Missing Music library after reboot, not retaining library from local files

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Missing Music library after reboot, not retaining library from local files

Been having some issues with this service and haven't been able to find a solution. Hoping someone here can provide some insight.

Every time I reboot my MacBook, my Music library is empty. Despite having thousands of songs saved locally, it's not loading them into the app. I can load them in again, but after reboot, they'll be gone again.
I use iCloud Music Library to sync my local music files to my other devices. After every reboot, Sync Library is disabled. I can re-enable it and everything will load back in, but after reboot, it's all gone again and Sync is disabled.
Related to #1 and #2, if I do reload my library by enabling Sync, all the songs are showing location "Cloud" instead of the files saved locally. I could reload the files from the local drive, but then when I turn on Sync it creates all sorts of duplicate errors and nonsense. I've been through this once before where I wiped my entire iCloud Music Library and reloaded everything from scratch, but this is a very annoying process, and I don't want to do it every time I have to reboot my Mac.
If I reload my library as in #2, I can then upload new tracks for a short period of time. But after an undetermined amount of time, it will stop working and everything I try to sync will be put in Waiting status. I can reboot, re-enable sync, load iCloud library, and then resume uploading more tracks, but again, this process is very annoying, especially because I'm uploading new music to my library on a weekly basis.

MacBook Pro 13" M1, macOS Monterey 12.2.1, Music app version 1.2.2.40

MacBook Pro (2020 and later)

Posted on Mar 4, 2022 10:56 AM

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Answer 1

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Voyager89 Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 6, 2022 12:52 PM in response to AppleJen77

I’m not using multiple libraries.

My files have not moved. Even if they had moved, they wouldn’t disappear from the library, they just wouldn’t play. I’m saying the entire library goes blank, playlists included, after every reboot.

I ended up wiping the cloud music library again and deleted my library file. Then option-launched Music and chose to create new library, imported everything, uploaded to cloud library. Using this new library file has resolved the reboot issue but I still sometimes get Genius errors and Cloud Music Library takes multiple attempts to sync everything properly. I’ve had to sign out and in again multiple times to get playlists to sync (this is after recreating the library file and therefore the genius file as well). It really seems like there are big issues with the cloud music library service and/or the Music app that Apple need to bug-fix.

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Answer 2

AppleJen77

Community Specialist

Mar 5, 2022 11:59 AM in response to Voyager89

Hi there Voyager89,

Thanks for reaching out to the Apple Support Communities! For issues with the music being missing when you reboot, do you happen to have more than one library? Check out this article to Use multiple libraries in Music on Mac and check.

Also, check out these steps:

"If a song used to appear in Music but doesn’t now, it may be because the music library was moved from the Music folder, or the song was moved from the Music folder. To make your songs appear in the Music window again, try the following:

Locate your Music folder in the Finder, then drag it to the Music window. You see the songs in your library again. If the music library file is included, you also see playlists, song ratings, and other information you created.
If that doesn’t work, your songs may be elsewhere on your hard disk. In the Finder, choose File > Find, then search for a song by title or artist. Or search for “MP4” to find files downloaded from the iTunes Store or “MP3” to find songs encoded in MP3 format. Drag songs (or folders containing songs) to the Music window to add the songs to Music again."

Learn how to Change where your music files are stored on Mac and how to Restore items backed up with Time Machine on Mac.

Let us know if the issues continue!

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Missing Music library after reboot, not retaining library from local files

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