Itunes 12.7 bug: every song is its own album

I have just now found that if I drag & drop directly to my iPhone the albums don't group, but if I first import into the iTunes library and then add to iPhone from there, they sort properly. Still a bug, but at least it's a relatively simple workaround.

NOTE TO APPLE: Have you even tried testing these updates before you publish them?

I have Had this problem too on IPhone 8 and Ipad 5th Gen.

I'll not go through all the painful and time consuming hoops I had to go through to find the solution that worked for me but the problem appears to be with how the media files are converted to AAC on download to the Device.

The solution is to untick the "Convert higher bit rate songs to" tick box in Summary/Options and for me every song fell into the right place after a Re-Synch. Of course this can open a whole new can of worms if your device is short on space and you have a lot of higher bit rate files.

This worked for me and I hope it works for you too!

I have a lot of mp3 files not from iTunes and consistently get this issue.

The only work around I have found is to import it into iTunes first, fix album titles artist names etc. by right clicking and selecting get info.

From there I drag it from the iTunes library onto my device, instead of dragging directly from a folder outside of iTunes onto my device and trying to change the info there.

If you've already put them on your device, delete it from your device first.

Kind of a pain because I like to keep my music on an external to save space on my computer.

I fixed this issue (at least for now) when I went onto itunes on my PC, right-clicked on my device (iphone SE) and then clicked “sync”. I have well over 2000 tracks in my library so it took a while to back up and stuff, but when I checked (closed and re-open)

my music app, all my songs were in each respectful album.

Hope this helps!

Hi all, I've kind of figured out a workaround, if you want to call it that.

Essentially, what you want to do is open "get info" for every song that is showing up as it's own album. In my case, it's every song that isn't in an album. When get info is opened, in the "album" field, just hit the spacebar once and save. Do this for all songs that aren't in an album. The caveat here is that every additional song added will need to have the typed space into the album field.

In my library, I sorted by album name and then I batch selected every song not in an album, and I edited the album field for all. I tested this first with a group of songs under one artist only, and it worked. Then it worked for the rest. Hope this helps you guys out there. I'm still waiting for the bug to be fixed too.

I have the same issue on iTunes 12.7, however if I remove tags 'Album Artist' and 'Album name' from the songs with Meta audio tag editor program, and re-enter them, the albums seem to grouped together. However for this I should re-tag all my existing files.

This is obviously an iTunes bug again...

I have found that if you delete the songs from the phone and add them back again, they will now be grouped as one album. It is very perplexing why it wouldn’t do it the first time.

If I downgrade, would my current music library still be compatible with the older version?

I don't think that Tags are causing the problem. This is reproducible in the following manner:

1 - Copy album files (mp3) to iPhone by dragging mp3 files from Windows Explorer into iTunes on Windows. The result is all songs are their own album. NB: the only way to tell is by looking at your phone using iTunes because iTunes on Windows shows everything as one album.

2 - Using iTunes on Windows, delete the tracks/album from iphone.

3 - Using ITunes on Windows add tracks back just like in step 1 above. This time, all tracks appear as one album.

I use only IDv3 tags and have my Tag manager set to delete all IDv2 tags. This has worked fine with iTunes and every other application I've used to date; only Apple has this problem now. Apple just started malfunctioning about 5 months ago and they refuse to address the problem.

I've been doing this now for the last 4 months once I figured out this painful workaround. It's been consistent no matter what I tried and that was even trying IDv2 Tags, messing with Grouping. Adding tracks with no tags then editing them in iTunes to see if it would group them all under one album. Nothing worked. There's just a software bug dealing with the local database and the one that's on your phone.

Apple needs to allow other software makers to produce music playback software that is a replacement for iTunes, just like Microsoft had to allow for decoupling Internet Explorer from Windows back when the EU filed suit in order to allow for Web Browser competition. Netscape never recovered, but at least we have a lot of Web Browser options these days. How has Apple gotten away with this? I think it's time for another EU suit, this time focused on Apple and iTunes.

