iPad Does anyone else have major issues manually managing music on iPad

[Errk!]

I've been having problems with manually managed music on my iPad for a while now. I was hoping that iOS 7 would fix these problems but I installed the Gold Master and they still persist.

The problems I'm having usually revolve around editing ID3 tags or album art after they've been added to the iPad. If I change the album art, the new art might show up for the album under Artist view but not Album view. Or I change the ID3 tag for the Artist Name or Album Name and it goes through the process of updating in iTunes, but nothing changes on the iPad itself, even after closing/restarting the Music app or even the whole iPad.

I also have random weird problems like an album appearing under artist under "Unknown Artist" even though the Artist and Album Artist tags are completed and correct. Or for multidisc sets, all of the first tracks appear followed by all of the second tracks, etc. instead of by disc, when the tags are all proper in iTunes.

I have an iPod Classic that I manage music on manually and do not have these problems. Many of the same tracks (with identical ID3 tags) are also on my iPhone (this syncs to a playlist) and everything appears properly). I am meticulous about ID3 tags, so I know this isn't a question of tags being wrong. SOmething on the iPad isn't reading them right or something. But it doesn't even happen all of the time.

Does anyone else have this problem, and if so, have you found a fix? It almost seems like there is a problem with a database or datafile somewhere on the iPad, but no way to remove it to reset everything or anything like that.

Or is it just that the iPad really sucks for managing music manually and there's nothing that can be done about it?

FYI My iPad is not jailbroken.

 

[Night Spring]

Yeah, I had that problem with an iPad on iOS 6... Or perhaps it was on 5? Anyway, the problem has been around for a while, and I guess they've never bothered to fix it.

The only thing I can think of to work around is to edit the tags on your computer and delete the old copies off the iPad and copy the edited ones over. In fact, if you sync rather than manually manage music, that is the most hassle free, although I know you may have reasons for not wanting to sync.

 

[TJ61]

The problems I'm having usually revolve around editing ID3 tags or album art after they've been added to the iPad. If I change the album art, the new art might show up for the album under Artist view but not Album view. Or I change the ID3 tag for the Artist Name or Album Name and it goes through the process of updating in iTunes, but nothing changes on the iPad itself, even after closing/restarting the Music app or even the whole iPad.

You didn't say how you're getting the newly edited music file onto your iPad to replace the old one (the manual part of manually managing music). Do you delete the old file off the iPad first, or do you just drag the new file over? In the latter case, iTunes may not recognize the files as different, and therefore not initiate the transfer. Does iTunes show a progress bar to indicate it's transferring?

 

[Errk!]

Yeah, I had that problem with an iPad on iOS 6... Or perhaps it was on 5? Anyway, the problem has been around for a while, and I guess they've never bothered to fix it.

The only thing I can think of to work around is to edit the tags on your computer and delete the old copies off the iPad and copy the edited ones over. In fact, if you sync rather than manually manage music, that is the most hassle free, although I know you may have reasons for not wanting to sync.

Yeah, I've tried that and still had issues. I've moved files from within iTunes as well as via Finder (bypassing my iTunes library). It's a total crapshoot either way; neither method is more reliable.

And yes, I don't sync because I don't want to keep gigs and gigs worth of files on my computer.

Is it possible to keep a secondary iTunes library on an external drive and sync to that, while still keeping my apps in my "main" library?

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You didn't say how you're getting the newly edited music file onto your iPad to replace the old one (the manual part of manually managing music). Do you delete the old file off the iPad first, or do you just drag the new file over? In the latter case, iTunes may not recognize the files as different, and therefore not initiate the transfer. Does iTunes show a progress bar to indicate it's transferring?

I've tried both deleting old files first and rewriting them. Neither method is any more reliable. I've even tried deleting files that aren't displaying properly, re-import them with different album names, and editing them after they've imported. It doesn't help. And that's when I have the issue of the songs on the iPad as displayed in iTunes showing the new edits, but the iPad doesn't show the changes for the songs in the Music app.

And I get errors importing brand new music that has never been on it before.

And yes, the files do transfer. I've never had a real problem getting files on it.

 

[Carlanga]

Yeah, I've tried that and still had issues. I've moved files from within iTunes as well as via Finder (bypassing my iTunes library). It's a total crapshoot either way; neither method is more reliable.

And yes, I don't sync because I don't want to keep gigs and gigs worth of files on my computer.

Is it possible to keep a secondary iTunes library on an external drive and sync to that, while still keeping my apps in my "main" library?

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I've tried both deleting old files first and rewriting them. Neither method is any more reliable. I've even tried deleting files that aren't displaying properly, re-import them with different album names, and editing them after they've imported. It doesn't help. And that's when I have the issue of the songs on the iPad as displayed in iTunes showing the new edits, but the iPad doesn't show the changes for the songs in the Music app.

And I get errors importing brand new music that has never been on it before.

And yes, the files do transfer. I've never had a real problem getting files on it.

AFAIK apps and music go to the same place, you can't divide your iTunes library. I guess you could create a 2nd library.

 

[LizKat]

You can make a 2nd library but smart devices squawk when you try to attach them to a "strange" library, i.e. not the one to which it was first attached. This is so even if you manually manage music and video for that device.

Only the nonsmart devices like nanos, shuffles, Classics, etc. don't seem to complain about attaching to another library and letting you drag tracks off it to the little device, as long as your machine and the little device are authorized to play the stuff you're dragging. I am not sure this is true of Audible files, but for music and video files it's not a problem.

The OS will let you transfer purchases FROM your smart device to a new library or a library on a different machine authorized to play or view your stuff. But, it will not take stuff from the strange library or other machine's library TO your smart device. Also it only transfers stuff you bought in the iTunes Store, so not like your ripped CD mp3s or Audible files, etc.

Best solution for your problem, sadly, is the tedious one of making the tags be correct in the computer's library that you usually have up when you manage the iPad's content, then attach the device, delete the items in question from the iPad, copy over the fixed ones from the computer. And in future, avoid fixes to a smart device's holdings, just do them on the computer and replace what's on the device.

The problem with this fix, to my mind, is that we're supposedly all now gravitating away from the computer towards the cloud when we manage our music and video holdings, i.e, take stuff down from cloud and play it, period. Or just stream it. But if we want to "fix" something to have descriptions as we prefer, or artwork, then we need the mobile devices to behave when we alter tags there. Meanwhile the cloud stuff stays as it was? Not so handy sometimes. And I'm not ready to quit playing music on my laptop in an iTunes window where the library uses file tags that are local, and fixed up the way I like them.

I don't know if Apple is formally aware of the "feature" of glitchy smart-device reponse to tag fixes. I have actually experienced it myself but at first thought I had messed up somehow. I cannot consistently replicate the problem so I don't really know how to describe it in a bug report. Feels like some kind of buffering problem, or some inconsistent reference to addresses in a work area.

 

[zhenya]

iTunes doesn't care where your physical files reside. It's no problem having say, apps stored locally, music on a USB drive, and movies on a network drive. I've been doing this for years.