Q: Music Hasn't Synced on my iPhone/iPod Touch Properly in OVER 2 YEARS PLEASE READ!

Question

AJGiorgio

Level 1 (0 points)

Q: Music Hasn't Synced on my iPhone/iPod Touch Properly in OVER 2 YEARS PLEASE READ!

I'm sharing a thread from another site of OTHER frustrated apple customers that speak EXACTLY what has been going on with me:

Apple Said They Fixed iOS Device Syncing; But They Didn’t

I’m so tired of sync problems with iTunes. I ripped some CDs yesterday, and added the music to a playlist that syncs to my iPhone. I wanted to sync the music to my device before walking on my treadmill earlier today, but, of course, the music didn’t sync.

What irks me is that Apple claims to have fixed syncing in the latest update to iTunes (version 12.1), but the same problems are still occurring.

“This update also improves performance when syncing with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.”

I’m seeing the exact same problem that Rob Griffiths wrote about, in detail, regarding his then-new iPhone 6. If I look at the music that is listed as being on my device in iTunes, I see this:

All these dimmed tracks show that they are waiting to be synced. But even when the sync finishes – or, more correctly, times out without displaying any errors – the tracks still show as dimmed, and aren’t on the device.

Of course, now I’ve got this other problem, that we see so often when syncing iOS devices:

iTunes now things that my iPhone is totally borked. See all that “Other” space, the yellow in the capacity bar? That’s iTunes now thinking that I don’t have any music on my device, even though the space is used.

I’ve also found that iTunes deleted the contents of some of my playlists, and some playlists entirely. I’ll have to reload a backup of my iTunes library.

Before the release of iOS, syncing was more or less reliable. There were issues, but not as often. But now, it’s a crapshoot.

Come on, Apple, this is getting ridiculous. I’ve restored my iPhone so many times that I’m probably wearing out its flash storage. This happens to so many people, so frequently, that syncing anything to an iOS device is becoming a major ordeal.

If you have sync problems, I would appreciate if you could post a comment below. I’m trying to collect as much information as possible to try and get Apple to pay attention to this issue. Please post the device you’re using, and a brief explanation of the problems you’re having. Also, post if these problems are new, since iOS 8, or if you’ve had them for a long time. Thanks!

56 Comments

Al 02/13/2015 - 3:46 pm

Very well spoken Kirk! I have all of these same issues when trying to sync SINCE the 8.0 update. Reply
Greg Shadley 02/13/2015 - 4:17 pm

Syncing has not improved since the latest update. The only way I can get my devices to update is to do a restore. So frustrating and time-consuming. Reply
Jolly Roger 02/13/2015 - 4:48 pm

This headline is misleading considering Apple didn’t claim to have “fixed iOS device syncing”, but simply that they improved performance of syncing. Reply
miguelmarcos 02/13/2015 - 5:34 pm

‘Improved performance of syncing’ mean less dimmed tracks than before! Reply
Al 02/13/2015 - 5:38 pm

As Greg Shadley said earlier – Syncing has NOT improved. It’s a train wreck. Reply
galley99 02/13/2015 - 8:42 pm

I sometimes see files on my iPhone that are 128 Kbps versions of recently purchased tracks, and thus are duplicates. Reply
Cr 02/13/2015 - 9:16 pm

Apple doesn’t change…..only I can or have to. Don’t take it too serious; after all itunes is part of the entertainmentbusiness. Reply
JO 02/13/2015 - 11:36 pm

Don’t know if this is any help. Dealing with the grey UL songs since Update 8.0. I checked “Manually manage music and videos”. When I drop the tunes onto the iPad some will transfer most won’t and it keeps spinning forever. I soon as I click sync all songs are getting transferred.
I also set Backups “This computer”. Helped a friend a few days ago and it worked on the iPhone as well. Reply
paulzeb 02/14/2015 - 10:08 am

Since iTunes 11 and iOS 8, all iTunes and iOS versions are severely broken. Endless sync process, bugs of ALL kind etc … The countless forums on the web are FULL of very dissatisfies customers, since at least 2 years.
The only thing Apple has to do in order to continue to be successful, is to FIX, FIX, FIX and FIX again iTunes and iOS. STOP the new features, take iTunes 10.7 and iOS 7.1.3 as great examples of what HAS TO BE DONE. Reply
Indigo Sunhouse 02/16/2015 - 5:33 pm

