Apple Music / iCloud Music Library has made a right old mess of my iTunes library :(

[zakarhino]

Not too major because I solved the problem.

I previous reported Apple Music greyed out the tracks and albums from artists that suddenly pulled out of having their tracks on AM:

Note the image displaying a greyed out track from Tame Impala. The same layout continued to be displayed until this afternoon.

Now?

Apple simply removed all the tracks and that damaged every music with removed Apple Music in it. Damaged as in, the playlists removed all Apple Music tracks except for tracks I purchased that were on the device.

Fixing it involved adding a new Apple Music track into the playlist which reset the playlist of all devices. However, the added track didn't format correctly, it was placed somewhere random in the playlist.

So frustrating.

This has been happening all week, my playlists are glitching, random songs grey out in my playlist/library even though some of those songs are in the Apple Music search, random songs that were previously taken out of my playlist (presumably by the glitch) now just re-appear only on certain devices.

I think it's time for me to switch back to Google Play Music for the time being and revisit this when iOS 9 comes around (if they fix some stuff in the iOS 9 public betas, I'll come back then).

 

[lagwagon]

Such a mess. Yesterday I held my breath and closed my eyes while turning on IML on my main iMac that has my full and organized library. IML did its thing (though took like 7 hours) and everything seemed to be ok. No changes to the album art and so on. I thought, oh they must have fixed it behind the scenes.

Nope. As soon as I turned on my iPhone's IML, what the iPhone saw was the usual complete mess that would happen earlier in the week. Tons of album art wrecked. (When an album gets wrong art the system will even think it's that wrong album if you tap "show in iTunes". Tons of songs were not the correct version (sometimes artists do songs again redone on a newer album but IML would just place the old original version.)

Some albums it wouldn't even let me save for offline the whole album. I noticed one would only save 5 of the 12 songs for offline use. Like WTF, I have the full album on my iMac and it all uploaded, so why would it only allow 5 songs to save for offline on my phone?

I give up. I had to turn off IML on my iMac and iPhone and re-synced my music the old fashion way. What a terrible design for it to completely screw up years of collecting and organizing and being forced into it if you want to actually utilize Apple Music to the fullest (using the most important feature of being able to download for offline to not suck up cellular data.)

 

[Benjamin Frost]

I'm sure Apple keeps tabs on the forums. But can you imagine if they spent all their time tracking down all the reported bugs in these forums? What percentage of posts are the result of user error?

One can sift through specific threads relatively quickly; it's easy enough to discern user error and get a gist of where the biggest problems lie.

 

[lagwagon]

I feel like IML should look at artist + album name and artist + album name only. If it matches that artist + album name to iTunes then great, use the iTunes version for IML. If not, then upload exactly what it is I have ON my Mac to IML.

To me it looks like it's the fact it checks each and every song is the reason why everything is complete crap and incorrect.

 

[flur]

I tried it all again from scratch with a new iCloud account (never any Match or other data)....

Thought it had worked ok - But after using Apple Music, liking stuff, saving stuff for offline, etc....1 day later it started messing with my local files again and then when I turned off iCloud Music Library it flat out REMOVED songs I owned.

This happened to me also. I'm glad some people are getting it to work but what happens when they turn it off? And with a big library, it's not always easy to tell what's missing.

 

[woss]

This has been the case for quite a while. It's the same with movies and TV shows purchased from iTunes as well. I actually like it because it makes it easy to hide unwanted stuff in bulk.

That'd be fine if there was some way to distinguish purchased songs from uploaded corrupt files…

 

[Jstuts5797]

Have you signed up for Apple Music? That seems to be what screwed up some people's libraries. If you have only iTunes Match, updating to 12.2 and enabling iCloud Music Library is safe. Everything will work just like before.

Ahhh lass.. I am both an Apple Music subscriber and also a long time iTunes Match subscriber. Crazy thing is, on my iOS devices everything is working great together! I'm really loving Apple Music!

 

[jsmith189]

So my iPhone just wiped all music I had on it and it's now completely cloud based lmao. At least now when I'm making edits to my MacBook library it's changing the tags and **** on my phone. Sucks that I have to basically re-apply everything to 18,000 songs for it to work, though... :/

 

[Nick.Xiao]

As other people have said, this is just a HUGE ****ING MESS! It hurts us people that really love our music and are OCD about keeping our iTunes Library extremely organized. I mean I worked hard to get my library basically perfect and the way it should be. I really do not think I can do it again, I mean I have SO many songs/albums.

