redpola

Q: Fed up with iTunes Match. Only 90% matched.

Hi,

 

So I have lots of music ripped from my huge CD collection. I was incredibly impressed with iTunes Match when it was released. Sure, it was slow, but it did indeed add lots of music to the cloud and find lots of my CD music. Very impressive.

 

But here's the problem - after all this time I still have around 10% of my library unmatched. And not unmatched as in "error" or "ineligible". Unmatched as in "waiting". Waiting for what?

 

This has been the case for months. There is no consistency in file format, artist, length, bitrate, date added, release date, etc etc. I even have some CDs where some tracks are available in iTunes Match and some are not (usually stuck in "waiting" state). I even until recently had music I'd bought from iTMS that was unmatched!

 

Having songs randomly missing from albums on my iPhones and iPods and iPads is ruining my music experience. I have now lost count of the number of times I've thought "Oh! I've not listened to ALBUM for ages!" only to find it either not available at all or not available fully in iTunes Match.

 

Is everyone having the same poor experience or is it just me? I mean, iTunes Match is a revolutionary and brilliant concept, but because it's so unreliable it's usefulness is dramatically reduced (as in, it can't be relied on, making it largely pointless).

 

Sorry to be so negative but iTunes Match needs to work 100% to be replace traditional syncing for reliability.

 

Neil.

 

PS Please do not try to diagnose a problem with my setup. There are none at my end - I've tried re-encoding to MP3 or AAC and adding those to get a match, all without success. I've tried pretty much all the stuff suggested on here and still am 10% short. I have 1990 "waiting" items of 21693 items. That's a huge gap.

Posted on Sep 8, 2012 3:16 PM

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Q: Fed up with iTunes Match. Only 90% matched.

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  • by redpola,Helpful

    redpola redpola Sep 8, 2013 11:29 AM in response to redpola
    Level 1 (29 points)
    Wireless
    Sep 8, 2013 11:29 AM in response to redpola

    Ok, so another update. After at least a year of frustration and pain, I've made some progress AT LAST.

     

    As far as I can see, there are several bugs in iTunes Match. Let's see if I can note down my observations.

     

    1) Some files simply stop everything. iTunes Match doesn't like them and that's the end of it. Weeding them out is difficult.

     

    2) There is no consistency in which files / encodings iTunes Match will and will not match. I have albums with 10 tracks, all encoded at the same time and in the same way and one will not match and goes into the magical "Waiting" state. There is no use guessing or filtering to try to work out which will and won't match.

     

    3) When the magical "waiting" state is entered, *the file has been added to iCloud*. Yes, this means any subsequent attempts to add it will be seen by iCloud as "Well, we've got it matched and are waiting for it to be uploaded! Probably! - move on". I suspect the iTunes app then fails at uploading it, which holds everything up.

     

    4) Uploading is glacially slow. Really so seriously slow it's incredible. Those who have followed my predicament will know I have to match 10% of my library which is failing. Right now I'm doing A, then B, then C in artists to get it matched. So of those 10%, I'm doing 1/26th (obviously not evenly distributed) at a time. A took 24hrs. B looks to take the same time. so 1/260th of my library takes 24hrs. Ouch.

     

    5) There are still some files which will not match and will not re-encode to AAC. Why? No idea. Buggy AAC encoder, presumably.

     

    6) deleting music from iCloud takes a long time also, certainly for these ghost files that iTunes Match thinks are in iCloud already but are not.

     

    So the progress I've made is that I can now match/upload a good chunk of the remaining 10% of my library. Here's how.

     

    1. Re-encode the problem files as AAC using default settings. (select them, right click, choose "create AAC file")

    2. Delete the originals. Check "Delete from iCloud". Move them to the trash and EMPTY THE TRASH.

    3. Wait a bit. Actually, iTunes Match should start automatically.

    4. If not, select the files and choose "Add to iCloud".

     

    The first "add..." might mark them all as "Removed from iCloud". That's fine. Just do it again. The files will probably be Uploaded or some might even Match.

     

    Those that need to will start uploading. Very slowly. Boring boring boring.

     

    I'm almost at the point where I think iTunes Match is worth the money - now I can fill in some of the gaps in the CDs I've been dreading to listen to.

  • by babblinbev,

    babblinbev babblinbev Jan 26, 2015 9:36 AM in response to redpola
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Jan 26, 2015 9:36 AM in response to redpola

    Yes I have the same problem and a similar sized library. I'm also finding some of my own music has been switched out for other artists. In some cases the song titles are the same but the artists are different, and in others the artists and titles are correct but when the songs are played they are totally wrong artist and wrong songs.

    I've had issues with album artwork for years.

    I don't know why I still stay with Apple products after all these years. Seems like the more sophisticated they get, the worse they get technology wise. Hire some good software gurus and get with the program Apple.

  • by babblinbev,

    babblinbev babblinbev Jan 26, 2015 9:39 AM in response to babblinbev
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Jan 26, 2015 9:39 AM in response to babblinbev

    what can I do about tracks that are not from my original library?

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