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 Duncan_Wise,

    Duncan_Wise Duncan_Wise Jul 5, 2015 10:28 AM in response to Zackadelic
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 5, 2015 10:28 AM in response to Zackadelic

    SUperstar! Thanks

  • by JazzmanJohn,

    JazzmanJohn JazzmanJohn Jul 5, 2015 12:43 PM in response to Jon Sutton
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 5, 2015 12:43 PM in response to Jon Sutton

    Go into settings on your phone, general, usage, under storage click on manage storage, click on music, wait for it to load the next page, hit edit up on the top right, hit the red circle next to all songs and hit delete. Then just wait for it to delete all songs. Repeat the process until you see if any music is left on your phone. You may have to manually delete anything that was left over by clicking delete next to it. Then your phone's database should be clear. To be sure, you could hit general, about and see if there are any songs left. Your phone at that point should be clear.

     

    Then you can sync your phone with your computer to repopulate the music database on your phone.

  • by Bugejo,

    Bugejo Bugejo Jul 5, 2015 12:50 PM in response to Zackadelic
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 5, 2015 12:50 PM in response to Zackadelic

    I did everything you said, and it worked great, but as soon as I clicked on a "broken" song it destroyed the metadata again. I also made sure to disable Icloud music library...

  • by JWD88,

    JWD88 JWD88 Jul 5, 2015 12:52 PM in response to Duncan_Wise
    Level 1 (28 points)
    Jul 5, 2015 12:52 PM in response to Duncan_Wise

    General message to Apple:

    Take a leaf out of the old Volvo philosophy: Less effort on visual design (who needs a pencil-thin iMac? It sits on a desk!), and more effort on making things work right. iTunes, especially, has been riddled with bad updates for years. Its sad history of handling of podcast libraries, and now this debacle, are unforgivable. As companies get large and unwieldy, they must make extra effort not to become unresponsive behemoths.

  • by JazzmanJohn,

    JazzmanJohn JazzmanJohn Jul 5, 2015 1:27 PM in response to Tuff Ghost
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 5, 2015 1:27 PM in response to Tuff Ghost

    You absolutely must disable the iCloud music library on all devices to clean all of this up and keep it clean. Stay in total control of your music library unless you just want problems.

  • by Koalasez,

    Koalasez Koalasez Jul 5, 2015 2:10 PM in response to JWD88
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 5, 2015 2:10 PM in response to JWD88

    Very true; just read that Apple decides what metadata is appropriate for the cloud library no matter what you have chosen.  They overwrite anything in your library that does not meet their 'critiria'.  I have not and will not "upgrade" to this nightmare.  They think they can control what we listen to - music that we have built up over the years - and then make us pay for what we already purchased 10, 20 years ago before iTunes even existed.  Someone will undoubtedly come up with another program/3rd party/ that will echo older versions that had nothing wrong with them.  Software engineers should really know when to stop tweaking, and Apple needs to needs to stop planning what they think we want and gives us what we do want.

     

    Until recently, iTunes was ok....we bought our music, artists got their cut.  Radio stations have to pay a residual to an artist every time they play that artist.  We are not radio stations...this is for our own personal use.

     

    This has class action lawsuit written all over it.  Apple has already lost one battle with this kind of thing. 

  • by Csound1,

    Csound1 Csound1 Jul 5, 2015 2:30 PM in response to Koalasez
    Level 9 (50,841 points)
    Desktops
    Jul 5, 2015 2:30 PM in response to Koalasez

    Koalasez wrote:

     

    Very true; just read that Apple decides what metadata is appropriate for the cloud library no matter what you have chosen.  They overwrite anything in your library that does not meet their 'critiria'.

    Please post a link to where you read this information.

  • by Kim Hill1,

    Kim Hill1 Kim Hill1 Jul 5, 2015 3:13 PM in response to richiebarthez
    Level 2 (169 points)
    Jul 5, 2015 3:13 PM in response to richiebarthez

    I had a huge album art disaster when I turned on iCloud Music Library. Problem solved by turning it off. I will not be turning iCloud Music Library back on.

     

    Ironically enough, Apple Music is not designed for the most passionate music fans- outliers like us who already have large, well-curated music collections. We're just not within the target market. I love Apple Music's features, but I'm resigned to the fact that I'll never get full functionality, since I can't turn on iCloud Music Library.

     

    It looks like I'll have to draw a bright line between my owned music and my streaming service. Time to look at Spotify again.

  • by jiw0183,

    jiw0183 jiw0183 Jul 5, 2015 3:55 PM in response to JazzmanJohn
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jul 5, 2015 3:55 PM in response to JazzmanJohn

    Is it possible to have iCloud music library enabled on one device (iPhone), but not on another (iMac)?  I do not sync my music between my phone and iMac so I really only care about my iTunes library getting messed up, but am not as worried about music on my phone.  So I want to try keeping it turned on for my phone, but not computer, but wasn't sure if this is possible.  Thanks!

  • by Kim Hill1,

    Kim Hill1 Kim Hill1 Jul 5, 2015 4:28 PM in response to jiw0183
    Level 2 (169 points)
    Jul 5, 2015 4:28 PM in response to jiw0183

    jiw0183 wrote:

     

    Is it possible to have iCloud music library enabled on one device (iPhone), but not on another (iMac)?  I do not sync my music between my phone and iMac so I really only care about my iTunes library getting messed up, but am not as worried about music on my phone.  So I want to try keeping it turned on for my phone, but not computer, but wasn't sure if this is possible.  Thanks!

     

    That's how I started (iCloud Music Library "on" for phone, and "off" for Mac), and it completely screwed up album art and playlists on my phone, but it left my Mac library alone.

