Never seen a program need so much maintenance as iTunes!

[puma1552]

I'm on iTunes 12, and this just plain sucks. It sucked before 12, but now the 12 interface is garbage and requires more clicking/toggling around to do what I want.

I have all my devices including my iPhone set to manually manage music. Automatic downloads turned off. I never purchase any songs on my phone, always from iTunes on my computer and THEN transfer to my devices. I keep it as simple and manual as possible so I have full control. I'm an anal retentive freak with my perfect song library.

I just downloaded 4 lousy songs. Had 1995 songs on every device and in my iTunes library prior.

Downloaded the four songs, and now I have 1998 songs? Figured whatever, then went to load the new four songs on each device. Now I've got numbers ranging anywhere from 1996 songs to 1999 on my devices.

So what am I doing now? Saying **** it yet again, deleting every song from every device, and trying to manually add the 1998 from my library. In the process of syncing to my phone and what does iTunes say? Even though I highlighted all 1998 songs, iTunes is only syncing 1661?

What the **** is wrong with this program, it seems like half the time I download a few songs and all of a sudden I get all different numbers between my devices and inevitably end up wasting half a day just trying to get all my devices to mirror the library on my computer. Why is iTunes such garbage?

There's ZERO reason for this when I have EVERYTHING set to manual/full control and nothing automatic turned on or allowed.

EDIT: Now that iTunes sync'd 1661 songs, the rest of them are grayed out with the dashed circle, what gives? I have enough space on my phone, and these were ALL bought from iTunes. A month ago when I got my new phone I synced everything with no problem, ARGHHH

DOUBLE EDIT: Yet my iPhone shows all 1998 songs and plays them all just fine, even the ones that are grayed out in iTunes? WTFFF

 

[Tobias Funke]

iTunes releases seem to be remove something usefull and add 3 things that aren't!

 

[Newtons Apple]

I have always disliked iTunes. Just does not seem very friendly. If you are not familiar its iTunes you can really mess your device up.

I suggest anyone starting to use iTunes to turn OFF the auto sync function and ALWAYS back up your device fully before you do anything with iTunes. I use the cloud but also prefer to do full backups every few weeks.

iTunes could be improved for sure.

 

[Surf Monkey]

iTunes has been seriously broken for years. So have the iTunes connected services, especially iTunes Match, which is just flat out garbage. iTunes itself is easily Apple's most bloated, scrambled, messed up application. It really needs to be abandoned and re-written from the ground up because at this point I don't see how it can be fixed by building more on top of the existing code base.

 

[puma1552]

Also I don't know why, but 99% of the time the syncing problems happen with iOS devices.

My lowly old iPods almost never have syncing problems with numbers of songs, etc.

I find it completely bizarre that one of my iOS devices has all 1998 songs on it and they all play as they should, even though iTunes only told me it was going to sync 1661 songs and when that device is plugged into iTunes, that device shows 300+ songs with dashed grey circles around it.

Whatever, my devices all show correct, now so I guess it's an iTunes problem.

I used to really like iTunes, but for more than just the last few years it's gotten more bloated and syncing issues have become more prevalent, especially with iOS devices. It's always such a struggle.

 

[jldesutter83]

I have auto everything on iTunes and have no problems. I usually create playlists on my computer though and it shows up on my iDevices right away. And then I just tap download all on the playlist on my devices and its good to go. I even buy songs on my phone and when I come to my computer all the new music is there. I've also been using iTunes since the beginning.

 

[yaboyac29]

Am I the only one that never has issues with itunes?

Why not just sync your entire library? Or create playlists and sync those. Why make it overly complicated by doing a manual sync? I don't get some people.

 

[kazmac]

each time they've changed iTunes versions recently

it's become more annoying in trying to keep songs synced.

Now the songs have to be checked in iTunes (rather than the just album or group) in order for them to sync over. I am not a fan of the last 2 iterations of iTunes (I don't want songs in alphabetical order, I want them to display by band where I can select specific songs not full albums.)