Since ios 7, syncing has failed.
I’m currently on ios 8.1.3, iTunes 11.2.2., and yes, I bought a new iPhone in an attempt to ‘solve’ the problem. It’s not hardware based, it’s software based.
I’ve now spent weeks and months, both on my own and with the ‘highest’ level of Apple support. Their faux ignorance is nothing short of an utter disgrace. iTunes should be one of Apple’s greatest international advertisements but like so many of their offerings of late, they seem merely hellbent on making a profit off their fanbase.
I know that GoogleMusic works, pretty much, flawlessly, because I’ve used it. And there’s no point in denying there’s some pride being dented here. I’ve championed iTunes with audiophiles and record labels as one of the, if not the, best music library/indexer out there. For ease of use and for many stable technical reasons too. but it does not sync (reliably) to your $1000 device anymore.
If there’s one reason why this is so, it may be that the next evolution of iTunes will not include syncing as we know it, especially if you have over 25k of tunes (a bit of a measure of where it all starts to go ‘tits up’).
Reply
rich 02/21/2015 - 9:58 pm

been having these problems as well. it sits for hours and doesn’t complete syncing. apple needs to fix this!!!!!! Reply
Brent 02/25/2015 - 11:17 pm

Similar issues here. I’ve found that if i manually add one or two albums at a time by dragging and dropping, then wait until they have fully loaded to the phone before loading the next album or two, it generally works better. If I try to add 10-20 albums at a time, I get the sync error where it looks like the files have loaded, but they don’t. And often times it deletes the rest of the music off of my phone. But when I connect to itunes, it still shows all of the songs on my iphone. I’ll do a “Get info” on all of the songs and adjust one field, like BPM to 0, and then it will show which ones syncd (dark) and which ones didnt (! before the song name). Reply
- ryko 03/13/2015 - 11:08 pm
  
  i have a very similar issue as you. iphone 6-64gb, ios 8.2, itunes 12.1.1.4 on a win7 64bit pc. i have manually manage music checked and backup to this computer checked. i have previously avoided syncing bc of similar horror stories and have always just dragged and dropped a few new songs/podcasts everyday and removed a few everyday. never more than 40-50 songs total on my phone and itunes can’t even manage that. so incredibly frustrating.
  since i applied the 8.2 update a few days ago my phone has now been randomly deleting almost all songs and leaving only 2-3 of them in the music app. this has happened at least twice in the past 2 days, once while i was actually listening to a song and it just removed 40 songs (including the one i was actively listening to) and left me with only 2! so i plug my phone into my computer and go to itunes and all of the deleted songs show up under music like normal–not greyed out. if i try to click on one of them to play it, then it greys out with a circle/exclamation point next to it. the 1-2 songs that are still visible in the music app on my phone play fine through itunes.
  have deleted all music from my phone and attempted to start over. have restored from a backup and attempted to start over. have soft reset my phone 2-3 times and attempted to start over. all seems fine for a little bit, and i can drag and drop songs at will. then almost all music will delete from device with no warning. so ******! thinking about rolling back to 8.1 because at least my songs didn’t just randomly disappear from my phone. is this even possible?
  then there is the annoying bug that i have experienced forever where even if i select all songs/podcasts and tell itunes to remember playback position, it refuses to remember! if i switch to another song and attempt to go back to a previously paused one it just starts at the beginning. this should be basic functionality and it is screwed up. it is not a show-stopper like deleting all of my music but it is still annoying that i have to mark down times and dates for songs/podcasts all the time.
  please get it together apple…
  Reply
Sage 03/04/2015 - 10:34 pm

This has been happening for months between my Mac Itunes and ipod Touch. I have spent HOURS at a time troubleshooting this problem with dozens of hours spent over the past 6 months. I am so frustrated. I have had Apple products since the late 80’s and am finally considering an android for my music/audiobook files. Reply
Ron Collman 03/05/2015 - 5:30 am

Ever since updating my iTunes on my MacBook I cannot copy ANY music or anything over to my iPhone 4/5 or newly purchased 6. Am going through the update on iPhone now to 8.13. However I don’t believe this will solve the problem. As the problem began with the update on my MacBook. Currently – iTunes ver. 11.4 on MacBook. and iPhone is iOS 8.1-8.13.
PLEASE OH PLEASE – I would LOVE a fix to this! How do I go backwards in iTunes without restoring a backup? Reply
Renate 03/09/2015 - 10:57 pm

