Glad that works for you - To me I just wanted to be 110% sure I was back to "pre Apple Music" mode so a full restore of my Music folder w/ Time Machine is how I went about it
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Apple Music / iCloud Music Library has made a right old mess of my iTunes library :(
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Glad that works for you - To me I just wanted to be 110% sure I was back to "pre Apple Music" mode so a full restore of my Music folder w/ Time Machine is how I went about it
Glad I found this thread! Now I'm hesitant to jump on Apple Music. My iTunes Library has been carefully organized for 10 years.
Seriously - do NOT even think about it right now.
...and if you do it, make sure you have a complete, totally separate backup.
Doing a full restore now. Going to keep my computer offline until I figure out my dropbox issue.
Yeah not only did it screw up album art, it screwed up entire songs and albums. Would click on a random track and it would play something entirely different. I just had to restore my entire music collection and itl file from Time Machine. DON'T TURN ON ICLOUD MUSIC LIBRARY.
Glad I found this thread. I recently signed up for iTunes Match but turned it off cause I couldn't figure out how to upgrade my old 128k iTunes purchased songs to their 256k version. I like many others have spent much time organizing my library and I don't want it messed up.
I had a lot of carefully curated and collected Disneyland music -- album artwork disappeared. The quirky way I had to get it back was to go to iTunes, select "Get Info" on the album, go to the Artwork tab (the artwork was there but didn't show up), and then drag the artwork out of the box and back into it. It then saw it as an "update" and then started to update like I had just added the artwork. Super lame.
The other annoyance was trying to figure out Apple Music, and adding a few new albums to "My Music" and being unable to find them anywhere. I had to go to My Music --> Artists --> and unselect the green slider for "Show Music Available Offline". It was defaulted to only showing what I originally had on my iPhone and not the newly added albums.
So far it's not looking good in comparison to Spotify, but it is a three month trial. I'm hoping they iterate over these next three months and make it more user-friendly. I would love to drop Spotify for the Apple Music integration. But don't touch my existing album covers... grrr.
The other annoyance was trying to figure out Apple Music, and adding a few new albums to "My Music" and being unable to find them anywhere. I had to go to My Music --> Artists --> and unselect the green slider for "Show Music Available Offline". It was defaulted to only showing what I originally had on my iPhone and not the newly added albums.
So far it's not looking good in comparison to Spotify, but it is a three month trial. I'm hoping they iterate over these next three months and make it more user-friendly. I would love to drop Spotify for the Apple Music integration. But don't touch my existing album covers... grrr.
For anyone who doesn't have an easy-to-restore backup, look in the "Previous iTunes Libraries" folder next to your iTunes Library.itl file. At least in my case, iTunes copied my existing library to that folder before doing any iCloud Music Library shenanigans.
So when it utterly trashed my library, I just turned off iCloud Music Library, shut down iTunes, and copied the backed up version of my library file back over the newly-trashed one. I then reopened iTunes and things were just like before.
Like others, I tried iTunes Match years and years ago and disabled it because of the many problems with it. I suspect that iCloud Music Library is resurrecting ancient data from Match when destroying our libraries.
So when it utterly trashed my library, I just turned off iCloud Music Library, shut down iTunes, and copied the backed up version of my library file back over the newly-trashed one. I then reopened iTunes and things were just like before.
Like others, I tried iTunes Match years and years ago and disabled it because of the many problems with it. I suspect that iCloud Music Library is resurrecting ancient data from Match when destroying our libraries.
Yes I'm pretty sure this is at least partially to blame. Wish there was a way to start clean.
I'm not so sure about the iTunes Match thing.
In my case, it looks like tags from In Utero by Nirvana have taken over three or four albums by other artists, who all begin with the letter A. In some cases, the actual tags are correct but the 'Album by Artist' listing shows the wrong Album, which must be something to do with what's stored in the library XML file.
Like others have described, I've got songs in my library with the issue above which now play a completely different track altogether when I actually listen to them! That's on top of the tracks that have gone missing altogether.
In my case, it looks like tags from In Utero by Nirvana have taken over three or four albums by other artists, who all begin with the letter A. In some cases, the actual tags are correct but the 'Album by Artist' listing shows the wrong Album, which must be something to do with what's stored in the library XML file.
Like others have described, I've got songs in my library with the issue above which now play a completely different track altogether when I actually listen to them! That's on top of the tracks that have gone missing altogether.
If anyone wants to test the iTunes Match theory, here's a method that appears to work: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-01/12/how-to-reset-itunes-match.
I don't understand why they felt the need to rush this out....way more testing and bug fixing needed.
I would also have liked an option to "change nothing about songs already in my iTunes library".
Hey guys! I had the same issue. I also had Match enabled a year ago but quit in favor of Spotify Student. Anyways. I tried simply turning off Apple Music/iCloud Music library. It fixed several issues.. but there are still a few remaining. Luckily I have a backup.
The question is how to use iCloud Music Library, which could be quite useful, without having Apple Music **** on your library. Just turning it off doesn't give us any of the theoretical benefits.
