Debate Rages Over Whether Apple Music Automatically Deletes Users' Owned Music Collections

[Dirtyharry50]

I didn't read nine pages of this so please forgive me if I restate things that may well have been stated multiple times by now.

I love Apple Music personally. I have zero issues with it including the use of iCloud Music Library to make certain rare recordings available on my iPhone and iPad that live locally on my iMac.

Apple published a support document I had no difficulty finding with Google that clearly explains how Apple Music works including iCloud Music Library. I have found that document to be accurate in my experience. None of my original music has been altered or removed.

That said, it does not mean there are no bugs in Apple Music, etc. so perhaps some issue can in certain circumstances occur with disastrous results. Here's the thing though and I suspect I am not the only one to point this out by any stretch:

What is someone thinking when they expose a valuable library of music to any automated system that is going to act upon it in any way whatsoever without first creating not only one but redundant backups to protect themselves against any loss? People really need to learn to backup their data and yet for some reason many still do not seem to get that. I did not turn on Apple Music until I had ensured I had redundant backups of my iTunes Library. It boggles my mind that anyone would turn that on without taking that precaution first if your library contains anything not purchased from iTunes.

 

[dk001]

I didn't read nine pages of this so please forgive me if I restate things that may well have been stated multiple times by now.

I love Apple Music personally. I have zero issues with it including the use of iCloud Music Library to make certain rare recordings available on my iPhone and iPad that live locally on my iMac.

Apple published a support document I had no difficulty finding with Google that clearly explains how Apple Music works including iCloud Music Library. I have found that document to be accurate in my experience. None of my original music has been altered or removed.

That said, it does not mean there are no bugs in Apple Music, etc. so perhaps some issue can in certain circumstances occur with disastrous results. Here's the thing though and I suspect I am not the only one to point this out by any stretch:

What is someone thinking when they expose a valuable library of music to any automated system that is going to act upon it in any way whatsoever without first creating not only one but redundant backups to protect themselves against any loss? People really need to learn to backup their data and yet for some reason many still do not seem to get that. I did not turn on Apple Music until I had ensured I had redundant backups of my iTunes Library. It boggles my mind that anyone would turn that on without taking that precaution first if your library contains anything not purchased from iTunes.

You should go back and read the previous pages... it is eye opening. There are a lot of threads in MR on this topic.

In an interconnected world, most have backups, some have off line backups. What no one expected, and no previous music option of this type did, is mess with your existing library. I took my existing library via my iPhone, turned on AM and never in my wildest dreams expected AM to change/mangle/alter/delete any information in my original library that was copied into AM. And especially not on my other networked devices. What AM did to me and many many others was something that was literally unexpected and pretty much unthinkable.

Your positive experience, and many others like yours, is a great thing and shows that it can work. For the rest of us... many of us, our trust in Apple has been severely hammered. Trust is easy to lose and very difficult to regain. Myself, I will go overboard backing up and limiting access as I no longer have my former level of trust with Apple's upgrades/updates/new functionality.

 

[Juicy Box]

You should go back and read the previous pages... it is eye opening. There are a lot of threads in MR on this topic.

In an interconnected world, most have backups, some have off line backups. What no one expected, and no previous music option of this type did, is mess with your existing library. I took my existing library via my iPhone, turned on AM and never in my wildest dreams expected AM to change/mangle/alter/delete any information in my original library that was copied into AM. And especially not on my other networked devices. What AM did to me and many many others was something that was literally unexpected and pretty much unthinkable.

Your positive experience, and many others like yours, is a great thing and shows that it can work. For the rest of us... many of us, our trust in Apple has been severely hammered. Trust is easy to lose and very difficult to regain. Myself, I will go overboard backing up and limiting access as I no longer have my former level of trust with Apple's upgrades/updates/new functionality.

Great point.
People should back up their stuff, but Apple obviously has a problem here since so many people were affected.

Also, I had my music backed up, but that did not get my playlists, and music data (play count, favorites, skip count) back. Using TimeMachine did not work either.

 

[dk001]

Ran across this a couple of minutes ago. Very interesting as it appears to confirm the current issue with AM.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/05/12/proof_that_apple_music_is_deleting_mp3_files.html
Especially watch the video in the article.

 

[gnipgnop]

Ran across this a couple of minutes ago. Very interesting as it appears to confirm the current issue with AM.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/05/12/proof_that_apple_music_is_deleting_mp3_files.html
Especially watch the video in the article.

That video doesn't really confirm anything other than the files were, at some point, all located within the same folder. It doesn't confirm anything regarding iTunes or Apple Music auto-deleting files.

For example, if I could show I had a Photoshop file in a specific folder in an old Time Machine backup, then show that the file is no longer in the folder...does that mean Photoshop auto-deleted the file? Nope. That's probably the least likely possibility that exists.

 

[Dirtyharry50]

From the MacRumors article on an upcoming iTunes update to try and prevent this issue in what Apple described as very rare reported cases, it seems to me that while people here perceive the number of posts about this problem on MR as being indicative of a large problem in terms of total users apparently Apple is not seeing a large number of reports. Most noteworthy is the fact that Apple has been unable to reproduce this issue in-house even one time.

