Apple Reportedly Solves Widespread iCloud Music Library Sync Issues

[kb923689]

Apple fanboy much? Apple Music is garbage compared to Spotify.

Their music sync back end is just awful and mired from their legacy iTunes / iCloud match code.

Even on Apple’s hardware (my Macs and iPhone), I constantly had issues with tracks randomly ‘graying out’ in my playlists, becoming unplayable, causing me to have to re-add them. Then missing album artwork randomly. And as an added bonus, if you ever cancel your Apple Music subscription, they automatically delete all the playlists you compiled tied to your account after 30 days! So if you ever leave and come back, you’re SOL.

And don’t even get me started on their cross platform support. Their Windows iTunes client is just broken. Randomly stops music playback. For no reason. And no fix in sight. Settings menus are pixilated. Doesn’t properly recognize when you switch between speakers and headset input (requiring hard restart of app to detect the change). Also no PS5 or Xbox Apple Misic client support.

Guess which platform I never have sync or music playback issues on (that also has great cross platform support?) Spotify!

I wanted to like Apple Music. I really did. But Apple is just too afraid to go ‘cloud only’ in their new Apple Music app (like Spotify did) and that’s holding them back.

And they don’t have the devs or want to put money behind their Windows or Android clients, which is a shame - as a revenue stream, software services like streaming music is a huge opportunity for Apple, but they keep blowing the experience - for Apple device and non-Apple users alike.

I completely agree. Spotify just works. You have no issues with playback, saved songs etc. The metadata is very organized. The only issue it has is the local files syncing. But if you want just the streaming experience, you're all set. Apple Music was a struggle for me. It just can't work well with local files, saved streaming files and the cloud library. I've had some bugs in the Music app and iTunes as well. Memory leaks were constant. iTunes works well if want to manage a local library with no iTunes Music Store logged in. But once you log in problems start to appear. That's why I said if you want streaming you go with Spotify. If you want local files you sync your music on iTunes. Instead of coming at the frustrated user, why not call Apple out? It's a multimillionaire company. There's no excuse for Apple Music, iTunes, local files and iCloud Library not work in harmony.

I would love to have all my music in one place with no issues, but that's not a reality.

 

[keifer.street]

I completely agree. Spotify just works. You have no issues with playback, saved songs etc. The metadata is very organized. The only issue it has is the local files syncing. But if you want just the streaming experience, you're all set. Apple Music was a struggle for me. It just can't work well with local files, saved streaming files and the cloud library. I've had some bugs in the Music app and iTunes as well. Memory leaks were constant. iTunes works well if want to manage a local library with no iTunes Music Store logged in. But once you log in problems start to appear. That's why I said if you want streaming you go with Spotify. If you want local files you sync your music on iTunes. Instead of coming at the frustrated user, why not call Apple out? It's a multimillionaire company. There's no excuse for Apple Music, iTunes, local files and iCloud Library not work in harmony.

I would love to have all my music in one place with no issues, but that's not a reality.

“I would love to have all my music in one place with no issues, but that's not a reality.”

Comments like this are why Apple refuses to give up local music file support - and part of the reason holding it back as software.

I also don’t get it - what could you possibly have in terms of locally stored music that’s not already in Apple‘s iTunes or Spotify’s extensive 60 MILLION plus music libraries? Small indie music you recorded yourself?

I’m not being sarcastic - I’m genuinely curious because I vehemently push back on the claims that we even need ’local’ music anymore. It’s already there on their service...

Ok... maybe some few stubborn holdouts that signed exclusive deals with Amazon Music like Garth Brooks - but these are super rare exceptions, not the rule.

 

[hlfway2anywhere]

I've tried Apple Music with my local files and it was not a pleasant experience but go off.

So, you enabled Apple Music / iCloud music library from the computer with your local files. After it was done syncing, your songs weren’t available on every device with iCloud music library signed in?

 

[hlfway2anywhere]

“I would love to have all my music in one place with no issues, but that's not a reality.”

Comments like this are why Apple refuses to give up local music file support - and part of the reason holding it back as software.

