Music library gone

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Level 1

26 points

Music library gone

Hi,

I just updated Catalina OS to 10.15.2 and just went to listen to my music on my iMac and it is now gone... My entire library...

Any suggestions?

Posted on Dec 16, 2019 9:41 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

G4RAY Author

Level 1

26 points

Dec 24, 2019 8:24 AM in response to G4RAY

So after all of that what seems to have worked was launching the Music app, then File/Import and selecting the music folder inside of iTunes Media....

Too easy. Wish I had tried that in the beginning.

Hope this helps someone else.

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Answer 2

G4RAY Author

Level 1

26 points

Dec 24, 2019 7:59 AM in response to G4RAY

I'm still working thru this process....

Here is what did not work:

Holding down option key while starting the Music app. When I do this I get prompted to select a library to open, when I select the music inside of the iTunes Media it won't let me select all of the music.
When I delete the Music Library inside of the Music/Music folder and then try to launch the Music app holding down the option key I get the same result as above.
When I delete the Music Library inside of the Music/Music folder and double click the previous iTunes Library I get a library with one CD that I launched after this whole mess started when I manually went into my music files and played a single song.

Apple, if you are listening, this is incredibly frustrating! So much for user friendly products...

Now for the deeper dive into the info turingtest2 posted.

Fingers crossed....

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Answer 3

dwb

Level 7

33,100 points

Dec 17, 2019 11:13 AM in response to G4RAY

The update shouldn't have touched your music. Open the Music folder and then open the Music folder that's found inside that. You should now see a file called Music Library. Double click on it. This should open Music with the current library. If Music still is showing no music then something happened during the update that caused Music to munge the Music Library file. The music itself is still there though.

The next step you take depends on whether you have a backup from before you updated to 10.15.2 - if you do, quit Music, restore the Music Library folder from the back up and once again try double clicking the file to launch Music. Hopefully that fixed it.

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Answer 4

TomDeja

Level 1

13 points

Dec 17, 2019 1:26 PM in response to dwb

I'm having the exact same problem. I started the Music app about 20 minutes ago, got a warning that "Music Library doesn't appear to be valid" (or something along those lines), and a notice that it would saved as Music Library (Damaged), which it is. I've tried restoring from back up, but thus far it only did the whole "Checking Music Library" thing once, every other time, it's just started up to no library, no play lists, nothing.

I know that my music wasn't deleted, but I have a very large music collection, and had at least a two hundred playlists. Even if I don't listen to them all any more, and largely stream music, this is still an enormous drag and I would really like to have some of them back. Even if just for sentimental reasons.

Any help/ideas would be greatly appreciated.

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Answer 5

G4RAY Author

Level 1

26 points

Dec 18, 2019 9:15 AM in response to dwb

Thanks. My library is not in there, not in Music/Music/Music Library.

All of my music is in Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music.

So it's all there, but it is no longer showing up with the new Music app that replaced iTunes on iOS Catalina.

Is there a setting I can adjust so the Music app displays my library that is in the iTunes Media folder?

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Answer 6

dwb

Level 7

33,100 points

Dec 18, 2019 9:20 AM in response to G4RAY

In the iTunes folder do you see a file called iTunes Library? If so, first delete the Music library inside the Music folder, then try double clicking on it. It will launch Music and load that iTunes library.

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Answer 7

G4RAY Author

Level 1

26 points

Dec 21, 2019 10:29 AM in response to turingtest2

Thanks for the help. I haven't tried this yet because I have been so frustrated with all of the problems the Catalina update has caused. I'm thinking Catalaina must translate as something like "nightmare" in some language...

Sorry for the rant. I will try out the remedies you guys suggested and let you know how it goes.

Thanks again to those that offered suggestions and to this community.

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