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Can't sync music anymore with iOS 8. All disappeared.

Okay, I just updated my iPhone 4s to iOS 8 two days ago. Today, I wanted to put more music from my iTunes in my PC. Note that my iTunes in PC is recently updated. When I started syncing my new music, it won't work. When I start playing a song in my phone, won't work too. Almost all disappeared. From having 664 songs, I have 16 left. Please help. I want my music back.

iPhone 4S, iOS 8

Posted on Sep 20, 2014 12:49 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Sep 21, 2014 5:02 AM

same problem here. i guess we have to wait for a fix in itunes or ios.

191 replies

Oct 19, 2014 1:35 PM in response to ShatterStar

Didn't work for me.

When I go into Usage/Manage/music the phone (128gB iPhone 6) crashes to the home screen.

I hear a new 0s8 is due imminently. So I' will wait for that.

I can't sync my playlists. They show on the phone in iTunes but not on the phone itself.

What does show as on the phone in iTunes it partial and 50% have the dreaded circle to the far left.

These keep changing but of little consequence since nothing is on the phone.

Took about 8 syncs to get my ringtones....

Forget movies, audiobooks, album art and just about everything. Every new synch randomly changes stuff. No predictability.


This is probable the worst update in history.

I no longer spend my free time listening to my music.

Thanks to Apple I'm trying to find it then get it on my device.

100 hours of wasted life.....thanks for nothing.


Apple should focus on making stuff work, then make it pretty.

They have lost their way.

Oct 20, 2014 11:02 AM in response to pvm21

KNOCKING ON WOOD HERE ... but .... iOS 8.1 FIXED issues


Did update to iOS 8.1 and a sync and all of my music and artwork is on my phone.......no issues.....going to test the rest of day to see if anything vanishes or changes but even the Genius Playlists were added to the phone. As of right now, everything seems to be working as expected.


Stay Tuned

Oct 20, 2014 2:55 PM in response to ShatterStar

This is interesting - seems there's an iTunes and/or iOS bug that causes sync to silently fail. I looks like it worked, but when you try to play a tune or a movie that's listed in the player on the iPhone, it's suddenly not there.


http://robservatory.com/a-nasty-little-itunesios-bug-may-be-causing-media-sync-i ssues/


Basically, the cure is to find and delete all duplicate purchased tracks in your iTunes library - but be sure to read the article for more details. This seems to have fixed the problem for me, after a week or two of frustration.

Oct 22, 2014 2:59 AM in response to dfeivelson

sync problem still occur even after recovery mode install and setting up the iOS device as a new one.


The whole problem is going on for a long time, also been in contact, though not in person, but filed a bug report back in early August and the threat expanded since then. iOS 8.0.2 looked promising but in terms of syncing music 8.1 is a step back.

Oct 23, 2014 1:10 AM in response to ShatterStar

Still a big problem ***HELP***


I updated everything, Yosemite, iOs 8.1 on iPhone 6 - 64GB and it will still not sync my music. I tried everything. Multiple syncing, resetting, and it will not sync my music. iTunes just gives me a notice that it's doing something, but before you could see that it was syncing 233 from 500 and so on with a bar in the top of iTunes. Now, it's doesn't show anything.


Is there anything else i can do? Because in the forum here nothing for me really worked...

Oct 23, 2014 5:35 AM in response to ShatterStar

one drastic option, which in my case solved the problem (at least for the moment), is deleting the MediaLibrary.sqlitedb.


https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3909940

or

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1677562


it's not an elegant solution but worked.

Just be sure to back up your devices!


What's interesting, I needed to delete the database with a fresh restored one - as a new device. So is that one already corrupt somehow?


Anyway, have a look around the internet, there are loads of similar threats (iOS 8 and before). This is just an option if restoring doesn't work. a radical but apparently effective.

Just be warned about messing around with iOS system files.


Cheers

Oct 23, 2014 10:45 AM in response to Schroedinger

Been in touch with nearly 10 Apple specialists since 9/29/14. For much of this time, I've been volleyed between iTunes and iphone specialists who felt that my issues needed to be dealt with iPhone specialists or vice-versa. My music problems started immediately after syncing my new, 128 gb iphone 6 on that date. I've spent hours and hours and hours and sleepless nights spent trying to figure this out (I have over 10k songs) while they often have taken control of my computer and had me delete this, re-install that, restore this, update that... They've also uploaded some files from my computer to their engineers. Here's what I've noticed...


- If I do a factory Restore of the iphone, all songs seem to play fine. No, I don't play them all, just skip through a hundred or so.

- As soon as I do a subsequent sync, any songs that were ripped from CD's or purchased elsewhere (Amazon, etc.), do not play.

- The Music app immediately skips over these songs and flips through subsequent songs until it lands on an iTunes-purchased song and plays those only.

- When I return to the song list, the non-itunes-purchased songs I tried to play become greyed-out and have a red circle with a red square to the right of each one.

- After a subsequent sync, those greyed-out songs disappear entirely from the song list.


Similar to the above, I've unchecked Sync Music after connecting my phone. As with all syncs after disappearing songs, the iTunes status "Waiting for changes to be applied" remains for a loooooong time. Eventually, sometimes after hours, I will stop the sync process (clicking on X), eject the phone and find less songs on it. From this point forward, nothing via iTunes will remove the songs (sometimes still thousands) remaining on the phone.


After weeks and several different Apple specialists, the most recent suggestion they've offered me is to update all desk/laptops to Yosemite (which I've done), update all mobile devices to iOS 8.02 (which I've done) and turn off iTunes Match on all desk/laptops and mobile devices (which I've done). Apple engineers maintained that the issue had something to do with needing to update to Yosemite. Well, my latest syncs today confirm that they are dead wrong. The songs still become greyed-out and go missing! NOTE: I did not upgrade/use iCloud Drive until *after* I just upgraded to Yosemite.

Instead of doing a complete restore for the umpteenth time, I just tried, for the 10th(?) time to delete the tracks directly on my phone:

Settings --> General --> Usage --> Manage Storage --> Music --> Edit --> delete button (or slide and select Delete)

However, the Settings app just crashed (as it usually has) after I press Delete. I scroll through all of the Stored apps and spend several minutes looking for the Music app's storage, but do not find it. I reconnect to iTunes and what remains is 1-2 songs that were last played on the phone. Can't erase it/them.


It just seems like there might be a dbase on the phone that is screwed up or not getting updated or something. I continue to question the Apple folks about this. Also if there's an issue with iTunes corruption or the manner in which iTunes communicates with and controls updates (adding/removing songs) during the sync process. If I'm correct, it **must've been** caused by one or more of the following: iTunes, iOS, iOS Music app and/or the sync process because I had zero problems with my previous iphone 5S and the exact same other desk/laptop and mobile devices.


So, if I want all of my music back on the iphone, the ONLY WAY is to do a complete restore, which takes HOURS! And then I am 100% unable to add more music unless I perform another complete restore!!


The suggestion that I recently proposed to Apple was to give me an iTunes gift certificate that will allow me to purchase all my non-itunes-purchased music through iTunes. Should only cost them a few thousand dollars. No answer from them yet as to whether they'll do this. Somehow, I'm skeptical. If they can't fix this, I'm going to start posting this to every site I can to find others suffering with this issue and drum up as much support to yell and scream until their so-called "engineers" get moving and fix it. I have zero faith in allowing Apple to handle my payments with Apple Pay if they're unable to fix their oldest mobile offering (playing music!!) for many of their money-paying customers. What the...?!?!

Can't sync music anymore with iOS 8. All disappeared.

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