Apple Music / iCloud Music Library has made a right old mess of my iTunes library :(

[317342]

Anecdotally, I've had no issues with iTunes 12.2.*

Granted, my usage isn't everyone else's but I have to wonder if this issue has something to do with the format (i.e. MP3, WAV, Lossless, etc.) of music in the library, and/or the quantity of music (>5k songs).

I installed OS X 10.10.4 and iTunes 12.2 on the same-day it was launched; backed-up my computer, clicked "Update All," and left it to finish updating. I installed I'm an iTunes Match (iTM) and [now] a Apple Music (AM) subscriber. My complete music library is just over 4k songs; approximately 1/3rd of which being iTunes-purchased, the rest being CD rips or Amazon MP3s.

Post-update, iTunes launched, asked me if I want to subscribe to AM, and refreshed all of my music album art--all of it appears (knock on wood) legit. --This was with a local copy of the music.**

When I updated on my 2nd Mac, I had no local copy of the music--all was in iTM. The update went fine. To test, I downloaded a local copy of all the music from iTM, and no problem(s). --This was with no local copy of the music (all streaming).***

Lastly, I updated my wife's 15" MBP,**** and her music (knock on wood) hasn't gone anywhere.

The only issue(s) I've had with with AM thus far remain with my iOS devices: The only one I'm able to demonstrate reliably is [All] music not showing when selecting an Artist. You have to go back to the Artist list, then go back into the artist for the [All] menu to show.

I'd be very curious if those affected have a similarity in their respective libraries, perhaps demonstrating either a causality and/or correlation between those who experience this issue vs. those who don't.

* The sole exception being iTunes no longer automatically launches when I connect my phone or iPad to the Mac.
** 15" MacBook Pro (Mid-2015, Current Gen); Yosemite 10.10.4; iTunes 12.2; 4.2k songs
*** 21" iMac (Early 2008); Yosemite 10.10.4; iTunes 12.2; 4.2k songs
**** 15" MacBook Pro (Mid-2012); Yosemite 10.10.4; iTunes 12.2; 1.2k songs

 

[woss]

iCloud Music Library

Like many others here I have been plagued with issues surrounding iCloud Music Library including duplicating songs, playlists being muddled and errors. I have been receiving some brilliant support from Apple over the last few days and I think we have come to a solution. I have tried to make a step-by-step guide to see if it works with any of you.

1) Create a backup of your entire iTunes folder in Music. This can be on Time Machine or locally. Before closing this library, make a note of number of songs and size of library.
2) Quit iTunes. We are now going to create a new iTunes Library. Do this by alt+clicking on iTunes in the the dock. Select the option to create a new library. Name it whatever you want.
3) When it opens, click yes to using iCloud Music Library
4) Allow everything to do its work here. Leave it until it has finished.
5) Only your purchased songs should have been brought down into your library. This is what happened for me. It also restored some relatively incomplete playlists. I deleted them.
6) Re-add all your other songs to your library. This can be done by simply with cmd+O. Find your old iTunes Music folder (should have a list of artists in folders) and click open.
7) Allow iTunes to do its work processing all the songs and adding them. Once it is done, verify number of songs is similar to your old library's total (in the adding process it tries to remove any duplicates)
8) Once added, iCloud Music Library will do its work. Having had so many issues with it in the last few days, this time it actually worked for me. Leave it to completely sync your library. This will take time depending on your internet connection.
9) Quit iTunes. Open your old library by double clicking the .itl file in your old library. Follow these instructions to export your playlists: https://support.apple.com/kb/PH12145?locale=en_US&viewlocale=en_US
10) Quit iTunes, open you new library. Import your playlists using the same instructions.
11) Allow iCloud to sync

This should now be it all set up. Next is your phone and iPad.

1) Open Settings>General>Usage>Manage Storage>Music>Edit then delete all songs
2) Verify all songs have been deleted by opening the music app
3) Now turn on iCloud Music Library in Music Settings. This should load everything in from the cloud.
4) You can now select which playlist you want to store offline.

I hope this helps people who have had the same issue as me. If it doesn't work, I am really sorry. Let's just hope Apple find a solution for this soon!

OK, I did this. The problem is that all of my mislabelled/unpurchased songs appear to have been uploaded to iCloud and pushed to other devices. They in fact still showed up as duplicates of other songs. So I ended up just deleting all the iCloud listings here and moving on to import.

