regardless of format, quality/bit rate. getting real annoying. ripping with itunes and wmp and still no luck. help a guy out?

thanks

also, they play fine on my computer and i just burned Sky Blue and Dark Matters Raw on to an mp3 cdr and they work fine. Also tried transferring them over to my super old sansa fuze and they play on that too.

Is it only Z2 that's causing problems? From your description I get the impression you haven't had problems with other albums in the past. Correct?

Unfortunately I can't help much with it's about iTunes. I've been using CopyTrans Manager instead and been very happy with it. If you don't care for automatic syncing and what-have-you Apple wizardry and prefer old-skool drag & drop managing, it's perfect. Well, almost, as you can only copy files back to your computer with its paid version.
http://www.copytrans.net/download.php
Scroll down to "CopyTrans Manager" (second down on the left), choose "download zip (advanced users)" - no need for installers or anything IMO. Just extract the zip file and copy the exe on your iPhone and you're set. No need to keep the program on your computer, just plug your iPhone in and run the manager.

And oh, I don't know if it's a feature of the iPhone too, but with the iPod Classic the library had to be set up (i.e. connect with iTunes for one time and transfer at least one song) before it can work.

It's nothing silly like appearing under a slightly different variation of the artist name is it?

Thanks, guys.

It was actually the 1st thing i've tried to add to it since i updated to the 12.0.1.26 version. I tried ripping other cd's after and had the same problem. No problem with stuff i had downloaded or was on the pc prior. Deleted itunes, reinstalled 3 times, still no worky. Tried converting it to AAC and nothing. Tried it on a friends computer with 11.whatever itunes and it worked. So whatever problem i'm having is with the current version of itunes on my 2 computers. Songs randomly get a "cannot sync" error, "cannot convert file" error, or ... My favorite... "cannot locate file" error. Even worse on my laptop, though.