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

Have been trying to clean up my iTunes for a few days now......but its hopeless...some music is renamed, wrong artwork, has become an as import, duplicated, stuff in wrong albums ....and when I "fix" some songs they disappear..never to be found again and I'm left with an album with 9 out of ten songs or in some cases 4 out of 10 songs. Leaving the only thing to do and reload the music from my cd collection. Which is an arduous task an frankly cannot be bothered. If that's what I have to do then I may as well find an alternative to iTunes and I think swinsian may just be that. Starting to see how hard it is to keep digital data safe over decades of change in operating systems etc. Music seems to be the hardest to manage/control/store.

Totally agree on the statement trying to keep a digital collection safe through the years of change is very difficult. My iCloud Library on the PC has remained relatively safe (guess I've been lucky) but the effect on my iOS devices hasn't been so great.

I know this may apply more to iTunes match than Apple Music but what causes me great difficulty is that songs I have bought from iTunes over the years have caused grief. Where once they were 'purchased' now quite a number are icloud status 'matched'. If you go into the iTunes store - purchased link many songs no longer have the 'play' symbol next to them even though they are in the iTunes library. The exact same albums still exist in the store. So I can only assume many songs have been altered behind the scenes in some way by Apple. Maybe some kind of hidden identifier has changed. The result is things like my Apple TV will display a song I've bought twice in it's library, presumably one is the 'matched' version and the other is the symbolic link to what was once categorised as a 'purchased' song. I have to go into iTunes store - purchased and hide these songs to fix this. The iOS devices get sync'd via USB quite a bit, not to sync music as iCloud library is switched on but to sync movies/TV shows. Often after a sync I'll look in my iOS music app and see duplicate songs. It's madness. If I look in the device when sync'd to iTunes under the music tab, I see lots of duplication/greyed out ghost songs. It's pretty messy. I then spend time fixing this deleting hundreds of songs and re-downloading them. There is no way to nuke the music library effectively short of wiping and restoring the phone. Probably a lot of orpahend music inside the iOS devices too which will never get deleted even by swiping to delete music under storage.

And I am sure it was around the time Apple Music reared it's head that much of this pain began. I've never subscribed to it but I think it's had knock on effects. Seem to spend less time using/enjoying music and too much time fixing things. One of the reasons I don't like updates/change. Things get more complicated and more problems arise. In the early days it was much simpler and far less headache.

It's sad to see people have such problems, though in this very unscientific forum it is impossible to tell how many are truly affected.

I've tried to make Apple Music + iTunes Match screw up, but honestly I can't do it. My library is only 27,000 tracks, so perhaps I need something larger to see a problem. All my album art, playlists, genres - everything - are intact across 5 devices (2 Macs, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV 4). I frequently change things - edit, add an delete tracks - and everything works. No exceptions. Even my Beatles collection (which is as convoluted as anyones, with all the various reissues over the years) is 100% fine. I often add tracks that are definitely not in the store - things like rehearsals for my own projects - and that all works perfectly as well.

I started using Apple Music on June 30, 2015 - day one. I never sync anything via USB - it's all in the cloud.

The only shortcoming I've observed are a few isolated cases of missing album art - and in every case, the original art came from the iTunes store (no matter the source of the music) and the original album ceased to be available because the record label had changed it. But that's an easy fix for perhaps 3 or 4 albums.

I hope everything works out for everybody. When it works, it's pretty darn nice.

all my apple music songs were removed when I turned off iCloud music library , and they can't be downloaded back from Apple Music , any help?

RaySat, in my experience (dealing with a collection of 10k albums / 100k tracks), the mistakes appear *only* in the iCloud versions of songs, *never* in the master copies. But it sounds like you are saying that your originals were messed with. Can you verify that please?

Scot Hacker : The originals where indeed messed with. Although only Apple purchases seemed to have been messed up. I never have turned on the iCloud library option in iTunes Preferences. And I don't even have the "Show iCloud downloads" column checked in the "Presentation options" (command-J).

It's been a while now, but and I wonder if, when I tried Apple Music, the process might have turned on "Show iCloud Purchases" under Controls in the menu bar.

And maybe, this is what messed up my purchases. Since I turned everything "off" as said in my previous post after the changes to my Genres (Turned off: Show Apple Music, Genius, Share Library details with Apple...), I cannot be sure.