I have a new iphone 6. And a Windows 8.1 PC. LATEST ITUNES AND IOS.
When I click on sync it gives me a error message ” can’t sync this iPhone because of an unknown error -54″
Yes it goes thru the motion of syncing but of course it doesn’t. Hope IOS8.2 will fix but hesitate to download update. Reply
Larry Furr 03/14/2015 - 7:57 pm

iTunes 12.1 fixed nothing from my experience. Nor has iOS 8.2. Syncing is still abysmally broken. New songs won’t transfer. Album artwork gets wiped. Only a restore has any hope of fixing things. It’s the same old same old. The most frustrating thing for me is that the whole reason I own an iPhone 6 (and the iPhones 5C, 5, 4S, 4 and 3GS before that) is because I’ve been a long-time avid user of iTunes and several iPods. My entire music collection (~10,000 songs, many of them purchased from Apple, the rest of them ripped from CDs I actually own) has been meticulously managed using iTunes. I suspect there are many iPhone users out there like me. I feel like Apple is ignoring the very people who helped make the iPhone what it is today. iTunes, iPod and the iOS music app were all the foundation of what is today known as the iPhone. Apple has forgotten its roots, and in doing so, has sent the message that they really don’t care about their earliest adopters and fans.
Reply
z 03/16/2015 - 11:54 am

Chiming in to add my irritated voice to the as-of-yet still shafted chorus. It’s a perverse relief to hear that this is as established an issue as it is, though, of course, a huge bummer to know that Apple’s once-famous Mercedes-Benz reliability is following an uncomfortably similar trajectory. In perhaps the poorest litmus test of all, I *didn’t* have music/sync issues UNTIL I updated, at which point, I GOT them. I’d actually pay to go right back to the latest iOS 7, at this point.
Reply
Ron 03/20/2015 - 6:39 pm

Yeah, I manage my music manually, when i plug my iPhone 5 into iTunes it says there are a bunch of songs on my device that are not on the device. These aren’t shown as greyed out, but normal. If I try to add the song again nothing happens, because it thinks the song is already on the phone. How on Earth can syncing be so hard?? Check if the file’s on the device, if not, add it. Done. Reply
Bobby Grimes 03/29/2015 - 8:41 pm

Aloha, same exact problems as told above. Greyed out and not Syncing when I click Sync. I can buy a whole new album, plug in my iPhone 5S and update, Sync and then be driving down the road and the new songs will not play, since I am DRIVING I have to pull over and sure enough, they are greyed out and iCloud wants to download them… *** I just bought them and put the on my phone. Then I get this same random **** when I update or Sync at any later time. Randomly removing songs.
Is this really so hard? Macbook Pro 2013 Early. Latest iPhone 5s and iTunes. Lion Ver 10.7.5
Reply
ADW 03/31/2015 - 2:10 pm

I have problems with my iPod touch 5th gen. It started with iOS 8 and got worse with every update to iOS and iTunes. I too have restored it, and re installed iTunes so many times that it’s a joke. It started with artwork going missing, then songs skipping, then stuff disappearing altogether. When I plugged it in to iTunes, the songs wouldn’t reload, artwork wouldn’t reappear but my “other” file grew larger and larger. I restored it again this weekend and tried to reload it. At first it was fine, then it lost all music not bought on iTunes (but hey, that other file kept growing). After unplugging it and reconnecting it, all the music was back except for anything bought from iTunes (and yes that other file still was growing). Although people keep complaining about being stuck waiting for syncing to finish, I have the exact opposite problem. My sync goes so quick, I don’t think it completely catches the files I wanted to sync. When I check my iPod the music I synced isn’t there at all, but when I open my iPod on iTunes, it’s all there and plays fine. I just can’t access it directly from my iPod. But who would want a portable device that doesn’t work without being hooked up to laptop anyway? Reply
Jeffrey Laude 04/06/2015 - 10:54 pm

Hi Kirk, Thank you for posting on this issue. I am a long-time iTunes user, and I am severely disappointed with the syncing issues that have since gone unresolved. The syncing issues have actually been amplified since the iOS 8.2 update, and the consecutive iTunes 12.1.1 updates. I don’t mean to resurrect an old article, but it has been an increasing issue that takes time away from my academic work profession in addition to my graduate school work.The issue of having to continuously re-copy music to the iPhone and then re-sync is just as tedious as it is effective. The ironic thing, is that transferring music is one of the biggest forces behind owning an iPhone. The issue is ridiculous, coming from such a successful company as Apple. This should have been nixed the first time. This might require another one of your highly detailed and crystal-clear articles to raise awareness.
Reply
Jeffrey Laude 04/06/2015 - 11:01 pm