Now I have other problems. Import didn't seem to import everything, as there are now some 500 items of my 6000 item library missing (who knows which ones). The match system is not recognizing my purchased songs, uploading/matching songs that I purchased from the iTunes Store as soon as yesterday, and sometimes matching to the wrong version of the song entirely. Uploading is taking forever because songs that should be matched aren't. My Apple Music playlists won't show up in iTunes anymore. Every artist in my library (almost 600 of them) is now being followed on Connect.

Tempted to just restore my backup again and hope Apple gets their **** together soon. But we've also heard nothing official about these issues since Tuesday. A proper fix could be weeks if not months away. And it seems clear some of these issues are server side and won't just be fixed with a new iTunes update.

 

[sully54]

Hey guys, just to give you a bit of an update...

Out of my frustration a couple of night ago, I sent Tim Cook an email detailing what many of us have experienced and expressed our disappointment with Apple music so far. I sent this fully expecting to not receive a response.

But I did. Not from Tim himself but from Apple's corporate executive relations person. He will be calling me on Monday to further discuss what our issues with Apple Music has been. I'll let you guys know what comes of it.

It's good to know that at least they're listening and that this is reaching all the way to the top.

 

[DakotaGuy]

I just don't understand why this is such a problem. I have been using Google Music for years to stream my library on the go and it never messes with iTunes on my computer. It seems like Apple just has a whole heck of a lot going on with iTunes Match, Your own tracks, streamed tracks, etc all being mixed together. I'm just going to stick with Google Music for now. Once the Android version is out I might give Apple Music a try, but I think I'll continue to let Google Music handle my own tracks. It just works.

 

[Jstuts5797]

I posted this in another forum where people were experiencing issues. I'm just gonna copy and paste my post here in case it can be useful to someone:

I'm curious... For those of you having this issue ... As I understand it this is kind of what's happenin(I'm going to generalize and simplify for the sake of time and sanity) basically you guys are having the issue where say 6 months ago you purchased a song from the iTunes Store WITHOUT DRM. Now that Apple Music has done whatever to your libraries, when you try to download that track to your device(or computer) it's now a version with DRM on it without a way to get back your non DRM version? If this is indeed what some of your are experiencing have any of you tried to instead of downloading from within the music app, instead going to the iTunes Store and either searching for said song and redownloading from there (should show a cloud icon instead of the price, or maybe just GET now) . Or if it's all or a lot of your purchased music, try going to the purchased tab then click on "not on this iPad/iPod/ext" and download from that list.... But again from all within the iTunes Store and NOT Apple Music or the music app.

Some of you may have already tried this I don't know. I haven't updated iTunes on my PC yet in fear of issues. But I figured this might be worth a shot for someone, and aside from that I'm just damn curious if this would fix that one issue anyway.

 

[MoodyM]

Ok I have a makeshift half-workaround for at least deleting whatever is in iTunes Match so you can start fresh (I believe). I'm not re-enabling iCloud Music Library on my main computer until tomorrow in case it ****s up again, but I think this may have cleared out the iTunes Match files that were screwing everything up. I used two Macs, but you should be able to do it by creating a new iTunes library if you have only one Mac.

1. Re-sync your iPhone or iPad with music sync turned off (so there should be NO local music on your device). Turn off iCloud Music Sharing and sign out of Apple Music. Essentially, the Music app should be empty.
2. On your Mac, turn off iCloud Music Sharing in the library in question and close out of iTunes. Obviously make a copy of any iTunes library files somewhere safe just in case.
2. Create a new empty iTunes library (option click on the itunes icon)
3. In the new iTunes library, sign into iCloud Music Sharing. You should see the little cloud icon on the right working and after a bit the list should start populating with music that is currently in the cloud.
4. Once everything is loaded, select 999 or less files at once, right click, press delete. Let it sit for a little bit. Repeat until you've cleared everything out.
5. Turn OFF iCloud Music Sharing, exit itunes
6. Re-open, and sign in to iCloud Music Sharing again. If it worked, no items should populate. It took a couple times before I got everything out of the list. Exit iTunes.
7. Sign back into Apple Music on your iDevice. In My Music, with Show Music Available Offline unticked (no green circle) nothing should appear which would confirm everything has been deleted from the Cloud/Match.
8. Option Click on iTunes and re-select your main library.

From here, I don't know what happens when you re-enable iCloud Music sync, but I am able to download music off Apple Music with correct album art.

