Lyrics often don't show up in Music

[Howard Brazee]

I took my iPad Pro to a sing-along planning on turning the sound down but reading lyrics. Most of my iTunes library has lyrics added to the songs.

I was surprised to discover that a majority of the songs I looked at did not show lyrics. I pulled out my phone and discovered the same thing - but at least one song had lyrics visible on my phone but not my iPad. They all come from the same iTunes. IOS 10.0.2

I pulled up a separate app called "Lyrics View", and was able to see the lyrics. The attached image shows the music app and the lyrics app side-by-side.

Is this a music app bug? Has anybody else seen this trouble?

 

[Shirasaki]

I guess either this is a bug or it is intentional, to promote and force user using Apple Music.

My solution is to sync all songs all over again to load all lyrics I have added into my library.

 

[isanka]

I don't know. Probably all song do not have Lyrics includ.

 

[Julien]

OP are you using manual sync or Match?

 

[Howard Brazee]

I guess either this is a bug or it is intentional, to promote and force user using Apple Music.

My solution is to sync all songs all over again to load all lyrics I have added into my library.

That appeared to solve the problem.

 

[psywzrd]

I too am having this problem. I would say about 95% of the songs in my iTunes library have the lyrics embedded in the file (I use Get Lyrical) yet I have noticed that many of the songs do not display lyrics on my iPhone 7. I have checked quite a few songs that I know for a fact have lyrics embedded in them, and they are definitely not showing up on my phone.

Are you guys saying that simply syncing again will force the missing lyrics to transfer over to my phone?

 

[Howard Brazee]

That solved it for me. I had to sync without music and then sync with music, and so far I haven't seen songs missing lyrics. Obviously, that didn't address the bug, and the solution is similar to the stereotypical Microsoft solution. But the problem is gone for me.

 

[psywzrd]

That solved it for me. I had to sync without music and then sync with music, and so far I haven't seen songs missing lyrics. Obviously, that didn't address the bug, and the solution is similar to the stereotypical Microsoft solution. But the problem is gone for me.

I'm going to try that as well and see if that works for me.

In the meantime, I just got off of a very frustrating 1+hr tech support call with Apple on this issue. They are absolutely clueless. Would you believe that the senior advisor had the audacity to blame a 3rd party program (Get Lyrical) for the fact that some of my lyrics didn't transfer from my iTunes library to my iPhone 7? Meanwhile, all of the lyrics showed up just fine on my iPhone 6 for the two years I owned it.

I tried explaining to her that the third party program has nothing to do with how my phone syncs with iTunes but she kept insisting. Finally I had to just end the call because it was clear she had no clue what she was taking about and she refused to transfer me to another senior advisor.

 

[tgara]

I've never seen any lyrics on any of the songs I've synced with any of my devices. Not even old classic stuff like Frank Sinatra or the Rolling Stones.

I'm not an Apple Music subscriber, though. Does that make a difference? I do subscribe to iTunes Match.

 

[Shirasaki]

and the solution is similar to the stereotypical Microsoft solution.

Apple also frequently tell you to nuke everything and start anew when things are going wrong. I have seen such multiple times.

 

[psywzrd]

Well removing the music and adding it back did not fix the issue for me. I still have tons of songs where the lyrics don't show even on my iPhone 7 though I am 100% sure that the lyrics are embedded in the audio files in iTunes.

This must be an iOS 10 and/or iTunes 12.5 dot whatever bug.

 

[psywzrd]

I've never seen any lyrics on any of the songs I've synced with any of my devices. Not even old classic stuff like Frank Sinatra or the Rolling Stones.

I'm not an Apple Music subscriber, though. Does that make a difference? I do subscribe to iTunes Match.

You need to have the lyrics embedded in the audio files in iTunes. If you have a Mac I recommend using Get Lyrical to get lyrics for your music library.

 

[tgara]

You need to have the lyrics embedded in the audio files in iTunes. If you have a Mac I recommend using Get Lyrical to get lyrics for your music library.

Thanks for the suggestion. To be honest, lyrics are not that important to me, as I mostly listen to instrumental jazz and classical stuff. I'll keep Lyrical in mind, though.

 

[psywzrd]

I have now removed my music from my phone and synced it back several times now and I still have tons of lyrics not showing up on my phone even though they're in iTunes. This is definitely some type of bug and Apple is clueless.

 

[skinned66]

It's just buggy. Some songs have no issues, then I have others where the lyrics just keep disappearing days after I resync my library to fix the problem.

 

[Hawaiian Starman]

I have now removed my music from my phone and synced it back several times now and I still have tons of lyrics not showing up on my phone even though they're in iTunes. This is definitely some type of bug and Apple is clueless.

This problem persists well into 2017 and shows up even in IOS 11. If I resynch my music (note: I'm not an Apple Music subscriber), lyrics get syched to my iPhone and iPad. However, the moment I add a song to my library, then resync to either devices, the lyrics disappear on the device. I don't know why Apple fails to understand how this bug works, or has not resolved it. But geez...what does it take to fix something that's fundamental to music. This bug did not exist prior to IOS 10.

 

[Seahawksean]

I've never seen any lyrics on any of the songs I've synced with any of my devices. Not even old classic stuff like Frank Sinatra or the Rolling Stones.

I'm not an Apple Music subscriber, though. Does that make a difference? I do subscribe to iTunes Match.

Yeah tgara, you'd have to be subscribed to Apple Music. Once you are you have to kind of upload all the tracks you have from CDs, etc. to Apple cloud, then it sends back THEIR version of the track. From what I remember reading when I first looked into Apple Music. I think this is where the bug lies.

Btw, I like your taste in music! As a matter of fact, as I started typing this Rolling Stones "Heaven" just started playing in my Apple Music ;-)

 

[psywzrd]

Yeah tgara, you'd have to be subscribed to Apple Music. Once you are you have to kind of upload all the tracks you have from CDs, etc. to Apple cloud, then it sends back THEIR version of the track. From what I remember reading when I first looked into Apple Music. I think this is where the bug lies.

Btw, I like your taste in music! As a matter of fact, as I started typing this Rolling Stones "Heaven" just started playing in my Apple Music ;-)

The fact that you have to subscribe to Apple Music in order to see the lyrics for songs that you own (and owned long before Apple Music was even a thing) is absolutely ridiculous and unacceptable. Why does Apple consistently drop the ball on things like this?

 

[Hawaiian Starman]

Time to resurrect this thread. Perhaps a software engineer at Apple will see it and do something about the missing lyrics bug keeping lyrics appearing on any IOS device not using Apple Music. This is an IOS 10 and 11 bug. Will it become an IOS 12 bug too??? Note: for anyone seeing this thread for the 1st time, just read up a few posts to better understand the problem.