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Music - Missing Features, Bugs, Issues & Troubleshooting
- Thread starter ErikGrim
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You're probably right. I try to lower my expectations these days. Long album names also run into the artist name on the search results page (which doesn't remember its scroll position either, of course). I wouldn't be surprised if this never got fixed.
Updated my Macbook from Mojave to Catalina 10.5.2 yesterday.
First time starting Music made it hang on a quite large empty white window on top of the app. After 30 minutes I forced quite the app, and re-started it successfully.
The release notes of 10.5.2 say "Resolves an issue that may prevent album artwork from appearing", but from the about 50 albums I have, the artwork of tens of albums is missing after the migration. I will not move my main computer (with > 1500 albums) to Catalina, I have not time to manually fix problems that a new release introduces.
This Music app is really horribly tested and released by Apple... My suspicion is a SW team that is forced to deliver under time pressure of upper management, and nobody in that team being empowered to say "we are not there yet". Whatever it is, the effect for the user is going more than 10 years back in time, where iTunes was more stable and predictable, and no obvious new advantages are offered at all (besides trying to move people to a streaming subscription model).
First time starting Music made it hang on a quite large empty white window on top of the app. After 30 minutes I forced quite the app, and re-started it successfully.
The release notes of 10.5.2 say "Resolves an issue that may prevent album artwork from appearing", but from the about 50 albums I have, the artwork of tens of albums is missing after the migration. I will not move my main computer (with > 1500 albums) to Catalina, I have not time to manually fix problems that a new release introduces.
This Music app is really horribly tested and released by Apple... My suspicion is a SW team that is forced to deliver under time pressure of upper management, and nobody in that team being empowered to say "we are not there yet". Whatever it is, the effect for the user is going more than 10 years back in time, where iTunes was more stable and predictable, and no obvious new advantages are offered at all (besides trying to move people to a streaming subscription model).
It's clear that even after the latest Catalina update, the Music App still isn't quite fully usable for those of us who have large music libraries and who meticulously curated tons of playlists (including hand selected artwork) and who don't use Apple Music.
And when I say Apple Music, I am referring to the streaming service, not the iOS App, or the MacOS App, or the Apple Music Store, or is it iTunes Music Store depending on the Mac or iOS device you are using? Since Apple thinks that having anything remotely related to 'music' should be named Apple Music, one has to explain which Apple Music they are referring to when trying to explain an issue. Somehow Apple thinks this naming scheme (or lack-of naming scheme) simplifies things, when really, it does the opposite.
Anyway, after that unintentional rant, my question is, since I still need to use iTunes under Mojave on my 'Music Mac' to use with my Sonos system, does anyone think that Apple will fix the Crossfade feature that they broke (once again) in the latest (assuming last version) of iTunes under Mojave? They usually break this feature in every other iTunes upgrade, so if there are no more updates to iTunes for Mac, did they kill this feature for good?
And when I say Apple Music, I am referring to the streaming service, not the iOS App, or the MacOS App, or the Apple Music Store, or is it iTunes Music Store depending on the Mac or iOS device you are using? Since Apple thinks that having anything remotely related to 'music' should be named Apple Music, one has to explain which Apple Music they are referring to when trying to explain an issue. Somehow Apple thinks this naming scheme (or lack-of naming scheme) simplifies things, when really, it does the opposite.
Anyway, after that unintentional rant, my question is, since I still need to use iTunes under Mojave on my 'Music Mac' to use with my Sonos system, does anyone think that Apple will fix the Crossfade feature that they broke (once again) in the latest (assuming last version) of iTunes under Mojave? They usually break this feature in every other iTunes upgrade, so if there are no more updates to iTunes for Mac, did they kill this feature for good?
I upgraded from 10.15.1 to .2 yesterday. This morning I listened to an album with Music. It ended normally. One hour later I wanted to listen to an other album: no sound anymore. I had to reboot my mac (a recent 2019 15'') to get the speakers back to work. In the meantime I had used a VPN, disconnect and reconnect for other stuff - it may not be related to my sound problem with Music, but just for the record - since I've noted that Music downloads some illustrations for the Artist list and thus makes use of my internet connection (although I've unactivated all automatic download features in Music... I don't want Music to force me to have these images)
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I spent two days moving my library to Music 1.0.2! I decided to have the 3+ TB on a separate disk so iTunes could stay unobstructed. It appears that Apple TV + etc. need to control the structure of the library for media sharing to work properly.
