Tuff Ghost

Q: WARNING: iCloud Music Library just destroyed my Mac's iTunes Library

I have a 13000 song library on my iMac. Installed iOS 8.4 on my iPhone this morning and had Apple Music and iCloud Music Library going...Everything was working fine on the device. Got home and installed 10.10.4 and iTunes 12.2 on my iMac. It asked to turn on iCloud Music Library and I accepted. All of the sudden it starts overwriting my album art with completely wrong art (example: Weezer showed art for a Radiohead album) on both my iMac AND my iPhone, screwing up metadata by putting random songs in albums where they didn't belong (there was a Cursive album where the first track was listed as a Foo Fighters song). Even worse, when I'd click to listen to certain songs, it would play the wrong song/artist, like the metadata was hijacked. What in the ****?  I've had this library organized perfectly for the better part of a decade and Apple Music screwed it up in minutes.

 

I was able to restore everything through a Time Machine backup and made sure NOT to turn on iCloud Music Library when I re-opened the .itl file. What a disaster. Hopefully someone from Apple reads this. Thinking it may have something to do with a iTunes Match account I had briefly a few years back. But yikes, can't believe how much damage it did in 5 minutes.

Posted on Jun 30, 2015 7:45 PM

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Q: WARNING: iCloud Music Library just destroyed my Mac's iTunes Library

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  • by Scottyboy99,

    Scottyboy99 Scottyboy99 Jul 2, 2015 7:16 AM in response to Frank Berzau
    Level 1 (84 points)
    Apple Watch
    Jul 2, 2015 7:16 AM in response to Frank Berzau

    Ok thanks. Did you opt in for the Apple Music trial though? I just want to determine if that is the sole trigger. I did not, I skipped it so I am not signed up for apple music in any way, shape or form.

  • by zpaolo,

    zpaolo zpaolo Jul 2, 2015 7:18 AM in response to Scottyboy99
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 7:18 AM in response to Scottyboy99

    Scottyboy99 wrote:

     

    Yep, I agree. Apple Music should of been kept very separate from iTunes music. A separate app preferably. Essentially Apple Music is just a glorified radio station where the user can pick what plays.

     

    It's not just that. When I bought my Mac I spent some months with no music at all on the Mac, just using Spotify, adding albums to my Spotify library and using that without taking up disk space. Apple Music is a glorified radio station AND an endless access to a huge back catalog of artists. Actually I don't care at all about Spotify or Apple Music radios and suggestions, I get my suggestions from people I know and from other sources, What I wanted from Apple Music was the ability to access streamed music as if it was part of my "local library", control it via third party apps like Cartunes, control it via Siri and have the opportunity to add the music that is not in their catalog in an easy way (Metallica... Beatles...). Looks like it's not as seamless

  • by Frank Berzau,

    Frank Berzau Frank Berzau Jul 2, 2015 7:20 AM in response to Scottyboy99
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 7:20 AM in response to Scottyboy99

    I did sign up for the  Music trial, family sharing.

  • by Wendy Griswold,

    Wendy Griswold Wendy Griswold Jul 2, 2015 7:21 AM in response to Wendy Griswold
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 7:21 AM in response to Wendy Griswold

    Wendy Griswold wrote:

     

    Has anyone else had this happen WITHOUT ever having iCloud Music Library/iTunes Match enabled? Installing Apple Music/iOS 8.4 has changed the artwork for some songs on my iPhone. The choices aren't entirely random, but for instance it will change all artwork for the tracks on a compilation to each single's artwork. Or in some cases a crappier version of the correct art (ie adding a "Deluxe Edition" sticker on top).

     

    Not as bad as some of the people who's whole libraries were effed up, but still very irritating if you've spent a lot of time making sure each album had the right art.

    One thing that might help anyone else in this particular boat - iCloud Music Library can be OFF on your computer and still be ON on your iPhone. Which is insane since I told it not to turn on on my computer, but it auto-enabled on the phone anyway, and screwed up all the artwork there. Check your Apple Music library settings - Apple Support

  • by zpaolo,

    zpaolo zpaolo Jul 2, 2015 7:25 AM in response to Wendy Griswold
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 7:25 AM in response to Wendy Griswold

    Wendy Griswold wrote:

     

    One thing that might help anyone else in this particular boat - iCloud Music Library can be OFF on your computer and still be ON on your iPhone. Which is insane since I told it not to turn on on my computer, but it auto-enabled on the phone anyway, and screwed up all the artwork there. Check your Apple Music library settings - Apple Support

     

    If you are in that situation you are lucky: just turn it off on the phone, delete all music from the iPhone and then resync with iTunes (with iCloud Library disabled of course). It should restore all your music on the iPhone

  • by jkwuc89,

    jkwuc89 jkwuc89 Jul 2, 2015 7:27 AM in response to tnorris
    Level 1 (24 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 7:27 AM in response to tnorris

    What I describe below falls under the heading, "your mileage may very"....consider yourself advised.