The syncing and music transfer functions of iTunes are ineffective. I have also continuously experienced iTunes deleting previously copied music — I manage my files manually, not syncing automatically — after I have added new music to my iPhone during the work day. Again, this can be brutal is songs are often intended for use in my English class lesson activities to help my students. In addition to teaching, I also dj, using Virtual DJ software in conjunction with iTunes. The transfer functions and syncing issues bring lots of complications to my professional life as well as waste frequent amounts of my time. Thank you again for spreading the word and educating the public on this issue. I hope that Apple does recognize this issue sooner rather than later. Reply
DKH 04/12/2015 - 6:39 pm

Add my voice to the growing choir of fed-up iTunes users. I am constantly adding new music to my library, and I manually select tracks (mostly entire albums) to add to my iPhone (5). More often than not when I do this, all the music on my phone is erased, with the notable and shady exception of what I’ve purchased in the iTunes store. I simply cannot understand why this remains such an elusive problem for Apple. It’s simply dragging and dropping data, and I never experienced this in the years prior to the most recent updates. Aren’t updates supposed to make things better? Who the **** has time to go through the endless sync process 5 times or restore before things stick? Reply
nathan 04/16/2015 - 12:28 pm

So annoying!! I want to see what that OTHER **** is. Is that so hard?!?! Reply
Greg 04/16/2015 - 5:49 pm

The iTunes has deleted all my songs and playlists from iPad 2 and IPhone 6. And I cannot copy or sync anything anymore. I have 105 GB free space and I cannot put even 1 song! Nice job morons. I want my money back! Reply
iTunesSucks 04/17/2015 - 5:29 pm

“Upgraded” to iTunes 12 and now cannot manually move any music my iPad2 running iOS 7.1.1. Devices shows as having 32G of “Other” space: no apps, no music, etc. Reply
Barbara 04/19/2015 - 2:07 pm

Thanks. Been staring at these types of articles for 3 and a half months, and restore never did the trick. I had hope this upgrade of the upgrade would fix it.
Last Night, I finally fixed my issue. I had songs purchased on an iPhone that would not transfer to iTunes. Darn you dimmed dotted circle thingy! First Back UP! Back up to the cloud, to the computer and even a USB drive if’n paranoid.
Plug your device into your computer. You are only as good as your last save.
Uncheck “sync” on ALL of your music, and delete from iPhone (iPod or device). Turn everything OFF. Logout of Apple iTunes, on ALL your devices. Computer, iPod, IPhone… do them all>
Now restore the iPhone Using iTunes from the computer. Do not use the iPhone/iPod prompts to restore. Use the application.
Set iPhone backup. Turn on Wi-Fi.
Restore your backup from the cloud, also using the application.
Go to iTunes/File/Devices, and Transfer purchases.
Be patient.
This was a 3 hour endeavor, and because my recent backup, done 20 minutes beforehand, was not displaying in the Cloud, I had to contacted online support. I couldn’t even re-download the song from the store, and yet the app still showed the dimmed music on my phone, which had no music on it. lol
It took the songs purchased in 2008 and dimmed those also. Apple Support watched my devices boot and restore, and was just as perplexed at how messy this it was.
It took a conglomerate of articles to figure this out, and have Apple Support watch online, and YOUR ARTICLE WAS THE BEST HELP EVER!
Because of your wisdom, I have turned off a lot of settings to see if this issue arises again.
I wanted to Thank you for your most helpful articles and links. Humbly grateful. You Rock!
Reply
z 04/21/2015 - 6:23 am

I too have been experiencing sync bugs for what seems like a few years now. It doesn’t matter if you pick “manually manage music” or if you go the sync route, with regularity, iTunes will fail at a sync and many songs will have gray circles. Usually, you will spend hours trying to fix it, and occasionally it will fix, and other times you’ll restore your device. I’m mystified that Apple can’t fix this problem. Using i-devices has now become a living **** when it comes to loading media. PLEASE APPLE…address this issue. It is RUINING your products. Reply
Karl Davis 04/22/2015 - 5:41 pm

Hi I have been having this issue since updating to ios8.1, and it is really getting on my nerves.
I have tried deleting all my music, but yet the problem exsist following that. I am sad to hear that this is still not fixed after all this time. And there I was thinking it was something I was doing wrong.
I am just about to upgrade my phone to a iphone 6 and I fear this will still have the same issue. This is stopping me from creating an up to date backup of my device which is really annoying. Reply
E 04/23/2015 - 5:29 am

I just bought a new Macbook Pro and tried to sync my iPod touch and have all these problems too. I have iTunes 12 and iOS 8.1.3 Reply
Judi 04/27/2015 - 12:12 pm

