Can't upload songs to library for iTunes matching

This is ridiculous.

I keep my files in a different folder than iTunes default, so I download my matches, move them, and rematch.

iTunes can't even match files that I just downloaded from them. I'm getting them in four and five at a time, having to quit the program, and restart the sync each time. Running it overnight got me a whopping 11 MATCHED files through.

Apple's slogan used to be "it just works." Instead it should be (according to someone else's post on this thread) "our server-side and client-side engineers aren't allowed to talk to each other." That's like saying "I know your ship is headed for that island, but I'm only on propellers and I can't talk to the rudder guys." Clients and servers work together, your engineers should be able to as well. Figure it out, Apple!

Same issue here, hope Apple does something about it soon.

I'm averaging about one song every 2 hours that switches from "waiting" to "matched", regardless of wifi network or computer (Mac/Win).

However, downloading already matched songs from the library happens at the usual speed.

A little ironic that since articles appeared on MacRumors and Boy Genius Report, I haven’t gotten a single track to upload.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say things will get worse before they get better.

Started the match on July 27th for a 26 track Album (white stripes) I ripped from my CD. Finally completed last track this morning . Almost 11 days. All tracks now showing as 'matched AAC audio' in the songs view. Another album of 19 songs started on August 2nd and has 11 to go. So still very slow

@rkeeley-mi: AFAIK, uploading tracks that are not available in iTunes Store still works. The current problem relates to the matching part of the service. In that case, when the Updating Cloud Library process is running, the Activity Monitor shows that it gets stuck at “Matching your music with songs in the iTunes Store”. My guess is that your George Harrison tracks are not available in the iTunes store, so probably have simply been uploaded to your cloud library.

I have just had a very similar conversation. We tried making a "clean" installation of Big Sur on my laptop and starting the process from scratch... The same issue occurred.

Interestingly, I've noticed a couple of things (which may or may not occur for everyone)

• Songs that can't be matched are uploaded and synced across devices almost instantaneously
• When the match process times out, I often find "duplicates" have been added to my library (see attached image) Not sure why?
• Songs bought on iTunes or added from Apple Music are unaffected, and sync across devices

I've been promised an update within 2-3 business days. Will let you know as soon as I hear back.

I had two calls with Apple yesterday - the first was almost an hour and a half and ended with a "senior" advisor promising they would "personally" make sure this issue was resolved. They told me to do a software update (big sur to 11.5.1) and said they'd email a link for me to follow if I was still having the problem. The update didn't fix anything - I can still not upload to my cloud - so I clicked the link and it sent me to the billing department. Huh? They forwarded my call to the department that handles "laptops" though I kept saying it's not a hardware problem, it's a cloud problem. When I got the new advisor I had to start all over again... and again I got bumped up to a "senior" advisor who promised me they'd "personally" make sure it gets resolved. They said they couldn't do anything to fix it at the moment but that they'd tell their engineering department. Then they promised to call me back in a couple of days to "see how I was doing." I had a similar back and forth with "senior" advisors who made promises they never kept earlier in the year when I was having an airpods pro problem. I never spoke to the same person twice and must have spoken to five or six different advisors. Sooo maddening. I'll update if I ever get it.

You’ll find from time to time the ghost songs occur; if you allow the sync to continue, they’ll eventually disappear. If you selected to show file type, you’ll see those ghosts are MPEG4 files; my guess is that iTunes/Music hiccups and gives you visibility (temporarily) into the locally hosted files as though they are local on your device. I don’t think this is specific to the wider issue.

So from this thread I'm getting that it is the Matching that doesn’t work. What would happen if we turned off iTunes Match and just downloaded our CDs? Can you even do that’s? Would we still see them on our iPads or phones? I have a CD I’ve been trying to download for at least two weeks. It is in the iTunes Store. Two songs of 20 have finally showed up, the rest are still waiting.

I have exactly the same problem, the matching function is not working for me at all. It is not slow, it just isn’t working. I have three albums that I ripped to my library on the 04 August and they are all stuck. I have another anomaly going on and I wonder whether anyone else is seeing it. Like many people I have tried obvious tactics like logging out of iTunes and logging back in, de-authorising my pc and re-authorising it, disconnecting from my iCloud Music library and reconnecting to it, closing down the pc and rebooting. None of that makes any difference. Now, I keep my iTunes library on an external drive, so have this set up through preferences (G:\iTunes\Music). I have found that when I come out of iTunes and relaunch it I have to go back into preferences and reset this because it keeps defaulting to the c:\ drive when I exit. I also have to reset the import settings (l like it to be mp3 at 320 Kbps, but it defaults this to aac). All this may be coincidental but I’m not a big believer in coincidence. Anyone else have additional weird things happening along side the (not) matching issue?

Chatted with support and was told everything on Apple's side is working fine and that there's nothing they can do. Not sure if there's any way to get someone at Apple who can actually help involved, as the first-level support folks aren't willing to do much other than to blame your network connection.

Again I have ITM but not AM. Now when i try to upload things that i know will not be matched I am getting the dreaded:

 Genius results can’t be updated because the iTunes Store doesn’t recognize your iTunes library.

I have a library of 60K songs most of which are matched. is it safe to sign out of itunes and sign back in? will it recognize my songs that are already matched? Should i wait until they fix the matching problem?

A hopeful sign - I just tried matching again and it is acting different than it has the last couple of days. Previously it would show that, once it got to the matching stage, the "progress wheel" would get to a certain percentage done and stop. Today it doesn't even start. Perhaps that means it is offline and getting fixed! Here's hoping!!

I can't believe for one moment that Apple doesn't know there is an issue.

The problem is, just surmising, the percentage of Music Match subscribers compared to Apple Music (and other services) is going to be proportionally low. It's probably not a big enough priority.

I recently became an Apple Music subscriber (but still have a few months left on iTunes Match, so just letting it ride). The matching function (which is a feature of both) isn't working for me, so I'm assuming it's also not working for Apple Music subscribers as well.

Edited to add: if you browse the Music forum, there are multiple complaints from Apple Music subscribers about imported music not syncing across devices. Interesting that Apple still hasn't admitted that there's a problem.