Level 1

28 points

macOS Catalina TV app not showing my iTunes library

I updated my MacBook Pro to 10.15 (Catalina) today and the new TV app isn't showing me my iTunes library, which includes a very large number of movies and TV shows. The Library tab shows empty placeholders for the 18 movies that I had downloaded, but no actual movie thumbnails, just the movie names and an empty box for each one. Oddly, the Watch Now tab shows my recently played and purchased movies and TV shows, and if I search for a movie that I own I get a movie page with a Play button, so it knows I own the movie. I tried signing out and back in to iCloud and rebooting, but nothing helps.

MacBook Pro with Touch Bar

Posted on Oct 8, 2019 8:04 AM

Top-ranking reply

Mark Rudow

Level 1

49 points

Posted on Nov 2, 2019 3:17 PM

I had similar problems and found a solution via apple support call The problem was with my login items. I shutdown and restarted in safe mode. (Hold shift key while restarting until login screen appears) After opening the TV app, all the thumbnails appeared. I then removed my 4 login items (AdGuard, Dropbox, Clean-myMac, and Audio Hijack Scheduler) and restarted in regular mode. All the thumbnails were populated in the TV app. I'll be adding back the startup items one at a time to see which one it is.

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142 replies

Jan 18, 2020 7:47 AM in response to Ankush Narula

Just as I said in my very first post, but a confirmation from the mother ship is always more assuring; congrats on sticking to it.

Njordy

Level 1

8 points

Feb 6, 2020 8:15 AM in response to bibuwyj

Still no luck on 10.15.3.

Rebooted macbook, re-signed in, re-authorized. Nothing :(

Feb 6, 2020 12:18 PM in response to Njordy

Great! Glad it worked.

bkfoster

Level 1

9 points

Feb 7, 2020 2:26 PM in response to livingthelava

Still nothing on my end, Mac or Windows. Tried signing out of the account and back in, have left them open for hours, nothing.

I wonder if they are doing this server by server, or account by account?

JPQ45

Level 1

4 points

Feb 11, 2020 1:03 AM in response to TadMarshall

It's Still not working for me

Apr 9, 2020 2:49 PM in response to Kerry Holley

Yeah I noticed this yesterday after signing in and out. It all just started showing up. I have never been so happy.

bkfoster

Level 1

9 points

Apr 10, 2020 8:01 AM in response to TadMarshall

Working on all my Macs now, but Windows iTunes still can't connect to library. :-(

joeshong

Level 1

10 points

May 13, 2020 5:29 PM in response to TadMarshall

My library has been working fine on Apple TV and macOS Catalina. its been ok for about 3 months so far. There are a few download issues with the Catalina TV app but otherwise all is good

bibuwyj

Level 1

24 points

May 13, 2020 5:31 PM in response to TadMarshall

so far my library has been stable but occasionally my recent purchases do not pop up immediately in my other devices besides the Apple TV app...

TadMarshall Author

Level 1

28 points

Oct 9, 2019 4:46 AM in response to danielswearsprada

I tried again to go through the whole sequence of:

1) Sign out of my Apple ID

2) Reboot

3) Sign back into my Apple ID

and it made no difference ... all symptoms are exactly as I described them in the original post. I also tried clearing the cache ("Reset TV Store cache" under Preferences->Advanced) ... still broken. iTunes was working fine in Mojave and continues to work fine in Windows 10. I filed this under Product Feedback as well, but have not tried calling Support yet. I have Applecare+ on this laptop (2017 15 inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar), not sure if that affects anything.

Oct 15, 2019 6:06 PM in response to TadMarshall

I'm seeing this issue as well, and similarly have a large library. I have signed in and out of my iTunes account, deauthorized and authorized, rebooted multiple times, enabled home sharing, etc. I tried deleting my library and holding down option while launching the TV app, and then having it create a new library. I am not sure what else to try with this bug, but it is quite frustrating. I've had issues with the iOS TV app doing something similar in the past, but usually a few rounds of signing in and out of my iTunes account would take care of it. I've been battling this one all week without success.

TadMarshall Author

Level 1

28 points

Oct 16, 2019 7:14 AM in response to TadMarshall

I had a brainstorm for how I could try to debug this a bit more, but it didn't result in any improvement.

I created a new user on my MacBook Pro and looked to see how its iTunes/Apple TV library got set up. It's a bit weird ... the Apple TV menu (not the main Mac menu but the one inside the app window ) looks different from my migrated one and the library is in a different location. My migrated menu says "Watch Now", "Movies", "TV Shows", "Kids", "Library" while the brand new one says "Watch Now", "Movies", "Library". I don't know why "TV Shows" and "Kids" are missing, since the new account has no content at all.

I tried to "migrate" my disk layout to match the one in the brand new account, and nothing changed ... except (and I may just have missed this before) there is now a drawing glitch in the background image of the Watch Now page. The top few rows of pixels are from the bottom of the image ... it's a small slice, maybe 5 or 10 pixels high, but it looks funky. Maybe it was already there and I just hadn't noticed it before because I was focused on the missing Library contents.

In case it mattered, I also tried removing all of the downloaded movies I had had ... 18 of them. No change in the symptoms. I then downloaded one movie and one episode of a TV show, and this also fixed nothing, though the downloaded content has thumbnail images now.

TadMarshall Author

Level 1

28 points

Oct 16, 2019 7:52 AM in response to TadMarshall

I just got off the phone with an Apple support engineer and he uploaded of copy of my migration log file, which lives at

/Users/<user ID>/Library/Logs/com.apple.AMPLibraryAgent/iTunes Migration

My file looks like this:

-rw-r--r-- 1 <user ID> staff 5999737 Oct 8 07:26 iTunes Migration Log [2019-10-08 08.26.19].txt

2019-10-08 08:26:18.178

2019-10-08 08:26:18.178 -------- BEGIN iTUNES MIGRATION --------

2019-10-08 08:26:18.178

2019-10-08 08:26:18.178 AMPLibraryAgent version: 1.0.0.426

2019-10-08 08:26:18.178 Signed in account ID: <my account ID>

2019-10-08 08:26:18.178 Initial migration: Yes

2019-10-08 08:26:18.178 Starting domains: MTPB

2019-10-08 08:26:18.178 Eligible domains: MTPB

2019-10-08 08:26:18.178 Have iTunes preferences: Yes

2019-10-08 08:26:18.178

2019-10-08 08:26:18.178 ----- Database File -----

2019-10-08 08:26:18.178

2019-10-08 08:26:18.178 Resolved location: /Users/<user ID> /Music/iTunes/iTunes Library.itl

2019-10-08 08:26:18.178 Size: 21871367

2019-10-08 08:26:18.178 Modification date: 10/7/19, 06:51

... much more ...

At almost 6 MB, I hope it has some useful clues.

Mabaxx

Level 1

4 points

Oct 19, 2019 10:00 AM in response to secoa

Hi everyone,

I had the same problem and solved it this way, maybe it will help you too

Account -> Authentication -> Deauthenticate Computer
Account -> Sign out
Restart Mac
Start TV App -> Sign In -> Authenticate Computer

After this all my movies appeared

Oct 29, 2019 9:47 AM in response to bobos73

You could be right, as this is close to my solution as well. I loved into my account via my MacBook Air, and noticed all my movies were on "hide". This issue would not have dawned on me as the solution, because I could see all my movies on the Air, just not on the iPhone. I chose "unhide" rebooted both devices, and immediately I could see all my content on the iPhone.

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macOS Catalina TV app not showing my iTunes library