iTunes sync to iPod Classic got hosed somehow

[Kenji]

I have a very large iTunes library, iTunes Mac 12.9.5.5 which I sync via USB to my 16 gig iPod Classic. The iPod is about 70% full, mostly music and many podcasts. Recently for some reason iTunes lost track of which tracks were synced to the iPod. iTunes seems to think I have nothing on the iPod. I have music sync turned off now, and all the music is still on the iPod. And all ther music is in iTunes. I don't use Apple Music or other streaming services.

 

What is the best way to get iTunes to see what is on the iPod to get back in sync?

 

 

[stefano_mbp]

If all music and podcasts on iPod are in iTunes try to reset iPod and sync it from scratch. It happened to me that sometimes the iPod internal db went corrupted 

[kirkmc]

First, there is no 16 GB iPod classic. Do you mean iPod touch? 

 

As the above reply says, sometimes the iPod's database gets messed up. The easiest thing to do is restore the iPod and re-sync. You could try just turning off music syncing, syncing the iPod, then turning it back on, but I've found over the years that it's best to fully restore the device to create a new internal database. 

 

Of course, back it up first in iTunes...

[Kenji]

Thanks for the replies. That was a typo. should have read 160 gb. 

 

The problem was on the iTunes side. Suddenly for some reason nothing was checked. in the iPod Music page.Although there was around 100 gb of music on the iPod, all from the iTunes library. I don't know how that happened. 

 

After posting I ended up synching, and the deleted all the music on the iPod, then I selected a bunch of music to synch onto the iPod. That was what I hoped to avoid, having to re-chose all the music to put on the iPod, but it wasn't as bad as I expected. 

 

Thanks for the suggestions. 

[kirkmc]

What I used to do when syncing iPods was create a handful of playlists; not to play in order, but to hold what I wanted to put on my devices. So I had, say, a basic collection of jazz, another of rock, another of classical, etc. That way I didn't have to individually choose artists and albums. 

[GregWormald]

8 hours ago, kirkmc said:

What I used to do when syncing iPods was create a handful of playlists; not to play in order, but to hold what I wanted to put on my devices. So I had, say, a basic collection of jazz, another of rock, another of classical, etc. That way I didn't have to individually choose artists and albums. 

 

As an addition to this, I make a playlist for the phone, one for the ipod, and one for the car storage and then have the device just sync that playlist.