All my music disappeared. No more library file. What the f happened??! Help please!

I ended up finding a workaround inspired by one of my previous posts. Given your particular situation, I doubt it will be of any help; I'm still putting it down here for the general public (and we must be legion).

First, and that's paramount, back up your "Music Library.musiclibrary" weekly (I'm now doing it daily) and keep these copies safely tucked away. Second, when you encounter an empty library upon opening Music, try restoring your "Music Library.musiclibrary" from one of the previous copies you've kept safe. If it works, great. For some reason I'm not entirely sure of having grasped, some copies might work, some might not. There might also be a time when none of your copies do the trick, which should be impossible, especially if you've already used one of them to save you once. This ought to make you turn to the last solution, which is Safe-booting. Not being a specialist, I won't delve into my interpretation as to the whys. Nonetheless, safe-boot when nothing works anymore and try again in that more secured environment. At this point, you might have an intuition about which copies would have remained free of corruption in theory, if one or more have done the trick previously; focus on these. If it works at this point, great. I have, however, encountered occurrences when none worked, even in Safe-boot mode. In these instances, it felt like they all somehow got corrupted. So while remaining in safe-boot, what I did in that case, was get under the hood of each copies I had kept until I somehow managed to rebuild a "Music Library.musiclibrary" file containing *.tmp files that made sense (e.g. in these extreme cases, you might find that some of your temp files have gone missing, or that their amount is frankly ridiculous, or that some of them have "weird" sizes in relation to others) and Libraries with appropriate looking-size, using all of the copies I had at my disposal (hence the impracticality of this here solution if you have never made any manual copies of your "Music Library.musiclibrary" file).

This last operation did the trick for the worst case of Disappearing Library I've encountered so far. So obviously, nothing is really technical in this solution. I'm not an expert. Still, having successfully managed to retrieve all of my Playlists, Playcounts, Star Ratings and, most importantly, organized Music, I guess that one could say that I've accomplished something Apple Music makers haven't been able to do in –– ever. You're welcome.

Maybe someone should pin this post.

Anyone??

Nope, I don't use time machine. I keep backups of the contents of my folders but that's useless in this case, since there are no playlists files inside the Music folder under Catalina... So my music folder hasn't changed, all my music is there. What's changed all of a sudden is that all my "presets" (= my playlists, playcounts, everything inside the app) disappeared. The app looked brand new, safe for the last album I imported. I did check for any .tmp files or changes and only noticed a change in the size of my Music Library.musiclibrary file (or rather I think it's somewhat smaller, anyways, no manipulation with that file amounted to anything).

I do not have access to a previous iTunes Library.itl file since I had to move all of my music files by hand from an external hard drive into this shining "new" Macbook that had been stupidly upgraded to Catalina. I had to do it by hand because for some strange reason, Music wouldn't open the iTunes Library.itl file that was still on that hard drive (it's not any more). And lastly, no the playlists only existed on this here Music app that I have been using for the past few months now...

I've read the first 30 pages on this forum and so far I haven't seen any proper reply to this issue which I'm not the only one to have encountered. On one particular thread (in which I think you were involved in), one person realized that they only encountered that issue (let's call it "Empty Music App" for now) when they upgraded their Catalina version. From there I think that for some reason, my computer updated itself last night (it does say "up to date") hence the Empty Music App. It's been 8 hours now so of course, I've imported everything back straight from the Music Folder, I had to, but unlike the one person for whom that magically made their playlists reappear, mine haven't and the issue is still there.

Any other insights please ?

SNAP it just did it again!! I turned my computer off then went for a nap, woke up, turned it back on and Music is empty again, safe for the last album I added, again!

"To restore your playlists would need to have captured the Music Library.musiclibrary file for preference" > what do you mean by that? There is only one "Music Library.musiclibrary" file under Catalina, as far as I can see. If five days ago you had all of your music on Music and then suddenly there wasn't any, there would still only be one "Music Library.musiclibrary" file in your /Music folder and that file would automatically reflect your Music app interiors. The way I see it, when the app goes wrong, one single file that updates itself automatically is useless. Tell me if I'm wrong or if I'm not seeing what you're seeing there.