Now in most of my albums I have two copies of every song. I do not understand what is going on here? I am a iTunes Match subscriber and I have no clue what is going on. I REALLY hope Apple fixes this. I will be on the phone with them tomorrow or a chat. I want to know what I can do to fix this massive **** up, or better yet, what APPLE is going to do to FIX this!!! Pissed off right now!

Actually diagnosed with OCD here. iCloud Music Library is a downright heartbreaker. I've never used iTunes Match before, and I signed up Apple Music since day one on my phone and it screwed up. I noticed the problem right away so I didn't enable iCloud Music Library on my Mac. I'm still using Apple Music on my phone only.

 

[jmmo20]

I've been able to replicate this in all my macs.

Previously marched songs before apple music was enabled are OK. New songs added to the library afterwards, are wrongly matches to Apple music and consequently download with drm in other Macs


This HAS TO BE a bug....

 

[lars666]

I'm still using Apple Music on my phone only.

What exactly happens if I only activate the iCloud Music Library on my iPhone? Will I be able to save AM playlists on my iPhone, but still be able to manually choose which "normal" playlists are synched from my iTunes library? Will my iTunes library be 100% safe, not be touched, even when I synch my iPhone back to the computer? Will every mess the iCloud Music Library may do to my music on the iPhone be reversible by simply turning it off again and sync it again with my Mac?

As I would really like to save AM playlists on the go, I would be willing to enable the iCloud Library on my iPhone (although I'm pissed that Apple forces me to do so only for this most basic function) - but I need to be sure that potential mess will be 100% isolated to my phone and reversible. Is this safe or should I wait? (Still hope and think that the problems and ********* will cause Apple to allow creating AM playlists / offline listening WITHOUT enabling iCloud Music Library in the near future...)

 

[lagwagon]

What exactly happens if I only activate the iCloud Music Library on my iPhone? Will I be able to save AM playlists on my iPhone, but still be able to manually choose which "normal" playlists are synched from my iTunes library? Will my iTunes library be 100% safe, not be touched, even when I synch my iPhone back to the computer? Will every mess the iCloud Music Library may do to my music on the iPhone be reversible by simply turning it off again and sync it again with my Mac?

As I would really like to save AM playlists on the go, I would be willing to enable the iCloud Library on my iPhone (although I'm pissed that Apple forces me to do so only for this most basic function) - but I need to be sure that potential mess will be 100% isolated to my phone and reversible. Is this safe or should I wait? (Still hope and think that the problems and ********* will cause Apple to allow creating AM playlists / offline listening WITHOUT enabling iCloud Music Library in the near future...)

All your stuff on your computer is safe if you just enable iCloud Music Library on your phone. But you will not be able to sync music the old way with IML turned on. It's an all or nothing deal and quite dumb.

And if you have music locally on your phone, don't expect it to be the same once turning on IML either. It's terrible at matching and uploading. Odds are you will find many albums have their art changed to something different and even songs can change. (Like if an artist has two versions of the same song, one old and one much newer, it will often replace the new/different sounding version with the old.)

 

[lars666]

All your stuff on your computer is safe if you just enable iCloud Music Library on your phone. But you will not be able to sync music the old way with IML turned on. It's an all or nothing deal and quite dumb.

And if you have music locally on your phone, don't expect it to be the same once turning on IML either. It's terrible at matching and uploading. Odds are you will find many albums have their art changed to something different and even songs can change. (Like if an artist has two versions of the same song, one old and one much newer, it will often replace the new/different sounding version with the old.)

Thanks for the reply, really appreciated. I suspected that I won't be able to choose playlists to sync from iTunes to my iPhone anymore in this case. Guess I won't turn it on in this case, also because of the automatic "our system knows it better" cover/song change, of course. This whole thing is such a mess. I simply want to create/save AM playlists and listen offline side by side with my music, that's all I am asking for. (Shouldn't be too much considering I'm willing to leave Spotify etc. for this and to pay 9,99 per month for this streaming service.) This all or nothing matching approach may work for people with about 500 tracks in their library, and all of it huge mainstream artists like Drake, Nicki Mianaj etc.), but I have such a huge library with so many bootleg live versions, obscure old time music etc. that I am pretty sure this whole matching approach will cause a disaster here. Apple, let me keep the control over my own music and nevertheless give me access to the most basic functions I can expect from paying 9,99 per month for a streaming service!

