Syncing your own music without an Apple Music subscription

mattybrand wrote:

I have an extensive music library of files that I have burned to my computer over the years.

You mean "ripped". You burn to CDs. You rip from CDs.

I do not buy music files unless they are not available on CD. That's how I do things. I have been syncing my music to my iPhone wirelessly on a 16 Pro Max since I got it last year without an Apple Music subscription (I tried it and it made a complete mess of trying to find my music so I refuse to buy it again.)

Yes, a subscription is not required to sync music to your iPhone. I'm assuming you are using the Sync over Wi-Fi option in iTunes to sync your iPhone.

I can do for months having all 47,000 songs I want on my phone, then in a freak instance, they will disappear mysteriously, even though iTunes still shows them checked.

When they disappear, have you synced with a computer that does not have your library by any chance? Or does your library sometimes not load in iTunes? This can happen if it's on an external drive that can't be accessed when iTunes opens and the iPhone syncs. If the iPhone sync with an empty library, the sync will remove everything from the iPhone.

Every time I call a support advisor they tell me I need a subscription, which is a bold-faced lie,

Correct. A subscription is not needed whatsoever.

but of course they won't believe me. When I plug in the phone to do a drag and drop like they insist I have to do since I won't pay into their subscription scam, iTunes immediately seizes and freezes, and I can't exit out without using Task Manager.

I'm at my wit's end and Apple advisors have not been very helpful, other than "change your machine" (how many computers does Apple think I happen to own") or "reboot for the 20th time." Does anyone have this freezing trouble when you plug in your device to a Windows PC, and how do you manage it?

I've never had iTunes freeze on me, but then again, I don't have 47,000 tracks in my library,

iTunes has always been able to sync my music fine from my Windows 10 PC to my iPhones and my iPads over the years.

What cable are you using for the sync? Is it the one that came with the iPhone or a third party cable?

Have you tried the sync in Safe mode? Windows may have something loaded in the background that causes iTunes to freeze when transferring the large amounts of data.

Any reason you don't just continue to sync the music wirelessly? If that works for you, then its fine to keep using it.

click here ➜ Sync iTunes content on PC with devices on Wi-Fi - Apple Support