Sync & auto convert high-bitrate songs - many songs skipped

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Sync & auto convert high-bitrate songs - many songs skipped

I have a large library of Apple Lossless music that I've ripped from my CD collection, in iTunes 12.1 on Windows 8. When syncing to my iPhone 6 with "Convert higher bitrate songs to AAC 256k" selected, anywhere from 10-40% of the songs being added appear on the iPhone music library, but will not play. They just get skipped over and the next song starts.

I've watched the syncing/converting process in iTunes closely, and I can see this happening in real time: with my iPhone music library visible in iTunes during the sync, I can see each track being transcoded in turn, with a little progress circle that gradually fills up as the track is transcoded.

For most tracks, this takes 5-10 seconds, but for some, it appears to happen instantly - it seems that iTunes is not actually transcoding them, but it thinks it has, and the song is indexed in the iPhone music library even though it has not been properly transcoded & synced.

I've tried unchecking an album, syncing again to remove it from the iPhone, then checking it and syncing again to add it back. Same thing happens, though with different tracks missing - it seems random which tracks transcode & sync properly and which end up missing.

The result of this is that I have a 128GB iPhone with a music library full of partial albums, each album missing a few (or many) tracks. This is incredibly frustrating, to say the least.

Has anyone else run into this problem and come up with a solution?

If not, I may have to just sync the full ALAC files to my phone and sacrifice storage space. Wouldn't it be nice if this useful feature actually worked?

iPhone 6, iOS 8.1.3

Posted on Feb 23, 2015 11:18 AM

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Answer 1

rsdofny

Level 1

15 points

Feb 23, 2017 12:37 PM in response to JAinOAK

If you only have a few playlists that need to port over, I wonder if it is helpful to code them in 256k before moving them over to the phone.

This has to be the most frustrating experience with iTunes.

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Answer 2

ed2345

Level 9

62,498 points

Feb 23, 2015 5:16 PM in response to JAinOAK

Interesting. I guess we can add this to the list of "reasons to avoid Apple Lossless."

As an experiment, you can convert a few of the troublesome ALACs to AIFF and see if "Convert higher bit rate..." does a more reliable job on them.

Also, you can report the bug to Apple at this page:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html

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Answer 3

JAinOAK Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 27, 2015 5:06 PM in response to ed2345

Thanks for the suggestion - I tried your experiment by ripping a new CD to both ALAC and AIFF and doing several trials of syncing each version & automatically converting to 256 AAC. The bottom line: the problem appears worse with ALAC, but not limited to it.

I synced the AIFF version of the album 3 times (removing the songs from the iPhone between each trial)

Once, it synced & converted the whole album perfectly.

Twice, there was 1 track that appeared on the iPhone but refused to play. A different track each time.

I synced the ALAC version 3 times.

The number of songs that refused to play on the iPhone varied from 2-5 on each trial. Not conclusive, but definitely seems worse than the AIFF performance.

Also, each time, there were 1-2 tracks that did not manage to convert & sync at all - they are greyed out on the iPhone, and the little exclamation mark icon appeared next to them during the sync process. Again, the problems occured with different tracks from trial to trial.

All of these tracks play just fine on my iTunes library.

Needless to say, this is driving me nuts!

Edited to add: I haven't found any other reports of this particular problem occuring for anyone else. I find it pretty difficult to believe that I'm experiencing a unique iTunes problem that nobody has run into before, though.

Also, I'm actually using iTunes 12.1.1 on Windows 8, not 12.1 as reported in the original post.

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Answer 4

ed2345

Level 9

62,498 points

Feb 27, 2015 7:05 PM in response to JAinOAK

JA,

I have not seen the problem reported here before either. But your evidence is pretty sound. You might as well report it to Apple via the Feedback page at http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html , and hopefully Apple will fix the flaw.

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Answer 5

JAinOAK Author

Level 1

0 points

Mar 2, 2015 9:26 AM in response to ed2345

I've reported it. I guess now I just wait for future iTunes updates to give it another try, and in the meantime I've unchecked "Convert higher bitrate songs..." and will have to settle for keeping a much smaller subset of my music library on my phone, in full ALAC. Thanks for the advice - fingers crossed for a fix someday.