Music 1.0.2 Library>Organize>Consolidate is broken - at least across external drives. It copies the files but does not update the file pointers in the DB! I ended up backing up the iTunes library and then using iTunes to consolidate to another disk. Since it took 14 hours for the copy, days were spent on two attempts.
I then opened the ITL in Music and opened the other apps after cleaning their working directories. That all worked. I then restored the iTunes directory pointing to the original disk.
All seems to be working except for Album art. One bug is that iTunes opens art embedded into the media files while the new apps first try to fetch it from the store. This includes the Finder!
AMPArtworkAgent has been at 100% since last night with little progress shown. I will let it trundle. Meanwhile Music is not usable due to spinning balls - presumably trying to get the art.
It looks like Apple's focus is not on large, resident libraries.
[automerge]1576603273[/automerge]
Music 1.0.2 Library>Organize>Consolidate is broken - at least across external drives. It copies the files but does not update the file pointers in the DB! I ended up backing up the iTunes library and then using iTunes to consolidate to another disk. Since it took 14 hours for the copy, days were spent on two attempts.
I then opened the ITL in Music and opened the other apps after cleaning their working directories. That all worked. I then restored the iTunes directory pointing to the original disk.
All seems to be working except for Album art. One bug is that iTunes opens art embedded into the media files while the new apps first try to fetch it from the store. This includes the Finder!
AMPArtworkAgent has been at 100% since last night with little progress shown. I will let it trundle. Meanwhile Music is not usable due to spinning balls - presumably trying to get the art.
It looks like Apple's focus is not on large, resident libraries.
[automerge]1576603273[/automerge]
I think the problem is very similar to embedded art. Music totally relies on the store first and does not look at all the embedded meta info, while it should look at the local info FIRST.
After so many issues with Apple Music and being an iTunes music subscriber from day one I found a fix to all the problems and switched to Spotify. Problem solved, thank you Apple. I never did take the time to load my extensive CD library in to iTunes so I literally had nothing invested to make the switch. Glad I did, it's been a few weeks and I can't see myself returning.
Album covers showed up - almost all of them. Then I scrolled back up and they are ALL gone. Buggy as hell!
How does this pass QA?
I quit, then launched. Blanks again. Suspect they will eventually fill.
iTunes comes up with everything in place. How can they screw this up so badly?
I am trying to follow this artwork issue in the Music app as I still haven't migrated from iTunes - with this being one of the bigger concerns.
So, just to be clear, is the Music App trying to overwrite previously applied (via iTunes) artwork with new artwork fetched from Apple's 'get artwork' sources? If so, does it do this automatically, or can this be turned off in settings prior to migrating from iTunes?
Is the Music App unable to assume the previously applied song artwork or is the issue that it cannot access it once migrated? I've selected and applied new, updated and unique artwork to thousands of songs, so I don't want the Music App to replace any of it with generic artwork.
If it's just a matter of waiting for a fix, that's one thing, but if this is how it's going to be, this is a going to be a major issue.
So, just to be clear, is the Music App trying to overwrite previously applied (via iTunes) artwork with new artwork fetched from Apple's 'get artwork' sources? If so, does it do this automatically, or can this be turned off in settings prior to migrating from iTunes?
Is the Music App unable to assume the previously applied song artwork or is the issue that it cannot access it once migrated? I've selected and applied new, updated and unique artwork to thousands of songs, so I don't want the Music App to replace any of it with generic artwork.
If it's just a matter of waiting for a fix, that's one thing, but if this is how it's going to be, this is a going to be a major issue.
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Here's an interesting result for you...
Yried loading a fresh library of just my Rush CD/DVDs/BRs - 40+ in total - I had "Automatically download artwork" and "Automatically retrieve CD track names from internet" turned off - so was hoping it would pick all that up from the full metadata of each track file.
It loaded them all, and had every single artwork - including some which were bootlegs that it would not have found in any Apple library.
I then zapped all that, and loaded up my entire library (1300+) entries - now not only is it still missing the vast majority of album covers, but it's missing all but two of the Rush album covers.
Maybe it cannot cope well with loading entire "larger" libraries (I know plenty have way more than me) in one go and maybe the missing artwork will turn up later - but I somehow doubt it.
I will maybe try smaller subsets loading at ones - a, b, c etc at a time - or may artist at a time (though that would be tedious).
BTW This is with latest official Catalina fully patched - no betas.
Yried loading a fresh library of just my Rush CD/DVDs/BRs - 40+ in total - I had "Automatically download artwork" and "Automatically retrieve CD track names from internet" turned off - so was hoping it would pick all that up from the full metadata of each track file.