I followed these steps, but now that I've tuned iCloud Music Library back on in iTunes, it's not attempting to upload or match any songs - if I click File > Library > Update iCloud Music Library, it just says "Waiting to deliver you iCloud Music Library" for a few seconds, then goes away. Meanwhile on my phone, I've turned IML back on, but I have no music whatsoever (since iTunes hasn't uploaded/matched any of it)

UPDATE: I noticed every song in iTunes has a cloud icon with an X in it. I click that, and it says "this song has been deleted from your iCloud Music Library. Do you want to add it, delete song or keep song". Unfortunately I can't seem to find a way to add a bunch of songs at once, looks like they need to be done one at a time

 

[RogerEast]

I'm one of the people who was initially enjoying Apple Music until it started screwing with meta data, cover art and duplicates when I updated iTunes.

I've found a fix that worked for me. Very similar to the instructions above, but with a few slight differences. It's a bit fiddly and intermittent, but it works. Eventually.

1.) You need a backup of your local music library. If you don't, I'm not sure this will work. I know it sucks but events like this really rally home the importance of backups. I know it's not anyone's fault, but stuff like this happens. It took one hard drive failure - pretty much writing off a year of my work a few years back - to make me realise this.

2.) Restore your music from a date prior to Apple Music launch. I did this via time machine. Restore the entire iTunes Music folder, and don't tweak anything.

3.) Set up a new iTunes library. Switch on iCloud Music Library. Then, when it's loaded, delete everything it sends to your iTunes, thus removing it from the cloud. This seems to be the only way I can do it. The idea is to clear out iCloud Music Library so we can start from fresh. Skipping this step left me with screwy meta data still.

4.) Add your local music library to your new iTunes library. Let iTunes do its thing & upload to IML. This, for me, was the most frustrating part. Uploading is slow. Sometimes, iCloud disconnected. Be patient. Restart iTunes if you have to. It will take some time, but eventually you should have a fresh library uploaded to the cloud. I restarted a few times in the day, left it uploading overnight, and it was all fixed and matched in the morning.

5.) Follow the steps on the previous page for your other devices. Idea is to disable Apple Music, delete all the music from your devices, then switch it on again. You could wait till you iTunes finishes to do this. I didn't. I haven't had any problems yet.

It's long-winded and it's frustrating. The very fact that we have to follow steps like these is a disaster. In my opinion, Apple should've just gone the Spotify route, merging local library with cloud one instead of the whole 'Matching' business. That's where the problems seem to span.

But in following these steps, I have perfect metadata, no greyed-outs or duplicates across all devices, and a working Apple Music experience, which happens to be pretty good.

Good luck. Hope it works for someone else. Be patient. It might take a few tries, but it seemed to work for me.

 

[MoodyM]

I've just re-enabled IML on my MBP and it's now downloading a duplicate copy of all my local tracks, but the ones it's downloading have the wrong artwork!

Arggghhh!

 

[randy98mtu]

I followed these steps, but now that I've tuned iCloud Music Library back on in iTunes, it's not attempting to upload or match any songs - if I click File > Library > Update iCloud Music Library, it just says "Waiting to deliver you iCloud Music Library" for a few seconds, then goes away. Meanwhile on my phone, I've turned IML back on, but I have no music whatsoever (since iTunes hasn't uploaded/matched any of it)

UPDATE: I noticed every song in iTunes has a cloud icon with an X in it. I click that, and it says "this song has been deleted from your iCloud Music Library. Do you want to add it, delete song or keep song". Unfortunately I can't seem to find a way to add a bunch of songs at once, looks like they need to be done one at a time

If you select more than one by holding shift and grabbing a bunch or control and selecting one by one you can do several. I limited my selections to 500. Then wait for the status wheel pin the top right to stop spinning and add more. Tedious but it works.

 

[MoodyM]

If you select more than one by holding shift and grabbing a bunch or control and selecting one by one you can do several. I limited my selections to 500. Then wait for the status wheel pin the top right to stop spinning and add more. Tedious but it works.

Yeah but when I do that the status wheel never appears. It only appears if I do one at a time.

Everyone needs to submit feedback to Apple to help get this mess fixed quicker:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html

 

[johngordon]

Hey guys, just to give you a bit of an update...

Out of my frustration a couple of night ago, I sent Tim Cook an email detailing what many of us have experienced and expressed our disappointment with Apple music so far. I sent this fully expecting to not receive a response.

But I did. Not from Tim himself but from Apple's corporate executive relations person. He will be calling me on Monday to further discuss what our issues with Apple Music has been. I'll let you guys know what comes of it.

It's good to know that at least they're listening and that this is reaching all the way to the top.

That's good to hear. I once did the same about a dead Time Capsule - didn't hear back from Cook, but an operations guy in Ireland got back to me and got me a discount on a new one (it was out of warranty).

I had a messed up library and have just about sorted it out from a back up, but still have a few issues which I assume are related to iTunes Match.

