Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Music not syncing to iPhone 6

I could download my purchased (through iTunes) music, but those are now the only songs on my iPhone 6.


Obviously I have iOS 8 on the phone, and I have 10.9.4 on my MacBook Pro, with iTunes 11.4. With the iPhone connected and the appropriate playlists and albums selected under the Music tab, I press sync and apps sync, photos sync, but music doesn't -- at least not completely.


When I select the "On This iPhone" tab and Tones, all 9 of the ring tones I've created are there. With "On This iPhone" and Music selected in the left side menu bar, I am told there are 1767 items, but every item (other than songs purchased through iTunes) is grayed out.


This makes it look like the music is trying to get to the iPhone, or is partially there, but it clearly is not there.


Thanks for any direction/thoughts/ideas on how to correct this.

iPhone 6, iOS 8

Posted on Sep 22, 2014 2:06 AM

Reply
Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Sep 22, 2014 11:46 AM

Since I couldn't figure out how to edit my original post, I'll reply to myself and note that this issue is RESOLVED.


I made two changes, one on the phone and one on iTunes, and one of them -- or the combination -- worked. I don't have time to learn which it was.


On the phone I changed Restrictions (Settings > General > Restrictions) to do immediate downloads of music from other devices. I did this because a couple of years ago I had a similar issue with an app not syncing and that turned out to be the issue.


On iTunes I checked the box under Options (on the Summary tab) that says "Sync only checked songs and videos." This had never been checked before, because "Sync Music" was selected under the Music tab, along with the radio button "Selected playlists, artists, albums and genres" and that was sufficient.


Whichever it was, it worked and the music is now on the iPhone 6 and playing like a champ.

52 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Sep 22, 2014 11:46 AM in response to Lewis Greer

Since I couldn't figure out how to edit my original post, I'll reply to myself and note that this issue is RESOLVED.


I made two changes, one on the phone and one on iTunes, and one of them -- or the combination -- worked. I don't have time to learn which it was.


On the phone I changed Restrictions (Settings > General > Restrictions) to do immediate downloads of music from other devices. I did this because a couple of years ago I had a similar issue with an app not syncing and that turned out to be the issue.


On iTunes I checked the box under Options (on the Summary tab) that says "Sync only checked songs and videos." This had never been checked before, because "Sync Music" was selected under the Music tab, along with the radio button "Selected playlists, artists, albums and genres" and that was sufficient.


Whichever it was, it worked and the music is now on the iPhone 6 and playing like a champ.

Sep 25, 2014 4:03 AM in response to Lewis Greer

I'm having similar issues, Having looked at your reply was your restrictions already off or were they on. Mine is currently off at the moment


Having recently purchased the new IPhone 6 and connecting it to ITunes to sync all my stuff, all my apps, ringtones, books and photos have all gone on perfectly ok except my music. I have ticked the box in ITunes for the IPhone to install all my music but when It has finished the sync I go onto my phone into music it just starts to skip and has only installed some songs and not all them. I have tried to manually install the ones that have the cloud next to them but after pressing the cloud it looks as if it will install but then the cloud appears next to the song again.


I have tried to restore the phone back to factory settings a few times but once I do that and connect it back up to ITunes to sync it just freezes so I have to switch the phone off and on again.

Sep 25, 2014 12:11 PM in response to daveyalders

I'm having the same issue on my new iPhone 6 128 GB. Things I've purchased on iTunes (including music videos) are there, but other music isn't there.


Some of it shows up, but when you try to play them it skips right past until it finds something or keeps looping forever flashing between songs that are missing. Stopping the music app and launching it again doesn't change anything.


Most of my music is imported from CD as Apple lossless, but I've selected the "down-convert" to 256 kbps option (or I wouldn't have enough space, even with 128 GB). I left my phone syncing overnight because I knew it would take a while. My MacBook Air was working hard on something as I went to bed... the fan was spun up as loud as I've ever heard it. In the morning, it said it was done. Clicking "sync" again made no changes to anything on my iPhone.


When I change things to sync no music and click sync it all disappears, but then trying to set it up to sync my entire library still fails.


Oddly, iTunes bar graph for my iPhone shows I should have only about 50 GB of free space after I click "sync my entire library", but then the audio shrinks down after a sync and I still have 95.2 GB free.


I don't have any restrictions enabled and I have tried both with and without the "sync only checked songs and videos". No change.

Sep 25, 2014 10:21 PM in response to Puffergeek

There is one other setting adjustment that I made that might make a difference, and I forgot to post it originally.


Under Settings > iTunes & App Store scroll down to Automatic Downloads and toggle Music to on.


I think only (App Store) Updates is on by default, and I turned on all four. I'd be curious to know if that makes a difference for either of you.


BTW, daveyalders, I went through the "restore" thing a couple of times when I had an issue something like this with my old 4S and it didn't help at all. Later I told a fellow at a Genius Bar about that and he said that in his experience it rarely was a useful step and that it would not help in this instance. I applaud you for going through it, but apparently if it didn't work the first time there is no need to try it again.

