Almost half of Music Library Suddenly Gone....

[Attirex]

Have a M4 Mini running latest OS, booted up this morning and see that I've lost almost half of my iTunes/Apple Music library. What the h*ll. Used to have 9,000+ tracks, now iTunes is showing little over 5,200. I have a backup drive configured with daily backups via CCC, and the tracks appear to be gone from the backup drive, too (based on file size of iTunes folder). :-(

I suspect that all of the tracks I've downloaded from Apple Music are gone, and what's left are tracks I've ripped from CDs and/or acquired from other sources, but not sure.

Any ideas or suggestions? Or am I just SOL? Sucks because I've been curating my digital music collection since around 1995.

Thanks.....

 

[Gypsy36]

Did you switch up Apple IDs?

 

[Attirex]

Did you switch up Apple IDs?

I have not (have only one ID). Haven't touched anything Apple ID related in months.....

 

[Gypsy36]

Hmmmm. Are you a subscriber to Apple Music or do you download and pay per song?

 

[Boyd01]

I have never subscribed to Apple Music but also have a large library of iTunes purchases and ripped media (including my old records going back to the 1970's). Sorry, I can't help with any Apple Music issues but can tell you that I migrated my library from iTunes on a 2014 Mini to the Music app on a new m4 Mini last year and didn't lose anything, so I suspect you're right about Apple Music being the issue.

Now, I did have an issue with the TV app and a very large library of video content that I migrated. For some reason, random iTunes purchases did not come across, although they showed in the library. When you clicked on them, they said the file was missing. After downloading them again, they were fine though. Haven't been able to understand exactly what went wrong here, but assume it had something to do with moving from iTunes to the TV app. All of the video I ripped myself (the bulk of my library) came across just fine though.

 

[Attirex]

Hmmmm. Are you a subscriber to Apple Music or do you download and pay per song?

Subscriber since day one! When iTunes first launched I would pay per song, but obviously that was years ago.

 

[Gypsy36]

Subscriber since day one! When iTunes first launched I would pay per song, but obviously that was years ago.

Ha, some of us are still old school.

Sounds like an Apple Music subscription issue. What about your other devices? Maybe this one was just removed from your list of devices somehow?

 

[Attirex]

Ha, some of us are still old school.

Sounds like an Apple Music subscription issue. What about your other devices? Maybe this one was just removed from your list of devices somehow?

I won't say how old school I am (55!). Was about to add that I checked my iPhone (14 Pro), which I had loaded my entire library onto, and apparently iCloud sync has done its job because now half of library is missing from my phone, too. :-(

Also tried re-authorizing iTunes on the Mac and rebooting, but that didn't help.

 

[Gypsy36]

Okay. But the good news is that it isn’t the part that you did from CD (for the youngin’s in the crowd, those were round coaster like things).

When Apple Music first came out, one of the significant updates forced it and you had to opt out. I lost all my ripped media and the songs I had paid for and had kittens. I was on with support for four hours but they were able to recover it (albeit all my album art is wonky for those items now).

I would call. It doesn’t make sense that it just randomly happened. Something must have occurred overnight. Credit card expire? Update?

I’m just randomly throwing things out now.

 

[Boyd01]

I won't say how old school I am (55!).

Well, my school is 21 years older than yours! 😄

 

[Attirex]

Okay. But the good news is that it isn’t the part that you did from CD (for the youngin’s in the crowd, those were round coaster like things).

When Apple Music first came out, one of the significant updates forced it and you had to opt out. I lost all my ripped media and the songs I had paid for and had kittens. I was on with support for four hours but they were able to recover it (albeit all my album art is wonky for those items now).

I would call. It doesn’t make sense that it just randomly happened. Something must have occurred overnight. Credit card expire? Update?

I’m just randomly throwing things out now.

Yikes! Yeah, I might have to call Support, which I haven't had to do in probably 20 years. :-( Will be as a last resort, but not sure I have another choice if these tracks don't magically show up in the next day or so.

It reminds me of an issue I had a few years ago when I ripped a couple of CDs that were a gift from a friend (GoG movie soundtracks). I used whatever command was in iTunes at the time (CDDB?) to ID and name the songs and then something with Music Match or whatever it was went haywire. I lended up with dozens of songs from someone else's library being synced with mine (no lie). Meaning they looked like ripped tracks, but they were from a genre of music I never listen to and would have never ripped or downloaded. I posted about it on MR, but never got any replies. Ppl probably thought I was insane or drunk. Who knows?