It loaded them all, and had every single artwork - including some which were bootlegs that it would not have found in any Apple library.
I then zapped all that, and loaded up my entire library (1300+) entries - now not only is it still missing the vast majority of album covers, but it's missing all but two of the Rush album covers.
Maybe it cannot cope well with loading entire "larger" libraries (I know plenty have way more than me) in one go and maybe the missing artwork will turn up later - but I somehow doubt it.
I will maybe try smaller subsets loading at ones - a, b, c etc at a time - or may artist at a time (though that would be tedious).
BTW This is with latest official Catalina fully patched - no betas.
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Ok replying to my own reply ! I just tried by artist name single letter a/b/c etc at a time - and it worked completely ! Only exceptions to entire single letter at a time were where I had certain artists with 30+ albums - these I did individually.
So now have them all.
Tried exiting and restarting Music a few times, also created some playlists - all still there so far.
I moved the library by a folder. Done 48 hours later. The file paths are a little odd. I selected the Media folder on my media drive also pointed to by a symbolic link in the ~/Music/Music folder. The file links end up using the the ~/Music/Music/Media/Music folder, while files added alter use the {/Volumes}/Media/Media/Music/Media path. Both work, of course. But odd.
After another few hours of trundling the music covers seem to be stabilizing.
Storage for art is in ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.AMPArtworkAgent/Data
What an adventure!
Startup is a little slow before things come up.
After adding albums to existing playlists, playlist description has been removed. Anyone else having this issue?
Does the visualizer views not actually react / work for anyone else?
Not logged as a bug so just wanted to confirm....it is in the music app, it just doesn't actually function regardless of what music is plating (have done some troubleshooting to confirm on my side).
Not logged as a bug so just wanted to confirm....it is in the music app, it just doesn't actually function regardless of what music is plating (have done some troubleshooting to confirm on my side).
I've 14 years of iTunes files that have happily migrated across 5 Macs. I'm rather tied to my play counts, etc. This has always been located in the directory /Sounds and is now some 320Gb. I've never bought a single MP3/whatever from Apple; all of this is my own ripped music. Never particularly liked iTunes, but it worked OK, although was/is still getting worse with each release as Apple pushes their streaming service, which like all streamers, is rent don't buy, is poorly curated and doesn't have all the music I have.
Then along comes the new 16" MacBook Pro which forces Catalina with it's new "can't use the /root directory" rules. The migration tool failed to work.
It's a simple requirement; copy /Sounds on old Mac to /somewhere/Sounds on new mac (don't want it in 'my' Home directory). Alas it's failed every time due to the "binary" nature of the iTunes database file which can't be simply edited to relocate the files.
Have tried many techniques to move this massive directory from the old Mac to the new. I've managed to get the database to import to the new Mac, containing all the metadata (play count, etc.). Unfortunately the file locations (for 22,000 songs) are all incorrect: clicking on one results in the dialog "the original file can't be found, would you like to locate it", click Locate then navigate to the new location results in that SINGLE file being located, but it won't find any more, not even in that album. It's really not acceptable to do that for the other 21,999 songs.
I can import the entire library, but this looses the entire play count -- the point of the exercise -- so is unacceptable.
Migration Process
The following migration works when migrating from old Mac running Mojave to new Mac running Catalina when the import fails. Assumes original location of music files is in /Sounds.
Summary:
Edit 1:
Incredibly irritatingly the Music application which has been working well today as I spent lots of time organising my library and adding in more music, has failed to save the library. So has completely failed following a reboot.
Investigating the root cause.
Also investigating alternatives to the useless Music application.
Edit 2:
No idea why Music failed to save the database. So had to recreate it again. Useful practice I suppose...
Catalina stashes the library metadata into a file called
Now check that this file's been modified recently.
It's irksome how "just good enough" the iTunes applications are. iTunes is certainly not a great application, but I've always struggled to find anything that's better, whether free or paid for.
Then along comes the new 16" MacBook Pro which forces Catalina with it's new "can't use the /root directory" rules. The migration tool failed to work.
It's a simple requirement; copy /Sounds on old Mac to /somewhere/Sounds on new mac (don't want it in 'my' Home directory). Alas it's failed every time due to the "binary" nature of the iTunes database file which can't be simply edited to relocate the files.
