IOS 8 won't sync music with itunes

Glad you solved your problem! Well done.

I too am having the exact same issue. Called Apple. The techs called me back and we tried to work it out. A few computer friends of mine ( who work with me and are former Apple techs ) believe this is an IOS program issue. I have an iPod touch ( 64 GB ) with well over 600 albums on it. Simply won't sync with current version of iTunes. All my other iPods sync fine. But my current IOS 8 iPod touch does not sync. VERY frustrated.

A variety of phone configs, etc. apparently affect the ability (or solution for the) "fix" for songs not syncing after the iOS 8 update.

I tried at least 5 of these methods cited in this very long thread for weeks and none worked -- until I did a few things:

1. I turned OFF iTunes MATCH. I sync manually anyway, as I do not want ALL items that I download to sync to my phone. And I def do not want to only be able to play songs via wifi (who lives in that rarified world anyway?)

2. Turned off WiFi Sync. ( I never did this either..)

3. Turned off the WiFi network that was set to default on ALL of my iOS devices that share contacts, calendar, songs, notes etc. Choose "Forget Network" then reboot. You can sync manually with the USB cable.

4. Then I went into SETTINGS on the desktop Mac, and RE-SELECTED the folder where I stored my iTunes songs on my desktop iMac. (It's the default folder where iTunes goes to look for your Tunes media-- all MEDIA.)

I have several older iTunes folders as iTunes upgraded/updated over the years. Each new version of the iTunes app, changed the iTunes folder structure (where the files, songs, tines, movies, etc. where stored on my iMac HD.) And while the solution where you SYNC and check the box, then SYNC and uncheck the Sync box appeared to work for SOME users, the songs never actually transferred over to my phone. The songs showed up in the playlists, but were greyed out when I went to play them.

Once I re-selected the folder where iTunes stores my files ON MY MAC HD via the DESKTOP SETTINGS of my iMAC, then iTunes was able to find the files and sync them to my phone. It was like the playlist knew the song names, but got lost in the file path as to where the files were stored on the HD. (If iTunes can't find the files on the HD, it won't be able to sync the actual file.) If you have a few older generations of iTunes (bc you might be a iPhone 3 or older user), this problem is likely to occur -- i.e. multiple iTunes folder locations or old archived iTunes folders. This doesn't appear to affect newer Apple users who aren't trying to bring forward OLD iTUNES files and folders from much earlier iTunes versions.

When I synced my phone after re-selecting where the iTunes folder is located on my iMac HD, ONLY THEN DID the songs sync to my phone.

When you do buy more songs, media, on primary Mac from which you sync your devices, just choose> STORE / UPDATE GENIUS and your songs will update. You can turn on iMatch later.

It also appears this problem is related to some funkiness with how iCloud works (and iMatch etc. Apple, you have to do better at Cloud. What good is iMatch if it doesn't work? As it is, my contacts are NOT syncing and updating via iCloud under iOS 8.1. That is a serious FAIL.)

Man, this was some serious heartbreak for two weeks (not having music nor files synced btwn devices). I bought the original iPhone and most versions since, and this has been the worst iOS and software roll-out since I have been a Mac user (since the 512KE Mac). That's a major problem.

Apple, you really need to do better.

Our issue is finally reaching the blogosphere.

http://www.imore.com/cant-sync-music-itunes-ios-8-try-fix#comment-form

FYI to the people who want to try the "drag and drop playlist fix" that worked for me. It was first posted by Mr. Cakeman: http://www.technipages.com/itunes-how-to-copy-playlists-to-iphone-ipad-or-ipod

MAKE SURE THAT YOU HAVE THE VERY LATEST VERSION OF IOS 8 INSTALLED ON YOUR DEVICE.

