Apple Music Apple Music library management driving me mad

[chiefdave]

This is something that has been an annoyance for years but with the emergence of Atmos and Lossless becomes a bigger issue.

I have a large Apple Music library, over 3.5K albums. On a, at least, weekly basis I notice something has changed. An album track has changed to the single version or become a track from a compilation; an album has split into two different version and other similar things. I dutifully move them back but its a never ending task.

Additionally, and presumably linked, I can add a complete album and then go back a few days later and get the 'show complete album' message even though I already have the complete album, hitting that then takes me through to the same album with the same track listing and no option to 'add' the missing tracks. I have to delete the whole album and re-add it to get rid of the message.

I spent weeks going through my library a few months back sorting all this out only for it to start appearing again pretty much immediately.

As annoying as that is its now worse as its not detecting Atmos and / or Lossless albums. I can't keep constantly checking 3.5K albums to see if a new version has been added by Apple!

To give an example I have Kasey Musgraves Golden Hour in my library. It shows the whole album complete with 'Apple Digital Master' at the top and the MCA Records copyright notice at the bottom. But it also says 'show complete album'. If I click on that it takes me to the same album but with Atmos and Lossless alongside Apple Digital Master. If I play a track off that album from the version in my library it doesn't play with Atmos. If, while the track is playing, I click 'show complete album' it shows the Atmos version and the now playing animation next to one of the tracks but still isn't playing in Atmos. Click the track again and it re-starts playing in Atmos.

Very weird, very confusing and very annoying. I can't be the only one getting this issue.

 

[chiefdave]

To follow on from this I've noticed my MacBook, iPhone and iPad show different things. So for example the Kacey Musgraves album I used as an example above has the 'show complete album' option on my iPhone but not on my MacBook or iPad. However on none of them does the Atmos option show.

The more I've dug into my library the more issues I've found. Way more albums than I thought have been changed. Splits between regular and deluxe seem to be common where the complete deluxe album was added but Apple Music has decided to split it in two.

Total mess and having gone through fixing everything once to find it now back in a complete mess I can't really see the point of doing it again. There needs to be a way to lock albums if they can't fix this, or at least notification of what has changed.

 

[Pug72]

I sympathise as I have similar probs.

I've realised it's better to check only the tracks/albums/playlist you are about to listen to, otherwise it'll drive you mad.

 

[chiefdave]

I sympathise as I have similar probs.

I've realised it's better to check only the tracks/albums/playlist you are about to listen to, otherwise it'll drive you mad.

It does drive you mad. I was looking at it last night and found an album in my library had decided to change to a different version for half the tracks. Deleted both, added back the one I wanted. Half an hour later it had changed again!

When its not even consistent across 3 devices on the same account there's no chance of getting the library into a 'fixed' state.

Of course that means Atmos is unusable as you have no idea if it is available for albums in the library or not.

 

[Lvivske]

i dont have this problem at all, however, it seems albums that are matched will partially match lossless, partially some other non-lossless version of the same thing, its hard toe tell wtf is going on internally

never seen an album split up though

 

[turbineseaplane]

As someone who strictly uses iTunes/Apple Music App for my personal music library management, it definitely seems that it's more critical than ever to have Apple Music and the iTunes Store physically disabled in the app..

The risk of metadata pollution is getting even worse with all these different versions and remasters, etc.

 

[chiefdave]

it definitely seems that it's more critical than ever to have Apple Music and the iTunes Store physically disabled in the app.

Not sure I follow what you mean here by disable Apple Music? Wouldn't that make everything on Apple Music unavailable?

Its not even that match is messing up my own library or anything like that. I can literally go on Apple Music, add a complete album then go back to that album later and its messed up.

 

[Lvivske]

Not sure I follow what you mean here by disable Apple Music? Wouldn't that make everything on Apple Music unavailable?

Its not even that match is messing up my own library or anything like that. I can literally go on Apple Music, add a complete album then go back to that album later and its messed up.

ive never had this happen to me ever

do you know a way to replicate this error?

 

[turbineseaplane]

Wouldn't that make everything on Apple Music unavailable?

The service yes.

I use the Apple Music application but not the actual music service.


Apple and their naming schemes are awful. I basically just use the application as if it were iTunes of old

 

[chiefdave]

ive never had this happen to me ever

do you know a way to replicate this error?

I can't force it to happen, it just happens randomly. An album can sit in my library for ages perfectly fine then all of a sudden it changes.

Quite often happens when there are deluxe and regular versions. Say I add the deluxe version of an album, and have that as the only version in my library, I can then find that some tracks switch to showing as the original version of the album while others stay as the deluxe.

The really odd thing I've noticed looking at this again is its different on my MacBook to my iOS devices. So at the moment I have Live's Throwing Copper in my library just fine on my MacBook, on iOS is shows as 2 versions of the album, one of which contains only one track.

 

[Cassandle]

Though not as bad as the OP, I have found that songs can randomly disappear or change.

For example, I have an album by The Raconteurs in my library via Apple Music. One of the songs now has gone, and I found it under Jack White.

For some reason Apple Music is a mess with REM’s albums. They often split into two, and at different times different songs will be missing from the album.

I’m also perennially confused about how about how it works with my own music library (albums I own that I ripped from CD into iTunes years ago). Sometimes the metadata I used gets overwritten: e.g. I have Mono and Stereo remasters of The Beatles back catalogue of albums, and have named the albums in iTunes accordingly (e.g. “Revolver (mono)”). Apple Music then added a third version of all these albums to my library - very annoying!