Yep, I have syncing problems, too. Reply
fake name but real problem 04/28/2015 - 9:32 pm

I have these issues as well. There are three main problems:
1) syncing lag–with gray items never updating
2) sync error–where all contents on iphone show up as a yellow bar at the bottom; there is still room for new material, but it will not let me add it.
3) syncing “broken”–this is where my phone thinks there is no free room on the phone. i have been able to work around 1 and 2 by turning my phone on and off. inconvenient, and it takes a couple minutes.
when #3 happens, I have to restore my phone. this is unacceptable.
i manage music on my phone a couple times a day (with NPR podcasts, etc). syncing problems happen at least every other day.
Reply
- Bill Hanson 08/15/2015 - 10:09 pm
  
  Hi, I also had the “yellow bar” covering the entire bottom of the page with “sync” button grayed out. This you can actually correct by turning your phone/ipad off and then on again.
  So at least that part can be worked around. The other parts are still munged for me as well. Yeesh.
  Reply
GAH 05/08/2015 - 7:08 pm

I’m having the same issues as well! Additionally, there are tracks that I Just. Can’t. Delete. So frustrating! It’s a bummer because there doesn’t seem to be much troubleshooting available online. Reply
Nancy 05/18/2015 - 3:21 am

Having the same issues with syncing new music to both my iPad 2 and my iPhone 6 since the OS 8.3 update. Having a lovely time with the new Photos app (gag!!) not syncing newly uploaded photos to my mobile devices as well. The main issue with music is that all the songs I’m trying to upload from physical CDs are no longer syncing with my mobile devices. The songs are available and play nicely through my iTunes on my MacBook Pro, but show as greyed out in the mobile device library sections in iTunes while the devices are attached via USB cable. The songs aren’t downloading to the devices themselves mind you, but iTunes sure thinks that the songs are there.
I’ve tried just about everything at this point. There is absolutely nothing helpful on the Apple site or support forums. I was beginning to think it was just me until I came across this post.
Reply
Ingarm 05/22/2015 - 3:31 am

I love Apple but i am having the problems. I am so tired of these problem and i am at the point that I’m thinking of looking for something other than iTunes. Reply
Tricia S 06/15/2015 - 8:09 pm

It’s now June 15, 2015 – a good 3 months since you posted above and I am STILL having issues with the gray circle songs not syncing. I’ve tried every fix that I can find on the web, and still no luck. C’mon Apple! Reply
Janine 06/18/2015 - 1:38 am

Just today, as I was putting a new song on my iPod, ITunes deleted over six-hundred songs from my IPods music library. All the songs I did not purchase through ITunes: ie. from ripped cds, other websites, etc. When I look at my songs supposedly in my IPod through ITunes on my computer all my songs are listed as being there, but all the ones not purchased through ITunes have the ! beside them which I believe occurs when ITunes cannot find where the song originated. Also, as described above, ITunes has filed the majority of my IPod storage as Other instead of Audio. Now ITunes is not allowing me to put anymore songs on my IPod, which is only months old, basically making my new IPod unusable. I do not know what to do now since I have basically been ripped off the five-hundred + dollars it cost for this IPod and the hundreds of dollars spent on my cds I now have no means of listening to. Thanks A**holes… I mean Apple. Reply
- galley99 06/18/2015 - 8:50 pm
  
  Are the files not purchased from the iTunes Store located on an external drive? If so, the drive may have become disconnected or the drive may be failing.
  Reply
Val 06/28/2015 - 12:29 am

My iphone 5 crashed last night so i ran to apple and got a 6. Now my songs and playlists wont sync. ***?! Grrrrrrr Reply
blunt logic 06/29/2015 - 2:26 am

basically just broke my phone i was so F*****G mad (well, still works, but is heavily dented, my bad). all i want is 2 songs to be synced, instead it tells me im 29gb over capacity. HOW THE ****. i switched from android and actually like apple, but screw this, too many problems i cant fix myself. im not at the mercy of apple, and if they think i am il just keep my money thank you very much. Apple products really **** me off when they dont stay in the TINY little window they put you in.
Reply
Aida 07/04/2015 - 3:01 pm

Apple is rotting away. It’s official Reply
sean 07/15/2015 - 9:09 am

Apple Blows I’ve never had such a problem with any machine before. This is absolutely pathetic and my request for help was met with a link to an article on the apple support site thats been removed. I really thought that the rest of the world that sees to like icrap might be on to something, maybe icrap wasnt just overpriced garbage in a shiny case. But nope. I was right. I can’t believe I wasted my money on this junk. I miss my waterlogged android. Absolutely pathetic. Reply
Fiona Tolley 07/18/2015 - 12:35 am