A good example is a relatively rare album - Chill Out by the KLF. I have the CD, and its in my library. It is available to play in iTunes on the Mac, but is greyed out on my iPhone.

It is available in the iTunes store, but is not available in Apple Music.

I used to have an iTunes Match subscription, but haven't for a while.

So it looks as though there are issues with music that was made available through iTunes Match, but is not currently available through Apple Music.

 

[MoodyM]

I just sent this to Tim Cook's email address:

Hi Tim

Firstly let me just say I love Apple and Apple products - in my house of 2 adults and 2 kids we have 3 x Apple TVs, 2 x MacBook Pros, 2 x iPhone 6, 1 x iPhone 3GS, 2 x iPad Minis, 1 x iPad 2, 1 x Mac Mini and an Apple Watch. I also bought a Pioneer car stereo head unit specifically for CarPlay. And I recently just switched my bank to one that will support Apple Pay when it releases here in the UK (yes, I switched banks for the sole reason of being able to use Apple Pay!)

I also subscribe to 3 x 200GB iCloud accounts and 1 x 20GB account for the family and I’ve just signed up for the £14.99 Apple Music Family Plan. I also subscribe to iTunes Match.

My parents’ house has a similar amount of Apple products, based on my recommendations.

I personally have owned every iPhone since the first one and have had many Macs before my current one.

So it’s safe to safe I’m a fan and have invested huge amounts of time and money into the Apple ecosystem.

However I am having major issues with iCloud Music Library. It keeps placing duplicates songs and playlists in my library. It continually messes up my (very carefully curated) album artwork. It picks the wrong artwork and applies it.

I have spent many, many years and a HUGE amount of time making sure my iTunes library is tagged properly, neatly and with correct, high-quality artwork.

I am very very frustrated and disappointed that iCloud Music Library is messing this up.

There are numerous threads on Apple Support Communities and Mac Rumors forums regarding this, I am not alone.

If you could expedite someone on the team to look into this and fix it, I (and many others) would be very grateful and could get back to enjoying our Apple products and services.

Many thanks

 

[johngordon]

Good email - polite, but stressing the issues - as much because you want the thing to work as well as possible and be constructive rather than wading in like a bull in a china shop.

 

[Benjamin Frost]

Have you signed up for Apple Music? That seems to be what screwed up some people's libraries. If you have only iTunes Match, updating to 12.2 and enabling iCloud Music Library is safe. Everything will work just like before.

Thank you thank you.

I haven't even dared to update to iTunes 12.2 because of this pandemonium. I will now tentatively do so next week. I have used iTunes Match since it started. Also iCloud Music both on iOS and Mac OS X. I will certainly not turn on Apple Music. If I find any of my metadata changed or destroyed, I will go mad. I have lovingly cultivated smart playlists based on play counts, last played, five starred, etc. and to see all that obliterated would be devastating.

Even though I haven't updated anything yet, I have found that lots of my classical albums which were previously blank now have correct album art. This suggests that Apple have updated their album art database significantly which is independent of any software updates. I have also found at least one album, Ghostbusters, which has had its correct album art changed to a wrong cover.

 

[Benjamin Frost]

A tip for those who care about iTunes metadata:

Never, ever delete the iCloud cookie in Safari on the Mac. If you do, it will delete metadata from your iTunes tracks, both in music and movies and tv programmes.

It's ridiculous that this happens and also that Apple doesn't warn users.

 

[Benjamin Frost]

Also, someone from Apple responded to my email to "Tim Cook" and we're going to chat on Monday. I really hope everyone here who is having problems or concerns is reporting it to Apple. They can't fix what they don't know about.

Apple have huge resources.

They should have a team of QA that read this forum and other similar ones to make a list of all the bugs. That's far more efficient than expecting every person to laboriously file a bug report on Apple's website. It's clear that the complaints here are genuine and mostly written well.

 

[Paco II]

I'm sure Apple keeps tabs on the forums. But can you imagine if they spent all their time tracking down all the reported bugs in these forums? What percentage of posts are the result of user error?

Apple have huge resources.

They should have a team of QA that read this forum and other similar ones to make a list of all the bugs. That's far more efficient than expecting every person to laboriously file a bug report on Apple's website. It's clear that the complaints here are genuine and mostly written well.

 

[jmmo20]

Hi,

Up until now I have had a pretty nice iTunes Match set up between my multiple computers (laptop, server, home imac, etc). What used to happened is that I added a new song (by dragging to iTunes) and the song would either get "Matched" or uploaded using iTunes Match.

