If you read his follow up post this weekend, the songs never got deleted. They were actually there all long in the cloud just not showing up in his library. Clearly making that bug a server side issue.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Jim Dalrymple: Apple Music is a nightmare and I'm done with it
- Thread starter Rogifan
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
As a former Test Lead, this would have been darn close to the top of my list also. BUT I also know how management likes to FUBAR that kind of thing. I don't doubt there was some "we don't need to test this, as we're getting all the code from Match so it's all working and in production already" with the TL (if they even had one) demanding regression testing and only getting enough time time to do a couple of basic tests. TBF, I've never worked at Apple, but this seems to be the MO at most places now. We used to get to do actual, proper testing back in the day, but times have changed. Now everything is too much money, too much time.
No, even after finding all those songs, he still had a bunch of songs he couldn't recover (as per his follow-up post). Apple's explanation was that he must have deleted them himself (aka, they don't know what happened and can't explain it, so it must be user error). This is concerning to me as if they can't admit the issue was on their end, they're not working to fix it.
There are many ways we (Apple's loyal customers) could view Apple's questionable decision making with Apple Music, and other products for that matter.
Those of us who are left scratching our heads wondering "why did they do ____?" when we see or experience problems with their products or software and services. Knowing what we know about Apple's capabilities, it's certainly not for lack of technical expertise or the money to hire the right people. Yet nothing seems to prevent them from doing things that look stupid, fail to work as advertised, or just plain suck. No wonder today, out in the mainstream many people are questioning Apple's long term viability. No wonder I haven't seen one single person at Apple's lavish Watch Display in the Store, during my last several visits. Especially considering I've been in the store for a few hours at each visit, noticing the watch display gets passed by like it's not even there.
Over the weekend their were several news articles about Apple Stock and Apple Music, all questioning poor performance. There's little question in my mind that they'll carry on as though all is well, but behind the scenes I can't help but wonder how many employees are only there for the money and the brand, even if it's beginning to get tarnished. How many formerly content customers are taking a second look and wondering if Apple is worth it.
Those of us who are left scratching our heads wondering "why did they do ____?" when we see or experience problems with their products or software and services. Knowing what we know about Apple's capabilities, it's certainly not for lack of technical expertise or the money to hire the right people. Yet nothing seems to prevent them from doing things that look stupid, fail to work as advertised, or just plain suck. No wonder today, out in the mainstream many people are questioning Apple's long term viability. No wonder I haven't seen one single person at Apple's lavish Watch Display in the Store, during my last several visits. Especially considering I've been in the store for a few hours at each visit, noticing the watch display gets passed by like it's not even there.
Over the weekend their were several news articles about Apple Stock and Apple Music, all questioning poor performance. There's little question in my mind that they'll carry on as though all is well, but behind the scenes I can't help but wonder how many employees are only there for the money and the brand, even if it's beginning to get tarnished. How many formerly content customers are taking a second look and wondering if Apple is worth it.
Most people lost Music Library content becouse they manualy manipulate on iTunes files (in Finder), don't touch its settings and config files. Even if you figure out that something is wrong with songs, just disable Apple Music and iCloud Music Library in iTunes: everything will be back, becouse it is magicaly hidden (even as files in Finder!) until you do not disable Apple Music and iCloud Music Library by options in UI of iTunes (and iOS). You will still have option to download (cloud-with-arrow icon) missing offline songs bought in the past from iTunes Store (Enable option to show not only offline content). For me switch to the old way is not as hard as it may look (however I know it after many tries and tests).
Agreed. Apple music may very likely fall into the "meh" category. Theres way too many issues going on for prosumers and up to reliably use. All Apple cares about is having an alternative spotify thats right there out of the box for new users. Those are the people they care about. Not actual music enthusiasts. In order for some of these bugs to present themselves, you have to actually be using the app for a while. Most casual users listen to music for an hour or so per day.
Ironically for a company that says they LOVE music so much proves what a monumental mess they have to clean up. I find it hard to believe that anyone who truly loves music or has a large collection can be very happy with Apple Music. All these little issues and bugs add up to one giant steaming pile.
What sucks is theres SOOOOO much potential sitting right there. They have some great things going on that is muddied by complexity and bugs.
Except that for some of us, when you disable iCloud Music Library, it deletes some of your songs (and no, those tracks are NOT magically hidden). If you didn't buy those songs from iTunes, there's no getting them back, except to go to a backup, re-rip from CD (if you still have the CD), or sort whether you can re-download from wherever you bought them.
Where Jim Dalrymple’s Music Went (Comic) http://recode.net/2015/07/27/where-...ic/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Jim was supposed to talk about this on his podcast with John Gruber but he ended up cutting that part out. Part of me wonders if that was one reason Apple hauled him out to HQ to try and resolve his issues. I still wish he would have left it in there and just provided an update.
I wonder what else they said to him that he's not reporting. He seemed very critical and now it's like he's been lobotomized. "Maybe I *did* delete those songs myself" LOL.
I backup three times a week to external drives. For the System I do a complete Erase -> Copy. For data files I do a Copy Newer Files.
All this is pretty straightforward using a cloner software like SuperDuper.
I do all this so I won't lose my work files (I'm a graphic designer with a lot of illustration, photography and layout files). I confess, however, that I don't backup my music files that regularly. I'm working on adding those files to my regular backup routine.
I don't know but I doubt that portion of his podcast with Gruber was completely inaccurate so the fact he chose to cut it out makes me wonder what happened when he was at Apple.
Exactly. They said something to him to make him stop criticizing them so strongly.
It will be interesting to see if he does a 180 and goes back to Apple Music. I have a feeling if he does but the average user isn't seeing improvements with their issues he will lose a lot of respect. Now if Apple gets its act together and fixes these issues and Apple Music/iTunes becomes really solid that's another story. I'm skeptical it will happen.