I have an iPod 5 with iOS 8.4 and when I tried to download an album it showed up on my iPod with the wrong album artwork so I deleted it and tried again but it didn’t work. I tried again with a different album and the same problem occurring with the artwork so I deleted it as well and now neither with sync again. Reply
Want to uninstall iTunes 07/20/2015 - 6:24 pm

I have iphone 6 and have countless problems. Music appears and plays on iphone that is not showing up on device in itunes – music i DID NOT put on the device; via bluetooth in the car music is misidentified. It all seems to be completely random and I miss my ipod touch. Reply
Juan 07/24/2015 - 3:12 am

Today got two problems, can’t add more music from my iTunes to my iPhone, since the sync bar appear ghostly and the yellow bar full from left to right, still got 4.6 gb available in my iPhone…come on Apple fix this iTunes version. Reply
Ben 07/28/2015 - 11:15 pm

I’ve been struggling with this for so long on my iPhone 5C running 8, .1, .2, .3, .4 etc and it’s also driving me crazy. I’ve taken music off or tried to sync it, and regardless of how many times I try to “Manually Manage Music”, or move to the Apple Music with iCloud Library etc, there’s 32 tracks that keep reappearing in pre-sync, indefinitely. ARGUE!!! Reply
elle 07/31/2015 - 12:00 pm

same exact problems. and i use my phone for music with my lessons at work (i’m a preschool teacher) i basically invested in this phone because i use it so much for work i needed the upgrade (from 4s to 6) but the problems just keep getting worse! Reply
elle 07/31/2015 - 12:05 pm

also, it’s completely random which makes it even more frustrating. 4 weeks ago, everything synced with no issue. last week i spent an hour trying to sync two playlists and couldn’t make anything work. this morning the second attempt had everything synced properly. like i said, i need it for work. i can’t just cross my fingers and hope it works on the day i need it. Reply
Renate 07/31/2015 - 2:15 pm

Why can you Kirkville not approach Apple. The have to fix this. It’s outrageous! Reply
T. Dietz 08/02/2015 - 5:45 am

My latest iTunes sync nightmare: for the past week, EVERY time I sync my iPhone 6 (it does sync), I can no longer edit playlists or delete music from my library. “Delete” and “Option-Delete” don’t work, and the related options in the Edit menu are greyed out. I thought it was a permissions problem, but Disk Util says no. So far sync – quit iTunes – relaunch iTunes – edit playlists seems to work, but what the heck. (iMac 27″ 4K, 10.10.4; iTunes 12.2.0; iPhone 6, iOS 8.3) My second HUGE gripe (sorry… off the sync topic) is the G.D. automagic album ratings. This totally screws one of my paradigms which is all unrated music goes in a “Wean” playlist until it is rated. 1-star songs get trashed, 3 and above saved, and 2s stay in the wean list. Now, hollow-star songs I’ve never heard get sorted in with 3 and 4 star songs I want to keep, Also, searching treats hollow stars (generated by iTunes) and solid stars (awarded by me) the same! Search for 2-star songs, and there are a bunch I’ve never heard. Search for songs I have not yet rated, and… a bunch are missing because iTunes has rated them. This is stupid and infuriating, yet a simple on/off preference is not provided. Advice on how to reset the album ratings has not worked for me. Come on Apple!!! This formerly useful and cool software is becoming more and more stupid and less and less useful.
Reply
Grace 08/04/2015 - 2:47 am

Ya I’m having problems with adding music to my iPod 5th gen (latest ios 8 update). Most of my music is from burning cd’s to my itunes library, so I can’t exactly use the cloud for most of my music. Every time I try to add new music it starts to sync but never actually transfers to my iPod. I’ve reset my iPod multiple times, and it usually works with the first sync, but after the first initial “set-up” it won’t let me add new music, let’s say a few days later…. I don’t want to have to reset my iPod every time I get new music I want to add to it… I gave one of my family members my old iPod 4th gen 8gb, and it still works fine (5 years old) but I’ve barely had this iPod 1 year and it’s getting annoying. If anyone has a solution to this please let me know. Thanks! Reply
Janice Heidt 08/06/2015 - 11:51 am

i’m also having problems with syncing my ipod 5th generation with the latest ios 8 update. it is randomly not syncing songs—the songs appear in the playlist but are not on my device. it is not syncing podcasts correctly either. even worse…..i tried multiple syncs and it duplicated my two favorite playlists in my itunes. so i had “greatest hits” and “greatest hits 1″. i deleted the second copy of the playlist and tried to sync again, and it appeared in itunes again. i just want it to work the way it used to. that podcast playlist synced perfectly on my iphone but not on the ipod…..most of my music comes from ripping my cds though i have some purchases from itunes and it doesn’t matter which, some random songs won’t sync. if you have a solution i would really appreciate it. Reply
- Nancy 08/06/2015 - 8:12 pm
  