 

[lagwagon]

Thanks for the reply, really appreciated. I suspected that I won't be able to choose playlists to sync from iTunes to my iPhone anymore in this case. Guess I won't turn it on in this case, also because of the automatic "our system knows it better" cover/song change, of course. This whole thing is such a mess. I simply want to create/save AM playlists and listen offline side by side with my music, that's all I am asking for. (Shouldn't be too much considering I'm willing to leave Spotify etc. for this and to pay 9,99 per month for this streaming service.) This all or nothing matching approach may work for people with about 500 tracks in their library, and all of it huge mainstream artists like Drake, Nicki Mianaj etc.), but I have such a huge library with so many bootleg live versions, obscure old time music etc. that I am pretty sure this whole matching approach will cause a disaster here. Apple, let me keep the control over my own music and nevertheless give me access to the most basic functions I can expect from paying 9,99 per month for a streaming service!

Yeah the IML matching would be terrible in the case of many live bootleg type stuff. I have some too and even some EP's get album art of their full length (since most EP's are a couple songs from a studio album plus 1-2 unreleased songs.) this just isn't cosmetic either. Once it gets bad art it thinks it's the album of that bad art. (In the cases of the EP's even clicking on "show in iTunes" it takes you to the full album and not the EP, even IF the EP is also in iTunes.)

There is a very, very long workaround I've found for setting up IML from a Mac in iTunes. By adding a bunch of gibberish to a track name or changing the track name altogether to something random. It won't false match and upload what the actual file is. And once in the IML I believe it should stay as the correct song after re-editing it back to proper track names.

But this requires you to kinda know in advance what will fail as a match. (Or if you've attempted before and noted what failed to match.)

Huge headache to even have to jump through hoops and invest time that already has been invested organizing. Then having to edit again just to get it on IML and then another time once on IML to revert to normal after forcing it to upload safely.

Honestly so much could be avoided if their IML just used artist and album names to match. Instead of every single track. Just match the artist+album name, if a match in iTunes, cool. If no match in iTunes, upload to cloud. Simple and wouldn't jack everyone's music up.

 

[jsmith189]

Is there any way to force upload certain songs? I want to go through certain artists' discographies and see if I can sort them out, but I still have 3000 songs to upload to the cloud and each song seems to be taking like an hour each (I wish I was joking, but it's going REALLY slow). I'd much rather just select certain songs to upload manually first, then let it do the rest automatically.

 

[lagwagon]

Is there any way to force upload certain songs? I want to go through certain artists' discographies and see if I can sort them out, but I still have 3000 songs to upload to the cloud and each song seems to be taking like an hour each (I wish I was joking, but it's going REALLY slow). I'd much rather just select certain songs to upload manually first, then let it do the rest automatically.

As far as I know (and I could be totally wrong) it uploads anything it doesn't find a match for. (I believe it just uses iTunes for matched stuff and uploads for unmatched.) you can't pick the order it does when you initially turn on IML.

Though you could in theory back up your current library. Start a fresh library and add in those songs you'd like first, once done add the rest. But no guarantee on which it chooses as a match or upload. You're kinda at the mercy of IML there.

 

[sparkyms]

I thought that I had got away with most of the problems, but, alas i did not iTunes on the mac just kept locking up, refusing to upload songs to iCloud Music Library, just generally crapping out on me - I also thought I had got away with the album art thing, but, no of course it has changed some of my own stuff from CDs that I owned.. now Dire Straits Sultans of Swing has the correct art on the mac but now has 'Music of The Millennium III' artwork on my phone.. like... really?!

Bit peeved, but now I have removed my whole library from my mac and restored it as new from files NOT turning in iCloud music library until it all imported, it seems to be somewhat OK, but the album art issue remains.. sad times.

 

[Elenex]

Not sure it is a good business practice by Apple to access your entire list and add music upon click. This entire process took hours to clean up. The fact that icloud music library downloads starts right when you join is not good process. There should be a well drawn out explanation on how and what occurs. Very vague information on how the entire Apple Music works. Steve would of never allow this BS to customers. Apple becoming another tech giant controlling the way you use their product and information. I will stick to Spotify. Less intrusion and far simple. It is music. You suppose to hit play and thats it.

