Apple Releases iTunes 12.2.1 With iTunes Match Fix

[rcozier]

Just did this update - it's fixed NOTHING!

 

[pgwalsh]

Been an Apple fan for a long time, but I really don't like the latest iTunes and Photo's applications. My wife and I both think they've taken-out simplicity and that applications are just confusing.

 

[flur]

I wasn’t ever a member of Match. So what about those of us that had everything turn to toast so badly that we had to replace all our music from a backup, not just the .itl file? And weren't ever a member of Match? Will it fix it for us?

This is me also. I guess we'll either have to try it or wait for others to do so. Apple probably hasn't even tested our use case.

 

[0098386]

Man it's so funny how years ago, the whole iPod + iTunes situation was considered a match in heaven. Now... iTunes is a bloated piece of crap that tries to do everything. I'm really hoping Apple will soon decentralize the whole thing, make Music separate from sync'ing, etc.

But why? What's wrong with iTunes. I use it on my 2011 iMac and it runs fine, runs fast. I don't click on the buttons for features I don't use like podcasts, audiobooks, in fact I've got everything I don't need hidden.
Music tab>playlists and it's exactly as it used to be.

What's it doing wrong? Why does it need to be decentralised, what features are you suggesting moving into a separate app?

 

[0098386]

Been an Apple fan for a long time, but I really don't like the latest iTunes and Photo's applications. My wife and I both think they've taken-out simplicity and that applications are just confusing.

Photos is simpler, I do miss iPhoto and all the new photos I put in (from my real camera) get organised into an album/event. I don't really see what they've removed from iTunes though. It seems pretty good to me!

(I would love iPhoto to continue being updated and support iCloud photos)

 

[Rigby]

I've been eager to subscribe to Match since it was first announced. However, on this forum I keep reading about so many problems. Until I am confident Apple fixes all of these issues, I will not risk my digital music collection.
- Matching clean version of a song when original was the explicit version
- Matching non-album version of a song (from a compilation, greatest hits, single, etc) when the entire original album is owned

There is really no perfect solution for this. iTunes Match relies on acoustic fingerprinting to identify songs. This uses heuristic algorithms, so they will not be 100% perfect. In my experience mismatches are quite rare though.

But in no case will you "risk your digital music collection", because iTunes Match does not touch your original library unless you delete and re-download the songs yourself.

Mind you, I'm talking about iTunes Match, not Apple Music. In Apple Music, they seem to use a different matching algorithm that takes metadata into account, and there have also been bugs that resulted in corruption of the local library for some people (let's hope the iTunes update has fixed them).

- Matching non mastered-for-itunes version of a song when the mastered-for-itunes version is available in the itunes store

Don't know why you would expect your files to always be matched to that particular version of a song. It should match it to the version that is closest to your file. If that happens to be a different version than the MfI one, I see no problem with that.

- Putting wrong album artwork on a song
- Wrong song plays when selected from a playlist
- Playlists don't sync, or incorrectly sync, across devices
- Song metadata gets messed up (playcounts, ratings, last date played, etc)

I've been a Match subscriber for several years and never had any of these issues. The only issues I had were that occasionally album artwork didn't show up on the mobile devices (or took very long to do so), and I've had 2 or 3 songs (out of over 10,000) that were stuck in "waiting" mode for a long time (i.e. not matched or uploaded). Otherwise, it has worked very well for me.

 

[Dephibio]

I hope so. I use Apple Music through iOS 95% of the time, and it's buggy as hell. Playlist sharing doesn't work anymore on iOS, going to the artist page on the iPad kills the Music app reproducibly every single time, "Add to Playlist" on songs not in "My Music" yet is a hit-and-miss affair, songs that have been made available offline twice (through a playlist, then directly) can't be removed from "My Music" without some major surgery, the touch targets at the bottom of the iPad Music app are messed up, etc.

The app is buggy and I think it's just a matter of time before Apple drops an update to patch it up. Tomorrow is a good guess bacuese PAY is launching in UK. I know Apple could just flip a server switch, but I hope they'd issue an update as well. I guess we'll find out tomorrow.

 

[flur]

But in no case will you "risk your digital music collection", because iTunes Match does not touch your original library unless you delete and re-download the songs yourself.