  I’m starting to have the same problems you’ve described above with my iPad 2. The double playlists and the songs not synching onto the device. Doesn’t matter if the song is downloaded from the iTunes store or ripped from CD. No rhyme or reason to it. Some songs will migrate during sync and others won’t. It’s maddening! The only way to fix is to delete all music from the iPad, fix the playlists and then reload all the music back on. For me, that process takes several hours. So frustrating to have to do that.
  I plan on visiting the Genius Bar sometime within the next week to see what the **** is up. I will post here if they can give me any information on how to resolve this debacle!
  Reply
Brenna 08/18/2015 - 4:02 am

So my recently added to my iTunes library actually shows up on my phone, but is grayed out and won’t actually play on the phone. I have an iPhone 6 and currently on the iOS 8.4, however about to download 8.4.1 and hope it works… Reply

iPhone 4S, iOS 6.1.3, iPod touch (5th generation), ipad2

Posted on Aug 18, 2015 5:54 AM

I have this question too

Q: Music Hasn't Synced on my iPhone/iPod Touch Properly in OVER 2 YEARS PLEASE READ!

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Helpful answers

by Fredy,

Fredy Oct 27, 2015 6:57 PM in response to AJGiorgio
Level 2 (172 points)

iPhone

Oct 27, 2015 6:57 PM in response to AJGiorgio

My iTunes v12.3.1.23 starts up-dating tracks on my phone whenever it likes. I noticed when I was browsing the tracks on my phone all of a sudden when I tried to play a few they turn up missing and instead of playing a circle with an explanation point in it appears. but track's mp3 info stays there in the iTunes database but when I click it to play the track it's not there! I was thinking that occasionally I may TOUCH files in my library to alter the file date, is it possible iTunes sees this as a different version of the track on my phone and updates it?
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by bacm23,

bacm23 Nov 1, 2015 12:52 AM in response to AJGiorgio
Level 1 (0 points)

Nov 1, 2015 12:52 AM in response to AJGiorgio

This problem has gone unfixed for YEARS. Despite always updating software, my iPhone CONSTANTLY fails to update music properly.

I don't understand how a systematic error such as this can go unfixed for so long. I think it's indicative of bigger problems at Apple, we'll see in time.
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by SHIPPYa,

SHIPPYa Nov 30, 2015 3:49 AM in response to bacm23
Level 1 (0 points)

Nov 30, 2015 3:49 AM in response to bacm23

What the?!!! I too am now getting problems when syncing my iphone 4s 64gb with iTunes.
I too ripped a CD and attempted to sync to my phone so I had the CD on there and it does not appear.
I have experienced this issue when I downloaded some tracks from iTunes too. Looked for them in my library and for the life of me could not find them!
I only listen to tunes on my phone so, buying them and not being able to hear them is more than frustrating. I have loads of memory on my phone so that is not the issue. Weirdly, this problem has only started since all the IOS updates from earlier this year
Interestingly - when syncing my i-pad; all tracks seem to copy across.

Along with this issue, I have now experienced the following:
Sometimes when I click to play a track through the lap-top (as I could not find all tunes on my phone), I am now experiencing the issue where the track I click into does not play. The speaker symbol sits next to the track I have selected but the track will not start (the time stays at 0.00 minutes and seconds).
In addition, after logging off and on again countless times, once a track starts playing, suddenly after around 10 minutes of listening to music, everything just stops playing.

I cannot begin to express just how frustrated I am with all of these issues.
I have read loads of posts relating to the same issues and am none the wiser as to what to do the remedy this problem.

