I've only used my iPod to manage my music, but I got iTunes on my tablet, downloaded all the music from my iPod to my laptop, and synched, and now, ALL my playlists are empty? What gives??? How can I recover them?
I took a long time to make them, and I hope they're not gone forever.
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
iPod, iOS 12
You said that you "downloaded all the music from my iPod to my laptop". How did you do that? Were all the songs on the device purchases from the iTunes Store so that you were able to use the Transfer Purchases tool, or did you use a third party tool for that task? Do all the songs play in your library now? Ostensibly the message on screen would suggest the device wants to confirm subscription status, which should only be needed for protected content, but I'm guessing that isn't the case. It seems that Music may give incorrect prompts/reasons for tracks that haven't transferred properly. See If you have music that won't play on your device - Apple Community for a user tip that might possibly help.
tt2
I've had this device for at least 6 years, it never once was an issue. Back during the walkman era, I never considered tapes and CDs "easily lost, stolen, or in need to be restored". Don't see why this should've been any different.
I didn't get any warning message about anything. It just synched, pulled all the playlists into iTunes, and all of the sudden all the music was gone. The software didn't do as instructed, seeing how now I have a brick that has, allegedly 16 GB of music in it, yet none of it can be played without wi-fi.
I guess it's now time to move to Spotify, or back to buying CDs.
I'm somewhat surprised that the empty playlist titles still exist. Syncing an Apple device with a new (to it) library typically removes all the media from the device and replaces it which whatever is in the local library. There would have been an option to copy off the playlists using third party tools, but that moment has now passed.
tt2
So, you're telling me that Apple products cannot maintain integrity between themselves, and we need third party tools to run basic functionalities?
What a joke... I'm not using anything Apple related ever again.
Portable devices are easily lost, stolen, or need to be restored. They should never be the only location for your media. Apple make it hard to simply copy off the contents of a device in order to prevent illicit file sharing. This move likely helped Apple secure the rights to distribute digital music, but it is annoying if you need to recover that data. When you opted to sync your library there would have been a warning message asking you to confirm that you wanted the contents of your library to replace what was on already on the device. The software did as it was instructed to do.
tt2
I ran into this too—after syncing, iTunes replaced my iPod playlists with its own (empty) library. What worked for me was checking iTunes > Edit > Preferences > Devices to see if a backup was made before the sync; I restored that backup and got my playlists back.
How to recover empty playlists on iPod Touch after syncing with iTunes?