     

    Background:

    • I have approximately 2400 songs in my library. It represents a mix of the following:
      • iTunes purchases (some protected, some not)
      • Amazon.com purchases
      • Ripped CDs
      • Legally downloaded MP3 from other sources
    • All of my music has some metadata including:
      • Album art (some downloaded, some customized)
      • Grouping data
      • Customized genres
      • Play counts
      • Star ratings
    • For one year, I used iTunes Match. I let this subscription expire several months ago.
    • After upgrading to iTunes 12.2, I immediately turned in iCloud Music. The sync went relatively quickly and the result was messy to say the least. The symptoms match what is described in this thread. My guess is that the sync went quickly because it used "old" iTunes Match data which I thought was deleted when my subscription expired.
    • I have a complete clone of my MacBook Pro SSD including my iTunes library from June 26 which made me feel comfortable experimenting. If anything went awry, I could easily restore my clone. Do not attempt any resolution steps without having a back up of your iTunes library stored somewhere safe.

     

    My Resolution Steps:

    1. On my iPhone and my iPad, I turned off iCloud Music. The steps below were done on my MacBook Pro running OS X 10.10.4.
    2. I deleted my corrupted iTunes library directory stored under $HOME/Music.
    3. I started iTunes 12.2 which created a new iTunes library. It immediately prompted me to use iCloud Music, to which I answered affirmatively.
    4. I clicked on My Music and it showed a rather large music library, most likely from the messed up sync. I selected groups of 500 songs and deleted them all. I also deleted all of the synced playlists.
    5. I exited iTunes 12.2 and deleted the iTunes library it just created.
    6. I started iTunes 12.2 again which created a new iTunes library. It immediately prompted me to use iCloud Music, to which I answered affirmatively.
    7. I clicked on My Music and verified that all of my synced songs were deleted. I also clicked on Playlists and verified that all of my synced playlists were deleted.
    8. I exited iTunes 12.2 again and deleted the iTunes library it just created.
    9. I restored my cloned / backed up iTunes library from my external HD.
    10. I started iTunes 12.2 again. When it prompted me to use iCloud Music, I did not enable it. I then verified that my iTunes library contained the correct / expected metadata.
    11. I opened iTunes preferences and manually enabled iCloud Music. I then went to my song list in iTunes and noticed that every song was marked with the "missing from iCloud" icon.
    12. I selected groups of approximately 500 songs, right-clicked and selected Add to iCloud Music Library. Each group of songs took iTunes several minutes to sync with iCloud. iTunes will display a spinning circle icon near the top right of the window when sync is running. When it is complete, this icon goes away and synced songs will not display a cloud icon next to them.
    13. When each group sync was complete, I checked the song metadata and verified that things still looked correct / as expected. So far, everything looks good. Album art is correct, song / album / artist titles are correct, and other metadata looks correct.

    I am now syncing my last group of songs. Once that is done and verified, I am going to enable iCloud Music on my iPhone and see what happens.

  • by herberr,

    herberr herberr Jul 2, 2015 7:29 AM in response to zpaolo
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 7:29 AM in response to zpaolo

    Did that, restored my iTunes library on my Mac which made everything look like before. Then I deleted all from my phone and resynched. Most artwork and descriptions are good. It's mostly the artwork related to the Artist which is still a mess. It seems that Artwork of artist in my collection is randomly applied to other artist's in the collection. Album artwork seems to be OK, same for titles of the track.

     

    This will be a hard nut to crack for Apple I guess. My suspicion is that if you are a Match user, or like me was a Match user in the past, these issues arise. My daughter's libraries are clean still, and they haven't used Match in the past.