I also don’t get it - what could you possibly have in terms of locally stored music that’s not already in Apple‘s iTunes or Spotify’s extensive 60 MILLION plus music libraries? Small indie music you recorded yourself?

I’m not being sarcastic - I’m genuinely curious because I vehemently push back on the claims that we even need ’local’ music anymore. It’s already there on their service...

Ok... maybe some few stubborn holdouts that signed exclusive deals with Amazon Music like Garth Brooks - but these are super rare exceptions, not the rule.

Ok I’ll bite.
I’m a DJ. I have thousands of remixes and extended versions that aren’t available on these services. I also do production and songwriting, as well as my own remixes. As soon as they eliminate local file support, I cancel and go back to just using cloud storage.

 

[kb923689]

“I would love to have all my music in one place with no issues, but that's not a reality.”

Comments like this are why Apple refuses to give up local music file support - and part of the reason holding it back as software.

I also don’t get it - what could you possibly have in terms of locally stored music that’s not already in Apple‘s iTunes or Spotify’s extensive 60 MILLION plus music libraries? Small indie music you recorded yourself?

I’m not being sarcastic - I’m genuinely curious because I vehemently push back on the claims that we even need ’local’ music anymore. It’s already there on their service...

Ok... maybe some few stubborn holdouts that signed exclusive deals with Amazon Music like Garth Brooks - but these are super rare exceptions, not the rule.

Yes, there are a few tracks not available on Apple Music just like there are a few albums that I like that is not available in my region.

 

[hlfway2anywhere]

Yes, there are a few tracks not available on Apple Music just like there are a few albums that I like that is not available in my region.

Don’t forget soundtracks or even albums that sometimes have one random song not available.

 

[keifer.street]

Ok I’ll bite.
I’m a DJ. I have thousands of remixes and extended versions that aren’t available on these services. I also do production and songwriting, as well as my own remixes. As soon as they eliminate local file support, I cancel and go back to just using cloud storage.

Ok so far I've heard "I'm a DJ and do my own mixes" and "there are a few missing songs in soundtracks or some albums not available in my region."

Sure - these are real use-cases where local music would be helpful, but I would submit to you that being your own DJ or being your own music artist is less than 0.001% of the people that want to simply use Apple Music or Spotify - we all just want it to listen to music. Period. If you want to be an artist or a DJ - use a separate app for that - stop imposing these exception or edge case requirements on this software, which ends up convoluting and putting restrictions on the other 99.99% of people that want to use it simply to listen to music.

And for the rare tracks or albums not available on their platform, I said this before but those are super rare. Sure you could send me a bunch of examples, but I would submit to you Apple has over 99.9% of the music you'd want to hear.

80/20 rule - forget the 0.001% edge cases - it's better to create an awesome, simple, and focused experience for the other 99.9% of people rather than catering to this 0.01%, compromising and convoluting the user experience in the process.

The counterarguments are just not strong enough - by the data, numbers, volume, or weight in terms of features or need for the populace en masse. Sorry. They just aren't. Come at me bro!

Apple Music would be a much better, cleaner, and faster piece of software if it was more laser focused on 'music streaming only' like Spotify. They could carve out the legacy 'iTunes and iCloud sync' garbage for people that want to be their own artist by creating their own tracks. Let music be music.

Don't you realize this is how iTunes got so bloated in the first place? By bending to the whims of everyone who wanted to use it for different things and exception cases like this?

Steve Jobs famously said what he did to save the company was saying 'No' - a 'lot'. The customer isn't always right.

 

[atoqir]

Ok so far I've heard "I'm a DJ and do my own mixes" and "there are a few missing songs in soundtracks or some albums not available in my region."

Sure - these are real use-cases where local music would be helpful, but I would submit to you that being your own DJ or being your own music artist is less than 0.001% of the people that want to simply use Apple Music or Spotify - we all just want it to listen to music. Period. If you want to be an artist or a DJ - use a separate app for that - stop imposing these exception or edge case requirements on this software, which ends up convoluting and putting restrictions on the other 99.99% of people that want to use it simply to listen to music.