Have tried many techniques to move this massive directory from the old Mac to the new. I've managed to get the database to import to the new Mac, containing all the metadata (play count, etc.). Unfortunately the file locations (for 22,000 songs) are all incorrect: clicking on one results in the dialog "the original file can't be found, would you like to locate it", click Locate then navigate to the new location results in that SINGLE file being located, but it won't find any more, not even in that album. It's really not acceptable to do that for the other 21,999 songs.
I can import the entire library, but this looses the entire play count -- the point of the exercise -- so is unacceptable.
Migration Process
The following migration works when migrating from old Mac running Mojave to new Mac running Catalina when the import fails. Assumes original location of music files is in /Sounds.
Summary:
- Copy
/Soundsdirectory from old Mac to/Users/Soundson new Mac- (Takes a while to copy the 300Gb of files over the network!)
- Copy
~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Library.itlfrom old Mac to same location in new Mac- (probably best to rename the existing iTunes Library.itl file)
- Create
/Soundssymbolic link in root directory (seeman synthetic.conf)
echo -e 'Sounds\tUsers/Sounds' | sudo tee -a /etc/synthetic.conf - Reboot; check that
/Soundsfiles are mounted (e.g.ls /Sounds) - Start iTunes and all files and metadata (play count) are back
Edit 1:
Incredibly irritatingly the Music application which has been working well today as I spent lots of time organising my library and adding in more music, has failed to save the library. So has completely failed following a reboot.
Investigating the root cause.
Also investigating alternatives to the useless Music application.
Edit 2:
No idea why Music failed to save the database. So had to recreate it again. Useful practice I suppose...
Catalina stashes the library metadata into a file called
Music Library.musiclibrary which lives in the directory Music prompts you to create when you <opt><click> on Music to open it. This time around it created the file and it's some 210mb in size. The actual music files are in a different location; only the metadata's stored in that file.Now check that this file's been modified recently.
It's irksome how "just good enough" the iTunes applications are. iTunes is certainly not a great application, but I've always struggled to find anything that's better, whether free or paid for.
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Since it doesn't look like Apple is going to be addressing these artwork issues any time soon, I want to experiment and try to migrate my iTunes library from one Mac using Mojave, to another using Catalina.
There are lots of procedures listed in this thread, with conflicting results, so can anyone offer a clear bulleted step by step process to migrate from iTunes to Music?
I've already disabled 'Automatic Artwork Update' in Music on the Catalina Mac. I am just not clear as to where to copy my existing iTunes folder, and what the next steps should be. Press option upon Music launch and point to the folder I just copied?
The goal is to bring my library over with the artwork (that I applied) intact, along with my hundreds of playlists still routing to the correct songs/directories.
Thank you!
There are lots of procedures listed in this thread, with conflicting results, so can anyone offer a clear bulleted step by step process to migrate from iTunes to Music?
I've already disabled 'Automatic Artwork Update' in Music on the Catalina Mac. I am just not clear as to where to copy my existing iTunes folder, and what the next steps should be. Press option upon Music launch and point to the folder I just copied?
The goal is to bring my library over with the artwork (that I applied) intact, along with my hundreds of playlists still routing to the correct songs/directories.
Thank you!
Hey there, quick question: I'm running the MacOS Catalina 10.15.3 Beta. I had trouble with Apple Music constantly downloading artwork, so after some googling I tried resetting my library. Unfortunately, now all the artist icons are missing (see the attached image).
I was wondering if someone knew if this is a known bug. I already tried resetting Apple Music the way described in the wiki post here, but to no avail.
If anyone knows how to completely reset Apple Music to standard, or how to fix this error, please let me know.
Thanks in advance
!
I was wondering if someone knew if this is a known bug. I already tried resetting Apple Music the way described in the wiki post here, but to no avail.
If anyone knows how to completely reset Apple Music to standard, or how to fix this error, please let me know.
Thanks in advance
!Hi All - I just read through all 17 pages and I think this issue has been mentioned a few times without any solution. Any music imported into the new music app cannot be added manually to my iPad Pro. I can drag the album but the iPad will not highlight within the side bar as a destination to drop the files (mp3s). Any album that was previously imported into an iTunes library can be moved manually no problem. Anyone else experiencing this, is there a solution yet? Thanks for the help.
Unless I've misunderstood your point...
The Music application will sync with my iPhone and transfers over music as normal(ish): when the device ("Mutley") is on the network it appears in the LH menu bar in Music. Click on this and it shows the sync'ed music. In the top RHS there's a button "Sync settings..." which displays the options including the playlist(s) to sync. I ass-u-me that an iPad works the same.