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Scottyboy99

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 20, 2012
24
2
Is anyone seeing strange match behaviour. I only noticed this morning that out of blue all our iOs devices are now showing a lot of duplicated artists under the artist tab, also many entries under most letters for various artists. Songs that were supposed to be part of a compilation are sticking their nose in here too. It's basically all screwed. I immediately went onto the pc iTunes and checked the metadata, this was all perfect with spellings exact and album artist and artist consistent. I updates iTunes match, I disabled and re enabled match on the ios devices. But no difference. Its seriously screwed up. I have Adam and the ants (as an example) listed FOUR times with the songs randomnly spread across all 4 entries. Many, many artists are like this now. But in iTunes all lists perfectly and correct. I even tested our apple tv and disabled and re enabled match, this displays everything perfect too. So it's iOS specific and affects all our devices phone and ipads. Just suddenly out of the blue. I think there is something messed up at apple with the cloud affecting the lists. Maybe the imminent apple music is screwing something up. Very frustrated and disappointed as I like match but I am not happy with this.

Seems to mainly affect uploaded music from my own collection but for years and years its all been ok. And the metadata is absolutely spot on. No errors. I re edited a few carefully to be sure but it makes zero difference. No matter what there are many duplicating artists.
 
Here's some screenshots of the madness I am seeing. Some are mentioning this over on the apple communities forum too. See Adam and the Ants listed 4 times in first. Then I can see Bryan Ferry twice plus various artists under B with loads of songs in it. This is happening for many many artists and the there should be no reason as the metadata is correct and consistent
match issues 1.JPG
match issues 2.JPG
 
Yeah, digging further my Artists list is all out of sync with some Artists beginning with B being listed after T, etc. My compilations have all come undone as well, with each song being listed as a separate entity. Guessing it might having something to do with getting ready for the release of Apple Music next week but this doesn't fill me with confidence.
 
I noticed similar issues with my iPad Air late last night, so I disabled Match, waited a minute, then re-enabled Match. No more problems after about 10 minutes of loading my library. Everything's back in the right place, even my "Best of Roxy Music" hits.

I saw some posts about a few other iCloud services being up and down yesterday, along with several cable and wireless ISPs (who are having issues today as well) so I'm not going to put the whole turd in Apple's pocket for the service interruptions... Gotta. Have. Music. :D
 
No such luck for me. Disabling and re enabling match still eventually loads in the same mess. This is so poor. It seems to be widespread. Everyone I know is seeing the same plus there are a few posters now noticing the same over on the apple communities.
 
Also, looks like the "Group by Album Artist" option is not selected, provided that your music has that data field filled in. I've got a few CDs by BT, who collaborates with other artists - enable that option and his music is under "BT"; turn off that option and BT's music is listed under dozens of entries, separated by the artists he collaborates with. Other than that, I've got nothing...
 
Thanks but that makes no difference. Album artist is all filled in under metadata and group by album artist is switched on. It's a mess, many people are now suddenly having this problem on iOS devices. Apple has really screwed something up
 
Same problem here, Match has been spot on since I signed up a while back. But now, random albums and songs scattered everywhere since the start of the week. It's a complete mess. Tried re-syncing everything, nothing seems to fix it. I guess we have to sit tight untill Apple get round to fixing it.

I blame Apple Music ;)
 
It's shambolic, so upset. I like match (or I did like it) as it serves my purpose and I have quite a few songs uploaded which aren't available (live recordings) so I want to keep match for this. Plus Apple Music doesn't appeal as I don't really like streaming too much & I rarely listen to radio. I just like what I like and rarely purchase new songs. paying £10 a month is more than I'd ever download song cost wise in a month.

Has anyone tried turning off match on devices and then going to iTunes and turning off match, then re enabling so the library is scanned from scratch again, then re enabling match on devices again? I did try this when I first saw the issue but it made no difference but I wondered if others afflicted have had more luck with this method.

I picked one one artist I see three times in the list 'Adam and the Ants' last night. On iTunes I removed the name from artist and album artist. It had the effect of removing the three listings from my artist view on my iOS devices. God knows where they went, probably got stuck somewhere like various artists. I then tried re-adding the artist name. This made him re-appear again but exactly as before three times. I despair, I like to keep things very tidy but this is an unusable mess with artist and albums being split. It is blatantly something Apple has pushed to our iOS devices. On iTunes it all looks normal and perfect, also perfect on my older Apple TV. Unfortunately all my iOS devices are upto date at iOS 8.3. I'd be curious as to whether people running older iOS versions like iOS 7 or even iOS 8.1 / 8.2 are seeing the same mess whilst using match
 
I feel your pain. I only have the 16gb iPhone5 so Match is essential for getting my entire library on the device. I won't be interested in Apple Music, so hope they get it sorted. All the library is technically there, but it's a pain to go searching for a Foo Fighters song and finding it sat in a Taylor Swift album listing.

Just tried to re-sync again, now I have a TuPac album cover on one of the Disney albums I had listed......very odd as I don't have any TuPac in my library....!
 