My reading of his two posts on this topic shows a real lack of understanding by him of how iTunes Match and these services actually work. That he didn't realize that not all songs were on the computer he was using, and that by turning off iCloud Music Library they would no longer be shown, is quite telling. He also confuses iTunes Match with purchased music. Makes me doubt the weight of his posts quite a bit.
Just out of curiosity: Is the iTunes library excluded from Time Machine backups? I read a lot about people corrupting their library or losing songs and yes, that is obviously not acceptable, but the fix should be fairly simple: Roll back the library to the last Time Machine backup before Apple Music. Dalrymple had to go to Apple HQ for that?? Or is it not all that easy to restore an iTunes library from a backup?
The whole thing of not being able simply to mix our AM stuff directly with local files has to be related to a licensing issue, or at least let's say a protective issue, with the licensors of the music.
I can understand that, but it definitely has to have complicated matters for Apple because they already had a process out there that was similar but NOT THE SAME for matching stuff to the cloud.
And then there's iTunes purchase history. That has made re-downloads possible ever since they decided to let purchasers do that instead of sneaker-netting it or cabling to a computer.
I'd only say the fact that it's not simple to manage the rights requirements on how downloads must be protected or made free of DRM in all these different scenarios isn't wholly Apple's doing and certainly not its wish.
We're talking here about a company that has long made well designed interface between people, hardware and software a primary goal. They've largely succeeded, even as computing possibilities become ever more complex. The demands of content licensing make that even more complicated.
Yes, they now have to find a best way to help users be able to back out of a bad choice of their options here, and then communicate best practices better (and those best practices depend on what options were exercised). But all the slamming of Apple at this outset of the trial of Apple Music does seem a bit of piling on to me.
A some members have posted here, a full blown test on all kinds of half-assed libraries, with development and testing of workarounds and restores was necessary, and invariably nowadays there's rarely enough time to make that happen. Until, of course, some blowout happens in post-production and hence in a very public arena. Then it gets tested and worked around, with or without some permanent data loss.
Shrug. It happens. It can happen to the best of companies on any given day.
I predict Apple Music will succeed. Crawl, stand up, stumble, walk, run, fly!
The library is part of that, as are all the music files, but he wasn't backing up. You gotta back up to have a backup.
But yes, that's how I restored mine - I rolled Time Machine back to my last backup before AM launched, and restored the entire music folder.
It's easy to forget when you're in these forums that there are folks out there who have never turned on Time Machine.
On wow. He really is clueless about how iTunes Match works and how both it and Apple Music depend upon iCloud Music library. ITunes match does not just show purchased music. If he thinks that, and didn't understand the cloud requirement, then how we trust anything else he says about this?
The problem here is that there seems to be a bug that Apple is not publicly acknowledging in which AM/iTunes/iCML gets confused about what is and isn't AM music. If it thinks a file belongs to AM, it may modify that file at will, and when you turn off AM or iCML, it deletes that file. There are quite a few people who are NOT match subscribers (and never have been) here in the forums that have seen this issue. So it's more than best practices - there's actual coding logic that need to be fixed.
Yeah, I do think the slam has in some cases been a bit hard. There are number of people who just hate streaming services in general who seem to be very outspoken about hating AM. But then the Apple Watch released with few bugs to very successful sales numbers and approval ratings and there's still a truckload of hate for it and claims that it's a flop. There are people who will just hate anything that Apple makes, just as there are those who will refuse to see flaws. It goes both ways.
If Apple fixes the bugs, it could be a great service. I hope they do.
iTunes Match should show only music you own (music you presumably purchased from somewhere). AM music should not be in Match. Both would be in iCML.
If Dalrymple means "music you own" when he says "purchased music", and I think he does, then he is correct in his understanding, although he could have been clearer in his delivery.
That could be. He separated it out from matched and uploaded, but perhaps I misunderstood. Either way, he still shows a lack of understanding of how iTunes Match and iCloud music library works, enough to make me seriously doubt some of his complaints. He uploaded music, did not have originals, turned off iCloud Music library, then freaked out when his cloud music was gone. Clueless.
I considered that possibility but found it hard to believe. Dalrymple has been a tech journalist for Mac-related stuff for at least twenty years now, and he does not have a Time Machine backup. Even for a complete non-techie, there really isn't any excuse for not using Time Machine. It's a matter of connecting an external hard drive to your Mac and acknowledging a dialog box. That's it. If a non-techie doesn't use time machine, I facepalm quietly, but if a supposed expert in the field doesn't do it, then that is a special level of stupidity. If he really doesn't run a backup, then I have officially lost all respect for the guy. And then, frankly, even writing about how he lost his files is quite embarrassing. It's like an acclaimed surgeon writing a paper about how he amputated a person's arm instead of his appendix.The library is part of that, as are all the music files, but he wasn't backing up. You gotta back up to have a backup.
And no, I am not blaming the victim. The whole disaster is still Apple's fault, and I am constantly facepalming heavily in their direction. But this is now a nine page thread discussing the tech-related opinion of a guy who doesn't even have the necessary tech competence to run the simplest backup system in the IT world. That is quite ironic.
The library is part of that, as are all the music files, but he wasn't backing up. You gotta back up to have a backup.
But yes, that's how I restored mine - I rolled Time Machine back to my last backup before AM launched, and restored the entire music folder.
It's easy to forget when you're in these forums that there are folks out there who have never turned on Time Machine.
So true. And one more thing: People who may exercise the option to exclude various files from Time Machine backups (usually because the stuff is archived elsewhere, and so to save space on the TM drive) should review their exclusions to make sure they can get back where they need to if they lose stuff via Apple Music experiments with their regular libraries...