 

[a-m-k]

Do you use tune sweeper? Try that. It replaced Song Sergeant and to be honest, I like how it works. There just seems to be something different about it.

 

[Attirex]

OK, did some more poking around on the drive that houses my library, and doing Get Info for the Music folder indicates 9,700 items, which should be the correct number of tracks I had before the glitch. I found a track that is NOT displaying in Music app, launched it, and it plays in Music app. The "Date Added" column in the Music app indicates today's date for the file, so for some reason, the tracks are on my Mac, but not being read by the Music app unless I manually launch them. Weird.

 

[Attirex]

Do you use tune sweeper? Try that. It replaced Song Sergeant and to be honest, I like how it works. There just seems to be something different about it.

I have not. Also do not know Song Sergeant. Don't think I've used any of those third-party apps with my library....

 

[Gypsy36]

OK, did some more poking around on the drive that houses my library, and doing Get Info for the Music folder indicates 9,700 items, which should be the correct number of tracks I had before the glitch. I found a track that is NOT displaying in Music app, launched it, and it plays in Music app. The "Date Added" column in the Music app indicates today's date for the file, so for some reason, the tracks are on my Mac, but not being read by the Music app unless I manually launch them. Weird.

Yes. There is a lot of weirdness that happens when you have a significant history I think

 

[Attirex]

Yes. There is a lot of weirdness that happens when you have a significant history I think

Apparently. Back In The Day, you could have iTunes rebuild your music database on launch, is that still possible with the Music app? Otherwise, guess I have to navigate to the folder for each artist and manually open 4,000+ files. Good times.

 

[djbuddha]

Luckily the files seem to still be there. Before committing any changes, maybe wait to see if Apple rolls out a bug fix for those with large iTunes libraries. Sounds like an upgrade pain you just had happen. Glad it’s not all gone!

 

[Happy_John]

The best bet is to:

1) Copy / Move all audio files out of where you store your iTunes/Apple Music audio files. (this is where having a large external drive is handy).
2) Wipe everything from The Apple Music library.
3) Create a new library
4) Import all your audio file into the new library.

It's a time suck, but thankfully, not your time, just the MacMini's - it's a "leave running overnight" task - but it will fixe your problem.

There are other ways to do this, but those ways end up sitting in front pf your monitor, clicking on files or "OK" buttons every minute or so for hours.....

 

[Attirex]

The best bet is to:

1) Copy / Move all audio files out of where you store your iTunes/Apple Music audio files. (this is where having a large external drive is handy).
2) Wipe everything from The Apple Music library.
3) Create a new library
4) Import all your audio file into the new library.

It's a time suck, but thankfully, not your time, just the MacMini's - it's a "leave running overnight" task - but it will fixe your problem.

There are other ways to do this, but those ways end up sitting in front pf your monitor, clicking on files or "OK" buttons every minute or so for hours.....

Thanks! I might try this. Interestingly, when I select the Update iCloud Library command in Music app, it fails with an error even though my home network is working fine. Hm.

 

[okkibs]

What file type are these files that are no longer in the library? It might say mp3, or m4a, or it might say Protected AAC Audio. And do you manually sync the music to your iPhone or did that just sync automatically?

From what it sounds like I can only guess that you are using the Apple Music subscription service where the files you have in your library are merely leant for the duration of the subscription (i.e. as long as you pay for it and as long as Apple retains the license to lend these albums to customers) and they come with DRM so they eventually expire if the subscription were to be terminated.

You should check on your iPhone under your iCloud settings (at the top where your name is shown) if you are still subscribed to Apple Music. You are probably using the Apple Music subscription to keep your iPhone in sync over Apple's servers (without having to sync the iPhone manually). The fact that the music disappeared from the iPhone as well is what makes me suspect that the subscription is either inactive now or was inactive for a short period of time...

There are enough reports here of users who had an issue with Apple's cloud services leading to their music library ending up in a mess and reports of all playlists having been suddenly deleted.

