iTunes Match is not dead! Do not ditch it yet, read this...

[unattributed]

hey there! I hope you don't mind me bothering you about my personal iTunes Match problem..
I purchased iTunes Match and followed all of the tasks from these links because I wanted to upgrade my music to 256 kbits files..

http://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-use-itunes-match-to-upgrade-audio-quality/
http://www.grownupgeek.com/itunes-match-upgrade-music-files

Thing is I ran into a problem when I was about to delete the music from the list. I discovered it's impossible to delete songs from a smart playlist as they show in the "how-to". Though it's possible to delete music from "normal" playlists, deleting will only remove selected songs from the playlist and not from my iTunes media library.. The smart playlist which I'll have to delete contains 6140 titels and I don't see myself going to find them in the "music" tab (containing all my music in iTunes) and delete them all manually.. There has to be different way. Do you have any ideas on how to? I would really appreciate your help! Thank you and take care, unattributed.

 

[webbuzz]

The only thing that worked for me was to do this ridiculous little song and dance: delete the playlist, delete the song from iCloud, update iCloud Music Library, re-add the original song to iTunes, update iCloud Music Library again. At this point it'll show as 'Matched' . Of course you lose certain metadata that I personally rely on, like your play count (can be fixed with AppleScript) and the date the song was originally added (can't be fixed as far as I know).

Thanks for the tip. If it fails, I still have a clean backup that I made last week. Still a pain though.

 

[mistame]

True, although I encountered a bug today where I matched a song and it gave me an Apple Music DRM file instead of a regular file, I had to delete the original file, re-add it to the library, re-upload it and then it gave me a regular file... This is a very serious bug that needs to be fixed.

I had the same thing happen to me. Subsequently, There are some albums I have that are not in Apple Music OR the iTunes Store that still get matched.

 

[Tokenfreak]

Everytime i tried to get a song match in iTunes, it says it matches it so I then delete the original song and download the one form the cloud and it ends up being the DRM one form Apple Music. I have iTunes Match too so what gives?

 

[Soni Sanjay]

Everytime i tried to get a song match in iTunes, it says it matches it so I then delete the original song and download the one form the cloud and it ends up being the DRM one form Apple Music. I have iTunes Match too so what gives?

That's a bug, try deleting the track, re-adding it to your library, and matching it again, it should give you a DRM-free copy this time. Lots of people are having the same issue (myself included), it seems the cloud gets confused and gives you an Apple Music file instead of a regular file...

Hopefully Apple will fix this soon.

 

[McDaddio]

I understand that for a song I don't already own, if I download it from Apple Music, it will no longer be available if I cancel the subscription. BUT, will that mean that my library will have a bunch of "zombie songs" - e.g. they are dead, but still hanging around the library, or do they get flushed from the library?

 

[LundyLove]

I just had a song uploaded (not Matched) to itunes match and when I was testing it by deleting it and re downloading it, it was a drm fairplay 2 apple music file....

a matched file came back drm free

 

[Soni Sanjay]

Wait a minute.
Do I understand this right?

I have a song that I bought from iTunes.
It is not AAC protected.

I try to add that song from Apple Music, but it won't allow it.
I try to download it for off-line listening and they give me a AAC protected file?

So I went from AAC NOT Protected to AAC Protected because of this?

I don't understand.


Second question, is that I understand that for a song I don't already own, if I download it from Apple Music, it will no longer be available if I cancel the subscription. BUT, will that mean that my library will have a bunch of "zombie songs" - e.g. they are dead, but still hanging around the library, or do they get flushed from the library?

1.- If you bought a song from the iTunes Store, when you go search that song on Apple Music, it will recognize that you already own it, so the "Add to My Music" option won't even appear, since you already have it in Your Music. So no, when you download a purchased AAC file from the cloud, it should always be the same DRM-free file you bought.

However, something very important... Even if you bought the song, you must have the song download before activating iCloud Music Library. If you have the song in the cloud only, and not downloaded, it won't recognize that you already own it, even though you do.