 

[wxman2003]

iTunes is a mess. I have had issues with it too. I have an album, that will not list on itunes on my phone by artist or album. I actually have to search for the songs name. It buried under "other artists" when in fact in iTunes on my iMac it is listed by artist or album. I have deleted it off my phone, added it back, but it will not list the album by artist or album. iTunes is pathetic.

 

[puma1552]

Am I the only one that never has issues with itunes?

Why not just sync your entire library? Or create playlists and sync those. Why make it overly complicated by doing a manual sync? I don't get some people.

I don't think you read my post. That's exactly what I did, was sync the entire library, albeit manually and not via the crappy sync button that tells you it's going to erase everything on your device.

I manually removed all songs from the device, highlighted all songs in my iTunes library, and dragged them to the device. Then I dragged playlists from iTunes to the device. Same exact thing as hitting the sync button.

 

[JT2002TJ]

In the last year I have had to completely remove all evidence of itunes on my PC 3 times and reinstall because of errors. Typically because of updates. On my other three computers I haven't had this problem. No idea why Apple hates this PC, but when google searching the error message it appears that a ton of people get the same error.

 

[Ladybug]

I don't understand iTunes either. I ended up buying a separate backup program for my music because you never know what iTunes is going to do. Yes I have iTunes set to manual. Syncing should offer you a choice of what to do when it doesn't find a song on one device or the other rather than deleting it. I do not like iTunes at all.

 

[mightyjabba]

I've been using iTunes since it was SoundJam, and used to like it fine. I didn't understand all of the complaining about it, but I'm getting fed up as well. It's okay in terms of listening to music and so forth (although I do think it's getting progressively worse in terms of UI) but syncing can be a huge pain. I've had problems with the latest iPhones in particular, but I think it's iOS 8 rather than the iPhones per se. I and four other members of my family recently upgraded to iPhone 6's (a 6 Plus for me). Three of us have had major syncing issues, and the two who haven't basically never sync their phones anyway. I've managed to fix them, but it's been a big pain.

 

[Sprintina]

I thought it was just me. And what makes it worse is trying to import music from other sources (e.g., ripped from a CD) and getting it synced correctly across devices with the latest versions of iTunes.

 

[KUguardgrl13]

Am I the only one that never has issues with itunes?

Why not just sync your entire library? Or create playlists and sync those. Why make it overly complicated by doing a manual sync? I don't get some people.

I agree. I rarely have problems with iTunes, and I've been using it since 2005. The only trouble I've had is music I got from friends through various means and no longer having their iTunes passwords. So I always get an error when syncing my devices because I have songs in my iTunes library that I'm not authorized to have. So my devices sync without them until I can get around to buying them myself with my iTunes account. It also gets grumpy when I try to sync my boyfriend's iPad mini to give him movies, and it gets grumpy about the apps he has on there that aren't in my iTunes library. There are also the times where I have to delete the music off my iPhone to download an OTA update because I don't have enough space.

But songs getting left off in a sync for no reason? I haven't seen that happen. I auto sync my entire library to my iPod and select playlists for my iPhone.

 

[nateo200]

I hate this program more than Satan himself....I avoid updates but every time I get a new iPhone or iOS device it has to update first and then the interface has been completely mangled and it takes me 2x as long to restore my back up....the team that keep changing the interface needs to be put in an airplane and flown over the pacific and just dropped in the ocean along with all their research. I'm done with iTunes. :

 

[alent1234]

I don't think you read my post. That's exactly what I did, was sync the entire library, albeit manually and not via the crappy sync button that tells you it's going to erase everything on your device.

I manually removed all songs from the device, highlighted all songs in my iTunes library, and dragged them to the device. Then I dragged playlists from iTunes to the device. Same exact thing as hitting the sync button.

i never had any problems either. make my smart playlists and itunes syncs them to my devices

 

[Surf Monkey]

Am I the only one that never has issues with itunes?

Why not just sync your entire library? Or create playlists and sync those. Why make it overly complicated by doing a manual sync? I don't get some people.

I do everything as simply as I can in iTunes. Auto-sync and so forth.

iTunes still sucks and is deeply broken.