Music library uneditable (Monterey 12.1)

Intel Mac or M1? It seems it may only be Intel on Monterey users that are affected. Use Feedback - macOS - Apple to let Apple know you're subject to this issue.

tt2

12.3.1 is the latest

Interesting. Have you tried my suggestion above? I'm able to make changes in Music in Monterey, Big Sur, or Catalina, which then get mirrored in my other libraries, including those in Windows and on my iPhone and iPad. A change with Music as opposed to iTunes is that a Home Shared library remains available even when the app isn't running. I wonder if perhaps Music gets fixed on displaying this shared library locally, and then won't save the changes you make. Making sure it really is opening the local library rather than a cached copy might help.

tt2

Then short of going through the same steps as before I don't know what else to suggest. Are you making sure to close all apps cleanly before shutting down the computer? Does this issue occur after the system has been to sleep? If so does it help to quit Music first? You could also reach out to Apple Support in case they have any suggestions, and to log this issue.

<Edit> Well good to know a reboot is a workaround at least, but yes it ought not to be necessary. </Edit>

tt2

I'll try this, thanks!

On one hand is comforting to know I'm not the only one with these issues and reading the forums I can see there's dozens of people with the problem. On the other hand... **** Apple why are you making us suffer like this? =(

The problem is specific to Monterey 12.1, I only updated last week and it's when the issues started. In my case is not a blanket problem though, and not only with changes I've made recently. I'll explain:

I have a dynamic playlist of only unrated songs that I added to my library last year, which I was going through when I updated to 12.1. I had like 60 songs left to rate, and after updating it took me a couple of days and I finished it. Of this 60 songs, 39 lost the rating one day later. I rated them again, and then 22 lost the rating again.. and so on. This is annoying but somehow manageable. I noticed another problem that is more worrying though. I created a playlist of albums released this year (only 3 so far in my library) and I listened to that playlist (36 songs). Of those 36 songs, 4 songs were in my library since last year, as they were released as singles prior to those albums. These 4 songs were already rated, added to dynamic playlists based on their rate and also to some manual playlists I maintain since months ago. Well I listened to this playlist a couple of times, and what do you know, the 4 songs I had since last year lost their star rating AND were removed from the playlists I had added them months ago.

Now I'm scared to listen to anything in my library that is not new, as I have more than a hundred of personally curated playlists I've made through the years, with songs in specific order, and I fear the Music App is going to remove them from these playlists if I listen to the songs =(

This sucks.

Well, I've upgraded my iMac in 12.2. it's not better for me. I'm currently testing Strawberry Player. I've lost faith with Apple and they seem unable to patch this. All this mess around iCloud sync between devices let me asking if I'm dumb and the only one who experiencing such random bugs. My main library litteraly almos never sync... but sometimes it does. Look, I'm not retarded. I create a simple playlist, add 2 files. Yeah, it sync music.apple.com/library/playlist.

10 minutes later, I add 2 other files to this playlist. They never appear on the web version and after minutes/hours it disapear from the iMac. I am so discouraged... I've tried every tricks available. I've disable library sync on all I device (iPad, iPhone) and also on my MacBook.... I can't understand this mess.

Thanks for the info - I followed your instructions, whatever changes I make to library in Mac Music is NOT reflected in http://music.apple.com when I am signed in to my iTunes account. So I guess that conclusively proves the sync function to the iCloud library is ineffective. HOWEVER - when I make a change in the iCloud Music library the change is almost instantly reflected in Mac Music on my iMac M1, so the sync failure is only in one direction. Go figure!!!

This is my experience, as well – if I make changes from my Mac, they revert back, but if I remove songs or album from my iPhone, they almost immediately reflect in Music on my Mac. I just can't currently change any metadata, which is annoying, but at least I can remove tracks and albums I don't like/want after listening. Let's hope they get this fixed soon!

If I may add, as Music on the iphone/android only works with songs loaded into the cloud library, it also has a "priority" in deleting a song. If you do it from the phone, it will appear as "deleted" in Music on MacOS, while if you delete a song from MacOs, it will not be removed from Music on iOS/Android.

The same for playlists: deleting them from MacOs will be overrun, while doing it from the phone will succeed in cancelling them forever.

I have this same issue. I have several hundred tracks that are greyed out, I can't delete them and they don't seem to exist. They also are very odd in that the title of the song doesn't go with the album it's being pulled from. I am extremely frustated with this issue, and if I could move to another service I would consider it strongly. My "love" designations don't stick, and I'm terrified to hit the "update cloud library" button because it means I'll have to go through and re-import my "love" tracks which I saved as a seperate playlist and the exported so i can at least bring them back easily. I'll have to re-delete the grey "waiting" tracks that never resolve, and I will make playlist changes that never propagate to my phone or ipad.

I have re-synced everything. literally 100s of gigabytes had to be redownloaded to 3 devices (Mac, iPad, iPhone).

Home Sharing is turned off (and was never on on my Macbook).

restarting doesn't do anything. it's only when the cloud library gets involve that things become a complete and utter disaster.

it's very difficult to believe a major tech company can't get this to work. shaken my faith considerably. "It just works" seems dead post-Steve.

Been using Apple products since 1983. Never wanted to punch my computer as much as I have the past 3 days.

Issue started when I was finding my library had a gazillion missing tracks (exclamation points) so I started a new library and moved the local tracks back in afresh. (They were all there, the missing ones were in a pocket "Music" folder inside the "Music" folder inside the "Media" folder inside the "Music" Folder. That's resolved now.)

Sorry for rant. I don't know where to go to get help for this. Do the genius bar people knwo this stuff?

Well yes I spoke too soon; it is failing to sync a lot less often since the OS12.2.1 upgrade but is still happening sometimes - I have to keep the safari Music page signed in to keep checking when it doesn't sync - what a pain...

My login items tab is empty already but it doesn't solve the problem for me.

Having followed all recommendations, I doubt if Apple engineers have the answer yet.

I get it to work temporarily after rebooting occasionally but then it reverts to the problem.

The only consistent solution is to abandon Monterey; this works always !

I will keep on trying any recommendations I see posted, however, until Apple does something about it.

Perhaps I wasn't clear. I've got a number of computers with no real need to enable Home Sharing from my M1 MacBook Air as I can listen directly from other devices using Apple Music. I don't have this particular issue. I wonder if not engaging Home Sharing at all is a useful workaround for this problem? Perhaps others can try and comment.

tt2

As it turned out, emptying the Login Items was a temporary fix although it lasted longer than the other temp fixes I've tried and found.

I agree with you and am firmly convinced that Apple doesn't have the fix in place yet. I wish they'd admit that and say they're woking on a fix if indeed they are. I think perhaps they're more interested in competing with Spotify and Amazon and those of us with curated libraries are left swinging in the breeze in the meantime.