So if that happens then, even if you bought the track from the store, Apple Music will not recognize it and will let you add it to Your Music... AND, since Apple Music doesn't know you already own it, it will download it as a protected AAC file. So that may be the problem.

2.- Honestly I don't know, and I don't think everyone knows for certain. We will have to wait until the 3 month trial expires, but yes, most likely you will be left with a ton of grayed out songs, until you subscribe again.

 

[Soni Sanjay]

I just had a song uploaded (not Matched) to itunes match and when I was testing it by deleting it and re downloading it, it was a drm fairplay 2 apple music file....

a matched file came back drm free

That's weird, what song did you upload?

 

[LundyLove]

That's weird, what song did you upload?

I ripped a Michael Martin Murphy CD it was mixed with matched and uploaded songs

The song that uploaded was "I'm Gonna Miss You Girl"

The Song I matched was "What's Forever For?"

I am just messing around with it The problem I have with it is I still use an iPod classic (I like to use my iPhone as a phone , weird I know). as such, it will not sync the DRM songs to my iPod

I can understand not wanting to use apple music with the iPod but I guess I will have to be careful but this kinda make iTunes Match useless to me unless they sort this out

 

[Tokenfreak]

That's a bug, try deleting the track, re-adding it to your library, and matching it again, it should give you a DRM-free copy this time. Lots of people are having the same issue (myself included), it seems the cloud gets confused and gives you an Apple Music file instead of a regular file...

Hopefully Apple will fix this soon.

Ok, I finally got it to match correctly and download the matched version DRM-free. However, the song I setup to match I remove 2 seconds from the song to see if it still would work. The real song is 3 minutes and 19 seconds and my version is 3 minutes and 17 seconds. It still matched though which is good, but when I deleted the original and download the match song it is still 3 minutes and 17 seconds and not 3 minutes and 19 seconds. So it didn't really match my song, instead it just upload it I think....This is frustrating...

 

[Peepo]

I have been using iTunes Match since it was available but I am dropping it.

In order to get family sharing to work properly with Apple Music, I had to use individual accounts (I was sharing my iTunes account that had iTunes Match on it with my wife). So now I have this nice clean slate of empty iTunes (no purchases) and I just don't have it in me to go and organize my 20,000+ songs again. Since 80-90% of what I would listen to is available in streaming on Apple Music, I will just re-create my music as it suits me over time. If there are some albums that are not in iTunes I can upload them to Apple Music when I notice (good example is Def Leppard Pyromania). I cannot come up with a reason why I want to have all my original music re-downloadable in AAC from Apple - especially with some of it mangled by bad or incorrect matches etc. which would take too long to sort out.

I sorta feel that all this work I spent over past several years organizing my music library is not as meaningful nowadays due to streaming ability. Time to move on and start new system (similar to how I did several times in past - ditched cassettes/records for CDs, CDs for MP3, MP3 for iTunes/Match, now moving to Apple Music)

Also another note... if I stream all music (even stuff which I have purchased previously) then the artists get paid ongoing.

 

[Soni Sanjay]

Ok, I finally got it to match correctly and download the matched version DRM-free. However, the song I setup to match I remove 2 seconds from the song to see if it still would work. The real song is 3 minutes and 19 seconds and my version is 3 minutes and 17 seconds. It still matched though which is good, but when I deleted the original and download the match song it is still 3 minutes and 17 seconds and not 3 minutes and 19 seconds. So it didn't really match my song, instead it just upload it I think....This is frustrating...

It's normal, it's (yet another) bug from iTunes Match, I have done the same thing and yes, the file still is the one from the store, doesn't matter if the time doesn't match, it will fix itself later.

 

[Icaras]

...

However, something very important... Even if you bought the song, you must have the song download before activating iCloud Music Library. If you have the song in the cloud only, and not downloaded, it won't recognize that you already own it, even though you do.

So if that happens then, even if you bought the track from the store, Apple Music will not recognize it and will let you add it to Your Music... AND, since Apple Music doesn't know you already own it, it will download it as a protected AAC file. So that may be the problem.

...

