First Genre in Music within iOS8 shows as a duplicate

Question

First Genre in Music within iOS8 shows as a duplicate

iPhone 5s, 64 GB of memory, iOS 8.0.2. Synced Music from my iTunes library from iMac 27" to this phone and after the iOS 8 update I know see the first Genre in the Music app duplicated with same contents. Genre is Alternative. To test this, I changed the genre on iTunes to Alternative & Punk. Synced and still duplicated Genre of Alternative & Punk appears on Phone. Tried changing songs labelled with Alternative & Punk genre to Punk and re-synced. Punk is not duplicated this time on phone and Alternative & Punk does not appear as a Genre. Alternative Rock is now at top and not duplicated. I then did a further test. I changed all the songs in Punk genre back to Alternative genre in iTunes library, re-synced, and checked phone. Alternative genre on phone is duplicated again with same contents. Something about the genre labels Alternative and Alternative & Punk that cause duplication on the phone. The music is not duplicated, but category is. Also, I restarted phone each time I re-synced to make sure nothing was stuck in the OS.

Any suggestions other than not using these two genres?

Thanks

iPhone 5s, iOS 8

Posted on Sep 26, 2014 1:10 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Sep 29, 2014 6:10 PM in response to Chris Kirchberg

Chris,

I seem to be having the same issue. My first genre of music is also being duplicated under my Genre menu on my iPhone. It looks like when I play a song from one of the duplicated genre, it is also playing from the second as well.

Would you happen to have an iPad synced to your Apple ID? I am wondering if this could be the cause of the duplication we are experiencing. I have my iPad synced to my iPhone, and thinking that something to do with the compatibility of the two being synced together is creating the duplication.

Reply

Answer 2

Sep 30, 2014 12:10 PM in response to LoganWilliams

I do have my iPad linked to my Apple ID as well but no music is on it and I do not have iTunes Match turned on either device. I have also turned off show ALL Music and Video. If I log out of my Apple/iCloud account on my iPad, I still see the duplicate Genre. This only seems to happen if I have Alternative or Alternative & Punk as a Genre

Reply

Answer 3

Oct 3, 2014 10:27 AM in response to Chris Kirchberg

Has anybody figured out how to solve this? Every single one of my genres is in duplicate.

Reply

Answer 4

R_Sam

Level 1

0 points

Oct 7, 2014 11:13 AM in response to Fraser Hare

You're in good shape if your first genre is only showing up once. I've attempted to wipe all data from the phone and start over. No such luck. Each time I attempted to synch the phone it would add another another "Alternative" genre. All of the contents are exactly the same. Now my first five genres are "Alternative." While not a crippling problem, it is VERY annoying.

Reply

Answer 5

R_Sam

Level 1

0 points

Oct 7, 2014 11:15 AM in response to R_Sam

I should clarify iPhone 6 iOS 8.02

Reply

Answer 6

Oct 7, 2014 11:54 AM in response to R_Sam

So this is iOS 8 specific and not phone specific. That stinks.

Reply

Answer 7

Oct 28, 2014 6:31 PM in response to Chris Kirchberg

I was able to fix my own problem. I deleted the iTunes music library and associated files (except the iTunes Media folder). I then reimported the media from the iTunes Media folder. I then restored my iPhone and all is fine now.

Reply

Answer 8

Dec 7, 2014 5:21 PM in response to Chris Kirchberg

Did you delete the iTunes library from your desktop or your iPhone? And you did a reset and restore of your iPhone from a backup?

I've got this problem and can't fix it just by deleting the music from my iPhone and re-syncing. I was hoping not to have to do a reset / restore since that's a hassle (or delete my Mac's iTunes library and restore that). But I've got three copies of the "Alternative" genre.

Reply

Answer 9

Dec 10, 2014 7:53 AM in response to DavidFischder

I have the identical problem on an iPhone 6+. The first floor genres, Alternative in this case, are duplicates. I noticed this problem showed up when I six playlists to my phone from iTunes. Without the playlists, the problem doesn't show up on the phone. I have used iExplorer to delete music files from phone, But once music and playlists are reinstalled the problem reappears. It's annoying.

