iTunesMatch: After "remove from iCloud", songs are actually still up!

[mmhardky]

I noticed a strange thing. I uploaded my own bands songs to iCloud via iTunes Match. There was some problem with the custom artwork and it got really messy (ID3 tags somehow couldn't be edited anymore in iTunes), so I decided to delete every trace of the songs from either OSX/iOS or iCloud. I deleted them from my library and deleted them from my iCloud ("also delete from iCloud"). They of course disappeared from iCloud on all my iOS devices.

I then copied "clean" tracks without any ID3 tags (the only thing that remained the same were the file names) to my hard drive and then imported them to the iTunes Library and turned on iTunes Match

To my surprise, iTunes Match MATCHED THEM and did not re-upload them. That means they stayed in iCloud despite the "delete from iCloud" step...

How is that possible?

That is a big problem, because lets say I upload 128kbit mp3 of an Album that cannot be matched. Then I decide to dig up the original CD, re-rip it in 256Kbit AAC and re-upload to iCloud. But how can this be done, if the old version still remains in the iCloud, even after "delete from iCloud" step in iTunes???

 

[r2shyyou]

I noticed a strange thing. I uploaded my own bands songs to iCloud via iTunes Match. There was some problem with the custom artwork and it got really messy (ID3 tags somehow couldn't be edited anymore in iTunes), so I decided to delete every trace of the songs from either OSX/iOS or iCloud. I deleted them from my library and deleted them from my iCloud ("also delete from iCloud"). They of course disappeared from iCloud on all my iOS devices.

I then copied "clean" tracks without any ID3 tags (the only thing that remained the same were the file names) to my hard drive and then imported them to the iTunes Library and turned on iTunes Match

To my surprise, iTunes Match MATCHED THEM and did not re-upload them. That means they stayed in iCloud despite the "delete from iCloud" step...

How is that possible?

That is a big problem, because lets say I upload 128kbit mp3 of an Album that cannot be matched. Then I decide to dig up the original CD, re-rip it in 256Kbit AAC and re-upload to iCloud. But how can this be done, if the old version still remains in the iCloud, even after "delete from iCloud" step in iTunes???

Hmm...maybe you have to wait some unspecified amount of time for the tracks to fully delete from iCloud? I'm just speculating here.

Also, on this Apple support article, there's mention of an option to "Update iTunes Match" that could maybe help.

Otherwise, it sounds to me like you're doing it right.

 

[mmhardky]

Well, I might try that... But my guess is they're simply keeping everything people upload to iCloud. "delete from iCloud" maybe means delete from YOUR instance of iCloud, but not their servers.... It would be interesting to read the TOC.

I did a little search and more people are noticing this. You upload some unique album there, then you "delete" it from iCloud, it successfully disappears, but when you try to upload it later again,....PRESTO!... it is matched within a few seconds.

I have to say, iTunes Match can be pretty confusing. I was surprised, that when I popped in the new MUSE album into my MacBooks DVD-Drive and imported it to my iTunes library (everything was tagged and recognized correctly), it Matched only like 60% of the songs and uploaded the rest. Even though it's one of the most popular albums on iTunes right now (with a big ad on the front page).

 

[bushido]

same issue here actually. i have around 800 songs that havent been matched and therefore were uploaded but im fairly certain that most of those should have been matched. so today i deleted all those songs from my library and from the cloud. i also logged out of my account and out of icloud and added the songs again, strangly it doesnt even bother to match and immediately shows "uploaded"

it seems to remember what songs were uploaded even tho i actually deleted them from the iCloud, at least thats what i assumed "delete from icloud" means -.-

 

[tburk32]

What I do as a way for it to at least appear to rescan my library is copy all of my items to a folder, delete the files from itunes and icloud, re-run itunes match (not sure if this is necessary or not) drag and drop all of my files into itunes again and change the file format to a different format and create a copy of all of my uploaded songs. Then I delete all of the old versions and re-run itunes match. It at least goes through the process of reuploading songs but I'm not sure if it makes a difference in the results or not