I first did the drag and drop on my iPhone 6 and it worked perfectly so I decided to try it on my iPod Touch.This is a 6th gen iPod running iOS 8, but NOT the update that Apple released a week or two ago, the update right before that. Like I've said in previous posts, I've been dealing with this issue for over a month so I was terrified of plugging my iPod back into iTunes after restoring multiple times and finally getting it working again with Media Monkey. But after the success with my iPhone 6, I decided to try it with the iPod, but without updating to the latest iOS patch. That was a mistake because dragging and dropping the playlist caused the dreaded yellow bar of doom with iTunes claiming I had no more space on my iPod because it was filled with "other" data. I unplugged the iPod from iTunes and plugged it into Media Monkey and MM also claimed I had no space on the device. I eventually had to restore to factory settings, update to the latest iOS, and install as a new device in iTunes. HOWEVER, after I did that and then dragged and dropped the playlists to the iPod, everything worked without a hitch.

I believe that the iPod fragged out because it wasn't running the latest iOS system patch like my iPhone 6 was. Like I said, I plugged in the 6 and did the fix with no problems at all. It wasn't until I tried it with the iPod that I ran into problems. Luckily, I really only use my iPod for music and audiobooks at work so restoring wasn't devastating like it would have been with my iPhone. But for those who want to try the fix, but are afraid to update to the new patch because you think it might make things worse, I assure you, Apple has done something in this patch to improve the syncing issue in combination with this particular fix, at least for now. I don't know if it will make a difference with other fixes, as I've tried them all and the drag and drop is the only one that's worked for me. Also, I don't think Apple did this on purpose because from the way they've handled this issue so far, they don't know their a** from their elbow right now. It was likely a happy mistake they aren't even aware of.

So far I've synced several times and even added missing album art to songs and have not had a problem with the iPhone or the iPod.

Also, iTunes match is the devil!! Although I believe the syncing issue is a combination of a multiple things, iTunes Match is one of the main problems. Turn it off on all your devices immediately or nothing you try will work.

I got all my music to sync to my iphone with iOS8 by selecting Manage Manually in options. Hope this helps.

This really worked for me, thank you for sharing 🙂

I finally fixed my issue - granted I might have had another issue (I had to replace my harddrive about 2 weeks ago but I was experiencing sync issues before my harddrive failed). I have a 2009 MBP running Yosemite, iPhone 6 Plus with 8.1. I had to create a new iTunes library then do a full restore on my phone - it took 14 hours but I now have all 7k of my songs, all my videos, and other media. This was a painful process but it has worked. I have been able to sync and add new content like back in the old days - no issues. I also do not have "show all my music" or Match turned on. I think this issue is related to dups and for some reason creating a new library gave them all the same signature or something but it's now syncing properly.

THe reason I say it's related to dups is from another forum where someone was actually working with the iOS engineers to fix the issue. I spent a weekend going through and clearing out dups but no dice. For some reason creating a new iTunes library and copying everything back over (including apps) made it sync ok. I did find a couple of voice recordings that couldnt' be sync'ed so I removed those but I didn't end up with 30 G of "other" stuck on my phone. That had been another issue - after the sync crapped out i would be stuck with 25+ gig of "other" hogging up space on my phone.

You're welcome. I'm glad I could help.

this worked for me as well. thanks!

This method seemed to work for me, but note: DO NOT interrupt/cancel the sync process once it's started. This is the main reason why I've encountered errors, and everybody's favorite, 10GB+ of "other" space.

Step 1) Download Tongbu Assistant.

-Tongbu Assistant is a Chinese tool that runs in english on Mac OS X (also available for Windows). The purpose of this tool is to clean out all unnecessary "other" data, and is the only tool that does so without a factory restore or jailbreak. If you have no issues with "other data," proceed to Step 2.

-Download Tongbu Assistant here:

(Mac): http://www.tongbu.com/mac/

(Windows): http://www.tongbu.com/zhushou/index.html?nodir=1

-After you download the tool, open up Tongbu Assistant & connect your iDevice to your computer.

-Click on the little trash can & run the cleaning tool. It will go through and clean out all of your junk/"other" data, without affecting any personal files or settings. I use this before I sync with iTunes, every time.

Step 2) Open iTunes & Connect iDevice

-After opening iTunes, navigate to your iDevice & uncheck, "[_] Manually manage music & videos."