Mind you, I'm talking about iTunes Match, not Apple Music. In Apple Music, they seem to use a different matching algorithm that takes metadata into account, and there have also been bugs that resulted in corruption of the local library for some people (let's hope the iTunes update has fixed them).

But don't you have to have iCloud Music Library turned on to use Match (in the current version of iTunes), putting you at risk for the iCML/AM bugs where iCML changes your metadata or confuses your owned music with AM music?

 

[TsMkLg068426]

Do you still pay for Match?

If you pay for Match and you upload your own music files, you will (well, should, looks like there were a few bugs) be able to get them back in not-DRM form if downloaded again. However, if you stop paying for Match, your tracks in Apple Music will be converted with DRM if you attempt to download them again, which means you'll lose those songs (and those gathered through the service) if you stop paying for Apple Music.

In a nutshell:
Match keeps your own files (or 'matched and downloaded') that have no DRM as your own while in the cloud.
Apple Music will DRM all files funneled through the cloud, but will not retroactively DRM your owned files (unless deleted and redownloaded).

But if you already converted your old purchase that were with DRM to none DRM version than you should be okay to sign up to Apple Music and cancel iTunes Match because even though Apple Music changes you purchased Music back to DRM does not mean after I cancel my purchases will not be available to download back from iTunes Store.


In any case make a Time Machine back up or a back up before you cancel iTunes Match but I am pretty sure if you are using the same account you purchased you music under that should also help things out.

 

[TrenttonY]

Anyone have a problem with 12.2 not showing "cloud" purchases in music or movies? There's no longer a checkbox for this in Preferences->Store

It's now under View, and its called All Music or Music Only Available Offline

All Music = Music on iCloud and on your computer
Music Only Available Offline = Music on your computer

same for Movies

 

[macaddict06]

Ok, uhm, great or whatever.

Is there any way to manage playlists in the iCloud Music Library? I have 3 copies of all of my smart playlists and it's becoming a pain in the ass to manually delete all of them on my iPhone.

Also, what is the deal with playlists now? I want my lists organized by "recently added" so I sort like that in iTunes then sync like always. However, now it's ALL arranged by Artist and it's really pissing me off.

Not so great, Apple.

 

[Rigby]

But don't you have to have iCloud Music Library turned on to use Match (in the current version of iTunes), putting you at risk for the iCML/AM bugs where iCML changes your metadata or confuses your owned music with AM music?

Yes. Again, I was only talking about Match. If you have subscribed to Music you should be careful and make a backup of your music (but you should do that anyway, since neither Match nor Music are backup services).

Personally, I haven't signed up for Music yet and won't do so until the most serious bugs are fixed.

 

[BillyBobBongo]

Accidentally clicked on iTunes whilst it was updating. Got to experience Apple's attention to detail!

 

[justperry]

Man it's so funny how years ago, the whole iPod + iTunes situation was considered a match in heaven. Now... iTunes is a bloated piece of crap that tries to do everything. I'm really hoping Apple will soon decentralize the whole thing, make Music separate from sync'ing, etc.

I agree completely with you, it's a complete mess, but there is an easy fix (if you only want a music player, download an older version of iTunes here.

I downloaded iTunes 9.2 (plenty of other versions as well), still works like a charm, BUT, it won't load your newer created iTunes Library, hold option and double click iTunes to create a new Library, so much better, just a plain old music player.

To install open the iTunes.mpg with Pacifist and only install the iTunesX package (Application), do not overwrite the existing iTunes, just choose a different location.

Edit: iTunes 9.2 still works on OS X El Capitan!

 

[itguy06]

Does this update fix Beats 1 to play more than Rap/Hip Hop/Urban music for the rest of the world that could care less. There are many other genres out there which are all sadly nonexistent on B1.

 

[Soni Sanjay]

There is really no perfect solution for this. iTunes Match relies on acoustic fingerprinting to identify songs. This uses heuristic algorithms, so they will not be 100% perfect. In my experience mismatches are quite rare though.

But in no case will you "risk your digital music collection", because iTunes Match does not touch your original library unless you delete and re-download the songs yourself.