I've now changed my genres back to my personal settings and I have found a new way of organizing my music by genres. I simply made playlists of each genre I have (manually, not "Smart playlists). I have "Genres" unchecked in the Column browser. So, if my genres get changed again, it won't really matter. For Album Art, I haven't found a solution but I don't really care. And, I have made a manual back up of all my songs from the Playlists in individual folders (on a external drive). Any purchases I make, I add tho the drive. I just cannot trust Apple to manage my music or other stuff anymore.

Wait, you never turned on iCloud Music Library? This entire thread is about people experiencing issues with iCloud Music Library. And people experience issues with their own uploaded music, not with their Apple purchases. I'm not sure what you experienced, but it sounds quite different from what's being discussed here.

Well, I guess I should have started my own thread, then.

But, I still think think there is a link with trying out Apple Music and the iCloud Music Library. It seems something got turned on automatically as soon as I tried Apple Music. Both (Apple Music and the iCloud Music Library) are linked in iTunes preferences. And, some of the hints and solutions in many posts of this thread gave me solutions. Since about 300 of my songs got changed, It also seems the change process was happening in batched like others report. Since I quickly made changes explained before, no other songs were changed.

Is the library on or off, simple question. If it is you fit right in this thread, if it is not it's nothing to do with this thread.

So, which is it?

It (iCloud library) is now "off" for sure. And it will stay off. I cannot take a chance for changes to take place again. So it's simple. I do not fit in this thread.

So you don't even no whether it is off or not.

Have a nice day.

Oh, I KNOW my iCloud Library is off. Very off. And, I doubt everyone in this thread still has it on. Plus, I hope you all find a solution that works for you.

Have a nice day too.

Zackadelic - you are a star!!!!

I lost all my uploads and playlists assembled over the best part of 3 years as I don't keep my mac and laptop synced. Thank god I found your post....I was close to tears!

Thank you so much.....really appreciate it buddy.

Cheers

Alan

Well, I have a long story about this, plus the solution.

One day I turn on my iPhone and get the message "Subscribe to Apple Music!" I was already subscribed, so I clicked on the link to see what happens. Sure enough, it tells me that I am already subscribed. I think nothing of it until later, when I find most of my music (mostly ripped from my own CDs) grayed out and the message many quote, "Item not available."

I tried to sync. It would not sync. I tried restoring the software on my iPhone. Still would not sync. So I called Apple and was on the phone with a senior advisor for six hours with a few short breaks. She could not solve it. Sent a program to record processes on my computer and said she would send it to software engineers and get back to me within 48 hours. (She also promised me a $100 gift certificate when it was solved).

No reply after 48 hours. I called Apple, and they said the engineers were still working on it. So I tried a few things myself. First I tried using home sharing to move the music. No dice, the little moving circle got hung up halfway through. I tried sharing the music to an old computer I have, and then syncing my iPhone. The music shared ok, but again would not sync (got hung up on "Preparing to copy," or "Applying changes.")

This told me that the problem was with my iPhone or my music library. I plugged a (very) old iPod touch into my computer to see if it would sync my iTunes library. Sure enough, in 10 minutes the whole library was synced. Then I tried it with my iPad. Again, 10 minutes did it.

So I plugged in my iPhone, clicked "Restore software," and then "Restore as new iPhone." I ALSO declined to copy settings (which was the difference from the first restore). Then, as soon as the iPhone was responding at all, I synced all of my music successfully. I made sure "Show Apple Music" was off, and that "iCloud music" was off. I will never use either of those two monsters again!! Then I completed the sync and added my apps back, and now everything works.

Apple reports that software engineers are still working on it, even though i told them it is solved. They will not give me my $100 until the engineers check in.

I'm going to subscribe to Spotify.

It's now July 2016 and the same thing has happened to me. I've never clicked on cloud sync and much of my music has been copied from CDs but even they are corrupted. I can live without artwork but playlists and genres are all screwed up. I am no IT geek and can't sort it out, so after several attempts I give up. I've asked Apple support for help and had no response. I'm pretty fed up with Apple now as I've also had issues with my iPhone that the Apple shop couldn't sort out, but the guy in the little market shop selling phone accessories could. I also have a problem with intermittent failing to sync with my pc after updating the iOS, which is still ongoing. I'm now looking into alternatives to the iPod for my music which is a shame because for nearly ten years Apple has been so good. Sorry Apple but I think you've got too big and don't care about your customers any more!