So I am still on 8.3 on all of my iOS devices and Yosemite (10.10.3)/iTunes (12.1.12.27) on my iMac, and while the iMac library is fine, my iOS devices are all screwed up (AGAIN i have not even upgraded anything). For example, I noticed a Kenny Loggins song disappeared from the Kenny Loggins album, but the song is still on my iPhone, but under Marilyn Manson! I now have hundreds of errors like this. I do use and have been using iTunes Match since its inception, but everything was fine until late yesterday afternoon (even before they rolled out Apple Music!). I HAVE DONE NOTHING AND NOW MOST OF THE 4,000 SONGS ON MY IOS DEVICES ARE NOW EFFED UP!
Ok I have a makeshift half-workaround for at least deleting whatever is in iTunes Match so you can start fresh (I believe). I'm not re-enabling iCloud Music Library on my main computer until tomorrow in case it ****s up again, but I think this may have cleared out the iTunes Match files that were screwing everything up. I used two Macs, but you should be able to do it by creating a new iTunes library if you have only one Mac.
1. Re-sync your iPhone or iPad with music sync turned off (so there should be NO local music on your device). Turn off iCloud Music Sharing and sign out of Apple Music. Essentially, the Music app should be empty.
2. On your Mac, turn off iCloud Music Sharing in the library in question and close out of iTunes. Obviously make a copy of any iTunes library files somewhere safe just in case.
2. Create a new empty iTunes library (option click on the itunes icon)
3. In the new iTunes library, sign into iCloud Music Sharing. You should see the little cloud icon on the right working and after a bit the list should start populating with music that is currently in the cloud.
4. Once everything is loaded, select 999 or less files at once, right click, press delete. Let it sit for a little bit. Repeat until you've cleared everything out.
5. Turn OFF iCloud Music Sharing, exit itunes
6. Re-open, and sign in to iCloud Music Sharing again. If it worked, no items should populate. It took a couple times before I got everything out of the list. Exit iTunes.
7. Sign back into Apple Music on your iDevice. In My Music, with Show Music Available Offline unticked (no green circle) nothing should appear which would confirm everything has been deleted from the Cloud/Match.
8. Option Click on iTunes and re-select your main library.
From here, I don't know what happens when you re-enable iCloud Music sync, but I am able to download music off Apple Music with correct album art.
1. Re-sync your iPhone or iPad with music sync turned off (so there should be NO local music on your device). Turn off iCloud Music Sharing and sign out of Apple Music. Essentially, the Music app should be empty.
2. On your Mac, turn off iCloud Music Sharing in the library in question and close out of iTunes. Obviously make a copy of any iTunes library files somewhere safe just in case.
2. Create a new empty iTunes library (option click on the itunes icon)
3. In the new iTunes library, sign into iCloud Music Sharing. You should see the little cloud icon on the right working and after a bit the list should start populating with music that is currently in the cloud.
4. Once everything is loaded, select 999 or less files at once, right click, press delete. Let it sit for a little bit. Repeat until you've cleared everything out.
5. Turn OFF iCloud Music Sharing, exit itunes
6. Re-open, and sign in to iCloud Music Sharing again. If it worked, no items should populate. It took a couple times before I got everything out of the list. Exit iTunes.
7. Sign back into Apple Music on your iDevice. In My Music, with Show Music Available Offline unticked (no green circle) nothing should appear which would confirm everything has been deleted from the Cloud/Match.
8. Option Click on iTunes and re-select your main library.
From here, I don't know what happens when you re-enable iCloud Music sync, but I am able to download music off Apple Music with correct album art.
I tried holding down cmd or alt but nothing happened it just opened itunes or the applications folder.
EDIT: Nevermind I figured it out
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Am I getting it right that all the people with the completely messed up library and the effed up album artwork have used iTunes Match at some point? That seems to be the common factor?
I never used iTunes Match and don't have any such problem. Or are there non-Match users with broken artwork here as well?
I never used iTunes Match and don't have any such problem. Or are there non-Match users with broken artwork here as well?
Per my comment above, I use/have used iTunes Match since its inception (generally without any problems until yesterday), but I want to point out again that everything is screwing up even though I have NOT upgraded to iOS 8.4/iTunes 12.2, so yes I think it is iTunes Match/iCloud Music Library not playing nice together somehow.
Well, so the problem description right now is: If you have ever used iTunes Match in any form, then your library is a mess now, even if you didn't upgrade iOS or iTunes.
Just trying to state it clearly, so the Macrumors team (which is certainly skimming the forums to look for major recurring issues) can pick it up. I hope they will publish an article that will get some attention.
I am wondering, is there any iTunes Match user who is not having problems?
Yes, I believe your statement is correct,and glad you are clarifying. While I have seen lots of people complaining about these issues since upgrading, it appears that all of them have involved people who use or have used iTunes Match in the past. Your second question is a very good question.
The libraries on my iPhone and iPad were messed up before the iOS 8.4 update but are fixed now. The problems were discussed in the iTunes match gone haywire thread.
Missing album artwork on iTunes match has been an ongoing problem for ages and there is no change to this with any of yesterday's updates.
My main iTunes library is not linked to iTunes Match and as yet I have not seen any of the problems discussed in this thread with that library. I have not allowed this library to link to iTunes in the cloud.