Reply

Answer 10

Dec 27, 2014 7:35 PM in response to Chris Kirchberg

I'm having the same problem of my iPhone 5 and iPhone 6 (iOS8 on both, syncing from my MacBookAir running MacOS10). The first two genres are duplicated 3-6 times. I've have tried completely reinstalling all the songs, and restoring both phones from their backups. This started before iOS8 as I remember, but I have not been able to fix this issue.

Reply

Answer 11

Dec 28, 2014 9:41 PM in response to DavidFischder

I deleted the library from my desktop. I also restored my iPhone but set it up as a new phone. This happened again on my new iPhone 6. This time I restored my new iPhone and setup as a new phone, not from backup. I believe it is a corrupt library database file that that exists on the phone.

I also noticed that it only seems to replicate genres that begin with the letter A. I renamed my "Alternative" genre to "A" and "A" was duplicated. I renamed it to "B" and "B" was not duplicated. I renamed it back to "A" and "A" was duplicated. Strange in deed.

Reply

Answer 12

Jan 24, 2015 11:29 PM in response to Chris Kirchberg

So I am confused. I have the exact same problem as others here, but this is a Apple website, why are there no responses from Apple? Having to delete/restore, rinse and repeat just doesn't seem like our job after intentionally paying top dollar for products based on a seamless/easy to operate product line. Am I missing something?

Reply

Answer 13

Feb 16, 2015 12:57 PM in response to Chris Kirchberg

Is there a way to solve this problem without doing a complete phone restore? I just bought my iPhone 6 two days ago and they imported contacts, etc, at the store - but I don't know how to do that on my own. If I do a complete restore, I'll lose all the info that was just imported. Any advice would be great. Thank you.

Reply

Answer 14

Mar 6, 2015 4:38 AM in response to Chris Kirchberg

I have the same problem with the genre "Acoustic Pop" which appears 4 times.

iPhone 5, OS8.1.3, iTunes v.12.1.1.4 running on Windows Vista.

I tried doing a full restore, I tried deleting the iTunes library - after hours of fiddling nothing worked.

Then, just after the last but one iTunes update, the problem disappeared and all was well. Then last week I updated iTunes to v.12.1.1.4 and the problem returned. I am convinced that there is a problem with the way iTunes syncs with the phone. As far as I can see, Apple apparently fixed it quietly, and then accidentally broke it again.

APPLE EMPLOYEES IF YOU ARE READING THIS IT MIGHT BE NICE TO INTERACT WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS FROM TIME TO TIME

instead of leaving us all to scream ourselves hoarse in a windowless cellar.

Reply

Answer 15

Mar 10, 2015 9:06 AM in response to Chris Kirchberg

So after deleting my iTunes XML files and ITL files, restoring the iPhone several times and finally losing the will to live, I was unable to solve this problem. To make matters worse, iTunes kept getting stuck on Step 4 or 5 "Waiting for changes to be applied", so I couldn't even put the music back that wanted to. I switched off settings > Music > Display All Music but this still would not work.

Then my phone alerted me that it was time to update my phone to iOS8.2. I updated my phone and after several hours re-re-re-syncing my music onto my phone, this has, apparently, solved the problem.

The issue did appear to have been fixed after iOS 8.1.2 (approximately), then returned to haunt me on the next update. The ReadMe for iOS8.2 informs me that, among the bugs fixed in this update were:

Fixes an issue where duplicate iTunes purchased content could prevent iCloud restore from completing
Resolves an issue where some music or playlists didn’t sync from iTunes to the Music app
Fixes an issue where deleted audiobooks sometimes remained on device

I think it's pretty safe to conclude that this issue is an Apple bug which cannot be fixed by the user but by an iOS update. The fact that Apple have managed to fix this bug and then re-break it again does not inspire confidence. I'd like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Apple for totally ignoring difficulties reported in this forum and utterly failing to interact with their paying customers.

Reply