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 ntomallen,

    ntomallen ntomallen Jul 2, 2015 1:23 PM in response to tnorris
    Level 1 (78 points)
    iPod
    Jul 2, 2015 1:23 PM in response to tnorris

    You should be okay if you just stay on your phone. I had no issues until I updated iTunes. Even now, I created a brand new iTunes library and have that connected to APM, and it works great.

  • by -MadeInSB-,

    -MadeInSB- -MadeInSB- Jul 2, 2015 2:13 PM in response to Tuff Ghost
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 2:13 PM in response to Tuff Ghost

    I'm having the same problem

    I'M OVER APPLE MUSIC.....back to Spotify!

  • by dudecctv,

    dudecctv dudecctv Jul 2, 2015 3:00 PM in response to Zackadelic
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 3:00 PM in response to Zackadelic

    So... does this mean you will not be using Apple Music, or will you use Apple Music and turn off Icloud music library on all devices?

  • by Whitehousej321,

    Whitehousej321 Whitehousej321 Jul 2, 2015 3:22 PM in response to Zackadelic
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 3:22 PM in response to Zackadelic

    How do i do this on mac I'm struggling to get the folder open and change the file?

  • by shornuk,

    shornuk shornuk Jul 2, 2015 3:28 PM in response to Tuff Ghost
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 3:28 PM in response to Tuff Ghost

    Well I had the same issues as mentioned here, however I wasn't too concerned and decided to rebuild my library. (I've been a long time Rdio user so havent added much to iTunes in recent years.)

     

    I guessed the best way would be to go through and add any albums directly from the iTunes Music library. This started working very nicely and everything seems nice and clean. Then I thought I'd add my albums from iTunes that are not available within the Apple Music library, namely 'The Beatles' So I added every Beatles album from my original library to me new fresh Apple Music library. Everything seems great. Checked on my phone and everything was syncing over. However.... it seems to have synced some of the tracks with tracks that available ARE available within Apple Music. For example, the album Please Please Me has 'matched' the track P.S. I love you with the the one from the 'Highlights of Rock'n'Roll' album. Now although this is technically the correct song, the artwork etc is all wrong.

     

    Seems to me like they haven't learnt anything from iTunes Match. If only they could give you the option of choosing which track it should match when it finds multiple versions, this would be a good workaround.

     

    As theres no real progress since iTunes match, it leaves me with little doubt that it will change. Shame, as I was so excited to finally have a solution to get a streaming library nicely integrated with my albums that are not available to stream, but I think that was too much to ask for! Guess I might be sticking with Rdio.

  • by strykerdoom,

    strykerdoom strykerdoom Jul 2, 2015 4:19 PM in response to Zackadelic
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 4:19 PM in response to Zackadelic

    Yeah, well, I made the mistake of opening my library again after closing it so it updated the .itl file and screwed my entire library up. 14,000+ songs and years of collecting all down the drain in the matter of minutes, if not seconds. Most of which I had on CD's from when I was a teenager and now don't have those CD's anymore. I am beyond furious and I literally want to destroy all of my Apple products at the moment. I am not going through my library, song by song, trying to save as much of it as I can. Metadata from THOUSANDS of my songs have been annihilated and hijacked. Not too mention I just found out about the DRM bs.

     

    Apple really screwed up this time. I don't know what else to do, if there even is any way to salvage my library. However, my future dedication to Apple products will depend on how they handle this situation.

     

    And to think...I was going to do my Time Machine backup a couple of days ago and I completely forgot about it.

  • by Csound1,

    Csound1 Csound1 Jul 2, 2015 4:27 PM in response to strykerdoom
    Level 9 (50,841 points)
    Desktops
    Jul 2, 2015 4:27 PM in response to strykerdoom

    So roll back a few days to a time before the library was messed up.

  • by crrp6501,

    crrp6501 crrp6501 Jul 2, 2015 4:30 PM in response to Zackadelic
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 4:30 PM in response to Zackadelic

    Thanks!!

  • by DJCode24,

    DJCode24 DJCode24 Jul 2, 2015 5:56 PM in response to Tuff Ghost
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 5:56 PM in response to Tuff Ghost

    So the only issue I have is sporadic server disconnects on iTunes on my Mac and PC, which is fixable, and is 100% fine on my phone.  Just letting y'all know everyone!

  • by ncote28,

    ncote28 ncote28 Jul 2, 2015 6:16 PM in response to Tuff Ghost
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 6:16 PM in response to Tuff Ghost

    So, i have this problem too but mainly with live tracks that aren't available on iTunes.

     

    Since Apple Music came out, i decided to run some tests to see how far would the iCloud Music Library matching system would be effective. Keep in mind that i have a full backup of my library on an external drive.