And for the rare tracks or albums not available on their platform, I said this before but those are super rare. Sure you could send me a bunch of examples, but I would submit to you Apple has over 99.9% of the music you'd want to hear.

80/20 rule - forget the 0.001% edge cases - it's better to create an awesome, simple, and focused experience for the other 99.9% of people rather than catering to this 0.01%, compromising and convoluting the user experience in the process.

The counterarguments are just not strong enough - by the data, numbers, volume, or weight in terms of features or need for the populace en masse. Sorry. They just aren't. Come at me bro!

Apple Music would be a much better, cleaner, and faster piece of software if it was more laser focused on 'music streaming only' like Spotify. They could carve out the legacy 'iTunes and iCloud sync' garbage for people that want to be their own artist by creating their own tracks. Let music be music.

Don't you realize this is how iTunes got so bloated in the first place? By bending to the whims of everyone who wanted to use it for different things and exception cases like this?

Steve Jobs famously said what he did to save the company was saying 'No' - a 'lot'. The customer isn't always right.

I think you downplay the issue of missing music quite a lot. My main genre are game soundtracks, movie soundtracks and epic trailer music. There is a lot missing. Even new soundtracks of super popular games that came out 2 weeks ago are not on streaming or some soundtracks of famous composers like Tranformers - dark side of the moon. Those type of albums sometimes just disappear when licenses expire etc. So for people like me this a godsend.

My partner listens mainly to opera and classical music. Same issue. Sure the most popular stuff is there but not everything.

 

[Bryanmsi]

It happened to me just as I was trying to setup my new MacBook Air M1. For 2 days, it would not restore my music library properly, then today it DID....and it duplicated all my playlists. Pretty easy to fix though.

 

[araadt]

Is this why Siri has, for a few days, been telling me “I’m sorry. There‘s a problem with iTunes” over both my AirPods and HomePod mini?

 

[KrispE00]

Ok so far I've heard "I'm a DJ and do my own mixes" and "there are a few missing songs in soundtracks or some albums not available in my region."

Sure - these are real use-cases where local music would be helpful, but I would submit to you that being your own DJ or being your own music artist is less than 0.001% of the people that want to simply use Apple Music or Spotify - we all just want it to listen to music. Period. If you want to be an artist or a DJ - use a separate app for that - stop imposing these exception or edge case requirements on this software, which ends up convoluting and putting restrictions on the other 99.99% of people that want to use it simply to listen to music.

And for the rare tracks or albums not available on their platform, I said this before but those are super rare. Sure you could send me a bunch of examples, but I would submit to you Apple has over 99.9% of the music you'd want to hear.

80/20 rule - forget the 0.001% edge cases - it's better to create an awesome, simple, and focused experience for the other 99.9% of people rather than catering to this 0.01%, compromising and convoluting the user experience in the process.

The counterarguments are just not strong enough - by the data, numbers, volume, or weight in terms of features or need for the populace en masse. Sorry. They just aren't. Come at me bro!

Apple Music would be a much better, cleaner, and faster piece of software if it was more laser focused on 'music streaming only' like Spotify. They could carve out the legacy 'iTunes and iCloud sync' garbage for people that want to be their own artist by creating their own tracks. Let music be music.

Don't you realize this is how iTunes got so bloated in the first place? By bending to the whims of everyone who wanted to use it for different things and exception cases like this?

Steve Jobs famously said what he did to save the company was saying 'No' - a 'lot'. The customer isn't always right.

I am not a DJ, but I have plenty of music that’s not on streaming services. As a hip-hop fan, I have many mixtapes from the 2000s-2010s (Lil Wayne, Kanye, Eminem, J. Cole) with songs that were leaked or were just free mixtapes for publicity. I would love it if these songs were on streaming services, but I can’t go without these songs (there are hundreds). Uploading these to the cloud to incorporate them with streaming music is the best option, and Apple Music provides that. Yes, Apple completely botched the rollout of Apple Music/iCloud music library on day 1 when it deleted/mislabeled a lot of people’s music in iTunes 🤦‍♂️ And they still have a lot of issues with “matched” songs vs Apple Music songs, but it’s overall a much better implementation than Spotify’s “local” feature. That’s a step backwards.