On the other computers I could choose to download the file but more often than not I would just stream the file (no need to click the iCloud download icon).

Now with Apple Music this is impossible. Let me explain: when i do this , some music gets "matched" through iTunes match, but other songs just get the status "Apple Music" even though they have NOT COME FROM APPLE MUSIC AT ALL. They came from my computer because I dragged a drm-free file onto itunes.

After this happens, the song appears on itunes in the other computers but if I download it I get the DRM apple music version. WHY DO I GET THIS COPY? I should be getting a "iTunes matched" copy instead. As a consequence I have to stop my "Match" workflow or otherwise I would end of with DRM files I have no control over. On top of this any mention of iTunes Match has disappeared from iTunes. I only have the iCloud music option which is basically match and music mixed in one.

What can I do to fix this? how can I turn off Apple Music altogether?
I would love to use Apple Music but it makes no sense that Apple turns MY OWN MUSIC into apple music magically and forever coupling my music to Apple Music's DRM. I am paying for iTunes MATCH on top of Apple Music for a reason !!!!!!!!

 

[lars666]

Apple have huge resources.

They should have a team of QA that read this forum and other similar ones to make a list of all the bugs. That's far more efficient than expecting every person to laboriously file a bug report on Apple's website. It's clear that the complaints here are genuine and mostly written well.

Considering how widespread and severe this problem is, MacRumors simply should finally post a front page article about this problem (as almost every other big tech page in the net already did), that would raise awareness ... Jesus, just look at the exploding amount of replies and views of this thread compared to others in this sub-forum. Or simply search for the term "iCloud Music Library" on Twitter where the confirmations of this disaster don't end. But I guess nobody of the very lucky MR operators is affected by the iCloud Library Music "kill switch" – there seems to be no other explanation...

 

[woss]

Be warned that if you delete items from your iCloud Music Library, this seems to "hide" purchased songs from the iTunes Store, meaning you'll have to manually unhide them from your iTunes Store account settings. This also affects the matching service, so even your purchased files will be potentially uploaded or matched to the wrong songs.

The whole thing is a mess of various different systems. It would not be as much of a problem if Apple didn't insist on matching songs instead of just uploading them – I care about the quality of my files so it's not doing me any favours here except downgrading the bitrate and messing up artwork & metadata.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I tried it all again from scratch with a new iCloud account (never any Match or other data)....

Thought it had worked ok - But after using Apple Music, liking stuff, saving stuff for offline, etc....1 day later it started messing with my local files again and then when I turned off iCloud Music Library it flat out REMOVED songs I owned.

(again - thank goodness for Time Machine)

So done with it at this point. Y'all can have it. LOL

I'm sticking with "normal syncing" and will just listen to Beats 1 and maybe play with the limited Apple Music features that don't involve my local files getting in the mix.

 

[jsmith189]

I just don't understand how they're effing this up so royally? I really don't like this all or nothing approach. I'd love to be able to Save Music and Make Music Available Offline without having to give you my whole iTunes library. My upload speed is horrible and it's been "scanning" and uploading my library for days, so I can't even attempt to fix it.

Why is it that my artist collection on my iTunes is perfect but on my phone it's just in complete shambles? Wrong versions of album covers (as compared to my iTunes), wrong album covers altogether, album versions I don't even own, duplicates within albums, some that are greyed out and play at the same time as others with times that don't match. Like what? If I'd wanted iTunes Match, I would have continued paying for it. But there was a reason I cancelled my subscription.

 

[Rigby]

Be warned that if you delete items from your iCloud Music Library, this seems to "hide" purchased songs from the iTunes Store, meaning you'll have to manually unhide them from your iTunes Store account settings.

This has been the case for quite a while. It's the same with movies and TV shows purchased from iTunes as well. I actually like it because it makes it easy to hide unwanted stuff in bulk.

 

[576316]

I'm in a complete mess and I don't know what to do next. I have Apple Music and iCloud Music Library turned on, on my iPhone, yet it's not showing any of the music I have in iCloud or any of the albums I've added to Apple Music. I'm wondering whether this is because I had the 'show all music' option turned off, but that seems to have disappeared from settings.

In short, my iPhone is only showing me music physically stored on my iPhone and entirely ignoring Apple Music or music in iCloud.

 

[Dark Void]

Am I one of the only ones avoiding this like the plague?

I have completely resisted the changes brought on by this update in every way - hid Apple music, got rid of "hearts" (wtf?) and just have my library existing as it was.

I feel bad for those (not in an arrogant way at all) that simply wanted to try Apple Music and are basically getting screwed. I would be really upset too.