-After this, navigate to the Music tab under the Settings list, on the left.

-Uncheck, "[_] Sync Music, [_] Automatically fill free space with songs," & tick the option that says, "Selected playlists, artists, albums, and genres."

-Don't check anything in the Playlists, Artists, or Albums sections.

-Important: Make sure all of your music items are labelled with a genre. If you payed for your music or imported a CD, this should be automatic. If not, you'll have to manually add a genre to each song.

Step 3) Sync one genre at a time

-This is how I've managed to sync all of my music effectively, being that my library contains over 5,000 songs. I sync one genre individually, one at a time, one sync process for each genre. After one genre is completely synced onto your iDevice & the sync process has completed the last step, tick another genre & sync for a second time. This is the only method that hasn't produced any errors for me, & I've struggled with this problem for three different versions of iTunes with two different iDevices.

Hope this helps.

-BioshockSplice

I read all of the posts/replies to this question (I have a MacBook Pro and 5 iPhones (incl. 5C, 5S and 6). I tried everything, and here is the ONLY thing that worked, period:

1) Re-Download iTunes.

2) Re-install newest iTunes version.

3) Re-sync all music libraries etc. with whatever phones were not working.

It's NOT a phone issue or options or anything else. It's iTunes.

Good luck.

I spent some time at the Apple Store today, and the "Genius" basically said it was a known iTunes bug, and that there was no solution as yet -We need to wait for Apple to release an update to iTunes that addresses the problem. He said it hit him on his first day with his new iPhone 6.

He made a point of pushing my case up to the people at corporate, and HIGHLY recommended that everyone here do the same. Apple doesn't monitor these boards too closely, but if everyone here who has the problem were to actually contact Apple Support and get a case number, that would seriously speed up the creation of a fix.

As a temporary workaround, he suggested that I restore my iPhone or iPad back to factory, NOT use my backups and start fresh. That eventually worked for my iPhone, but it took several syncs to get all my stuff back (I told it to sync 5,200 songs, but the first sync only did 300 -the second did 1200, and the third did the rest). Again, the Apple Genius said that showed a problem with iTunes, not my phone. He would have done what mrg34 suggested (delete, redownload, reinstall iTunes), but it seems you can't do that anymore as it is so closely tied to the OS under Yosemite.

Not what any of us want to hear, but at least it's an answer that accounts for all of the various problems and semi-solutions. PLEASE contact Apple Support and tell them about the problem. The more we do that the faster they'll get on it.

None of the advice here was helping my new iPhone 6. Finally in desperation I did a full restore. It was fine synching for a week. Now the problem is back again, and I just want to throw it through the window.

I struggled with this issue for some time. Rebooted computer and phone, wiped phone storage, etc, etc. I did NOT rebuild my entire iTunes library.

Worked my phone with basics, no media. Today something inspired me to switch off Wifi sync (that had escaped me so far). Also made sure that all 'sharing' settings are off (show all, match, etc). I tried Tones and that synced. Then I tried the big one -music- and it's syncing as we speak (so to speak). It's over 18.000 tracks, so it will be a while before it finishes, but I can se on the phone that playlists have been created, songs are being copied and artwork is there. Is this possibly a conflict between multiple channels, i.e. between cable and wifi?

Phone: iPhone 4S

Memory: 64gb

iOS: 8.1

OS: Lion 10.7.5

Computer: MacPro 2x3Ghz Dual Core Xenon, 6Gb mem

iTunes: iTunes 12.0.1.26

Connection Method: Classic Apple iPhone USB cable

Sync Method: Auto, all

Music Collection: 95% iTunes ripped MP3/AAC/AIFF format; 5% iTunes Store AAC purchases

Automatically Sync this Phone when Connection: No

Wifi Sync: Off

Sync only Checked Songs and Videos: Yes

Manually Manage Music and Videos: No

iTunes Match: Off on iPhone and Computer

iTunes Convert Higher Bit Rate Songs: Yes, 128

Have you found a permanent fix (if yes, describe): see above, permanent? We hope and pray!