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Soulseek is your friend. Deemix is your friend. Mp3tag is your friend.
all of those might be what some are looking for. I'm not looking for workarounds, I just want to use my apple products with the built in software (and ALL their features) without being extorted or 'taxed' into a subscription service. And Im talking about the whole ecosphere, not just "listening to music"

being old enough to remember the advent of Cable TV, it was a slow demise from "look at all we are offering" to "why are we paying this much each month for channels we don't watch". The idea that I pay top dollar for an product and then having to subscribe to access some of the features is a hidden cancer.

call me "Chicken Little", but the sky IS falling.
 
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Same here... thought it was just a glitch so I signed out and back in, deleted anything downloaded to my iPhone, and now there are still hundreds of songs in "Error" or "Waiting" status. Music has been "Updating Cloud Music Library" non-stop for... I dunno, a week? :p

I've been using Match from the beginning and have no desire to switch over to whatever else they offer for music. 27,000+ songs, macOS 11.5.1
 
I use iTune Match mainly to upload our band's music and then get to it across all of my devices. And what's weird is THOSE tracks are still getting uploaded immediately. Like, they're done while another album I bought on BandCamp that I know is also in Apple Music, sits and waits... Then after 5 hours or whatever, 2 of those tracks get Matched. About a week ago I had an entire album get Matched at some point overnight! I was shocked.
 
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this is to my point. you own music and its held 'unobtainable' to or from 'the cloud'

why? AND they're making you pay for that service?!?

as soon as you 'let someone else' (like a company) control access to your data... they control you. either through access to that data or through your wallet. Im sorry, guess this rant is really for a different thread but after my disappointing experience with the new HomePod mini and untold necessity for Apple Music Ive had enough.
 
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Adding myself to the pile of users who have experienced issues.

The cynic in me actually thinks this is good news. iTunes Match feels like the kind of thing Apple could and would abandon in favor of Apple Music. But it’s harder for Apple to kill in the face of public complaints… they’ll have to fix it first, let it work ok for a while, and then try sunset it…
 
I wish they would also fix iPhone syncing. Feels like every time I want to sync or backup, I have to reboot my Mac to get it to work, or else it hangs forever.
 
I use iTunes Match to get songs I make in Logic on my phone to then listen to as I can then listen to it anywhere so I very much appreciate this service. It has been a bit slow recently but my tunes have still been appearing on my phone.
 
Over the past few WEEKS users are frustrated?!?

Back when Match launched, I uploaded my massive, meticulously curated library, with months of live recordings and Match completely hosed my Library. Still hosed today - however many years later (when did Match launch?).

Ex: I’ve recorded a lot of live performances over the years from taper-friendly bands like Phish. With Match, 60% of a show plays the files I recorded. The other 40%, Match decided to replace the live recorded file with a studio version of the same song without any kind of notice or apparent way to fix. Makes for an awful listening experience. Has been the biggest nightmare of my near 30-year Apple journey. Just, forever broken. Been a while since I thought about it. Grrr.


Edit: holy smokes! iTunes Match launched in 2003?!? I'm old.
Edit #2: I didn't even know Match was still a thing.
Yup. I joined in the beginning of the program and it was a cluster**** to my VERY large music collection including many CDs not available digitally. I decided never to make that mistake ever again and I’m glad I did.
 
It was a great service, still paying for it but I guess it still has to do with iCloud issues of the last days
 
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Just spent an hour and a half with an iOS supervisor because I was having issues with Dolby atoms tracks. Turns out that my phone was playing iTunes Matched versions of the albums I had in my library instead of the versions on Apple Music. When I deleted the songs from my iTunes Match, suddenly the songs played correctly. My supervisor was not aware of this issue at all so I have a feeling it’ll be a while before Apple is aware. If you’re having this issue, call in so they become aware of it.
 
That's the whole point about iTunes Match. That's the service where you don't rent your music like with Apple Music. Your tracks are uploaded to the cloud, or replaced by Apple Music matched songs, WITHOUT the DRM. You will be able to keep on playing them on other devices, OS-es, software, during and after your iTunes Match subscription. Totally different from Apple Music, which also has a matching-like service, but it'll include DRM on your songs, so you won't be able to play them on other devices, OS-es, software and at all after termination of your subscription.

Not true since July 2016. Therefore, if you pay for Apple Music, there is no need to pay for Itunes Match any longer, because its included in the AM subscription. .
 
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This is what I came here to say. iTunes Match and Apple Music library both can upload songs from your own personal library. The difference is that iTunes Match will keep the original file intact (manually edited, live concert version, etc). Apple Music will upload yours as well, but they will be slapped with some DRM.
You still have your files on your hard drive, but listening to them through Apple Music they’ll have DRM in them (for use with third party programs that sometimes causes issues).

Again, not true since 2016. Many tech podcast also keep saying this and I´m not sure why.
 
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Thank you all, you are correct, the DRM is no longer applied! I hadn't realised they'd changed this. This is great news, I can now re-upload my collection and hopefully it'll actually work properly now.
Just keep your backups. A lot of my stuff was replaced with clean versions.
 