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Answer 6

Mar 11, 2015 6:18 PM in response to JAinOAK

The general problem you are facing is syncing a lossless music collection on your computer (PC or Mac is irrelevant) to a lossy version of your music collection to your iphone via transcoding. This does not work very well via itunes and has actually been an issue discussed on many forums for years. Apple did add the transcode to X check box within itunes. ("Convert higher bit rate songs...") But this does not work very well as you have noticed. It is not clear if it is CBR or VBR but after running my own tests using different encoders I believe it is encoding using CBR, (which leaves music files unnecessarily larger than transcoding to VBR.)

This transcoder check box does exhibit behaviour which indicates it is tied to the music import settings within itunes. While there is no logical explanation why this should be the case, I have found if I change my import settings from Apple Lossless to AAC VBR 96kbps I get a smaller file output from the itunes transcoder when trying to sync songs to my iphone. Again I can't explain why one setting is necessarily tied to the other as they should be entirely unrelated, but they appear like they are connected.

As far as certain songs not transcoding correctly (which is your specific issue if I understand you correctly) I have also seen this. Apple has not offered a real explanation but I think it is either A) an issue where the iphone is only capable of playing (thus saving) music files of specific formats which may included VBR/CBR settings and/or specific kbps, and/or B) the song order during transcoding is not as simple as WYSIWYG. Often it seems if not all of your songs will fit on your iphone itunes determines X number of songs won't fit on your iphone and it is deciding for you which songs to sync and which ones not to. In this case you'll end up with many incomplete albums.

I like a lot about apple but they really need to let users have more configurability. Some people will never use the extras. But some of us NEED it.

If you learn more about this, please reply as I'd love to get my sync to work like it should. 290gb lossless collection to a 64gb iphone.

Timothy

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Answer 7

Mar 17, 2015 5:19 AM in response to JAinOAK

mine does the same but im trying to get it to convert my itunes purchased songs which are 256kps to 128k but im having same problem, iphone 5s just skips over some songs when i try to play them

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Answer 8

Jun 4, 2015 8:25 AM in response to JAinOAK

I tried so many times and it's always the same. I'm using Windows 8.1, iTunes 12.1.2, iPad 8.3, iPad nano 7th. I have over 80gb of music, and the only way to transfer all music is to convert mp3 files from 320 to 128. I synced so many times over, but nothing. I even downloaded some songs again, but still doesn't work. Sometimes it seems to me that iTunes is working against me. 🙂 I'm not gonna give up, I'm gonna call them if I have to, they have to fix it!

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Answer 9

Aug 16, 2015 5:13 AM in response to JAinOAK

I have exactly the same issue. Sadly reporting that the issues continues with the latest iTunes 12.2.2.25 (64-bit) on Windows 10. Some folks mentioned calling Apple up - wonder if they got any additional information...

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Answer 10

Tahash

Level 1

0 points

Oct 27, 2015 10:00 PM in response to JAinOAK

I'm also having this issue. I have over 15,000 ALAC songs in my iTunes that play perfectly but when I use the on the fly transcoding I will regularly run into a track that skips over until it finds a track that it can play. Another issue is that while syncing a notification will show up saying that a song couldn't be converted but on a subsequent sync the song converts just fine. It's very frustrating and I hope we get this resolved soon.

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Answer 11

c_g_f

Level 1

0 points

Jan 3, 2016 6:51 AM in response to JAinOAK

Same problem here! it's really frustrating.. Also I wish there was an option for only transcoding lossless music, because selecting the option also transcodes the 320 mp3s into whatever you choose..

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Answer 12

Sep 3, 2016 9:51 AM in response to c_g_f

How do you know for sure that it transcodes 320 mp3s? Can you somehow see the file type on the iPhone? Is there a log somewhere that shows what was transcoded?

Thanks!

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