Greyed out songs on ipod touch

paul1224

Well-known member
I'm not sure if anyone can help but I have spoken to Apple support and researched this for hours on the internet and I'm not sure I'm at a point where I have a clear diagnosis as to the problem.

The issue is as follows:
- ipod touch (5th generation) has all of a sudden got certain songs that are greyed out.
- when I look at what songs these are they appear to be songs from another iTunes library (not mine) and CD's that have been added.
- most of these songs are not in my iTunes library (as my PC had crashed a few years back and I lost the library and had no back up but did still have the songs on the ipod).
- I can't play the songs on the ipod (it comes up with something like not accessible or something similar).
- most of the songs aren't on the iTunes library but the ones that are won't play and come up with the '!' next to them.
- iTunes and ipod all up to date, ipod has had settings reset but no difference.
- on the ipod when I go into the Music settings and click on 'show only downloaded songs' (or similar wording) all the greyed out songs disappear I assume meaning that they weren't downloaded to my ipod?
- I manually manage my iTunes music due to having songs on my ipod not in my iTunes so I don't want to sync the ipod only to the library as worried it will only put songs on the library over and delete everything else based on the warning it gives.
- only change that may be linked to this happening was that the ipod was plugged into an old laptop with an old version of iTunes on it to get some CD music in an old iTunes library onto the ipod. I did back up the ipod first (but that back up seems to have disappeared from iTunes) but as far as I was aware the Ipod wasn't synched to that library or anything and I manually moved the songs over.
- I've tried a 3rd party software to move the ipod songs that are greyed out to iTunes to try to do battle with them there but the 3rd party software doesn't find these songs at all even though they are showing on the ipod albeit greyed out.

Contatced Apple who were very supportive and gave me a lot of time and guidance but I'm not sure if the result of speaking to them makes sense to me, the gist was:
- ipods are only designed to synch with one iTunes library and possibly by plugging it into the old laptop it caused the greyed out songs.
- however then I would have expected more greyed out songs as I can't discern a direct correlation to the above diagnosis, i.e. some songs burned from CD's are still ok with no issues, others aren't. Surely if this was the issue all non-purchased songs would have been affected not just random ones?
- in general nothing they could do but suggest putting songs back on but there are quite a few and some of them were from other iTunes libraries now not accessible.

I've been going round in circles really and have seen many different 'fixes' on the internet but a lot of them don't quite match my problem or are linked to Apple Music or Apple Match (I think that's what it is called). I just have an ipod and iTunes.

Any suggestions or guidance appreciated!

Thanks
 
Last edited:

steaky360

Moderator
Moderator
If its bugging you I'd consider backing it up, wiping it and putting the songs back on it - worst case at the moment would be that you lose the songs that are greyed out... which if I understand what you're saying - isn't a worse position than you're already in. You should still be able to put them back on via a CD
 

paul1224

Well-known member
Thanks for the reply, what we have done is reset the ipod to factory settings and then load a back up from iTunes back onto the ipod. Weirdly the back up loaded but didn't bring any songs back onto the ipod, instead I synched the iTunes library with the ipod and all songs in the library are on the ipod and playing as normal and all the greyed out songs have disappeared.

Weirdly I downloaded a different 3rd party software and it did find the greyed out songs but couldn't transfer them from the ipod to iTunes as it stated that they weren't on the ipod. It had a cloud icon next to these songs and when getting further info on the song the software stated that they were based in icloud. Yet my understanding from signing into icloud is that it doesn't back or house any music on it?

So I now have an ipod with no greyed out music but all the music that was greyed out has disappeared. Not the end of the world but I would like to try to understand why the music was greyed out (so it doesn't happen again) and why these greyed out songs appear to be linked to the icloud.

Very strange situation but if anyone has any further ideas or has had similar experiences please let me know.

Thanks
 
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