Please show your research into these “data, numbers, volume, or weight”. Given that streaming has only been popular for the past 7ish years, anyone in their mid 20s or older has a library of music (mostly popularly in iTunes). Is everyone supposed to rebuild their library in the streaming service and skip some of their favorite unreleased songs?

With all that said, Apple needs to start from scratch and rewrite the matching/upload process. There needs to be an option to “rematch” or point to the correct match. Or force upload.

 

[PickUrPoison]

Damn. I came here to randomly moralize to strangers but you beat me to it.

Why are you discussing morals? Is that relevant? Blaming others for your own failures is not exactly a ticket to success in life, but it’s hardly a matter of right and wrong. I guess we disagree on that?

PS You do realize though that your post is actually doing what you tried to claim mine is, right? 🤣

 

[metfuel]

So...iTunes Match and iCloud Music Library. Is there a difference or am I just the dumbass who has been paying for a duplication of service since Apple Music came along? Started using iTunes Match sometime around 2012, and then I think subscribed to Apple Music in 2015 or so. I kind of set up my match stuff and really forgot about it. Uploaded my wife’s music to her account (so I am paying for hers and my Match Accounts still on top of Apple Music family plan).

I used to be constantly in iTunes fixing artwork, and all of the metadata associated with my music but since Apple Music came along I pretty much was glad to let all of that go and barely manage anything in iTunes and I guess I missed the memo that iCloud Music Library could mean that I don’t need iTunes Match. I haven’t had many issues with match but I do have the occasional wrong song that will play and I assume it is Apple Music trying to take over my matched song by playing a live concert version of a song that should be the studio version.

Anyhow if they are the same more or less; if I unsubscribe from iTunes Match, will the music just stick around in iCloud because I have an active Apple Music subscription or will I have to upload it all again? I really don’t want to have to mess with it again, mainly my wife’s library as she has more of an extensive library matched than I do.

 

[KrispE00]

So...iTunes Match and iCloud Music Library. Is there a difference or am I just the dumbass who has been paying for a duplication of service since Apple Music came along? Started using iTunes Match sometime around 2012, and then I think subscribed to Apple Music in 2015 or so. I kind of set up my match stuff and really forgot about it. Uploaded my wife’s music to her account (so I am paying for hers and my Match Accounts still on top of Apple Music family plan).

I used to be constantly in iTunes fixing artwork, and all of the metadata associated with my music but since Apple Music came along I pretty much was glad to let all of that go and barely manage anything in iTunes and I guess I missed the memo that iCloud Music Library could mean that I don’t need iTunes Match. I haven’t had many issues with match but I do have the occasional wrong song that will play and I assume it is Apple Music trying to take over my matched song by playing a live concert version of a song that should be the studio version.

Anyhow if they are the same more or less; if I unsubscribe from iTunes Match, will the music just stick around in iCloud because I have an active Apple Music subscription or will I have to upload it all again? I really don’t want to have to mess with it again, mainly my wife’s library as she has more of an extensive library matched than I do.

Apple Music and iTunes Match both match/upload songs to your iCloud music library. The main difference is DRM. For iTunes Match, if you have a matched song, you can delete your local version and download the DRM-free “iTunes Store version” from Apple’s server. This DRM-free version is yours to keep even if you cancel iTunes Match.
Any song streamed or downloaded from Apple Music is DRM protected (including matched songs) and will not be available to listen to if you cancel Apple Music.

Basically you only need iTunes Match if you’re trying to legitimize your sketchily obtained songs or upgrade their bitrate to 256kpbs on your computer. I have no idea if you cancel IM and keep AM, if you’ll have to restart the upload/match process.

Btw, there’s always been a match issue with different versions of songs (live/studio, explicit/clean, single/album). It’s better than it was 9 years ago, but not perfect.