Please can someone help me sort this - or better still APPLE can you sort it please as it's clear that a great number of people experience the same or similar issues.
Would I be better to post something of this nature on Social media and see what gets done then?
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by erinvz,

erinvz Jan 21, 2016 2:16 AM in response to AJGiorgio
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Jan 21, 2016 2:16 AM in response to AJGiorgio

I was looking up something else, and thought of this problem, so this was the link I found. Glad it's not me. I have gone through 2-3 iphones over the years, am now on another, was running windows 8 or somesuch, NEVER ONCE did it sync all the way or properly. According to my phones, they said they had NEVER BACKED UP. At the end of a two to three hour wait while it was doing it's syncing, it would say, NAH couldn't do it. Better luck next time! So you sit there and run trouble shooters and try not to get out the six shooters, and then, I JUST had to do a FULL reset on my Windows and am on a fresh slate, windows 10, the very first and only program I have downloaded on this squeaky clean bad-boy is ITunes. Guess what? NUTHIN. I give up. I can't figure out this "cloud" thing. I think every type of technology should have very simple words for what the things mean. TEMPORARY STORAGE THAT IS JUST THERE is better than "cloud" and WHY ON EARTH IS THERE 2 DIFFERENT ROLLS OF PHOTOS AND NO ONE CAN REMEMBER WHICH ARE THE ONES THAT SAVED... My phone sometimes gets the music I choose off my computer and sometimes not. It USUALLY says it's there, it is discoverable, but sometimes, it will not for the life of it recognize. Today, my problem is I had a temper tantrum and threw my phone at someone, and it fell on the sidewalk and cracked the entire screen OFF. I am not sure how on earth it is still turning on, but it even stayed on in the rain. There are phone parts everywhere. But I CANT LOG ONTO MY COMPUTER BECAUSE IT WANTS A PASSCODE. I WOULD BE ABLE TO DO MY THUMB PRINT, BUT EVERY TIME YOU TURN OFF YOUR IPHONE, IT WANTS YOU TO MANUALLY PUNCH IN THE DATA. I DON'T BELIEVE FOR A SECOND THAT THERE IS NOT A WAY AROUND THIS. MY PHONE CANNOT PRESS BUTTONS. IT'S CLINGING TO DEAR LIFE. I WANT MY PHOTOS AND I DON'T WANT TO RUIN MY FRESH PC BY INSTALLING MORE ICRAP THAT WILL NOT SYNC ANYWAY AND MESS WITH THE PERFORMANCE. I THINK I MAY HAVE ANOTHER TANTRUM. CUZ TRY LOOKING UP AN ANSWER FOR THAT ****. I CAN'T RESTART IT AND IT WON'T SYNC UNLESS I OK MY COMPUTER FROM THE PHONE.
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by arun294,

arun294 Apr 12, 2016 2:29 PM in response to erinvz
Level 1 (0 points)

Apr 12, 2016 2:29 PM in response to erinvz

Hello Bro,

Still i m facing the issue ,can anyone help me to resolve this kind of issue.

Thanks in Advance
Arunraj
Singapore

<Link Edited by Host>
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by minisaez,

minisaez Apr 12, 2016 2:14 PM in response to AJGiorgio
Level 1 (8 points)

iTunes

Apr 12, 2016 2:14 PM in response to AJGiorgio

53. Windows 10, iphone6s, itunes 12.3 - Apple music = DISASTER - i lost Most of music "in the cloud" meaning that when i'm out for a run, i have little or no music. Last count, i am missing 2,000 tracks. So, i tried buying new music directly from my iphone ONLY - well, that was even worse - New titles are not showing up in either my laptop or iphone. I tired rebuying them - but no, I have ALREADY purchased these items and they cant be rebought. Apple: ARE YOU LISTENING? This is ridiculous. I can't manage manually any more (thanks for that, I guess you think we're all idiots). FIX THIS!!!!!
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by Meg St._Clair,

Meg St._Clair Apr 12, 2016 3:53 PM in response to minisaez
Level 9 (58,522 points)

iPhone

Apr 12, 2016 3:53 PM in response to minisaez

minisaez wrote:

Apple: ARE YOU LISTENING?

No, they are not listening here. This is a user-to-user technical support forum. If you want to speak to Apple directly, use the Contact Us link at the bottom right of every page. If you want to give them feedback, use the feedback link:

http://www.apple.com/feedback
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by ozraikat,

ozraikat Apr 16, 2016 3:54 PM in response to AJGiorgio
Level 1 (4 points)

Apr 16, 2016 3:54 PM in response to AJGiorgio

Have the same problem to and it's to 3 iPod touches all having the same issue.......so over the constant fight and it gets worse every time there is an update. Seriously considering getting rid of apple altogether and going to the competition.
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Q: Music Hasn't Synced on my iPhone/iPod Touch Properly in OVER 2 YEARS PLEASE READ!

Apple Said They Fixed iOS Device Syncing; But They Didn’t

56 Comments

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by Fredy,

by bacm23,

by SHIPPYa,

by erinvz,

by arun294,

by minisaez,

by Meg St._Clair,

by ozraikat,

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