iOS 26 has destroyed my Music collection

[eddjedi]

After upgrading to iOS 26 I noticed that some of my Music artwork was wrong. I spent a while trying to fix it all, but there were too many so reluctantly decided to delete my entire Apple Music library on my Mac (100GB+ of MP3s built up over 20+ years) and start again from scratch. To my horror, this massive amount of effort did not fix the problem, half of the albums on my phone still have the incorrect artwork despite the artwork being correct both in Music on my Mac, and in the MP3 files themselves in Finder.

So far I have tried:

• Deleting all music from Music on my Mac, and ensuring the users Music folder is completely empty afterwards (no artowrk cache folder)
• Deleting and re-adding the affected albums, for some reason this just cycles through more incorrect covers (see screenshots below)
• Deleting all music from Music on my Mac and syncing, removing all music from the phone
• Unchecking "sync music" in Finder before syncing
• Deleting the Music app from my phone (this supposedly clears all data)
• "Offloading" the Music app from my phone
• Signing in and out of my iCloud account on both the phone and the Music app on my Mac
• Upgrading to iOS 26.1

It seems there is some hidden cache of covers somewhere on either the phone or the Mac that I cannot get rid of, and have run out of ideas for how I can rectify this problem. Any other suggestions please?

And before anyone suggests it, I'm not interested in Apple Music, Spotify or any other streaming service, I have curated my digital music collection over the last 25+ years, mostly from CDs, and have no desire to move to streaming.

Any help much appreciated!

 

[MBAir2010]

is that genuine  music, or from a feeble compact disc?

Bottom line:

Son, we at  forbid those from using such stagnant sources
and work tirelessly to make sure those means are NEVER convienant anymore.

Furthermore, your music collection does not meet our standards.
please visit our tone deaf music app for current selections as
we will Bundle your Apple TV subscription with up to five other great services
for one low monthly price.
And enjoy more for less, more fluff for less talent.
to solve any problem  offers, we demand iclloud usage
and subscription services.

Please get with the program and succumb to our ways

obey this!

-Tims

 

[eddjedi]

Ha I must admit it does feel a bit like they're trying to convert me!

 

[Pudlo]

yeah I lost all my albumart form my iphone and can't get them back despite all covers being present on my macbook
ps. treid everything similar too you, next will be probably full reset of my phone but kinda don't want to do that just for covers

 

[TumbleDryer]

Happened to me enough times for me to completely sign out of iTunes and will NEVER sign back in again. Same for movies and TV app. I have 500+ movies in my collection, ripped from DVDs mostly and Apple insists on forcing its crap artwork and info onto them. I will never buy/rent/sign in to Apple again.

Even with 'download artwork' or whatever it's called switched off Apple just ignores it and forces its stuff on to you. I've even had private home videos have random movie artwork attached to it!

To the OP if you're not interested in streaming and/or buying/renting. Sign out of Music app. Fix your stuff and never sign in again.

 

[MBAir2010]

Ha I must admit it does feel a bit like they're trying to convert me!

I am now lsiten to itunes, Mozart SYM38 on two  homepod minis MBP'12 mojaveOS on a screened area of the home.
whihc is nice since i have neighbors sleeping at 6AM as the Klispch and speaker and FLAC will release the full effect.

 lost any decency with music nowadays.

 

[MBAir2010]

yeah I lost all my albumart form my iphone and can't get them back despite all covers being present on my macbook
ps. treid everything similar too you, next will be probably full reset of my phone but kinda don't want to do that just for covers

yes those grey inages are another sublimited messages from our friend, big bro!

i had to reinstall all my albums to my iPhone 12 mini
since i need to see the Physical Graffiti cover or i play Houses of the Holy.
i mostly use a sony walkman that plays FLAC when im out and about.

.

 

[adrianlondon]

I wonder if the difference is that on your Mac it's picking up embedded artwork from the mp3 (or whatever) files as metadata, whereas on the phone it's going to Apple's servers and just having a half-arsed guess as to what the artwork is and grabbing it from their servers.