Most itunes album titles changed when importing new album

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Most itunes album titles changed when importing new album

Today I imported a new album from a music CD. After the import, iTunes changed the title on most (but not all) of the other albums in my library to the title of the new import. I am attaching a screenshot, showing the album titles in iTunes. The album I imported was titled "Calling the Guru from Afar". As you can see, now my Aerosmith "Rocks" album has that title, as does my Aretha Franklin "Aretha Now" album.

First, why would iTunes do this?

Second, how do I fix this (change the albums back to their original titles?)

iMac 27", macOS 10.15

Posted on Mar 1, 2020 2:10 PM

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Answer 1

CarlAVII

Community Specialist

Mar 3, 2020 4:43 PM in response to macTATAAbox

Hello macTATAAbox,

Great screenshots that you've provided.

With this is occurring on albums you've imported from CD, it appears as if the albums were selected when a change was being made. That change to the artist and album are now appearing on all the albums that were selected. I have accidentally done this to my own iTunes library (which as you said is now the Music library in macOS Catalina).

To be sure, try importing a new CD, or deleting one of the CDs which is having an issue, and then importing it again. This will allow you to determine if the issue occurred during import or after. If it doesn't occur when you import the CD you'll know that it's happened after being imported. If this is the case, you'll need to manually correct each artist, album title, and genre for the albums which have been affected.

Cheers!

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Answer 2

macTATAAbox Author

Level 1

14 points

Mar 4, 2020 6:33 AM in response to CarlAVII

@PsyDye thanks.

Here is what I did:

Opened Apple Music
Insert music CD into CD/DVD tray
Apple Music opened a prompt window that said "Would you like to import the CD “Calling The Guru from Afar” into your music library?"
I clicked "Yes"
Apple Music imported the CD

Immediately after the import, the metadata on most of the other albums had been changed to match that of the imported CD. There was no point in the process where I selected the other albums or edited the metadata manually.

I've imported music CDs many times before and never encountered this problem. Therefore, I think it's probably a bug in the new Apple Music app that comes with Catalina. I wonder if I can revert to the older iTunes app and still use Catalina?

I tried restoring the ~/Music folder from a Time Machine backup (dated prior to the problem), but for some reason that had no effect. All the albums still had the incorrect information. Not sure how that could be since the files were restored by Time Machine. I guess the Music files are maintained in their current state somehow and can't be restored from backup? Could this be because I use icloud? Again, this suggests a bug with Apple Music.

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Answer 3

macTATAAbox Author

Level 1

14 points

Mar 3, 2020 1:58 PM in response to CarlAVII

@PsyDye: thanks for your suggestions. I tried them all and problem persists. The new music was imported from a CD-ROM. Re the Info pane for the albums: the header shows the correct artist but incorrect title, or sometimes both the correct and incorrect titles. The Details fields show incorrect artist and incorrect album, but the correct artist is incorrectly shown as the album artist.

See attached two examples. BTW this is with the Apple Music app (replacement for iTunes in Catalina) on an iMac. Apple Music app version 1.0.3.1

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Answer 4

rose_10

Community Specialist

Mar 6, 2020 11:58 AM in response to macTATAAbox

Hello macTATAAbox,

The detailed information you've provided has been very helpful.

With this happening as soon as you've imported a CD, the next step will be to reach out to the Music experts at Apple through this link: Contact Apple Support.

Enjoy the day!

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Answer 5

CarlAVII

Community Specialist

Mar 3, 2020 1:26 PM in response to macTATAAbox

Hello macTATAAbox,

Thanks for reaching out to the Apple Support Communities! I see from your screenshot that there are several albums which appear to have the same incorrect album title. I have a large music collection, so I understand how important it is to have the information correct.

Let’s begin with some basic troubleshooting, if you haven’t done so already, and then work our way toward more complex ones. This will help us to isolate the issue further with the FaceTime app:

1 - Quit iTunes. If it will not quit, follow these steps to force it to quit: How to force an app to quit on your Mac.

2 - Restart your Mac: Go to the Apple menu in the top left corner of your screen > Restart.

3 - Hold down the shift key on the left side of the keyboard while you click on iTunes to launch it. Once the icon is bouncing, release shift. See if there is any change with the album titles.

4 - If the issue persists, click on one of the albums > right-click > Get Info. Is the metadata correct? If it is not, click on the File tab, and see what "kind" of file it's reporting and the location.

5 - If you're an Apple Music subscriber, and this is one which you've downloaded from Apple Music, remove the album and then add it in again. See if the name of the album changes again.

All the best!

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Most itunes album titles changed when importing new album

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