Sep 29, 2014 8:33 PM in response to Lewis Greer

I had the same problem. I did almost every suggestion and nothing worked. In fact it got worse there for a little bit, duplicating songs, adding songs that were not in my list ect.. I just wanted to share what I did that worked like a charm for me.

*This won't be for everyone but its worth a shot!


On iphone I went to Settings > Music > and turned off Show all music

On itunes I went to My Device > Music tab > uncheck Sync Music

(this told me that all the music will be removed from my phone. I checked apply. Most of the music was erased but I did need to manually do some)

Once all the music was off my phone, I shut it off and Quit iTunes

I then turned on my phone and then iTunes.

I let my phone do the initial syncing without the music. Once done, I checked the Sync Music tab and again synced my phone.


Seems like a lot of steps but it worked for me. Also I wanted to add that before I did this, I had a lot of songs with clouds next to them. These songs I did not want on my phone and the phone would not let me delete them. I even hid them on iTunes and they still showed up. The steps above however took care of that problem and those songs are not longer on my phone.


Hope it works for someone else. Had to share.

Oct 1, 2014 12:37 AM in response to Lewis Greer

Hi, I have been having the same issue. I also tried to remove all songs and then re-sync. That involved deleting a couple hundred manually...during which Music would quit on me occasionally. There was one song that just wouldn't delete. On the iPhone I accidentally clicked More and I decided to click on each. There is a Shared option, which I think is because I signed up for Family Sharing (but links sent in the invitation do not work - but that's another topic), and I notice my 6+ was checked and the other option was my library...so I selected the library and then did a sync with iTunes, all music and that fixed the issue.

Oct 4, 2014 5:25 PM in response to Lewis Greer

I was having the same trouble as everyone else and tried all above solutions to no avail including 3 restores from backup and setting the phone up afresh. In the music app on the phone I went to the shared tab under "more" and changed the selection to my library instead of the phone. This seems to have restored all my music instantly.

Oct 8, 2014 4:02 AM in response to Lewis Greer

I am having a similar issue with my iPhone 6 128Gb running iOS 8.0.2 (Macbook Pro running Mac OSX 10.9.5 and iTunes 11.4).


Since I bought the 128Gb model, I thought "cool, I'll finally be able to sync my whole music library from iTunes" ! But no, I can not.


I have restored the phone for a fresh start, let it sync with iTunes and all my music was downloaded to my phone. The same morning I added a new album to my library (just 8 songs), music that I wanted on the iPhone so I plugged it in, and clicked "sync". It stood there for hours, locked on step 4/4 ("Waiting for changes to apply" - or similar, I have a non-english iTunes). So I decided I had to stop it, clicked the cross in iTunes and let it do it's thing. When it eventually stopped, all my music was marked as "others" and I had no music on my Music app on the phone (except the music bought on iTunes for some reason).


Right now, I'm restoring again and I think I'll just use Spotify to listen to music on my phone. I am really angry about this. Apple sells a one thousand euros worth phone, and one of the main feature is simply not working at all. Remember the announcement of the iPhone: a phone, an iPod and and internet communicator. Really not pleased.

Oct 8, 2014 4:35 AM in response to pputnam

Right, thank you pputnam for pointing out this thread. It appears that this is exactly the bug I'm experiencing. I have quite a big library though, so I'll wait on a fix from Apple instead of manually tracking the duplicates.


That's a really annoying bug, but at least I'm happy it was identified and to know a fix is in the works =)


You can read about the bug here : http://robservatory.com/a-nasty-little-itunesios-bug-may-be-causing-media-sync-i ssues/

Oct 13, 2014 10:01 AM in response to Lewis Greer

The only thing that worked for me was signing up for iTunes Match. You do that within iTunes, and it uploads all your music to the cloud (or "matches" with music that already exists in the cloud library), including music you didn't purchase through iTunes. Then, on your phone, you have to turn it on in Settings | Music (iTunes Match - set to "on"). Your phone will then allow you to download whatever music you want (if it's not already on your phone's hard drive) by clicking on the cloud icon next to each song (or you can also download entire playlists or albums). This allowed me to finally see the songs that were in my iTunes library but had not been syncing to my phone.


It's $24.95 per year for this service, but it's pretty convenient. AND it's the only thing that worked for me. Almost wonder if Apple purposely made syncing difficult to get people to subscribe to this.

Oct 13, 2014 4:10 PM in response to Lewis Greer

Another iPhone 6 128GB user who cannot sync his music library here. I've tried all of the above suggestions and still my selected albums and artists will not sync to my phone. This is primarily albums I've imported using iTunes CD import.


Pitty, this used to be the easiest part of owning an iPhone, getting your music on to it. Now it's among the worst.


Regrettable that they can't get the things that were working right.

Music not syncing to iPhone 6

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.