Music app/iTunes not "syncing" all songs?

[kriista1234]

I've had this problem since before iOS11, so not sure if it's 11-specific, but I don't have or use Apple Music at all. I have manually synced all my playlists/music from iTunes over to my iPhone (6s), but I noticed that many songs in my playlist have that little 'download' icon, as if they are not actually on my phone.

I only really started noticing this when a song would skip really quickly, but after this happening enough, or if I'm near a strong enough connection, it starts streaming a song (or so it seems), as it will start cutting in and out if I go into a poorer connection area.

I should also say that my phone is nowhere near full, so it's not like it's syncing what it can, and leaving the rest of the playlist for streaming use.

Is there a reason why this is happening at all?
Is there a way to force my phone to physically have all of the songs that I tell it do (and not have some that stream)?

 

[truffalix]

I've had this problem since before iOS11, so not sure if it's 11-specific, but I don't have or use Apple Music at all. I have manually synced all my playlists/music from iTunes over to my iPhone (6s), but I noticed that many songs in my playlist have that little 'download' icon, as if they are not actually on my phone.

I only really started noticing this when a song would skip really quickly, but after this happening enough, or if I'm near a strong enough connection, it starts streaming a song (or so it seems), as it will start cutting in and out if I go into a poorer connection area.

I should also say that my phone is nowhere near full, so it's not like it's syncing what it can, and leaving the rest of the playlist for streaming use.

Is there a reason why this is happening at all?
Is there a way to force my phone to physically have all of the songs that I tell it do (and not have some that stream)?

[doublepost=1506694606][/doublepost]Mine keeps removing downloaded songs when I turn off iCloud music. Normally this only stops showing songs that are not downloaded. I spent hours downloading songs the other day for a road trip(to save data) and it was a waste of time. I updated my phone this morning to a more recent iOS11, same issue.

 

[kriista1234]

Hmm, that's interesting. I haven't noticed if the songs are initially there, then disappear, or if they never get transferred in the first place.

I want to say that last year I even removed and re-added all the songs to see if that fixes things.

Oh, I also have 'convert to 128kbs' enabled in iTunes, so I don't know if that matters at all. (I had an awful problem with an iPod related to this many years ago that led to me returning it altogether)

 

[The Mad Hatter]

I had the same prob when I migrated to my new 8+. I would get, what I call "ghost songs", when I load my music on. I'd have 'gray'd out' songs listed, but would not play. I tried over-writing them, but no joy. I think iTunes has a prob with converting on-the-fly, as I had the "convert to 256kbps on import" selected.

What worked for me is converting the files to 256kbps 'before' importing them, and I had no "ghost songs" afterwards ... and that was after importing 2500+ songs.

HTH

 

[kriista1234]

That's the problem I had with an iPod so many years ago.

Yesterday I came across one of these 'not downloaded' tracks, and went manually looking through my playlists on the phone. I think the problem was that I had a "purchased" playlist on my phone, which only had a fraction of the songs actually synced, with everything else having the 'download' icon. I've deleted it off my phone now, so will see if that was the issue.