 

[MoodyM]

Not sure it is a good business practice by Apple to access your entire list and add music upon click. This entire process took hours to clean up. The fact that icloud music library downloads starts right when you join is not good process. There should be a well drawn out explanation on how and what occurs. Very vague information on how the entire Apple Music works. Steve would of never allow this BS to customers. Apple becoming another tech giant controlling the way you use their product and information. I will stick to Spotify. Less intrusion and far simple. It is music. You suppose to hit play and thats it.

I think people remember the "Steve" days with rose-tinted glasses...

 

[yg17]

I think people remember the "Steve" days with rose-tinted glasses...

No kidding. MobileMe launch fail. iPhone 4 antenna issues. Apple under Steve was not perfect either.

 

[jsmith189]

Okay, so latest problem... for some reason, IML matched a greatest hits I don't own. Now that's fine, because it also matched the regular albums, but now I have repeats of every album with just the singles in them. Which again, wouldn't be a huge deal, but I can't delete the albums with duplicates. Nothing I'm doing seems to be working. I've downloaded them for offline use then tried to delete the physical copies, they remain. Tried the regular "remove from My Music", still there. Tried adding the greatest hits it pulled in, save that then delete it, nothing. Any ideas?

 

[lagwagon]

Not sure it is a good business practice by Apple to access your entire list and add music upon click. This entire process took hours to clean up. The fact that icloud music library downloads starts right when you join is not good process. There should be a well drawn out explanation on how and what occurs. Very vague information on how the entire Apple Music works. Steve would of never allow this BS to customers. Apple becoming another tech giant controlling the way you use their product and information. I will stick to Spotify. Less intrusion and far simple. It is music. You suppose to hit play and thats it.

Even if you clean up any of the mismatched art and stuff it doesn't exactly solve the problem. It's only a cosmetic fix. If you select the option of "show in iTunes" on an album you know received incorrect album art it takes you to the album in iTunes that the incorrect art was and not the actual album is. Proving that it changes what the system thinks that album is.

I have an EP by NOFX that only has two songs. Which is on iTunes. But because the first song is the same as what is on the full length album, ICloud Music Library thinks that EP is that full length. In the music app after track 2 in the song list for thy album it has "show rest of the songs" or something to that affect. Tapping this just shows all the full length track list/art and tapping on "show in iTunes" brigs me to the full length. (Even though I had replaced the incorrect art with correct afterwards.

It's all because track 1 is the same as what is on the full length, track 2 is a demo version of another song on the full length but has a (demo) in the track name. So track 2 doesn't get mismatched and it's track 1 that causes all the issue.

This is what led me to find that adding anything extra like just random gibberish or add the album name to a track name before sending it to iCloud Music Library will make sure there is no mismatch and forces it to upload that correct file instead.

This becomes a massive amount of work having to rename songs to send into the cloud and then rename them back to proper once in the cloud. Especially if you have 7700+ songs like I do. (I'd say a good 25-30 % gets mismatched for me.)

 

[Jimmyjamh]

I must be one of the few that's had zero issues. I updated to iCloud music library on my MacBook, iPhone and iPad. I had 18000 tracks in iTunes Match but haven't had any duplicates and all my playlists are in tact.

The only issue I've really come across is when adding Apple music to my library. On some albums when I select the whole album to add to my music not alol the tracks appear. Apart from that I've only had good experiences so far.

 

[jsmith189]

I must be one of the few that's had zero issues. I updated to iCloud music library on my MacBook, iPhone and iPad. I had 18000 tracks in iTunes Match but haven't had any duplicates and all my playlists are in tact.

The only issue I've really come across is when adding Apple music to my library. On some albums when I select the whole album to add to my music not alol the tracks appear. Apart from that I've only had good experiences so far.

And that's a legal issue, not necessarily just them *not adding*.

 

[lagwagon]

I must be one of the few that's had zero issues. I updated to iCloud music library on my MacBook, iPhone and iPad. I had 18000 tracks in iTunes Match but haven't had any duplicates and all my playlists are in tact.

The only issue I've really come across is when adding Apple music to my library. On some albums when I select the whole album to add to my music not alol the tracks appear. Apart from that I've only had good experiences so far.

You've had near zero issues because you were previously on iTunes Match. As far as I know, all the issues are people who are not previously on iTunes Match.