I have my music library in iTunes 11.01 on a Windows XP machine. The library is synched to an iPAD 4 (iOS 6.1) and an iPhone 4 (iOS 5.1.1). No jailbreaking.
My library is a mix of ripped CD music, all in Apple Lossless (created inside iTunes), and songs purchased from iTunes Store.
Everything works and looks fine in iTunes, but after synching I get surprising results on the IPAD such as:
- Albums "falling apart" into separate smaller albums, e.g., after adding tracks to existing albums
- Album content being "sucked up" by another album from the same artist
- Album names or artists being blanked, i.e., "unknown artist" or "unknown album".
- Albums invisible and content not searchable
I have applied the various excellent advices by turingtest 2 (http://samsoft.org.uk/iTunes/grouping.asp) but it helps only up to a point. Often, I find I need to modify the album name to force iTunes to take notice and act on the various changes I made, e.g., grouping by album artist.
For certain albums, nothing helps - they persist in showing up as several covers. I have spent a lot of time on this, including carefully checking the contents of the iTunes library folder on the PC.
Notably; This is all on the iPAD, on iOS 6.1 (previosly 6.0.1; same issues). My iPhone 4, on iOS 5.1.1, gets it right all the time, every time: No issues!
I have read many complaints about the Music Player in iOS 6, including disappointment that 6.1 was no different, but I'm not aware of anyone reporting this particular problem/bug.
A couple of questions:
1) Is this an iPAD issue or one associated with iOS 6.1? I will keep 5.1.1. on my iPhone until this question has been answered.
2) Is Apple aware - is a fix underway?
3) Is there a better Music Player available, e.g., on App Store (one that can handle thousands of songs, generally doing the same things but better and more robust)
