Music - Missing Features, Bugs, Issues & Troubleshooting

[cmChimera]

I think I'm going to restore to Mojave tonight. My Music is a mess right now because of the switch. I'll probably get back on the beta, but I need to make preparations I think. I have lossless music files that Music seems to just have ignored completely, and then trying to get Music to use them is just creating a lot of duplicates. It's meh. But it is what is.

 

[jlgg]

I can't believe what a mess this app is. In addition to all the issues reported here, I just discovered that searching for composer, artist etc. only returns five albums. I have an extensive classical/jazz library and that's not acceptable. I can use the filter text box but that only works if all albums are listed. As an example, if I am playing an album, filter text will not work. All of these features worked perfectly in iTunes. I have submitted multiple reports with no response. No way I will update to Catalina. Why update to something worse than what I already have.

 

[Madonnnaaaaaaaaa]

It’s a great big clunk of a mess, worse than iTunes. Don’t think it’s ready to be released in under 2 months. I’m sticking with Mojave until these issues are fixed. It’s wrecked my library once and I’m not letting it do it again until I’m certain it’s fixed

 

[ErikGrim]

I think I'm going to restore to Mojave tonight. My Music is a mess right now because of the switch.

A much less disruptive approach is to just install iTunes again. Use the script and an iTunes binary and you're good to go.

 

[ErikGrim]

So quite a few bugs were squashed in this build. I can't believe the filter field isn't persisting between playlists as this is the most essential way to navigate my library and playlists for me. Still would not dare to use this over iTunes proper.

 

[zaneliu]

A much less disruptive approach is to just install iTunes again. Use the script and an iTunes binary and you're good to go.

Where can I find the script? Thanks!

 

[ErikGrim]

Where can I find the script? Thanks!

From the wiki:
Install iTunes again

Copy and paste into Apple Script editor and run (it can either save as a dmg or as a package, package will save you one step):

set theAPP to choose file with prompt "Please select iTunes app:" of type {"app"}
do shell script "mkdir ~/tmp"
set theTmp to ((path to home folder as text) & "tmp")
tell application "Finder" to duplicate theAPP to theTmp
do shell script "plutil -replace CFBundleGetInfoString -string 'iTunes 13.9.5.5' ~/tmp/iTunes.app/Contents/Info.plist"
do shell script "plutil -replace CFBundleShortVersionString -string 13.9.5 ~/tmp/iTunes.app/Contents/Info.plist"
do shell script "plutil -replace CFBundleVersion -string 13.9.5 ~/tmp/iTunes.app/Contents/Info.plist"
set question to display dialog "iTtunes was patched. Save iTunes as dmg?" buttons {"Yes", "No"} default button 1
set answer to button returned of question
if answer is equal to "Yes" then
    do shell script "hdiutil create -format UDZO -srcfolder ~/tmp/iTunes.app ~/Desktop/iTunes.dmg"
    display dialog "iTunes.dmg saved on Desktop" buttons {"Ok"}
end if
set question to display dialog "Save iTunes as installable pkg?" buttons {"Yes", "No"} default button 1
set answer to button returned of question
if answer is equal to "Yes" then
    do shell script "productbuild --component ~/tmp/iTunes.app/ /Applications/ ~/Desktop/iTunes.pkg"
    display dialog "iTunes.pkg saved on Desktop" buttons {"Ok"}
end if
set question to display dialog "Delete temporary ~/tmp folder?" buttons {"Yes", "No"} default button 1
set answer to button returned of question
if answer is equal to "Yes" then
    do shell script "rm -R ~/tmp"
    display dialog "~/tmp was deleted" buttons {"Ok"}
    return
end if

If you are missing the binary, it can be found in a comment here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/osx/comments/c3r25t/reinstall_itunes_10145/

 

[LizKat]

More issues:

• No multiple library support
• Can't keep files where they are when importing new music
• Can't import old iTunes library except once when updating to Catalina (my Music library messed up and I found out I couldn't import after deleting and deciding to start over)
• Can't view albums in place. Music has a separate page for every album.
• Can't view a bigger version of the album art from Now playing. (in iTunes you could cmd + click to open a bigger artwork. This was separate from the mini player which wouldn't resize quite large and won't open in iTunes full screen)

This is a depressing list, thank you for the info...

... and the first two items are deal breakers, how can they even be true?

Option to command-click in album art icon in Now Playing is built into my brain..

