spotted a clue which someone who knows the back end of this stuff better than me might find useful. It still makes me wonder whether the bug is itunes match / cloud related:

When a greyed/ redded out or cloud matched track is played it will either skip over it or sometimes, if there is connection download and play it (I have match turned off and have not subscribed to it). So it got me thinking, go onto airplane mode and try. Sure enough they don't play but skip over the track that have not synced. This is not surprising. However what I noticed was the total songs noted on the phone decreased (in my case from 3615 to 2616). After some more digging the same result is achieved in >Settings>Music>Show All Music when this is toggled on/ off.

Incredibly frustrating and time consuming.

If this has already been noted, sorry for clogging up your emails but I hope somehow it may be helpful.

I have been struggling with this on an iPhone6 for the last week (since I got it). Have tried more or less everything on this feed and this morning was about to restore by cable from a backup (previous restore was from iCloud). Before I could restore I had to turn off 'Find My Phone' in iCloud so though I may as well try to sync one more time...it worked! No idea if this was a the problem or not but might be worth a try...

I figured out (after another sequence of frustrating research) some time after iCloud was first released how to turn off that "Show all music" setting, and I leave it off. I only want music and podcasts on my device, don't want to be spending bandwidth downloading all the time, or trying to figure out what is really on the device, what is pretending.

There very likely is something to that iCloud issue, but I've done all I can to stay away from it.

Syncing happily tonight. I posted on my FB page:

"Spent the last 33 days trying...

Finally got my iPhone 6 to sync music!" then a picture of "Success Kid".

I thought it was funny. 🙂

THANK YOU!!!:)

it worked!

i have the same problem but did u resolve u problem? if u did tel me

What zPianodude did was very similar to what I did: basically remove all personal (not purchased from iTunes) music and podcasts from the iPhone. zPianodude did this directly on the phone, I used iTunes to "uninstall" all music and podcasts. I think other settings changes are secondary.

The end result is the same: By not having any rogue music files on the iPhone, something in the iPhone device file system is able to reset, and able to get a clean start on organizing those files. I think if all the previous efforts are reviewed, of those that worked, deleting/removing all the music and podcast files from the iPhone is probably the common theme.

A common source of the problem is also writing masses of music and podcast files from a previous iPhone backup.

My theory includes: There is nothing wrong with iTunes. It throws files onto the iPhone the same way regardless. It is up to the iPhone to be ready to accept and organize those files. The switch where periodically only artwork was sent is probably a communication mix up, also sourced on the iPhone: "Ok, iTunes, Just send me the artwork, OK? I think I'm good otherwise".

Nothing wrong with the iPhone either, fundamentally, other than it can be confused by certain backups being written wholesale onto the phone, and once those files are jumbled, and they remain, then it begins to not be able to handle what iTunes throws at it correctly. (iPhone to self: "Do I have files? I think so... iTunes, please send only artwork")

What worked for me was going to itunes on my computer then on the upper tab I went to store/view account(your apple id email) and then under "itunes in the icloud" I had 2 devices associated with it. I then deleted the one that wasn't my phone because it was from 2 years ago. Suddenly my songs sync. Hope it works.

After a month of working fine, the new iTunes and iOS software have re-triggered everything. I'm back to having to restore the phone each night if I want to back anything up. I'm going to see if Apple will just give me a new one this weekend.

In order to transfer purchases(such as transfer music from iPhone to iTunes), this is what I do:

1. plugging iPhone into iTunes.

2. in iTunes right click on iPhone under "Devices"(on the collum at the left side of iTunes)

3. select transfer purchases

All of the purchased items from iPhone will import to iTunes if do that.

Ey.

I encountered the same problem as all the rest of you and I was expecting a lot of hassle trying to solve the problem after reading all the trouble all you guys been through.

But I stumbled across a webarticle that solved the problem very easily, the article wasn't specified to this issue rather it's about copying playlists to your iphone/device but it's method worked for this problem. At least for me. It worked instantly and took less than a minute.
You just drag the playlist to your phone and everything will get synced when you then hit the sync button.
I post the link so you get the picture. Hope this works for all of you. Try, and post if it works or not.

http://www.technipages.com/itunes-how-to-copy-playlists-to-iphone-ipad-or-ipod

POSSIBLE EASY SOLUTION....

Hi there, I have also been a victim of the update and my music was removed!!! I have had no trouble with Apple for the last decade, and now, nothing seems to work smoothly anymore. I thought it was technology racing away from my age group, but it seems it is Apple!

Anyway, I stumbled on a fix for this problem. I don't know why it works but it did for me.

1. Plug your phone in to iTunes as if you are syncing it. Let it sync if it wants to.

2. Click on your device (in iTunes) and go to the Summary page (first option on left).

3. Go to the right hand window (the one that says 'iPhone 5', 'Backups', 'Options'. Go into 'Options' part and tick "Manually manage music and videos". Then click 'Apply' on bottom right. Then click 'Sync'. The music should now load across.

This should solve it, as it did for me. I don't know why it solves it, but it did for me.

Hope this helps.

APPLE....I can no longer defend you to my Samsung enemies.

You have produced updates that are truly unworthy of your brand. I have WASTED 2 days trying to sync my music to my iPhone....in fact trying to entirely sync my iPhone. Should I send you a bill for wasting my time?

I have had to use Google to find solutions. I don't live near an Apple store, and I refuse to think that I should waste more time and restore everything.

I have now found a solution to my problem - but not because of Apples help. It was Apples frustrating releases that caused me to look beyond Apple.

Message for Apple : "Lift your game - Samsung is coming!"

OH. MY. GOD. Dragging and dropping the playlists actually worked for me!!! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!

I've been dealing with this issue for over a month and this is the first fix that actually worked. I don't know why or how it's working but it is. THANK YOU!