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I've been using Match from the beginning and have no desire to switch over to whatever else they offer for music. 27,000+ songs, macOS 11.5.1
I'm also a user since the first day iTunes Match came out: no way I'm going to use Apple Music.
I tried it and it was a disaster ! I have my own compilations and suddenly A.Music was mixing my songs with something I didn't like it! 3 months of nightmares: couldn't stop it or cancel, even if I canceled right away
I have lots of genres : Jazz, pop, classical etc etc. Plus the cost iTunes Match is convenient compared to Music
A big NO to Apple !!
 
What? iTunes Match is part of Apple Music? AM never did any such thing with non-AM/non-iTunes purchased music, ever for me so I have been paying for iTunes Match. Sheesh.
 
I love Apple's hardware and OS's, but their stand alone software is always having issues or they updated it and your library is no longer compatible.

The only issue I have with Spotify is airplay.
 
> iTunes Match is officially part of an Apple Music subscription

This is not correct. The matching that you get with Apple Music is different, it applies DRM to the unmatched files when it uploads them. iTunes Match will just upload your original files.

I know this because I was relying on Apple Music to sync my tracks that it couldn't match. It worked fine for a while then suddenly stopped working for all my uploaded music. After talking to various folks at Apple it was decided that the DRM must have gone wrong somehow and the only resolution was to delete and re-match all my music again.

I haven't got around to that yet and have been considering moving to iTunes Match to avoid the application of the DRM to my uploaded music.

Update: The DRM thing is no longer true! Thanks to some replies for correcting me. I just uploaded some music and it downloaded as a mp3 rather than a DRM m4a. That's great news!
Not since 2016 mate. Please edit your original post, as they aren’t reading your update.
 
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I’m one of the many Apple customers experiencing this debacle. I belatedly subscribed to Match last week (I should have researched the forums first!). After 9 days, error messages and repeated restarts Apple has so far matched 2,000 songs from my 7,700 library. It’s uploaded about 700 - in what appears to be random fashion as many of the uploads are mainstream tracks from popular artists - that must be available in Apples vast treasure trove. In some cases some songs on an album are matched while others from the same album are not and are uploaded. At this rate of progress I should be fully matched in 2-3 weeks. Great service Apple. If it’s going to sunset Match then Apple should be transparent and stop the pretense of selling new subscriptions.
 
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The second it’s discontinued is when I move back to Spotify. I use Apple Music so I can have all music in one place
 
The second it’s discontinued is when I move back to Spotify. I use Apple Music so I can have all music in one place
They won’t. If they did it would literally kill almost 20,000 songs from my library from being accessible remotely which just seems unlikely for them to do. Cloud Library is literally the only reason I don’t use Spotify
 
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Same issue for me as well. I've had iTunes Match since the day it came out and never had these matching issues before. I'm using iTunes on a Windows 10 PC. After what seems like hours maybe 2 tracks from an album woul be matched and the cog in the upper right corner (that signifies it's still matching with the music database) never stops spinning. This started in mid July for me also.
 


Over the last few weeks, an ever-increasing number of Apple users have been frustratingly sharing issues they're experiencing with iTunes Match, Apple's service that allows users to upload songs to iCloud from other sources, such as CDs.

itunes_match_2015.jpg

iTunes Match is officially part of an Apple Music subscription and is there known as iCloud Music Library. iTunes Match allows users to upload songs and make them available across all of their devices. iTunes Match only uploads songs to users' cloud if it's unavailable to find that same song within the iTunes library. iTunes Match is available outside of Apple Music for $24.99 a year.

Over the last few weeks, an increasing number of users have taken to Twitter, the Apple Support Forums, and Reddit to note that the service has essentially stopped working. Users reports that iTunes Match is stuck in a constant loop of uploading songs or "Matching your music with songs in the iTunes Store." The issue has become so widespread across Twitter that users have created an "iTunesMatchBroken" hashtag.

A large reason for users' frustration is the silence from Apple on the issue. The Apple Support account on Twitter has only responded to some user reports with vague responses and prompts to send the support team a message. In private conversation, some users were told by Apple Support that there is no ongoing issue with the service and that it's instead an issue with their device, despite the widespread nature of issues.

A few of the reports point to the recent macOS Big Sur 11.5 update as the trigger for the issue; however, users across macOS versions are also sharing their unpleasant experiences.

For the last week, Apple has refused to respond to comment on the situation, including whether the service is in the process of being shut down. If we do hear back from Apple, we'll be sure to let MacRumors readers know.

Article Link: iTunes Match Users Frustratingly Report Widespread Issues
Agree. This has been going on for two weeks now. Apple Support keeps blaming the file.
 
Annnnnndddd this is exactly why I have refused to switch to streaming / cloud-based services. Care for my 22,000+ song music collection way too much to deal with that. Wish it was more stable because I really would like to become an Apple Music subscriber.
 
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