I am alarmed to think any of these items might not be on a fix list at Apple.

 

[mikzn]

This is a depressing list, thank you for the info...

... and the first two items are deal breakers, how can they even be true?

Option to command-click in album art icon in Now Playing is built into my brain..

I am alarmed to think any of these items might not be on a fix list at Apple.

I think that was posted a few beta's ago and most of these things have been updated since

Multiple library is now available and is same as before - choosing the Option Key when clicking the Music app ( Sames as iTunes). This works also for a second import - choose option key and point to another different library.

CMD + Click on icon also works ( expands to large art work)

Loss of the column browser is the biggest issue for me and the fact that art work does not completely move over with the upgrade and leaves a lot off missing artwork

 

[ErikGrim]

This is a depressing list, thank you for the info...

I am alarmed to think any of these items might not be on a fix list at Apple.

Go by the wiki post which is the first post in this thread rather than the replies. It is always kept up to date as the beta progresses.

 

[cmChimera]

A much less disruptive approach is to just install iTunes again. Use the script and an iTunes binary and you're good to go.

I went ahead and just replaced the music manually, so that it pulls from the lossless version while playing locally. Now my biggest issue is missing album art (which Music simply isn't displaying. It's not deleting album art)

 

[zaneliu]

From the wiki:
Install iTunes again

Copy and paste into Apple Script editor and run (it can either save as a dmg or as a package, package will save you one step):

set theAPP to choose file with prompt "Please select iTunes app:" of type {"app"}
do shell script "mkdir ~/tmp"
set theTmp to ((path to home folder as text) & "tmp")
tell application "Finder" to duplicate theAPP to theTmp
do shell script "plutil -replace CFBundleGetInfoString -string 'iTunes 13.9.5.5' ~/tmp/iTunes.app/Contents/Info.plist"
do shell script "plutil -replace CFBundleShortVersionString -string 13.9.5 ~/tmp/iTunes.app/Contents/Info.plist"
do shell script "plutil -replace CFBundleVersion -string 13.9.5 ~/tmp/iTunes.app/Contents/Info.plist"
set question to display dialog "iTtunes was patched. Save iTunes as dmg?" buttons {"Yes", "No"} default button 1
set answer to button returned of question
if answer is equal to "Yes" then
    do shell script "hdiutil create -format UDZO -srcfolder ~/tmp/iTunes.app ~/Desktop/iTunes.dmg"
    display dialog "iTunes.dmg saved on Desktop" buttons {"Ok"}
end if
set question to display dialog "Save iTunes as installable pkg?" buttons {"Yes", "No"} default button 1
set answer to button returned of question
if answer is equal to "Yes" then
    do shell script "productbuild --component ~/tmp/iTunes.app/ /Applications/ ~/Desktop/iTunes.pkg"
    display dialog "iTunes.pkg saved on Desktop" buttons {"Ok"}
end if
set question to display dialog "Delete temporary ~/tmp folder?" buttons {"Yes", "No"} default button 1
set answer to button returned of question
if answer is equal to "Yes" then
    do shell script "rm -R ~/tmp"
    display dialog "~/tmp was deleted" buttons {"Ok"}
    return
end if

If you are missing the binary, it can be found in a comment here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/osx/comments/c3r25t/reinstall_itunes_10145/

Thank you!

 

[rishi.talreja]

CMD + Click on icon also works ( expands to large art work)

It's not the same. It opens the mini player. And although that shows a bigger artwork, it doesn't have two features the previously separate artwork viewer had, namely,

1. You could resize it to any size whereas the mini player doesn't resize as big.
2. It could be invoked when iTunes was full screen. Now it requires Music to be not full screen or it does nothing at all.

I can understand some people not caring about it but I've a lot of music where I replaced original artwork with higher resolution files just so it could look better when resized to be as tall as the screen and I really miss it especially when shuffling something where just a glance at the screen would let me know if I'd like to skip the track or not.

Also, totally agree with you that the missing column bar is such a bummer! There's simply no replacement for browsing a lot of music moving from artists, albums, genres and composers so quickly!

 

[Madonnnaaaaaaaaa]

I’m one of those you mention. All my music has high res artwork. Future proofing. Music won’t show it. I’m sticking with Mojave until all this is sorted

 

[mikzn]

It's not the same. It opens the mini player, each although shows a bigger artwork, doesn't have two features the previously separate artwork viewer had, namely,

1. You could resize it to any size whereas the mini player doesn't resize as big.
2. It could be invoked when iTunes was full screen. Now it requires Music to be not full screen or it does nothing at all.

