iOS/iPadOS 17.1.1 - Purchased albums splitting randomly, videos being separated from main albums

Update 2

This was a classic example of a layer 8 problem: I omitted to check "is part of a compilation" attribute from the metadata.

After checking that box, every transfer from my PC via iTunes to the iPhone went well. No more random album splits.

Excellent description.

My scenario is same as yours, Not Apple Music subscriber, music either iTunes purchased or ripped from CD/Vinyl I own.

I’m experiencing the split album issue on iPad Pro 17.1.2. the device has only iTunes Store purchased content, nothing else. Several albums were spilt into 2 instances.

After a few different attempts I seem to have stumbled on a “fix”, in that I am now only seeing 1 complete album…

1) Settings > turned on SHOW APPLE MUSIC

2) Subscribed to APPLE MUSIC

3) Turn on SYNC ACROSS DEVICES

4) MUSIC APP > Search Artist and Album > Click ADD TO LIBARY > the Album then shows up again as a single complete album

5) Settings > turned off SHOW APPLE MUSIC

6) Cancel APPLE MUSIC subscription

7) Music App and checked all the “naughty” albums which now show as a single complete instance.

So for now I’m no longer bothered by spilt albums. However, I do have other issues: (these are on same device running 17.1.2).

a) iTunes Store App - albums not shown as purchased under the Purchased Tab (bottom right) but shown as Purchased if searched

b) Music App - 1) some Purchased content not providing functionality to download, 2) some Purchased albums not visible (hence the reason I’m not updating this device to 17.2)

Thanks again for the excellent post.

Hi everyone,

I can report that this issue is not fixed for PC users who sync their music with iTunes. I was unable to use Apple Music app on windows as it does not allow me to edit Metadata.

I have not subscribed to any Apple service (no iCould, no Apple Music, no nothing). I just want to sync my local music library (MP3 and FLAC that I will convert to Apple Lossless Audio Codac prior to sync) to my iPhone 15 running iOS 17.3.1 by the time of writing.

iTunes client is version is Version 12.13.1.3 on Windows 10 22h2.

The behavior is as follows (1 example among many):

1. The album is comprised of 2 discs with 11 files from disc 1 and 13 files from disc 2
2. I prepare the metadata in TagScan: track artists, album name, Track ID, Disc ID, genre
3. Save tags from TagScan to files on local storage
4. Drag and Drop the 24 files from Windows explorer to iTunes
5. The Sync withe the phone starts right away
6. Instead of finding 1 album in the Music App on the phone, there's 3 albums: Disc 1 with 11 tracks, Disc 2 with 12 Tracks, another Album with 1 track from Disc 2
7. When deleting all of disk 2 files and re-syncing them (step 4) they are not added to the album, there's again 2 new albums one with 10 tracks, one with the remaining 3 from disc 2

No matter what I do, there's always some random splitting going on.

I also noticed that updating Metadata in iTunes does not override them on the phone. I made mistakes on the "artist" tag for 5 files. The artist was the same. I corrected that on iTunes but there's no change on the phone side. Using a third party sync-tool (DearMob iPhone Manager trial) exhibited the not updated meta-data on the phone.

Update:

• I tried to sync my local music with the combination of "Apple devices" and "Apple music" apps on Windows 10
• I used the same 2 disc / 24 files example from above
• When drag and dropping the 24 files into the "album" section of the Apple music app, it shows 14 different albums, yes fourteen!
• As I did not subscribe to apple music, I cannot sync the library to the phone, but as the UI on the windows app is already a mess I will not even try to go any further.

Thanks for the accurate description Steve. It seems to be a fairly fundamental issue - the punters (ie. music listeners) don't get to put on an album and listen from start to finish, and the music producers (artists) don't get their albums listened to in the order perhaps that they would like. When we pay a ton of money to get Apple products, one would hope that the least they can to fix these problems in a timely manner.

This just started with me a few days ago. I’ve never had this happen as long as I’ve had iTunes which basically means since the beginning. This is super frustrating for someone who’s spent as much money as I have and not be able to listen to whole albums anymore. Some of them are split into 4 separate albums. 😡😡😡😡😡

I wish it was that easy but we’re talking hundreds if not thousands of albums. I’m a huge connoisseur of music from all genres & the only albums it didn’t affect were the ones I downloaded from physical media. Oh, well I guess until Apple comes with a fix I’ll be listening to albums in broken and distorted orders. Thanks for the response none the less.

New update just came out, can you update this thread whenever you can so I can keep track of whether or not the issue is solved. You’re the most knowledgeable person I’ve seen talk about the issue and trust what you say about the matter

This fixed my album splitting issues on my iphone, which has been driving me nuts for several years. You would think Apple could rectify this problem with a simple patch.....but no.

Hey Apple, you need to abide.

Thanks again, Mariotheplumber! You ROCK!

You got that right, Deadly Cheeze: I've got HUNDREDS & HUNDREDS of albums and it's a MAJOR pain to go in and recombine each and every album, especially when they've been broken into 3, 4 or MORE chunks. It's on Apple to fix this mess. And SOON, one would hope, because it's a MAJOR inconvenience. Apple stuff USED to just work better and be cooler, now that's rarely the case.

That sounds great and I’m inclined to agree it’s fixed. I’m not aware when it happened for me, but the one offender I had( though a big offender, it had split into 11 different albums, most with only one song in) has dropped down to 2 albums and I believe this was intended by the artist. It’s set up like I bought one album with 2 discs, the original songs on the first, and the extra songs on the second, while still being listed as the same album in the store and on the “Show Complete Album” page