I suspect that all of the tracks I've downloaded from Apple Music are gone, and what's left are tracks I've ripped from CDs and/or acquired from other sources, but not sure.

I would assume that this is exactly what's going on.

Although there is something called "match" where Apple tries to match your local ripped music file with one on their servers (that is why you can sometimes end up with your ripped music being replaced by something entirely different when the matching goes wrong) in order to be able to sync it to other devices like your iPhone. In that case, Apple does not upload your ripped version and sync that to the iPhone, instead it tries to find a matching version they already got and then that's what will be synced to other devices.

Problem is that if the Apple Music subscription ever ends (or has an issue like perhaps here in your situation) then all these local ripped files are also no longer synced to other devices and if you don't have your own originals anymore then all that's left is Apple's version of it with the DRM on it and it becomes unplayable.

So I'd expect at a minimum that all 9000 songs are gone from the iPhone.

Any ideas or suggestions? Or am I just SOL?

Well, what you can always do is open the music app, then in the menu bar go to File, then Add To Library, and add the entire media folder. It will only import the missing items. Or drag the media folder into the main music app window.

But this will not reconstruct any additional library info like playlists or the play count or last played or date added. If you rely on that and simply adding these files as new ones isn't enough, then that's going to be harder to fix if it's even possible (I don't know since I don't subscribe to Apple Music and I have never seen this situation).

 

[NoBoMac]

What @Happy_John said, but might not need to go full nuclear.

First, obviously, backup the Music folder.

Quit Music.

Remove Music/Music/Music Library.musiclibrary that's the new version of the old itdb etc files that were in older versions of iTunes/Music.

Restart Music. Think it will rebuild that file. If not, might need to hold Option key while launching Music to get it to allow you to specify the media folder.

(Note: haven't had to rebuild iTunes/Music in ages, so working off hazy memory here)

 

[a-m-k]

I have not. Also do not know Song Sergeant. Don't think I've used any of those third-party apps with my library....

Tunesweeper isn't a third party app. It's available on Apple's app store app. Don't even bother with Song Sergeant, it was discontinued years ago apparently. Song Sergeant used to be available on the App Store app.

 

[Happy_John]

Thanks! I might try this. Interestingly, when I select the Update iCloud Library command in Music app, it fails with an error even though my home network is working fine. Hm.

I’ve had a pretty big iTunes library (about 300+ Gb) since 2004 - I ripped all my CDs and even digitised some vinyl because I was moving country and had to be brutal with what came with me and what would go into storage - I’ve kept the library alive since then, it living on many different machines..

Long story short, I’ve had the issue your experience more than a few times. I used to try “clever solutions”, but I end up doing what I said in my previous post - it’s a clunky way to do it, it takes a few hours, but you don’t have to watch it happening.

The good news is, as you’ve found out too, you’re not losing any music, it’s just just iTunes/ Apple Music loses the ability to maintain the paths to the files.

 

[JamesMay82]

I’d back up the drive that has your 9,000 + tracks fist to be safe.

Then I think would then try to move the library to a new location under the settings tab… then it might force a rebuild or to scan it again.

I’ve had issues like this before and I just gave up and imported all my music but then this did mess up my meta data on a big batch so I had to rename and tag lots of stuff.

I’m part of a family sharing music subscription now but for my main Mac music library I keep it logged out so apple music can’t interfere

 

[Happy_John]

I’d back up the drive that has your 9,000 + tracks fist to be safe.

Then I think would then try to move the library to a new location under the settings tab… then it might force a rebuild or to scan it again.

I’ve had issues like this before and I just gave up and imported all my music but then this did mess up my meta data on a big batch so I had to rename and tag lots of stuff.

I’m part of a family sharing music subscription now but for my main Mac music library I keep it logged out so apple music can’t interfere

Yep. For the past few years I have my music library on a 2012 mac mini with its own iCloud ID account (sharing the music library is all this Mac mini does) but joined to my main account (and my family’s accounts) on Family Sharing. The Mac mini is connected via Ethernet to the Wi-Fi router - no significant lag, it can be access from any device, Mac, iPhone, iPad, and I’ve a load of last airport expresses, so it gives me Air Play 2 Speakers in every room. All old tech, but works well and cheap to set up if you keep an eye out for seconds-hand bargains online.