Music App on Mac - Nothing but problems, empty Library, unable to add Music back in and unable to Sync to iPhone

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Level 1

4 points

Music App on Mac - Nothing but problems, empty Library, unable to add Music back in and unable to Sync to iPhone

Since upgrading to Catalina and the Music App I have lost most of my library and consistently get an error occurring as well as nothing Syncs to my iPhone 11 Pro.

Details:

Latest MacOS

Latest Music Version and the ongoing error message

My Music folder was previously

I have a full backup on an external drive as the current Music folder shows as empty right now

I have tried rebooting, logging out and back in to iCloud, I have run the disk utility repair on my main HD drive (no errors found), I have tried Consolidating my Library and there appears to be no issue with disk permissions. All things that others have suggested.

Now I am unable to add Music back into my Music Library, either using the Import option from the menu or by drag and dropping a folder into the Music App. I shows the pop up dialogue box showing that the files are being processed and then simply closes down the dialogue box with no further message or error, nothing is added to the Library. I do occasionally see the error (-54) Unable to save Library message.

I have a Subscription to iTunes Match and this computer is added to that. This computer is also Authorised from my iTunes Account.

I am able to see and play all of my Music from my iPhone 11 Pro, even that which is not downloaded and shows as in iCloud. I am also able to download songs from iCloud onto my iPhone.

Having spent many years building up and curating 140GB of Music to say this is a little frustrating is an understatement!

Has anyone seen these issues and been able to fix them?

MacBook Pro Retina

Posted on Jan 3, 2020 4:10 AM

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Answer 1

Timbuktu

Level 3

809 points

Jan 3, 2020 12:41 PM in response to richardgeary

I need more info. Where did you keep your actual Music folder? Open Music preferences and select Files tab, it will show you your current Music Media Location (which you can reset or change). You can also select to keep music library organized and copy songs to media folder when adding any songs (I recommend reading up on pros and cons when selecting these options). When you first run the Music app, it will prompt you to open your old iTunes library file (itl) and prompt you to save the new Music library file (it defaults into same root folder and creates folder named Music which will hold the new music.library file). This folder only holds the new library file, it will still use the previous iTunes folder structure including the Music folder within the Music Media folder under iTunes.

This is only explaining what happens on the local side of things, I have never used iTunes Match so I don't know how this service comes into play. Not sure how well the new Music app integrates iTunes Match on top of all the syncing features using iCloud.

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Music App on Mac - Nothing but problems, empty Library, unable to add Music back in and unable to Sync to iPhone

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