Catalina / Music app memory leak ?

OK, I might have found a solution to this problem. At least it doesn't occur on my Mac since.

I suppose everyone with this problem has his or her iTunes Library on an external volume. Mine is on a JetDrive SD card in my MBP late 2013.

I noticed that the new 'Music' app likes to use a library that has the word 'music' in its name.

So what I did was:

• open the preferences in the new Music app
• choose the tab called 'Files'
• press the 'Change...' button
• point the app to the location of the desired library (on my external volume).

And that's all there was to it.

Hope this works for you too.

I have a similar problem. A few things about my setup:

1. Really large library with 42k songs
2. Music is stored on external drive but library is on local drive
3. I listen to music through a USB DAC.

About twice a week my music will suddenly start making a screeching sound and then I'm unable to force quit Music and have to force restart my laptop.

I've seen the exact same since upgrading a few days back. Have Music running permanently in the background. Currently sitting at 16.9 of 32 GB chewed up by Music alone.

It doesn't appear to be growing, or at least hasn't since the first day or so since upgrading, but 17GB for a music app seems...extreme?

I tend to leave the music app open all the time but today airplay was acting wonky. So I checked Activity Monitor noticed both Music and something called "sb.music.apple.com" both taking up a gigantic amount of memory. Quit and restarted music, and everything seems ok.