iTunes not syncing random songs to iPhone

On the songs(s), right click, go to "song info" and you can add from there in the comments box. What you add is irrelevant, anything that forces the metadata of the song to change seems to work.

Effectively, it seems that changing the metadata of the problematic songs, then changing it back, fixes it. For me at least.

Following Z-Salem's advice I noticed all the songs that would not sync for me all had a common theme. The songs were from albums with a compilation of artists. It did not matter if it was purchased through Apple or a CD I already owned; if it was an album with multiple artists (or if Apple thought it was) it caused problems.

I followed Z-Salem's advice of: right click song, select "get info," uncheck the red check mark next to "compilation." It's a pain, but it did work and I was finally able to sync my iPhone to my Mac without fear of losing songs that existed on mu iPhone, but not my Mac.

I've had this problem for quite a while and finally Apple support came up with a solution (workaround). Open iTunes, in library, go to songs. Select a song, then select all from the edit menu. While all songs are selected right click (for a PC) and select get info. type a word or anything in comments and click ok. This will insert that word in all songs. It will take a while to process, depending on the size of yr library!! And now all songs get synced to my Iphone when I want....though that takes hours as well! It seems to be a meta data change that does it. Prior to this workaround nearly 9000 songs of my 17500 song library were not syncing to my phone. I think it was caused by moving itunes library from one NAS to another?

Hi everyone. Z-Salem's trick worked for me too, which is ridiculous that this is a glitch that Apple haven't dealt with for so long. But since that worked, I tried something else and that also worked. In itunes with my iphone attached i went to the area where I manage the 'selected items' to be synced to the phone. I unselected the albums that had problems, and synced (which removed anything from those albums from the phone). Then i re-selected the albums again, and re-synced. Now all of the songs on those albums successfully synced to my phone again, including the ones that weren't syncing before. This was easier than altering metadata.

Just had this problem, fixed it by removing the "Album Art" from the song. I realized this may be the issue because a song I had already sync'd I tried to re-sync with "Album Art" and it wasn't working. Removed the art and it fixed the sync issue. I assume this is related to the Metadata issue as the photo file didn't appear to be much different than other jpgs I added for other songs.

Try Edit > Preferences > Devices > Reset Sync History and then try syncing once more.

If that hasn't helped try signing out of the iTunes Store on the device and then try again.

Otherwise see this post on erratic syncing.

tt2

Hello ReallyCrazyDad

In iTunes go to Songs in the left column -> Edit ->(Highlight one song) Select All

When list is the whole list is highlighted blue select one song and right click and select Get Info

A prompt will appear asking "Are you sure you want to edit information for multiple items?"

Click Edit Items

In the comment section type any character and this will update all 9000 of your songs at once. Please note this might take over time minutes due to the amount of songs you have and your computer's speed.

I've been having this problem also I have a library of about 7K songs. On thing that works for me was to uncheck "Sync Music" and sync, which will remove all of your music, then recheck it and sync again and it will load all of your music with no exceptions.

It takes a bit longer but it does work

What did the trick for me was on my iPhone to go to settings > Music, under library, turn off sync library. Maybe about after 15-20 seconds, the greyed out songs from iTunes loaded onto my iPhone. I then turned sync library back on without any issue.

Try Edit > Preferences > Devices > Reset Sync History and then try syncing once more.

Mine does this a lot. A trick I do is change all the songs that won't sync in some subtle way. I add a comment to them all. Then sync, delete the comment, and resync again. That works for me every time.

SOLVED

I had this problem too, and here is how it was solved after over 5 hours on phone/ chat to technical support, and several more hours actually doing the change. The problem was the software was glitching and needed to be completely re-downloaded from scratch.

• Plug your phone into your mac computer and do a full backup

• Turn off Find My iPhone (I had to go to Settings>Screen time> Content & privacy> turn On the Content & privacy restrictions to be able to turn off Find my iPhone)

• With phone plugged into mac computer, in Finder window (where you did the full backup) click the Restore iPhone button (up in the Software section of sync window). This will wipe your phone completely, and download new software

• After the 'hello' screen, when it asks if you want to set up from backup (or similar) select the option that says 'Don't transfer anything' (or something like that, basically set it up like you've never had an iPhone before)

• When you get to the iPhone home screen when it's finished setting up again, do a Sync to make sure the music is now showing up and playable. Once you have confirmed this...

• With phone plugged into mac computer, select the 'Restore Backup' and it will reload your phone with all the previous info, it will look exactly like it did before being wiped, only difference is new software that plays ALL your music

This worked! Thanks.

I had been having a problem where after syncing, several songs did not appear under "Songs" in my iphone's music app. Some would appear in various playlists but would be grayed-out and could not be played.

Using the advice given above, I was able to update the "comments" simultaneously in all the songs that had failed to copy. After that, upon doing a sync, all the songs I had changed were copied to my phone and could be played with no issues.

liamgovan38 wrote:

I'm facing the same issue. I have some non-Apple music that I downloaded elsewhere. Now certain ones don't sync to my phone, not even if I delete and start again. My phone is set to sync the entire library. The reason why it isn't syncing was because of a stupid reason, "because it couldn't be found." It's in my library, so please help.

Your library is like an index or catalogue. Media files are contained in the library, they are stored (or should be) somewhere on your computer. The "could not be found" error occurs when the file isn't a the known/expected location, or cannot be accessed there for some reason. Take a look at this thread for some advice: iTunes Original File Could Not Be Found - Apple Community.

tt2

PeteTB wrote:

"Try Edit > Preferences > Devices > Reset Sync History"

Could you tell me where you are suggesting to try this?

Thanks

The iTunes menu structure.

tt2