There are several issues at hand; some in iTunes and some in iOS 11.x ... both on macOS and Windows. Also note that some older operating systems may not support ID3v2.4 (ex: Windows 7) without 3rd party shell integration add-ons for Explorer and/or Windows Media Player. The same is likely true on older macOS (ex: El Capitan).

Using iTunes Library to Copy to iOS Device:

As of iTunes 12.7, ID3Tag v2.4 is supported. iTunes sets the "Work" ID3 tag equal to the "Grouping" tag. As previously mentioned in this thread, problems arise if the classical music tag details are partially filled in. This can be remedied by ensuring that the "Grouping" ID3Tag is empty.

iTunes expects files to be added to the Library via the "Automatically Add To iTunes" folder; during the add/import process, iTunes renames the files (ex: ## song name.mp3). Songs with the "Compilation" ID3Tag are placed in the "Compilations" folder. Artist/Album folders are initially determined by the "Album Artist" ID3Tag.

Copying the songs from the iTunes Library to the iOS 11.x device yields expected results.

Using iTunes to Copy to iOS Device (i.e. Not Using iTunes Library):

Copying the songs from the iTunes Library to the iOS 11.x device yields songs that appear as their own separate albums.

Removing the songs from the iOS device and recopying yields expected results providing that the ID3Tag information is correctly entered and "Grouping" ID3Tag is empty.

The reason is it works the second time around is that the Music SQLite database on the iOS device contains a list of all songs that have been copied to the device ... even when the song is removed. This can be seen by used a tool (ex: iMazing) to copy the SQLite database locally to a computer and using an SQLite DB Viewer to examine the tables.

Using a 3rd Party Application to Copy to iOS Device:

Using a 3rd Party Application to directly copy the songs to the iOS device yields the expected results regardless if the ID3Tags are properly set or not.

At first guess; it leaves me wondering if perhaps a further iOS update will be required as the problem persists on iOS 11.4.1.

Cheers,

Recopying the tracks does solve the album separation issue but as of iTunes 12.7.3 and iOS 11.2.5. Downgrading to iTunes 12.6.3 no longer provides a "solvable" solution. The results I'm seeing after deleting and recopying tracks when using iTunes 12.6.3 and iTunes 12.7.3.46 are:

Copy tracks to device (iOS 12.2.5) via iTunes 12.6.3 (Net New Library):

Tracks group according to album ad-hoc; Downloaded Music displays "Genre" as track title when viewing by Artists or Albums. Songs display correctly and playback displays track titles as expected.

Copy tracks to device (iOS 12.2.5) after first importing to iTunes 12.6.3 library (Net New Library):

Tracks group according to album as expected; Downloaded Music displays "Genre" as track title when viewing by Artists or Albums. Songs display correctly and playback displays track titles as expected.

I suspect the issue is not exclusively and iTunes for Windows/MacOS but also in the iOS Music app UI as the track details appear correctly when viewing the device Music list via iTunes.

Awesome; just awesome ... thanks again Apple.

I've found that the first time I add an album I own it does this -- every song is an album of its own. If I delete those songs and add them a 2nd time, then everything goes fine. I've consistently repeated this process. I don't know why doing it a 2nd time resolves the issue but it does -- but only for that album.

Apple: THIS IS A BUG ON CURRENT IOS DEVICES - PLEASE FIX THIS

I had the same issue - purchased exactly 2 songs from Vaiana (muana) on my windows machine: #4 How Far I'll go and #7 You're welcome. It appears as two albums with each 1 song.

So for the #4 song, looking at album info it shows "Various Artists" as the Artist. For the #7 song Album Info the Artist field is empty. I simply copy & pasted "Various Artists" into the Album Info of the #7 song / Album and then they instantly merged into 1 album.

Weird thing is that on the other computer (macbook pro) it did correctly sort them.

Actually, there IS a solution - found on StackExchange - and it's pretty easy.

I I tested this with Mac:

1. If album(s) you want to move to iPhone are not in iTunes - import the into iTunes library on the desktop

2. Connect iPhone to laptop

3. Move (drag) album(s) from iTUNES LIBRARY onto the iPhone

that's it. The album, album art and all the tracks are imported and correctly assigned to the album(s).