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

thanks for posting! kinda made me laugh to see the mismatched art work,

and helped me get a grip and come back to my senses.

clouds clearly not for me

thanks to all for the warnings!

I used to have iTunes Match (which is the cause of some of the later problems with iCloud Music Library), and had none of these problems. It worked perfectly.

Maybe for those who are having these problems with iCloud Music Library, it's better to use iTunes Match instead?

iTunes Match doesn't have any of the problems mentioned, it syncs fine, it uploads everything it can't match, it doesn't change anything with your original files, it doesn't even touch them, and when it syncs your original files to another device, it doesn't even add DRM like iCloud Music Library does.

Maybe Apple is planning to kill iTunes Match at some point, but for the moment, it's giving the same main function of keeping the library in the cloud and being able to listen to anything from the main library on the go without having to keep everything in all of your devices.

What do you think?

To me, the only missing thing in iTunes Match is playlist syncing. Is it worth having a terribly implemented problematic service like iCloud Music Library just to be able to have that extra function?

Especially if you have no wish to use Apple Music, I don't see the point of choosing iCloud Music Library over iTunes Match. Why does nobody talk about this? Am I missing something?

zdlo wrote:

 

I used to have iTunes Match (which is the cause of some of the later problems with iCloud Music Library), and had none of these problems. It worked perfectly.

 

Maybe for those who are having these problems with iCloud Music Library, it's better to use iTunes Match instead?

 

iTunes Match doesn't have any of the problems mentioned, it syncs fine, it uploads everything it can't match, it doesn't change anything with your original files, it doesn't even touch them, and when it syncs your original files to another device, it doesn't even add DRM like iCloud Music Library does.

 

Maybe Apple is planning to kill iTunes Match at some point, but for the moment, it's giving the same main function of keeping the library in the cloud and being able to listen to anything from the main library on the go without having to keep everything in all of your devices.

 

What do you think?

 

To me, the only missing thing in iTunes Match is playlist syncing. Is it worth having a terribly implemented problematic service like iCloud Music Library just to be able to have that extra function?

 

Especially if you have no wish to use Apple Music, I don't see the point of choosing iCloud Music Library over iTunes Match. Why does nobody talk about this? Am I missing something?

But for someone who likes Apple Music - the ability to listen to stuff you don't have/own and add that music to your existing library - iTunes Match is not a solution. It is great if you only wish to listen to your own music on all your devices - without the ability to add music from Apple Music. And the idea of paying for both seems a bit ridiculous to me at least.

Yes, the iTunes Match service seems to have a lot less "matching" issues than ICML, but that is partially because it is matching from the iTunes Store and ICML is matching from the Apple Music library and they are not using the same logarithm apparently. (And yes, this was confirmed by an senior Apple Tech that I have been dealing with about the mis-matching issue since the very beginning.)

Thank you for your comment.

So, you agree that there is nothing iCloud Music Library can give to someone with an iTunes Match subscription, who doesn't use Apple Music?

Dear Scot,

I have read your article and it make me reconsidering keeping Apple Music Membership & iCloud music access. Although I'm suffering from the duplicated songs and wrong album covers which I spent years collecting them and keeping them organised, but after I have read your article I will start believing that there is a solution and to feel safe keeping this thing without being afraid that my metadata and library will be ruined at some time.

I just want to ask you to be sure. If I made the bad covers art fix and change it locally on my mac and paste all the art covers I want again, is it going to be ruined again if there was an update on itunes or apple music suddenly tries gather all the wrong informations again and return the wrong cover art?!!

Can you even go back to iTunes Match once you've upgraded to iCloud Music Library? I would certainly love to.  The iCloud Music Library has really jacked up my music. I have duplicates of so much. Some of it is just a duplicate in the library and not actual file duplication, but some of the files are duplicated.  Also, all of my playlists are duplicated, but now I'm finding minor differences in them, so I don't know which ones are the ones I should keep now.  People get ****** at me for saying this, but I'm going to say it again: "Steve would not have allowed products and product updates be released with all of these problems. There would have been much more thorough testing." *sigh*

Thanks, glad you enjoyed the article. No perfect fixes there, and it's still way too much manual work, but it's a partial solution at least. I can't guarantee anything of course, but I would not *expect* that any of this manual work would be undone by any future fixes that Apple might apply here.