Actually, I tried exactly what you said, but I never switched off iCloud Music and I was still able to download my DRM free iTunes purchased music. To test, I had a local copy of an iTunes purchased track on my iPad (which shows as "Purchased" as it's iCloud Status in iTunes on OS X), I clicked "remove download", then went back and clicked "make available offline" and it came back as DRM free AAC file. To prove this, I was able to easily load it into djay 2. While making available offline music that I did not own and attempting to load it into djay 2 returned to me a DRM protected error message.

 

[Soni Sanjay]

Actually, I tried exactly what you said, but I never switched off iCloud Music and I was still able to download my DRM free iTunes purchased music. To test, I had a local copy of an iTunes purchased track on my iPad (which shows as "Purchased" as it's iCloud Status in iTunes on OS X), I clicked "remove download", then went back and clicked "make available offline" and it came back as DRM free AAC file. To prove this, I was able to easily load it into djay 2. While making available offline music that I did not own and attempting to load it into djay 2 returned to me a DRM protected error message.

Oh but that's perfectly normal. It gave you the DRM-free copy because Apple recognized that you already owned the track prior to activating iCloud Music Library. If Apple recognizes your songs a-priori, it doesn't matter if you delete the copy 100 times, it will give you the right DRM-free copy...

What I meant with that post is that if you don't have a local copy of your purchased or matched music in your PC BEFORE activating iCloud Music Library, it will not recognize then, but if you do, and after that you decide to delete your local copies, then there is no problem, Apple only needs to recognize it one time.

If it did, you can delete your local copies without worrying, when you re-download then from the cloud, the right DRM-free version will be downloaded.

 

[Icaras]

Oh but that's perfectly normal. It gave you the DRM-free copy because Apple recognized that you already owned the track prior to activating iCloud Music Library. If Apple recognizes your songs a-priori, it doesn't matter if you delete the copy 100 times, it will give you the right DRM-free copy...

What I meant with that post is that if you don't have a local copy of your purchased or matched music in your PC BEFORE activating iCloud Music Library, it will not recognize then, but if you do, and after that you decide to delete your local copies, then there is no problem, Apple only needs to recognize it one time.

If it did, you can delete your local copies without worrying, when you re-download then from the cloud, the right DRM-free version will be downloaded.

Ok I see what you're saying. However, that has to be a ridiculous bug or glitch if Apple can't recognize you own an iTunes purchased track, even if the user activates the iCloud Music Library while the music in not currently downloaded.

So if I were to switch iCloud Library music off right now, remove the same locally downloaded track (that was purchased through iTunes), then went back and switched iCloud library music on, you're saying that the track would only redownload back as a DRM protected file?

If this is true, can going into the Purchased tab of the iTunes store and redownloading the track that way, perhaps override Apple Music? Also, what about iTunes purchased music going forward? Since iTunes automatically downloads local copies to your device upon purchasing, doesn't that automatically make them DRM free, even if you decide to delete those right after? Since they were downloaded AFTER iCloud Music library was activated.

 

[fatboyslick]

It's normal, it's (yet another) bug from iTunes Match, I have done the same thing and yes, the file still is the one from the store, doesn't matter if the time doesn't match, it will fix itself later.

The main issue with Match I have found is that songs can be matched when they're not the same version. For example there's a vocal version of a breakbeat track that matches with a non vocal version. I've had to completely retag the song so I don't lose the vocal version when uploading

 

[Soni Sanjay]

Ok I see what you're saying. However, that has to be a ridiculous bug or glitch if Apple can't recognize you own an iTunes purchased track, even if the user activates the iCloud Music Library while the music in not currently downloaded.

So if I were to switch iCloud Library music off right now, remove the same locally downloaded track (that was purchased through iTunes), then went back and switched iCloud library music on, you're saying that the track would only redownload back as a DRM protected file?

If this is true, can going into the Purchased tab of the iTunes store and redownloading the track that way, perhaps override Apple Music? Also, what about iTunes purchased music going forward? Since iTunes automatically downloads local copies to your device upon purchasing, doesn't that automatically make them DRM free, even if you decide to delete those right after? Since they were downloaded AFTER iCloud Music library was activated.

