Missing Music from iPad 3

[Plan B]

Imagine my surprise when my 35 GB music library just disappeared from my iPad 3!

It appears that all is fine on iTunes on my main computer.

Syncing via USB or WIFI seems to not replace the songs on the iPad, however.

So what broke it? I have Backup to this computer selected, as well as "open itunes when this ipad is connected and sync with ipad over wifi.

Some songs are checked, others are not, but for this ipad I do not have "sync only checked songs" selected.

This is messy. What may have deleted the songs from the ipad?

 

[beesknees]

I didn't lose everything but turning on imatch really screwed things up for me.

 

[Plan B]

I still do not know what happened, nor do I know "how" it got fixed, but I did fix it.

Here's what I did. I do not know which steps helped or which did not. Maybe others can help narrow it down.

I have no proof, but I suspected that some miscommunication happened between my Windows computer (where the base MP3 files exist).

1. I disabled "sync via wifi" on the mothership computer. (highlight the ipad name, then uncheck "sync via wifi"
2. The ipad continued to appear empty, even after resyncing post-step1 above. But the mothership's iTunes library was still there with all 800+ albums. Thank God! (Yes, I have backups, but that would have been a pain).
3. I decided to try clicking the "sync only checked items". You see, I have an old 32 GB iPod too, but that little guy can't hold much, so he gets synced with only selected albums and podcasts.
4. I tried syncing the ipad again, with just the checked items, knowing that if successful, only half my library would be on the iPad.
5. The sync, said "waiting for changes to be applied", but nothing happened. No library on my iPad.
6. Next I unchecked "sync only checked items" and tried the sync again.
7. Now I saw the count. 1 of 4,588 blahblah songs copied. 2 of 4,588.... Success!

I don't know why this worked, but it did. And maybe somebody else will benefit from my heart-stopping experience, haha!

I have not tried to sync again since, but for now I think I will stick with USB syncing only. If no issues arise in the next week or three, maybe I'll turn on wifi syncing and see if the problem recurs.

 

[Plan B]

Well, it's been a few days and I have noticed that only 12 gb of my music library has been transferred to my ipad 3.

I have 'entire library' selected, and it should be closer to 37 GB.

If I use itunes on my pc to change the songs (for example, to change the track or disk number), then I do a sync, I can see that the song then gets transferred to the iPad.

I would like to reset the iPad3's music library (without deleting the one on the PC) and recopy my entire library from PC to iPad, and I think I am missing something here. Is there a setting I can change on the PC's iTunes to do this...to restrict the reset ONLY to the music and not to anything else?

 

[KevinJS]

How many songs are missing? I know you say you only have 12Gb out of 37, but I'm wondering if you have iTunes set to automatically convert to 128AAC. If so, and your original mp3s are ripped at 320 it's possible that you have them all; just in a smaller space. Long shot, but worth looking at.

 

[Plan B]

How many songs are missing? I know you say you only have 12Gb out of 37, but I'm wondering if you have iTunes set to automatically convert to 128AAC. If so, and your original mp3s are ripped at 320 it's possible that you have them all; just in a smaller space. Long shot, but worth looking at.

I have 8383 songs in the PC's iTunes folder.

How do I get a total song count on my iPad to see if they match?

 

[Plan B]

Oops, I should have also said that I can't find entire albums on the iPad...even when looking for different sort orders (e.g. "Chris Spheeris" versus "Spheeris, Chris").

 

[KevinJS]

I have 8383 songs in the PC's iTunes folder.

How do I get a total song count on my iPad to see if they match?

Settings/About

Second on the list is the number of songs on your iPad.

 

[KevinJS]

Actually I'm thinking you have about 3500. I put 17000 songs onto an iPod classic 60Gb at 128AAC and filled it right up.

 

[Plan B]

You're right, settings/about reports 3299.

I should also say that as a test, I used iTunes on the PC to change the metadata for a bunch of songs...for example changing "disk 1 of 1" to "disk 1 of 9", then back again. Then those songs will magically get copied over on the next sync.

So "something" on the PC is making iTunes think they are synced when in actuality, they're only on the PC and not on the iPad, and changing the metadata resets that pointer/change bit.

I wonder if I change the genre say from "new age" to "new age 2" and back again, maybe I can get huge swaths of the songs resynced.

 

[KevinJS]

I'm don't have access to my PC right now, but if you haven't got it sorted by the weekend, I'll try to go through it with you and see if we can get it figured out. Like I said, the AAC thing was a long shot.

 

[Plan B]

I just did that with New Age, and that is adding 157 songs as I type this.

 

[Plan B]

I'm don't have access to my PC right now, but if you haven't got it sorted by the weekend, I'll try to go through it with you and see if we can get it figured out. Like I said, the AAC thing was a long shot.

How kind of you! I think I'll be fine. Changing the metadata seems to resync the songs, so I'll do a few genres each day.