For the record, despite the fact that I have found partial solutions for these problems, and continue to use because I love having Apple Music and my uploaded music all integrated so nicely, I'm still as ****** as the rest of you that any of this manual work is needed, that Apple got it so horribly wrong. And I continue to find new problems - like trying to upload albums and find that only some tracks will upload while others just show an "error" icon with no explanation, etc.

I did as you said and the good news is all the music I had imported from a CD showed up but unfortunately

not the music file. I'm a dummy but luckily I have a copy of my iTunes library with all the music I imported into ITunes on an exported hard drive.

I'm still not sure why apple moved everything to the cloud and DELETED ALL THE OTHER MUSIC I HAD IMPORTED OVER THE YEARS LIKE EVERY BEATLE, EAGLES AND LED ZEPPLIN cd.

What do people like me have turn off to  prevent doing this again. I never signed up for Music match or their online music

but failed to do something. Any help to prevent this in the future would be great.

Terry

<Edited by host>

Had the same issue, tried numerous times with apple support - hours wasted & no progress.

Luckily (compared to some of you guys) i only had 10k songs and my library could do with a bit of a cull to be honest. I emailed apple billing support an hour ago and asked for a full refund since signing up for the paid service after the free trial. 10 minutes afterwards i got an email giving me just that, 2 months family subscription fully refunded.

If you're going elsewhere, make sure you get your money back first!

Mike

Hello everybody. Found this post while looking for anyone having the same problems which iCloud music library. This morning looking for a solution I found I this one on Apple support. Still didn't have the chance to try it because can't access my Mac right now, but hope this works and could help some of you (By the way, if you already know this doesn't work, please notify me...).

AS Apple says the common problem should be a previous usage of iTunes Match.

This is the link

If your music library shows incorrect details with iTunes Match or Apple Music, and you previously cancelled an iTunes M…

Let me know if its good for you. Il check asap

Apple says this happens if you used and canceled iTunes Match before subscribing to Apple Music.

Quite frankly, that is not true. I had problems and I was subscribed to iTunes Match and got 'upgraded' by Apple to Apple Music. I never canceled before upgrading.

Hi all,

Well it happened to me. Wrecked library in iTunes after subscribing to the 3 months tryout of Apple Music.

About 300 of my 5000 songs got a new genre and album art. They are of course the purchases of iTunes song.

Why did iTunes and Apple give us the choice and a way to change genres in the first place if they now want to change them back to default for the sake of their nonsense Apple Music? It's my music that I paid for. Apple tampering with it seems like theft to me. What next, will they tamper with our iCloud Keychain? Ou account settings and so-on?

So I managed this in iTunes 12:

1-Preferences, General: uncheck Show Apple Music;

2-Preferences, Store: uncheck Share library details with Apple;

3-In iTunes under Store: Disactivate Genius;

4-In iTunes went to my Account settings and cancelled automatic renewal of Apple Music (why want such awful stuff);

This got me rid of Apples nonsense "Music" novelty.

5-Went through the difficult process of changing back the genres to the ones I had made.

6-Downloaded a replacement app for iTunes, which is the Ecoute App, for my mac and iPod. They work great.

7-Keeping away for Apple for quite a while and I am now purchasing my media anyplace other than Apple.

This is the second time this has happened to me. The first time was upgrading to iTunes 12. managed to fix that after weeks of renaming tracks.

The second time was after upgrading to el capitan there last week. Exactly the same problems only this time I CANT fix it the way I did before. Using a timemachine backup I managed to fix a lot of issues but ultimately will have to spend days fixing metadata. Ive stopped correcting all my tracks after about 2 hrs as the thought that this could happen again with another update entered my mind. So instead am starting to focus on an alternative to iTunes.

And mostly, try finding a other place to purchase your media (music, video clips, TV show, movies, etc.).

In my case, everything purchased elsewhere than Apples iTunes Store seem fine. I guess Apple considers what you buy on iTunes is still theirs and they can do whatever they want with it.

For those that only have problems with "genres", being changed by Apple, thy this:

-Forget Genres-

Just make playlists of genres without bothering with the genres tag. And back these lists up manually.

I FIGURED OUT HOW TO FIX THIS MESS!

First go to:

- Preferences>then under "Library Names" there are 2 checkboxes 1)Show apple music and the second one will auto check in response to the first>uncheck the first box - It will then come up with a box that says something along the lines of "deleting genius data"

-While this is happening go to your device that you're syncing to and go to

settings>Music>And turn off "Show Apple Music" and "iCloud Music Library".

After both steps are done, sync your device and voila! Your music library will return to what it originally was!