So frustrating. I cannot get past the senior advisor stage. I don't get opportunities to talk to them over the phone as I am at work including commute from 7 am to 7.30 pm. I have to snatch opportunities with a family to also prioritise to try and look at this when at home. But they are insistant on trying steps that I have told them I have already tried, I literally already tried everything. I'm not paying for a chat session out of my own pocket for something apple broke and I already subscribe to. The message needs to reach through the many layers to the actual expert software engineers/software technicians. If it only reached the attentions of them someone might be able to say, yes we aware and iOS 8.4 will fix or iOS 8.4 will is a change to the music app and the lists will be ok in this. Or whatever - but I just cannot progress this. I feel I have wasted so much time already, trying all the scripted steps, spending ages analysing and re- editing metadata, googling the issue til I'm blue in the face. Thanks a bunch Apple, it's clearly some kind of issue pushed by yourselves to iOS devices running match in the last few days - so dissapointed
 
Something else I tried with no joy

I chose one of the many duplicating artists 'Adam and the Ants' and deleted the tracks from my library on iTunes. I chose to keep the files instead of sending them to the recycle bin. Then I deleted the tracks from the cloud. This made him disappear from the artist list on my iOS devices. Then I added the files back to the library and updated match (after enduring metadata was perfect). Match uploaded the files to the cloud obediently. Then I checked my iOS devices and Adam and the Ants was back in the artist list but he was still duplicating with songs from the album split between the two entries. So that is no way of fixing and besides I wouldn't want to do this for hundreds of artists and tracks - that would take ages plus I lose all my play counts this way. I then changed his artist and album artist name to something random 'test' to see if it moved him under T and renamed him but it had no effect. He did move to T on the iPad but still showed as Adam and the Ants and was still split as multiple entries, so something is very very wrong at apple. They have ruined many many users library with some kind of glitches iCloud push. It really needs addressing
 
I ran the gamut on this issue and actually have a call in with Apple. Apparently it's escalated to the "engineers" and I should hear something by Sunday. But I'm seeing the exact same issues as you all are, songs all over the place, I even have random songs by some artists showing up with other artists. I told support that if all else fails they should just delete my library from the cloud and let me re upload it.
 
So is mine. That was one of the steps we took to diagnose that it wasn't isolated to just my iPhone. But I was able to get the senior advisor to actually see the issue by screen sharing my computer then opening quicktime, connecting my iPhone to my computer, opening "new recording", then scrolling next to the record button and selecting my iPhone as the source. He was able to see that songs from some artists were jumbled in others (Bone Thugs did NOT cover Rise Against songs) and that it was not that way in my iTunes account.
 
over on the apple community this is being discussed at length. We think this is impacting iOS 8.3 devices only. I guess your Apple TV is on the iOS 8.3 variant. It doesn't happen on my Apple TV but then mine is an older 2nd generation which reached its end of update cycle at the iOS 7 Apple TV variant. Other users have said iPhones and iPads running pre iOS 8.3 are not affected. Someone else who had the mess on his phone tried iOS 9 beta 2 and said all was fine. So we are hoping when iOS 8.4 comes that fix will be in this. You did better than I did, support didn't want to know. They would not accept there is an issue. But below the layers apple knows it's bodged it with its cloud push messing things. I am sure the prep for apple music and changed to the music app that is coming is responsible. I would hope the 'engineer' when he comes back to you is honest about what has happened and can provide re assurance a fix is coming whether it be in the form of a cloud push or within iOS 8.4
 
They basically said the "nuclear bomb" answer is possibly to wipe out the library in the cloud and re-upload the entire thing. It would suck, but if it works I'll take it.
 
they just don't know what is going on. If they only would look at the forums they would see it's a widespread issue due to something they have pushed cloud side not agreeing with iOS 8.3. Honestly, if you can hold on for 8.4 to hit devices including newer Apple TV it may save the grief if it's fixed. If it's still a mess after that then the nuclear option may be advised - all I will say is I deleted a repeating artist from match and cloud. He disappeared from my devices. I waited and re uploaded his album and he was still split and duplicating so I doubt a nuclear fix will work, at least not on 8.3
 
DO NOT bother re uploading. I deleted everything from the cloud fixed all local copies and reuploaded/matched everything and the previous split albums etc resplit.

Looking at the albums and duplicates it's created it seems the server that tags the tracks is what's causing the issue. It's changing the tags and screwing everything up
 
over on the apple community this is being discussed at length. We think this is impacting iOS 8.3 devices only. I guess your Apple TV is on the iOS 8.3 variant. It doesn't happen on my Apple TV but then mine is an older 2nd generation which reached its end of update cycle at the iOS 7 Apple TV variant. Other users have said iPhones and iPads running pre iOS 8.3 are not affected. Someone else who had the mess on his phone tried iOS 9 beta 2 and said all was fine. So we are hoping when iOS 8.4 comes that fix will be in this. You did better than I did, support didn't want to know. They would not accept there is an issue. But below the layers apple knows it's bodged it with its cloud push messing things. I am sure the prep for apple music and changed to the music app that is coming is responsible. I would hope the 'engineer' when he comes back to you is honest about what has happened and can provide re assurance a fix is coming whether it be in the form of a cloud push or within iOS 8.4

On a whim (EDIT: on your suggestion) I checked the only Apple TV that I didn't check earlier, our only 2nd Gen 720P one, the one that's still on OS 7. You nailed it, all the songs are fine. I'm going to tell whoever calls me on Sunday about all of this (though likely it won't solve anything) and I just have to hope that iOS 8.4 fixes it all.
 
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