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

I tried creating another library, allowing iCloud to populate it and then deleting the entire thing, but after I tried to upload my real library to it again, I still had mismatched song titles and album artwork.

I can't determine if that happened after I turned iCloud Music back on on my phone or not, since I can't seem to remove anything off of it through iTunes anymore.

Hello from Munich, guys!

At first, let me say sorry for my sometimes bit poor english….I try my very best!

Still without this creepy update to 12.2, I ask myself if this way could be a solution to get it installed WITHOUT messing all the things up:

I myself have 2 ITunes libraries, huge ones nearby 1TB each, all perfectly tagged, artwork, equalizer settings, crops, playlists aso. …..imagine what kinda time I invested into that. Naturally, I am really not interested into crashing anything, so I thought by myself: Would it work if I open ITunes 12.1.x with pressed "alt"-key (as I do everytime to change the uses library) and create a new, empty library first. Then close ITunes, do the update, and start ITunes then, it should start in this new created library, and mess up the contant there (which is not there). After closing ITunes then again and opening it with one of my other libraries, it shouldnt do this messy thing, huh? Or, do I have to de-activate sth in 12.2 then first?

I am not interested in using ICloud, so I wouldnt miss that in any way.

Thxs, guys, maybe its an idea that would work BEFORE messing up things…...

I was saved by having a large music library (over 25,000 songs) because I was unable to complete the iCloud Music Library transition. So, my experience was with iCloud Music Library enabled on my iPhone only.

Here's why I turned it off:

1. lots of artwork replaced with wrong/weird stuff

2. Looking at an album on-device and the same album in Apple Music: in Apple Music, some album tracks would have the little phone icon and some not; other tracks would be greyed out; others would play the wrong song from Apple Music, but if I played it from "My Music", it would be the correct song

3. no play counts synced over for songs that I own and that were on my device

4. my first try of iCloud Music Library deleted all of my personal playlists, but an "off-and-on" + re-sync brought them back.. that's when I noticed the play count issue

5. no last.fm integration

6. other randomly weird things that many previous posters have mentioned

I'm pretty disappointed that I can't add anything from Apple Music to My Music, and can't download anything for offline listening. I went from being excited to disappointed. I loved it before I realized that basic things like syncing play counts were gone. After reading a bunch of messages on this thread, I'm glad that I couldn't complete the process on my iMac and I'm going to have to see if/how they fix things when the song limit is allegedly raised to 100,000 tracks around the launch of iOS 9.

Wait, what's this about a song limit? Could this explain why it mostly seems to be affecting users with very large libraries?

Unfortunately, 100,000 tracks will still only get me to around 2/3 of my library, and working with a partial library will be an exercise in frustration. I'm with you - I've been looking forward to this "solution" for years, but am seriously disappointed. I know Apple is solving some really hard problems here, but it honestly feels like it was extremely rushed and almost no testing was done with real-world music libraries.

Yup, the limit is 25,000, just like for iTunes Match. But I read in another thread on here (sorry, not sure which one) that with iOS 9 will come a limit increase to 100,000 songs.

So if you have more than 25,000 songs, you'll get a message from iTunes telling you that the process has stopped because your library is too large.

I just have 2684 songs and my library has seen the destruction of its 20 years life in the most wondrous way by iTunes 12.2's iCloud sync. I tried to sync it twice but same outcame. So at least in my case it was not connected with having a lot of songs.

And yes I had iTunes Match when it first came out and some of them had been purchased from iTunes.

Why don't you restore the backup you keep of "20 years work"

You do backup your work right?

Backup should always be done no matter what.  Apple should have just kept to streaming and left all the libraries alone.  Spotify, Pandora and who knows what else do not muck around with your personal info/libraries as far as I can tell...they just stream music.  Cancel your subscription you no longer stream.  Piece of cake. 

Evidently Apple doesn't eat cake.

Depends on the cake.

I have hourly backups and both times I restored, yes. Or else I wouldn't have been this calm as I type all these.

True I have significantly less of a library than most of the people in here but  I just can't imagine trying to correct them from scratch.

I used Tuneup in the past but the latest version of the software installs adware and I couldn't get it to work on iTunes 12.2 (or maybe because of Yosemite or both)

What I can't make sense is, Apple does not bother pulling the update or disable the iCloud Sync or at least disable iCloud sync for past/current iTunes Match subscribers.

oomoot wrote:

 

What I can't make sense is, Apple does not bother pulling the update or disable the iCloud Sync or at least disable iCloud sync for past/current iTunes Match subscribers.

As I had no problems at all with my very large library once Apple Music and the iCloud Music library went online and I started to use them I for one do not want them to change it, for me it works as advertised.

Maye "we're holding it wrong"...

Ok, so I have recovered from a catastrophic iTunes Library mess. But one thought that popped up a couple of days ago, when I talked to my daughter. So in that discussion I expressed my concern over losing my music, if I - at any point of time in the future - decide to terminate my  MUSIC subscription. Her response was bold: "Why do you even bother, you just gonna pay for this until you die. And when you do I'm taking over". Valid point. Why do I even bother. So instead of keeping my huge local iTunes Library, why not just deleting all this stuff, and replacing album by album with  MUSIC playlists. That way, it would look the same, at the surface. It would play the same. Artwork would be ok. All I have to keep are exotic albums Apple doesn't carry in their catalog. Not too many I guess, let's just say I could eliminate 90%+ of my current 24,500 tracks.

And one more thought. I am not playing any of this old stuff I love so much too often. Some I do, things are coming back. But I was really surprised to find that  MUSIC is actually giving me great For You suggestions. I mean really surprised, because my musical taste is anything but mainstream. So instead of living in the past, with a bulk load of music from which I won't play 99% any time soon, I can free myself from that burden, rely on  MUSIC to just have what want whenever I do, and move on to discover more music, broaden my music experience, share with family and friends.

Maybe I was "holding it wrong". I guess  MUSIC wasn't meant to be a storage solution for my historical library. That too. But mostly as a way to discover and experience the new. I think I'm going to do a major cleanup and just move on. Live's too short to live in the past.

Frank Berzau wrote:

 

"…let's just say I could eliminate 90%+ of my current 24,500 tracks."

For most of us- if you're not bothered by losing 90% of your music library, you've been doing it wrong.

This has been my exact thought. Why keep all your old library when you can get it from Apple Music (except the exotic albums as you suggest)?

As long as you back up your library in case you ever quit Apple Music, you'll be fine.