Mind you, I'm talking about iTunes Match, not Apple Music. In Apple Music, they seem to use a different matching algorithm that takes metadata into account, and there have also been bugs that resulted in corruption of the local library for some people (let's hope the iTunes update has fixed them).
Don't know why you would expect your files to always be matched to that particular version of a song. It should match it to the version that is closest to your file. If that happens to be a different version than the MfI one, I see no problem with that.
I've been a Match subscriber for several years and never had any of these issues. The only issues I had were that occasionally album artwork didn't show up on the mobile devices (or took very long to do so), and I've had 2 or 3 songs (out of over 10,000) that were stuck in "waiting" mode for a long time (i.e. not matched or uploaded). Otherwise, it has worked very well for me.

1.- Mismatches are actually quite common, you must not have a large library.
2.- In theory yes, it should match to the closest version, in practice, it sometimes does it, sometimes doesn't.
3.- You could solve this with 2 buttons. a) Force Upload and b) Match to different version. That easily.

 

[Rigby]

1.- Mismatches are actually quite common, you must not have a large library.

Current count is over 10,000 songs. If you consider that small, more power to you. I have seen maybe a handful of mismatches.

3.- You could solve this with 2 buttons. a) Force Upload and b) Match to different version. That easily.

Agree with (a). (b) is unnecessary.

 

[rvinny]

Just did the update and iTunes Match still appears broken.

I am a Match subscriber. I had a couple of songs (that I purchased via iTunes) not showing matched. In iTunes under iTunes Store > Purchased > Not in My Library > it showed those songs not dowloaded. I selected those to download.

Previous to downloading I checked what is in my iTunes library (using show contents). The songs were actually in there as .m4a (even though not showing matched or downloaded)

After the download it put them in the same folder as duplicates and the new download extensions are .m4p - so now I have two versions of the song in the same folder .m4a and .m4p - Definitely not fixed.

 

[From A Buick 8]

Photos is simpler, I do miss iPhoto and all the new photos I put in (from my real camera) get organised into an album/event. I don't really see what they've removed from iTunes though. It seems pretty good to me!

(I would love iPhoto to continue being updated and support iCloud photos)

OT I guess, but my mac still opens iPhoto when I connect my camera, and I have to tell it to open Photo instead.

 

[Soni Sanjay]

Current count is over 10,000 songs. If you consider that small, more power to you. I have seen maybe a handful of mismatches.
Agree with (a). (b) is unnecessary.

I have Eric Clapton's One More Car, One More Rider live album from 2001. The first CD has 10 songs... Only 4 out of 10 songs are actually matched to the actual album... The rest of the songs come from greatest hits CD's and other compilations... Whilst 95% of the people wouldn't care, the remaining 5% that want to have a correctly matched library to the correct version of the actual album would. Why? Because of different mastering, different start and ending times, different volume, etc. IMO a "match to different version" button is completely necessary.

 

[fweber]

Just did this update - it's fixed NOTHING!

Same here. Very annoying - no song is matched, instead now i got duplicates of every matchable song as "Apple Music" available for download. This is hilarious.

 

[acuity]

This is me also. I guess we'll either have to try it or wait for others to do so. Apple probably hasn't even tested our use case.

I’m waiting to update, as much as I like the idea of Apple Music, I sure don’t want to clean up that mess again, or risk my music collection +30K. Especially as you’ve said, who knows if they even fixed it for those of us that weren’t subscribers of Match.

 

[2992]

it's been since forever iTunes crashing every time when opening it and its library from time capsule is not available (because time capsule is so s#itty and cannot automatically connect by itself, after disconnecting by itself - which is always doing it without asking for it)...
Apple, how about fixing the old bugs first, then go ahead and fix the latest ones?!..

 

[Rigby]

I have Eric Clapton's One More Car, One More Rider live album from 2001. The first CD has 10 songs... Only 4 out of 10 songs are actually matched to the actual album... The rest of the songs come from greatest hits CD's and other compilations... Whilst 95% of the people wouldn't care, the remaining 5% that want to have a correctly matched library to the correct version of the actual album would. Why? Because of different mastering, different start and ending times, different volume, etc. IMO a "match to different version" button is completely necessary.

But why? If you can force it to upload your original instead of matching, you get exactly the version from your own library on your mobile devices. Why would I want to force it to match something else in the store?

 

[Zakzilla]

Anyone else still having issues with iOS? My playlists are empty on my phone, it's very strange