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I downloaded some music tracks from the iTunes Music Store and synced them to my iPhone. While browsing the music on my iPhone, I realized the "Composer" field was filled in with the names of the musicians who wrote the songs. However, I only use the "Composer" field for classical music, and leave it blank for non-classical music, so I went back to iTunes and deleted the contents of the "Composer" field for each track, and re-synced. iTunes showed that the files were being updated, but when I looked on my iPhone, it still had entries in the Music app's "Composer" tab. So I went back to iTunes again, and changed the "Composer" field for each track to "Blah", then re-synced. As expected, there was now only a "Blah" composer entry in the Music app. I then deleted the contents of the "Composer" field again (in iTunes) and re-synced. Lo and behold, there was still a "Blah" composer entry in the Music app! So then I unsynced all my music from my iPhone, and re-synced it—and there's still a "Blah" entry!

What do I have to do to get the Music app to recognize that the tracks don't have a "Composer" field anymore?! (iTunes must be one of the most frustrating pieces of software Apple has ever made.)

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  • I have had very similar problems, where a change I make in the iTunes Library does not seem to be recognized by the device I am syncing with. The way I have solved similar problems has little to do with resetting the iTunes Library itself (as you indicate you have done by removing, then re-adding the files to iTunes); but rather with resetting the Library file in the iPhone. To do that, go to Settings > Usage > Music and swipe right-to-left to manually delete the tracks from within the device. Once there is no music, re-sync. Also, +1 on calling iTunes the most frustrating piece of software.
    – Christian Correa
    Commented Jan 2, 2014 at 12:52

7 Answers 7

Reset to default
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I don't understand why this is happening to you. My songs are set up the same way (classical has composer info, others do not) and the transfers are fine back and forth with my iPad and iPod when I edit the Composer field.

If you have a Mac, you could try this.

Drag a music file from iTunes to the desktop. Delete the file from iTunes and your iPhone and sync and make sure it's gone. Then drag the music file back to iTunes (with the iPhone powered down) and edit it. Drag it to the desktop, delete from iTunes and put it back, making sure that all the details are as you want them. Then sync to the iPhone.

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  • Didn't work. I deleted them from iTunes, re-synced, and the Composer tab in the iPhone Music app was empty. Made sure the Composer field was not set, copied them back into iTunes, synced again, and now "Blah" is listed in the Composer pane again.
    – mipadi
    Commented Jan 2, 2014 at 11:08
  • Here are 2 more things to try.
    – mkaz
    Commented Jan 3, 2014 at 19:56
  • Here are 2 more things to try. 1) With iTunes closed, rename iTunes Library files (.itl, .xml) and let iTunes rebuild them. You will lose playlist information. 2) When I examined my iTunes Library.xml file I noticed that tracks where I had no Composer info did not have a <key>Composer</key><string>theComposer</string> line for them. If so you could copy your .xml file, global delete your compose/blah lines, then see if that did it.
    – mkaz
    Commented Jan 3, 2014 at 20:01
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I have had very similar problems, where a change I make in the iTunes Library does not seem to be recognized by the device I am syncing with. The way I have solved similar problems has little to do with resetting the iTunes Library itself (as you indicate you have done by removing, then re-adding the files to iTunes); but rather with resetting the Library file in the iPhone. To do that:

  1. In the iPhone, go to Settings.
  2. Select General.
  3. Select Usage.
  4. In the Storage section, select Music.
  5. Swipe right-to-left in the top entry, which is "All Music" to reveal a Delete button.
  6. Press Delete.

Once there is no music, re-sync. Also, +1 on calling iTunes the most frustrating piece of software.

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  • Heh, naturally this didn't work, either (but it was a good try, I thought it'd do the trick). I'm starting to think that there must be something wedged in the iTunes music library database (on my Mac) that results in this information getting copied over to the iPhone.
    – mipadi
    Commented Jan 2, 2014 at 23:02
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First of all, make sure the composer not present in the album's metadata. Try changing it there and then try again. If that fails, get it correct in iTunes and do the following:

Music syncing is somewhat unreliable for me too, but what works usually is:

  1. Disabling music sync alltogether for my iPhone in iTunes (music tab, uncheck "sync music with this iPhone")
  2. syncing the iPhone and waiting for finish
  3. unplug the iPhone and reboot it (yes, reboot, seriously)
  4. replug (at this point, no single music file should be on your iPhone)
  5. re-enable music syncing in iTunes
  6. hope for the best
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I noticed that after copy files from a NAS to my iPhone, the iPhone was listing lots of tracks with a composer that I could not see in iTunes. Very annoying as I use Composer to sort through classical music only. I looked at the tags in Windows and noticed that it has a tag "Composers" and that had the relevant info that I wanted rid of. I think Windows Media PLayer (which I was using for streaming from the NAS, decided to put that tag there or something equally unhelpful. I suspect that the iPhone respects the "Composers" tag i.e. reads it as "Composer" but that iTunes does not (it strictly reads "Composer". I cant face re-adding all the music to the phone again as it took ages to select, so I will copy my music off the iPhone, use a tagging tool to remove the offending tag data and then copy it back again!

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As far as I can tell, in iOS 7, the Music app will attempt to use the iTunes Music Store to automatically fill in metadata for tracks purchased from the Store. It seems that if you really want to have full control over your metadata, it is best not to purchase tracks from the iTunes Music Store.

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I prefer only to see classical composers in the composers view. Only way to make this work on iPhone is to change the non-classical tracks' composer to "Miscellaneous" rather than blanking it out. Anything non-classical will then show under "Miscellaneous" composer on iPhone. Next best thing.

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If you create an identical copy of the song it will strip the new version of its Composer contents.

Just make sure the copied version matches the bitrate, kind, etc. for a near identical song.

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