I can understand some people not caring about it but I've a lot of music where I replaced original artwork with higher resolution files just so it could look better when resized to be as tall as the screen and I really miss it especially when shuffling something where just a glance at the screen would let me know if I'd like to skip the track or not.

Also, totally agree with you that the missing column bar is such a bummer! There's simply no replacement for browsing a lot of music moving from artists, albums, genres and composers so quickly!

thanks for the correction - not a feature that I used a lot in the past - but that is changing - I am using apple TV to connect to a larger TV screen and play music on my audio system a better quality artwork is a bigger deal

 

[zaneliu]

I just updated to Catalina. I can't seem to login to my  Music subscription. Is there a place I can do that? Thanks!


EDIT: Logged out and logged back in and now signed in

 

[rishi.talreja]

I’m one of those you mention. All my music has high res artwork. Future proofing. Music won’t show it. I’m sticking with Mojave until all this is sorted

Glad to know there are others! I've also been doing it for over 10 years now for future-proofing and when retina displays came to the mac, the difference in quality between just the 600px artwork and 2048+ ones grew so much more and I was so happy for having taken that effort. In fact, I'm surprised Apple doesn't at least offer an option to load higher res artwork (just like they did with sound quality on cellular data).

I remember using a lot of small utilities back in Leopard/Snow Leopard days (by far the smoothest OSes I ever used among versions of Linux, Windows and Mac btw) for showing artwork on desktop or on a key press with playback controls, rating, etc. For many years now, I've avoided using them and love to keep things simple. I hate to imagine we might need such utilities to make up for lost features over time and that really sucks.
[doublepost=1566417250][/doublepost]

thanks for the correction - not a feature that I used a lot in the past - but that is changing - I am using apple TV to connect to a larger TV screen and play music on my audio system a better quality artwork is a bigger deal

Gee that's a use case I didn't even think of before as I don't own an Apple TV myself. I wonder if it makes a difference whether one uses Apple Music on the TV vs use local library through home-sharing. If that at least loads the lossless version of the files plus full res artwork, it could at least remain an option for those who want that.

 

[mikzn]

Gee that's a use case I didn't even think of before as I don't own an Apple TV myself. I wonder if it makes a difference whether one uses Apple Music on the TV vs use local library through home-sharing. If that at least loads the lossless version of the files plus full res artwork, it could at least remain an option for those who want that.

I just tried it on Catalina to see how it looked and noticed there is no way to share the music library in Catalina at least the way I was doing it in iTunes (was using the "computer icon" on the apple TV to access the shared library from Mojave)

Maybe this has been moved somewhere else in the preferences - but I could not find it - so it seems that sharing is a missing feature?

Also on Mojave the Artwork displayed on the apple TV seems to be very low quality (probably because my artwork is)- never really paid attention to it before.

 

[john991]

my iMessage on Mac hangs constantly... Logged out and back in same issue... Logged out of iCloud and logged back in.. nope same issue... I wish Apple would fix this annoying bug!

 

[dotnet]

nvm

 

[ErikGrim]

my iMessage on Mac hangs constantly... Logged out and back in same issue... Logged out of iCloud and logged back in.. nope same issue... I wish Apple would fix this annoying bug!

Not sure whether this is truly missing, but I can't find it. So here to goes:

In Mojave, the cmd-shift-5 screen capture shortcut came with a little but very useful options panel. This panel seems to be gone in Catalina (19A536g). Where is it hiding?

Not sure what this have to do with Music?

 

[dotnet]

Not sure what this have to do with Music?

Nothing. Sorry, wrong thread. I'll fix it.

 

[mikzn]

Not sure whether this is truly missing, but I can't find it. So here it goes:

In Mojave, the cmd-shift-5 screen capture shortcut came with a little but very useful options panel. This panel seems to be gone in Catalina (19A536g). Where is it hiding?

just tried it on build 19A536g - works for me - with the same key's cmd+shift+5 - are you working on an earlier version of the Beta?

 

[dotnet]

We should probably take this here.

 

[ArmPol]

I have installed latest PB onto iPhone 8 and onto MacBook Pro 2015 13". On my iPhone Apple Music is perfect, hundreds of albums, all playlists there, all artwork. On my MacBook I have 12 albums and 23 songs! Any ideas on what I can do please?