Precisely, if you don't have a downloaded local copy of your purchased or matched music upon activating iTunes Cloud Music, the tracks won't even appear, it is not that you receive a DRMed copy when you re-download the song... The problem is that the music doesn't even appear, it is as if you didn't even have any music in the first place... You are stuck with an empty library.

The only way of fixing it is turning off iTunes Cloud Music... When you do that, all the library will re-appear, and then you would have to download the songs, and then you would have to turn iTunes Cloud Music on again, and THEN finally it will recognize that you already own those songs... Fortunately you can do that, but it is very annoying. And yes, purchased music after activating iCloud Music Library won't have that problem.

 

[fatboyslick]

All being said, I'm sticking with just Match for now. I want to try out Music but it feels like my music library is going to get botched at some point.

Just changed my MacBook too and can't fit all my 260gb of music on it so working from a delegate hard drive and Match, meaning iTunes won't "see" music only computer

 

[Ludatyk]

Thanks for the post.

At this point it's a decision between iTunes Match or Apple Music, but if your on Family Plan... iTunes Match becomes obsolete.

Reason being is that the shared AppleID can't be used under each Family Plan user, so... My original plan of sharing my library amongst devices becomes irrelevant.

 

[netnothing]

So was iTunes Match renamed to iCloud Music Library in iTunes?!?! I thought iCloud Music Library had nothing to do with Match?

Could Apple have made this anymore confusing?

-Kevin

 

[npmacuser5]

How about this:
Cancel iTunes Match
Pay for Apple Music
Later need to cancel Apple Music
Activate iTunes Match
For us the new Apple Music at first glance will more then meet our music needs.
If one needs both for some reason then keep both.
Am I missing something?

 

[JackieInCo]

I went back to the old version of iTunes on my Mac. The current version would not let me turn on iTunes Match saying I had to turn off genius from the store menu and then turn it back on. Problem is is that the current iTunes does not have the store menu.

I also restore my 5S back to 8.3. Not interested in Apple radio. I am still on 8.3 on my iPad and 6+. I like iTunes Radio.

 

[Ludatyk]

So was iTunes Match renamed to iCloud Music Library in iTunes?!?! I thought iCloud Music Library had nothing to do with Match?

Could Apple have made this anymore confusing?

-Kevin

I think Apple will end up changing iTunes Match to iCloud Music eventually.

 

[kelleybp]

I'm an iTunes Match subscriber. When I add a curated Apple Music Playlist to my library, any songs contained in that playlist that already exist in my library and have long been matched see its iCloud status changed from 'matched' to 'Apple Music'. More importantly, those songs are now DRM-protected when I try to download them! Any way to change this ?!?!

I may have found a workaround for this, but it requires removing the playlist with the duplicate song from your music...

I too was finding that after adding Apple Music playlists containing songs I already owned and processed thru iTunes Match (whether via upload, match, whatever) I could only download the DRM'd version from iTunes, even after the playlist was removed from my music.

Here's the fix: (1) remove the DRM'd download in iTunes and the playlist containing the duplicate song(s); (2) go to Preferences and turn off both Show Apple Music and iCloud Music Library, click OK, all music not locally stored will disappear; (3) go back to Preferences and check the iCloud Music Library option ONLY; (4) download the DRM-free file from iTunes via iTunes Match.

Has worked for me so far. YMMV.

EDIT: it helps to enable the "iCloud Status" option in the "Songs" view preferences. Any status aside from "Apple Music" will be DRM-Free ("Matched," "Uploaded," "Purchased," etc.). Oddly, I have some duplicate songs in my library that have not been added thru an Apple Music playlist (in other words, I have both "Apple Music" and "Matched" versions -- and there's no reason why an "Apple Music" version should be present).

This is a far from perfect solution, but is should help anyone who wants to download a DRM-free track that was owned prior to Apple Music, then duplicated by an Apple Music playlist. Should suffice until Apple fixes the bug.