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

Wow this worked...thanks....a very frustrating week!!!

I tried using manual management. It worked, but I didn't like the way it worked - it didn't update anything after it has been synced across etc.

So I went back to automatically syncing a large smart playlist - slightly less than 32GB. This time I let the phone sync overnight and since then - touch wood - it has been OK.

This "solution" takes forever and only works once.

As a test, I added one song to an existing playlist, and sync'd my iPad Air (iOS 8.0.2) with iTunes 11.4, but nothing happened with the music (new song was still missing from existing playlist).

I sync'd a second time, and it updated the album art for about 1500 of my 3000 songs (even though the album art never changed), then same problem...

I went to the playlist on the iPad Air, and the new song I added in iTunes was still missing, then played first song in playlist, and many but not all songs in the playlist were skipped past and disappeared as I tried to skip forward to play them.  Not all the songs that remain are ones I purchased from iTunes, but this bug is absolutely terrible.

The playlist originally had 46 songs, so it should have had 47 after adding the new song in iTunes.  Now, after trying to sync with iTunes there are 23 left... ***!  I honestly hope all of Apple's software developers get fired and replaced with chimps who would be more competent.

This is a major problem, and I only noticed this happen after recently relabeling all the "Genre" fields for all of my 3000 songs to organize my library better, but not sure if this was happening before and just didn't notice.

I am really sick of Apple's garbage excuse for software... I can't even play my music properly on my $1,000 iPad Air, and $1,000 iPhone 6... absolute garbage.

Join the club, mate. I'm FURIOUS. And I cannot believe they STILL haven't fixed this. I primarily buy Apple products because I'm a musician. Weeks later and there is still no fix! As you say, I spend thousands on Apple products. I feel like taking this to the nearest consumer complaints authority - because let's face it, they clearly aren't listening to their once-loyal customers.

It's amazing they can spend millions of dollars subjecting us forcefully to U2 but can't fix THE MAIN REASON I USE APPLE PRODUCTS FOR.

Bloody disgrace.

I've tried all of the different solutions mentioned in this thread, with varying levels of success. What I finally discovered, through simple trial and error, is that, for me at least, the problem seems to be tied to the presence of certain apps on my iPhone. I reset my iPhone 6 by erasing all settings from the phone itself and then setting it up as a new phone (so as to not bring in anything from a potentially corrupted backup). I've then been able to sync as much music as I wanted on my 128 GB phone. I then went and started reinstalling my apps. After a few apps, I would then try and sync a small playlist to ensure that music syncing was still functioning properly. Once i saw that, I would continue. At a certain point, I would once again run into the inability to sync new music and the wonderful "Syncing Artwork" last step which goes on for a bit and then nothing else with the sync ending at that point. However, if I removed what appeared to be the offending app and then hit Sync, the phone would sync properly, re-syncing the music and all is good in the world again. The apps tend to be ones which, as you may expect, have not been updated to specifically work with iOS 8. It's a random series of apps with no unifying theme to them in terms of purpose and functionality.

However, at the end of the day, after two weeks now I have so far been able to live without those apps and continue to be able to add new music or video (knock on wood). If this changes, I'll post again but I suggest people look at the apps and try a strategy such as the one above to try and isolate which app you have which seems to be interfering with the sync.

regards,

Alex

Please list the offending app(s)

I don't remember them all at this point, but they included Facebook Messenger, an app called Mr. Plurk, NPR Addict and a few others. It was very much a trial and error kind of process. And, once i saw it was interfering, I removed the app. But I've gone over two weeks now with no sync issues at all whereas before it was a daily issue.

Erase all content and settings then setting up as new device worked for my iPad Air, but problem still exists on my iPhone 6, 128GB with zero third party apps installed.

Ok, I spoke to an Apple iOS Senior Advisor this morning and here is the solution that he gave that seems to be working for me so far...

Perform a restore from recovery mode: If you can't update or restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

I'm not sure if it will still work if you restore your phone from a backup, so I setup my iPhone as a new phone just to make sure I got rid of this problem, so either way, make sure you backup all of your stuff first.

Thank you ranwoo - after wasting a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure ths out, deleting the cache and setting to manually manage music and videos seems to have done the trick.  What a nightmare!

Spoke far too soon - after I seem to have succeeded with iPhone (so far) - the same fix will not work with iPad.  Whos has the time to waste with this nonsense ... seriously considering moving to Android.

Here's the latests after updating to OS X Yosemite and iTunes 12.0:

I tried a normal sync with my iPhone 6 128gb and my music appears to be staying on my phone.....however, non of the album artwork for any of the music that I uploaded to iTunes (mp3s, CDs, etc) will transfer to my phone....it's all vanished. I guess that's better than the music at this point or at least a step in the right direction.

I'm going to attempt several more syncs throughout the day to see how things shake out.

You people don't listen...

I spoke to an APPLE SENIOR iOS TECH SUPPORT PERSON yesterday morning, and the problem is not with iTunes, it is from a corrupt installation of the iOS on your iOS device (likely from restoring from a backup from your older iPhone).

Here is the solution he gave me that corrected music not syncing properly, album artwork updating during every sync even though it was not changed, and eliminated duplicates of genres, and it is working for me (so far).  I have an iPhone 6, 128GB.

Perform a restore from recovery mode (instructions at following link): If you can't update or restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

I'm not sure if it will still work if you restore your phone from a backup after performing this procedure, so I setup my iPhone as a new phone just to make sure I got rid of this problem.  Either way, make sure you backup all of your stuff first.

No we people do listen.....that was done many moons ago when iOS 8 first came out. Did a complete phone fresh restore of the iOS and NOT from a backup and recreated the entire phone from scratch. PROBLEM still exists.......so tell your Apple Senior Tech he's wrong.

Yeah, but did you try a restore FROM RECOVERY MODE?

This is where you turn the phone off, hold the home button down while you connect the USB cable to your Mac with iTunes open, and keep holding it until the little red iTunes logo appears on the iPhone screen.

This is different from a regular restore because it downloads and re-installs the latest version of iOS from Apple Servers... doing a regular restore DOES NOT re-install the iOS operating system, but just erases all data.