     

    I think that if you're ok with completely severing the connection between your desktop music library and iOS, your desktop library can remain unscathed. But I need the two to be connected (like most people, I suspect), so that doesn't work for me.

     

    I really enjoy having album art on my iPhone 6 Plus. And Apple Music nuked my iPhone playlists too.

  • by jiw0183,

    jiw0183 jiw0183 Jul 5, 2015 6:03 PM in response to Kim Hill1
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jul 5, 2015 6:03 PM in response to Kim Hill1

    Thanks for the response.  My iOS library is not nearly as large as my desktop, so it would be easier to fix.  Playlists are not an issue as I only have a couple, but I also would not be happy with messed up album art.  Did you lose all album art?

  • by strannik,

    strannik strannik Jul 5, 2015 7:40 PM in response to Tuff Ghost
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 5, 2015 7:40 PM in response to Tuff Ghost

    I stopped trusting iTunes a long time ago.  My entire collection is on a NAS drive, with links in iTunes for the purpose of a desktop player plus syncing my ipod.  But I do not allow iTunes to have write permission to my music collection, EVER.  I clicked to turn on iCloud Music, but then found this thread and quickly turned it off.  Perhaps the music would have been safe, but I added the links to iTunes album by album in order to make sure that the Album and Art work is correct.

     

    It would be cool to have the iCloud capability, but streaming and not download.  I have over a terrabyte of music and a 16GB iphone.  I have been using Amazon Player, which duplicates the collection and allows streaming from devices, roku, etc.  Maybe I'll stick with that.

  • by jfiguerohunk,

    jfiguerohunk jfiguerohunk Jul 5, 2015 11:56 PM in response to Tuff Ghost
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 5, 2015 11:56 PM in response to Tuff Ghost

    Hi! Need help here. Apple Music is in the brink of messing up my library of 40K+ of songs.

     

    Over the weekend, on my iPhone 6+, i updated to Apple Music. Chose the Merge option since replace sounds too absolute. Apple Music integrated wonderfully with my existing songs and playlists.

     

    When i got home Sunday, I tried to add songs and revise my playlists on my iMac. Now i do not have internet connection except on my mobile thus my iTunes on my iMac is not up to date. iTunes didn't allow me to add songs to my device with the prompt, "cannot add because this device it using iTunes Match". I did not subscribe to match but i understand that it came with Apple Music. With that i decided i didn't need Apple Music nor iCloud Music Library. I turned them off on my device. My whole previous library on my device got deleted.

     

    Now I thought it must be an upgrade issue. I decided to back up some songs and playlists on an external hard disk which i plan to load on my phone using my Macbook Pro. I went to work using my Macbook Pro. At work i have pretty decent internet connection. On my Macbook Pro, i urged my iTunes to the latest available. Still I can't load my playlists on my iPhone using the latest version of iTunes. Upon loading my playlists, no songs were included therein. How do fix this problem?

  • by fishdoggy,

    fishdoggy fishdoggy Jul 6, 2015 3:11 AM in response to Tuff Ghost
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 6, 2015 3:11 AM in response to Tuff Ghost

    I'm still on a journey with this product. I want to embrace it but it keeps biting me. At first I merged my phones library into the cloud. I was a prior Match user but not for months. I didn't realise my old Match albums were still there. I then merged the rest of my library from my laptop. What happened next was that nearly all id3 tags and artwork were incorrect. Even albums I had added to my library from Apple Music. Using an old itl file did not work. I could select a song, a different one would play. With artwork from somewhere else entirely.

     

    I deleted everything from the cloud. Turned off Apple music iCloud.  Removed all music from my phone and iTunes library, then rebuilt the itunes library from a backup. I backed it up again. Then I did this......(feel free to laugh)..... I thought I'd try again.

     

    FIrst, I uploaded my entire library to the cloud from itunes. So far this has not broken my local library. I then told my phone to pick up songs from the cloud. It did so, but with bizarre results. The cloud matching service is simply broken. I only tested three artists. With about 350 songs. But what a mess.

     

    Artist 1: Abba. I only have one Abba album. It's called Gold. It has been estimated at 28 million worldwide sales. One of the biggest selling albums EVER. iCloud has matched the first 5 songs with the cover art for the original albums (I.e not the Gold album). When you get to track six, Super Trouper, the song played is a cover. Some kind of tribute. Euro Dance Tribute To Abba!!! ***?

     

    Artist 2: Genesis. In band view, Abba are the first in the list. Under album view its Abacab by Genesis. This albums opener has album art from an album call RKIVE. Track 2 gets no art. The rest seem fine. The damage is more pronounced on an album called Duke. Two songs (Misunderstanding and Behind The Lines) are versions from a live album that I've never owned (Three Sides Live). Turn It On Again is matched to the greatest hits album, also not in my collection. Duke has sold a couple of million worldwide. It's no Abba Gold, but also this is hardly The Mountain Goats we are talking about.

     

    Artist 3: Nick Cave, one of my favourites. I've not yet assessed the full glory of the match for old Nick, but I have noticed that all three versions of O'Malleys bar on the B Sides and Rarities CD are the same. And they all appear to play at the same time when one is selected. (The little graphical equaliser is animated next to all three).

     

    Three artists. All three wrong. I have little hope for the rest of my online library. Why does Apple try to be so smart? Can't we just upload our libraries to the cloud without all this matching nonsense?

  • by fishdoggy,

    fishdoggy fishdoggy Jul 6, 2015 3:41 AM in response to fishdoggy
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 6, 2015 3:41 AM in response to fishdoggy

    Hahaha just also noticed that the main picture of Grandaddy is actually a Jools Holland era Squeeze, and the majority of the Elvis Costello artwork is wrong. To quote everyone in Star Wars ever:  I have a bad feeling about this.

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