Local files will not sync to iphone

[sarahk]

Please help! I have an iphone 4s, both my laptop and phone are connected to the same Wifi, i have the files in question on my computer in itunes, in my music folder, and in spotify labled as local folders. I cannot get the songs to sync to my iphone-- they will show up-- but I cannot play them. Please help!

[j_pipsox]

Hi,

I had the same problem - I am using an iPhone 5 and a Windows 7 laptop. Both are on the same network and I have had about 50 local files on my phone for ages, but my playlists became unsynced offline and so I had to resync them. However when I did this only 9 local files synced back onto my phone. They were in my Local File folder in on my desktop Spotify and my device was being recognise, however Local Files was 'Pending' for ages.

I tried a lot of the suggestions, and the way I 'jumped' Spotifiy to sync them was to add a new playlist on my desktop and call it 'local files' I then added all my local files to this new playlist, then went onto the devices tab on the laptop and set it to sync offline. My phone then started to sync this new playlist, and subsequently all my local files.

I hope this helps you guys 🙂

[grimesmd]

Praise your existance 

[user-removed]

I have been using VPN service on my iPhone and I believe it was somehow hampering the sync. I disabled VPN and it now syncs perfectly. I also noticed that VPN also block offline listening mode.

[ThePerfectK]

I just want to ensure that others understand this point @balanezer: VPN, by design, bypasses your local network, therefore using VPN will prevent sync to your local network devices (as you've identified). When you setup a VPN connection on your phone, you are "tunneling" all traffic directly from your phone to the VPN endpoint (such as your work, or an OpenVPN provider, or wherever YOU configured). Most likely the same problem will also occur if you create a VPN connection on your desktop computer and tunnel your traffic out of your local network to another endpoint - then your phone wouldn't be able to see your computer with the local files, same net result.

[CTOverton · Accepted solution]

I had the same issue but had more trouble even using the solution provided. 

My device would show up even before setting the network to private. Local Songs on my laptop would play fine but would not play on my phone. However on an older version of spotify they had all previously synced and played fine on my phone. Currently some songs would play and others (most) would be darkened out and when attempting to play on my phone they would suggest connecting to a computer and syncing etc. (And well clearly that didn't work) 

=== [ The Solution that worked for me ] ===

1) Remove songs out of local folder (The folder[s] on your computer that spotify finds your local library of music) and place them somewhere else

2) Edit the properties of the songs -- I Found it helpful to remove anything in the...

     -Comments Field

     -Genre Field

     -# Field

The goal for me was to remove as much information as possible. I left each song with Title, Contributing artists, and Album.

3) Close spotify and reopen (On Desktop)

4) Place songs back into local library folder

5) Songs you want to play on mobile, place in your playlist of choice and select save for offline mode (download them)

This worked for almost all songs. The worse part tended to be that some songs didn't play nice and I had to fool around with what information to leave out etc. 

Hope this helps anyone else!

[ViceKnightTA]

"...and I see a whole lot of sync action going on..." Yess me too, and I love it!