     

    I tried to rename the artist of the live songs by adding the mention "(Live)" at the end of the artist's name. The result was the same, even with an artist name iTunes doesn't recognize, iCloud still match the live song with the studio version as well as the artwork and the album title.

     

    Then, tonight i tried to rename a couple of those live songs by adding a unique string of chars at the end of the titles (ex: adding the date the song was performed). A live Metallica song like "Blackened" would then show "Blackened (2004/11/05)". Still no luck, iCloud looks up the first word of the title and matches it with the studio version...

     

    I then read somewhere that iCloud Music Library wont allow someone to upload a song more than once to save space even if that song is on completely different albums! That is REALLY dumb! A music library is not that simple and at least, Apple should give us the choice to force the upload of the song on iCloud (like Google Play does) or simply allow us to download tracks for offline listening without having to upload our whole library to the cloud!

     

    I don't understand why we can't add songs to our existing library without uploading everything to the cloud and screwing everything up!

     

    The main reason why i was excited to try Apple Music is that, unlike Spotify, everything would be in the same place with that great/easy iOS interface!

     

    I'm not giving up on Apple Music but until that part is fixed (and i reaaaaaalllyyyyy hope it will), i'm staying with Spotify! Spotify doesn't screw up the work i did over many years on my library!

     

    Please Apple, fix this! Very disapointing!

  • by grahamnick,

    grahamnick grahamnick Jul 2, 2015 8:02 PM in response to Tuff Ghost
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 8:02 PM in response to Tuff Ghost

    This will also ruin your music on your phone.   My music and lots of albums I have messed up artwork. 

     

    I have lots of singles.  They show the artwork for different albums.   In some cases it thinks they are the real full album.  If you tap on show full album, it shows the full album and all the songs change. 

     

    Basically anything that is not a standard apple album is messed up.  

     

    My current iTunes is still intact.   I am not sure what to do with my phone.  Maybe restore from back-up.   However streaming makes Apple Music pretty lame to me.  As I loved the integrated feature where I could see my music and other albums I listened too.

  • by thecreek,

    thecreek thecreek Jul 2, 2015 8:40 PM in response to Zackadelic
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 8:40 PM in response to Zackadelic

    This fixed my problem!  Thanks!  You saved my music and my sanity.

  • by Justinman,

    Justinman Justinman Jul 2, 2015 8:52 PM in response to Tuff Ghost
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 8:52 PM in response to Tuff Ghost

    This also happened to me. Once I activated Apple Music and turned on iCloud Music library:

    -I had duplicates and even triplicates of 6000 songs in my library (appeared on iPhone and Mac)

    -Half of those duplicates were mapped to random album artwork and tracks

    -Many more issues

     

    I have not had time to read through all the post here, but I have had NO solution. I even:

    -Deleted the iTunes library file and deleted all music out of iTunes

    -Deleted all the music off my iPhone

    -Copied back all my music from a backup hard drive and kept it in a non-iTunes folder

    -Then tried manually album-by-album copying music in...

     

    But still things are scrambled.

     

    Even crazier... I copied an album I ripped from a CD many years ago... and iTunes split it into 10 different folders (1 for each track), each with the wrong Album and Artist. It's like everything is possibly going wrong with the library in a random way.

     

    I will call Apple tomorrow. So frustrating.

  • by Tuff Ghost,

    Tuff Ghost Tuff Ghost Jul 2, 2015 9:29 PM in response to Justinman
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 9:29 PM in response to Justinman

    Since I was the originator of this thread, here's how I got my library back on my Mac. The only thing that worked to get everything back in order is using Time Machine if you have a backup of everything pre iTunes 12.2 install:

     

    1. TURN OFF ICLOUD MUSIC LIBRARY IN ITUNES SETTINGS AND CLOSE ITUNES

    2. In Time Machine, restore the ENTIRE iTunes Library folder where all your media files are stored from a backup pre iTunes 12.2 install

    3. Restore the .itl file from a backup pre iTunes 12.2 install

    4. Delete (or move to a different folder) the iTunes Library.xml file

    5. Open the restored .itl file and MAKE SURE ICLOUD MUSIC LIBRARY IS TURNED OFF

     

    I can stream music on Apple Music but obviously cannot download them or create playlists on my Mac. I also restored my iPhone from an iCloud backup and didn't sync any of my mp3's through an iTunes sync, so I just downloaded albums I wanted from Apple Music for now. It's a patchwork non-solution and Apple needs to fix the underlying issue, but at the moment nothing is completely f'd up.

  • by MsKimber,

    MsKimber MsKimber Jul 2, 2015 9:42 PM in response to Zackadelic
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 9:42 PM in response to Zackadelic

    I signed in just to say you are awesome this works wonderfully!

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