  • by Meg4Roney,

    Meg4Roney Meg4Roney Jul 2, 2015 7:31 AM in response to Tuff Ghost
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 7:31 AM in response to Tuff Ghost

    Here's an official Help post about missing music, etc. after updating iTunes: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203225

  • by noah787,

    noah787 noah787 Jul 2, 2015 7:55 AM in response to Zackadelic
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 7:55 AM in response to Zackadelic

    Thanks you saved my ***. This worked, and now I will stay far away from icloud library.

  • by Csound1,

    Csound1 Csound1 Jul 2, 2015 7:56 AM in response to herberr
    Level 9 (50,841 points)
    Desktops
    Jul 2, 2015 7:56 AM in response to herberr

    herberr wrote:

     

    Did that, restored my iTunes library on my Mac which made everything look like before. Then I deleted all from my phone and resynched. Most artwork and descriptions are good. It's mostly the artwork related to the Artist which is still a mess. It seems that Artwork of artist in my collection is randomly applied to other artist's in the collection. Album artwork seems to be OK, same for titles of the track.

     

    This will be a hard nut to crack for Apple I guess. My suspicion is that if you are a Match user, or like me was a Match user in the past, these issues arise. My daughter's libraries are clean still, and they haven't used Match in the past.

    I Use Match and my library is fine thanks.

  • by pepp1,

    pepp1 pepp1 Jul 2, 2015 8:08 AM in response to seltaebbeatles
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 8:08 AM in response to seltaebbeatles

    The first sync attempt performed by Music failed.

     

    Apple support has suggested me to switch iCloud Music Library off and then back on.

     

    I'm going to try as soon as I get e decent wifi connection.

  • by tiancong,

    tiancong tiancong Jul 2, 2015 8:44 AM in response to Tuff Ghost
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 8:44 AM in response to Tuff Ghost

    Guys, the situation is a lot worse than I thought. Yesterday I discovered that all my music were corrupted with duplicate files and wrong album art. Now the music library is even messier than yesterday. The songs that I added from APPLE MUSIC are showing wrong album arts. As you can see here.IMG_4265.PNG

    I added Ghost Stories album to "My Music" yesterday but when I am playing it today it's showing an album art from Basshunter. I mean...really?

  • by JWD88,

    JWD88 JWD88 Jul 2, 2015 9:00 AM in response to tiancong
    Level 1 (28 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 9:00 AM in response to tiancong

    Thanks all for the helpful info.

    iTunes has been trashing my podcast library for many months, deleting files and shuffling things about erratically. I've taken to backing up the library manually, and am seriously considering an iTunes alternative app. Apple products are becoming less stable and less intuitive, IMO.

  • by jkwuc89,

    jkwuc89 jkwuc89 Jul 2, 2015 9:19 AM in response to jkwuc89
    Level 1 (24 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 9:19 AM in response to jkwuc89

    After completing the steps I outlines in my previous post, here are the final results:

     

    On my MacBook Pro:

    My iTunes library looks correct. Specifically:

    • Artist pictures are correct
    • Album art is correct
    • Ratings and other meta data are correct

     

    On my IPad using iCloud Music Library only:

    • Nearly all of the artist pictures are correct. A few are not. For instance, the artist picture for the Beatles shows AC/DC, Genesis displays Metallica. There does not appear to be a pattern to what caused this.
    • Nearly all of the album art is correct. There are a few misses. At least the incorrect image used album art from the same artist.

     

    On my iPhone using iCloud Music Library only:

    • Results are nearly identical to my iPad. Specifically, artist and album art misses are the same. What's odd is that the incorrect image being shown is different. For instance, the Beatles does not show AC/DC, it shows Rush. Genesis also shows Rush.

     

    Overall, Apple Music and the iCloud Music Library are no better than a beta release right now. Hopefully, Apple will get this cleaned up soon.

  • by rpvee,

    rpvee rpvee Jul 2, 2015 10:06 AM in response to Tuff Ghost
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 10:06 AM in response to Tuff Ghost

    I'm having a few issues with wrong artwork and files, interestingly only on my phone - my actual iTunes library is totally fine.  But one problem I'm experiencing is this: any song I purchased from iTunes over the years and put into a compilation album is instead showing up on the iPhone as it was originally purchased. For example, if I bought one from song from album "A" and put it in a self-made compilation of other songs in "A" s genre, it's organized fine in my library and on my iPod Classic, but through the Cloud/Music on the iPhone, that one track is back to being in its own solo album. I have a lot of tracks like these, so it really clutters up scrolling through the albums!

     

    Any ideas on how to get the customized ID tags to go to the Cloud with the tracks?

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