I have the impression that the greater problem here is how poorly Apple explained how this worked to users during the initial setup process which should have been loaded with explanatory information and safeguards to ensure they could not inadvertently make choices with unintended results. The way this rolled out has been confusing and just in my own trouble-free case I did still have to Google for a support article just to try and get a handle on exactly what the behavior of this system was going to be because it was anything but clear otherwise.

I cannot recall now honestly but for one thing, the default behavior should be to do absolutely nothing with the user's files without their explicit and highly informed choice being made first. I am not sure that is presently the case and I am thinking that is the real problem here. That would also explain why they cannot reproduce this issue.

Of course, not being either an affected user or in their QA lab I cannot say with any certainty at all that no bug causing major problems even if rarely does not exist. However, when something that can change files by design is poorly explained it isn't hard to see how a lot of problems could ensue and reasonably enough be interpreted as system errors.

 

[silroc]

Bastard apple removed (but not deleted) all songs I had ripped or not purchased from iTunes


F them

 

[robbysibrahim]

I have a 600GB music library on my Mac (external drive). I joined iTunes Match, and it took 3 days with a fast connection for Apple to upload and convert my library (the songs that it does not have in the iTunes library). All my apple lossless files I ripped myself are still on my external drive, and my onsite and offsite backups. I now use Apple Music and have no issues with losing music.

Same here. And I'm sad that, unfortunately, the current public outcry by those confused may force Apple to 'Final Cut Pro X' my favorite Apple app, iTunes; revamping Music into something with fewer features and even detaching the owned music library from the subscription service (scary). I'm all for the unified music library experience and the powerful iTunes management features (I rate songs by half stars for example).

I'd like to offer not just my feelings on the subject but possibly a helpful tip. I think the best way to view your library is the classic list view; now found by clicking Songs. Here you'll see a grid view of your library where you can (should) turn on three columns that will help you gain insight into the ownership status of each song and where it's currently located. They are iCloud Download, iCloud Status, Kind. You can easily see whether you own the song and it's been matched or if you subscribe to the song with Apple Music (you don't own that). And you can see whether or not you have a local copy of the that file on your Mac and what kind of file it is (DRM'd or not). It's a difficult thing to grasp at first, I'll admit. When I did in-home Apple support it became more challenging to help customers understand things like iCloud Photo Library and iTunes Match. But I tried!

If any of that didn't make sense, I blame the malbec. Feel free to ping me if you want clarification...or you like malbec.

 

[bear_in_mind]

Thanks for posting you experience and insights! What a fustercluck!!!

So, Apple pestered me with update 'alerts' to download iTunes 12.4.1.6. What a joy that has been.

It routinely grabs / leaks memory to the tune of 10GB of my RAM. TEN GIGABYTES of RAM for a music player application! When I close the application, the memory is not clearing from the heap. To clear that memory footprint, I have to restart the system. <<shaking my head>>

I thought 24GB would be enough for most uses, but apparently not enough for this sorry excuse of a native Apple OS X application.

I'm ready to seek out another music library to take the place of iTunes. I'm at wits-end. I can rip my own music from CD's, I really have little need for the Apple Store to buy or RENT music.

Anyone see a thread with recommendations on solid alternatives?

 

[Dirtyharry50]

Thanks for posting you experience and insights! What a fustercluck!!!

So, Apple pestered me with update 'alerts' to download iTunes 12.4.1.6. What a joy that has been.

It routinely grabs / leaks memory to the tune of 10GB of my RAM. TEN GIGABYTES of RAM for a music player application! When I close the application, the memory is not clearing from the heap. To clear that memory footprint, I have to restart the system. <<shaking my head>>

I thought 24GB would be enough for most uses, but apparently not enough for this sorry excuse of a native Apple OS X application.

I'm ready to seek out another music library to take the place of iTunes. I'm at wits-end. I can rip my own music from CD's, I really have little need for the Apple Store to buy or RENT music.

Anyone see a thread with recommendations on solid alternatives?

You might be on to something there. It might be very nice at least from my point of view to ensure zero problems ongoing by simply relocating my own unique music files that simply do not exist on Apple Music to a set of folders organized by album within some Music folder I create and use an entirely different app to listen to and manage that music. Otherwise, I can use Apple Music streaming for most stuff and not care one bit about what it does ever.

As for the music I own which is on Apple Music along with my entire library of music, that is already redundantly backed up both locally and in the cloud so should I ever want or need it, I've got it. I probably never will but I like to keep my options open of course.

My approach so far having done the redundant backups was to just dive in after reading about how it is at least supposed to work and not sweating it because I have already ensured that loss of anything I care about is pretty much impossible. I've lucked out and not had issues on the Mac but I did notice the other day when downloading some tunes to my iPhone to play while out and about so I wouldn't be using cellular data needlessly for it that the Music App on the iPhone was doing the stupid when I'd select an album to play and bringing in the same songs from multiple sources in the library, in other words from multiple albums with the same song, say a hits collection and the original album and so it produced duplicates and in one case triplicate copies into the playlist for the album, "New Adventures in Hi-Fi." That made me laugh just now. How perfect that of all albums it would completely screw up, "New Adventures in Hi-Fi."

Every day is a new adventure isn't it?