 

[Shirasaki]

Sigh.
Backup is key. Never blindly trust any cloud solution.
I maintain my local library, edit files, update files, always keep original music files in case iTunes frocks up something. So far so ok.
I’m not arguing cloud solution is bad. I’m saying handing over ur life to the cloud is a terrible choice to make unless that’s the only solution or you don’t care.

 

[hlfway2anywhere]

So...iTunes Match and iCloud Music Library. Is there a difference or am I just the dumbass who has been paying for a duplication of service since Apple Music came along? Started using iTunes Match sometime around 2012, and then I think subscribed to Apple Music in 2015 or so. I kind of set up my match stuff and really forgot about it. Uploaded my wife’s music to her account (so I am paying for hers and my Match Accounts still on top of Apple Music family plan).

I used to be constantly in iTunes fixing artwork, and all of the metadata associated with my music but since Apple Music came along I pretty much was glad to let all of that go and barely manage anything in iTunes and I guess I missed the memo that iCloud Music Library could mean that I don’t need iTunes Match. I haven’t had many issues with match but I do have the occasional wrong song that will play and I assume it is Apple Music trying to take over my matched song by playing a live concert version of a song that should be the studio version.

Anyhow if they are the same more or less; if I unsubscribe from iTunes Match, will the music just stick around in iCloud because I have an active Apple Music subscription or will I have to upload it all again? I really don’t want to have to mess with it again, mainly my wife’s library as she has more of an extensive library matched than I do.

Apple Music and iTunes Match both match/upload songs to your iCloud music library. The main difference is DRM. For iTunes Match, if you have a matched song, you can delete your local version and download the DRM-free “iTunes Store version” from Apple’s server. This DRM-free version is yours to keep even if you cancel iTunes Match.
Any song streamed or downloaded from Apple Music is DRM protected (including matched songs) and will not be available to listen to if you cancel Apple Music.

Basically you only need iTunes Match if you’re trying to legitimize your sketchily obtained songs or upgrade their bitrate to 256kpbs on your computer. I have no idea if you cancel IM and keep AM, if you’ll have to restart the upload/match process.

Btw, there’s always been a match issue with different versions of songs (live/studio, explicit/clean, single/album). It’s better than it was 9 years ago, but not perfect.

FYI Apple Music doesn’t DRM your matched songs anymore. It stopped doing that a few years ago so you don’t need to combine iTunes Match with Apple Music to keep your drm free matched songs

 

[KrispE00]

FYI Apple Music doesn’t DRM your matched songs anymore. It stopped doing that a few years ago so you don’t need to combine iTunes Match with Apple Music to keep your drm free matched songs

OMG you’re right!! How did I miss this?! 🤦‍♂️ Just looked it up and tested it myself, and it’s been this way since summer 2016. Thanks! So there’s absolutely no reason to have both iTunes Match and Apple Music.

 

[Tech198]

I'm surprised users went so far as to reinstall MacOS.. ... No one thought another created user or admin account would have been a better way?

i can understand from local user account perspective, but not from a cloud perspective.

 

[ForTheLoveOfJobs]

This is happening again and no word from Apple.

 

[steve62388]

I might be having problems too. I seem to be having issues with Matching and files not being removed from my iCloud library when I delete then locally. Anybody else?

 

[chevyorange]

“I would love to have all my music in one place with no issues, but that's not a reality.”

Comments like this are why Apple refuses to give up local music file support - and part of the reason holding it back as software.

I also don’t get it - what could you possibly have in terms of locally stored music that’s not already in Apple‘s iTunes or Spotify’s extensive 60 MILLION plus music libraries? Small indie music you recorded yourself?

I’m not being sarcastic - I’m genuinely curious because I vehemently push back on the claims that we even need ’local’ music anymore. It’s already there on their service...

Ok... maybe some few stubborn holdouts that signed exclusive deals with Amazon Music like Garth Brooks - but these are super rare exceptions, not the rule.

20% of my library is not streamed. Believe it or not, there are people that record their own stuff or have rare/oddball albums that will never see the light of day on Apple Music.

No offense. They don't even have my compete Def Leppard collection.