"or your old .itl file as a backstop" >> at the moment I do not have access to my older macbook and that is again irrelevant for the simple reason that I treated this Catalina laptop as a new working machine, since I couldn't get it to recognize my old iTunes preferences. That means that everything I did on this Music app has never been done on any other devices I might have owned previously. I hope that is now clear. I have lost things on an app that doesn't seem to store backups (since, I repeat, I haven't touched the "Music Library.musiclibrary" file –– ever –– but still, that file is useless to get my library back).

What about playlists on a device, any chance of recovering from there? >> no. I'm a working musician, you have no idea how much work went into that organizing; this computer is supposed to be the central hub of my whole studio and right now I'm feeling rightfully screwed.. And that shouldn't be acceptable as an answer anyways, since what I'm saying is tantamount to : if you upgrade your Catalina version right now, there's plenty chances you'll lose all of your data inside your Music App and that's normal.

If you've bought a 2000$ macbook, you were too stupid, because to have it play you your music every day, you have to spend an extra 1000$ on other iDevices just to make sure that all your work is backed up the Apple way.

I've been an Apple dummy for a long time now and I find it hard to believe that they screwed this up this badly –– this is major-level screw-up, Microsoft type screw-up ––...

There's gotta be a simpler way –– let's say I only have my laptop with me; a file hidden in a location I'd never have guessed, something else.

The fact that it happened again does kind of support my assertion that the Music Library.musiclibrary file is useless/not the issue. I close the app, shut down my computer, gracefully, when it wakes up, all my music and preferences are gone, the file hasn't changed in size (I've checked), just in its "last modification date".

I am not using any third party security software nor am I doing anything that might cause the computer to power off instantly. Yesterday particularly, I had only Music and Safari opened, trying to understand what happened. Imported the music back straight from my /Music folder, which took forever (again, we're talking 350GB of data, it takes some time), shut the app down, then the computer; turned it back on, opened the app back up, and nothing –– music gone again, test playlist gone too. Doing it a second time the exact same way kinda seems pointless. Is there any other file somewhere on one of the two drives that works with Music and gives it its playlists information beside the pointless Music Library.musiclibrary file? Is there any other idea around about solving this problem?

Thank you

Hi tt2,

I've been experimenting with your new addition (I found 5 .tmp files inside Music Library.musiclibrary) and it still doesn't solve it. Or I maybe I'm not doing it properly. From what I've gathered from your latest reply and another extensive pouring over your tip in the user tip section, Library.musicdb is what used to be the old iTunes Library.itl file, and the .tmp files inside Music Library.musiclibrary are what used to be the .itl files contained in the old /Previous iTunes Libraries folder. Therefore, getting rid of Library.musicdb and giving its place to any of those .tmp files should do the trick and restore the app as it was –– when that .tmp file was last modified. Quit the app, start it again. Then if I understood that correctly, it doesn't work, as nothing changed every time. The only thing that changed is that I lost everything when, desperate and curious, I deleted Library.musicdb and left one .tmp (so we're still in a logical world). Everything came back when I replaced the copies I'd made of everything that was inside the package when I first opened it.

That makes me think that either (1) these files got somehow corrupted, which I don't totally believe as 4/5 of these files, once given the Library.musicdb name, produced a full app –– still without the playlists, and with all my music classified as having been added Yesterday (safe from that same one album that is still marked as having been added a week ago) ––; or (2) these .tmp files hold no data whatsoever concerning playlists and playcounts and whatnot preferences.. What do you reckon?

Thank you again

"So apparently Apple doesn't want us to have files that we actually own and just wants us to give 9.99 for their BS service... " That would be straight up CRIMINAL. What makes you say that? If it were true, someone's got to ring a bell on this.

Have you found a solution in your case?? It's been going on for 2 months now in mine..