Apple Music App has lost 20,500 tracks

Yer_Man wrote:

Have a long established music Library - since iTunes days - that runs to some 22,000 items. However, sometime in the last couple of days something has gone awry.

1. The Media folder has changed spontaneously from its designated location on an external disk back to the default location.

This happens when you launch iTunes/Music and the media folder isn't reachable.

2. The app now shows the library as containing 1501 items. There is no rhyme or reason to the tracks that show and the ones that don’t.

3. All - every single one - of the 45/50 playlists are gone. Under playlists there is nothing. They were a mixture of smart and ordinary playlists.

4. Although the Artists list seems quite complete, what I see when I click on one varies from a single track to the complete album lists. Again, no rhyme or reason discernible for what shows and doesn’t.

See Empty/corrupt iTunes/Music library after upgrade/crash - Apple Community.

Yes, the library is used to access AppleMusic but it is set to NOT sync. And while we play AppleMusic we have not been adding tracks from it to the Library. The 22k items are all files on external HDs. Also, although the app has lost track of these items, the files are untouched.

In the Music Folder there are several Music Libraries

a: Music / Apple Music Library / Music Library (827kb)

b: Music / Apple Music Library / Previous Libraries/ Music Library (890kb)

c: Music / Music / Music Library (22.5MB)

The default path to the Music library in Big Sur is ~/Music/Music/Music Library.musiclibrary. The actual path may vary if you use the option-start-Music method to choose a different library. What is the last modified date on b?

Obviously the last one looks most promising. However, no matter which I open (either by double-clicking on it or by using the Open With… Command) I get exactly the same result, as described above.

Opening a .musiclibrary or .itl file from FInder will launch the app with its currently selected library rather than the file you clicked on. You must use the press and hold down option as you start Music method to switch libraries.

The app version is 1.1.4.110 running on Big Sure 11.3.1

Thanks for any help you can give…

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Is Time Machine set up and backing up your user folder, in particular ~/Music/Music? If not locate the package ~/Music/Music/Music Library.musiclibrary, right-click to Show Package Contents and take a look at what is inside. There might be a .tmp file that is your missing database.

tt2

Hi,

I believe that this is similar to the problem I reported some time ago.

I had my iTunes Match library on my hard drive and my lossless library on my external drive. Switching between libraries usually present no problems. The music library files have different names.

However, frequently especially after I have had the iCloud library open for a few hours, I have found that whenever I open my other library, it opens the iCloud library instead. I have been able to restore correct library from a time machine backup. Sometimes I need to go back a few days to restore correct one.

I have also found that I sometimes find that I need to reset location.

At present I have decided to use iCloud music library for streaming only but with the download location the same as my external drive library. I don’t usually have issues with this setup but occasionally I have same problem.

I have other issues such as “! “ for some newly added track, even though they are added to the correct folder.

I don’t have any real solution other than restoring the library when the problem occurs.

Jim

You're welcome. 🙂

tt2