iTunes Match Freezes in Step 2

I just totally agree to this statement!!!

(Ah btw, it now seems to work for me again too.)

KeithJenner wrote:

I would say however, that whilst I agree it's not a biggie in the scheme of things, a bit of communication would help.

Leaving people in the dark just breeds frustration, and for those of us who spend some of our time here trying to help people out the frustration is easy to see, especially when emails from Apple sometimes suggest that they don't even realise there is a problem.

Perhaps even changing the iCloud status page from saying there are no issues would have been a start.

I absolutely agree. It is not the end of the world, but it is still an annoyance. And will things seem to work OK for others, I am still "stuck on step 2".

It really would help if Apple gave any sort of feedback, even if that was: "Sorry, it will be OK in two weeks".

Alex

Ok so it's now been waiting for my last song to check for over 30 minutes, guess its broken again.....!

Stephen750 wrote:

Ok so it's now been waiting for my last song to check for over 30 minutes, guess its broken again.....!

Not necessarily. Mine just froze for quite a while and then added 14 tracks. I think we're now back into "working very slowly" territory, which is far better than not working at all. 🙂

And out of nothing it's finally working here in Guatemala @ 1 song every 10 or 15 minutes aprox.

Guys, it seems I found a solution, at least worked for me, I had iTunes stuck for 3 days until now on 26 songs of 3000. (OSX 10.6.8; iTunes 10.5.2 (11))

All I did was:

- Stop iTunes Match

- Check all your songs are "acceptable" according iTunes Match....other I deleted. (or move it)

- Close iTunes

- Go to your iTunes Library via Finder an search for a folder called "Automatically Add to iTunes"... DELETE IT

- Start iTunes / iTunes Match

In my case, doing that worked, now I'm in Step 2, 1277 songs of 3000 and running.

Hope this work for you guys.

Eric,

You have articulated very well the problems being encountered by the vast majority of iTunes Match sufferers since the product was launched in November.

The key problem is invariably the hang in Step 2. Not to mention the fact that little or nothing indicates why the problem exists.

My rather modest collection of 3600 songs were transferred without any hitch whatsoever over a period of 6 hours when I installed the iTunes Match facility last month. Those files are a mixture of WAV, AAC, MP3 etc.Since then I have added around 275 songs. Every single one went through without a problem. It normally took around 30 seconds to upload the iTunes Match ie "Matching Your Music with sings in iTunes Store" and the Artwork material in connexion with Step 3. This included a 27 track album from my own collection.

However, When I transferred just one track from an REM pre-recorded album three days ago, I encountered the now infamous hang in Step 2. I realised something was wrong when the progress bar was stuck after over two minutes. Attempts to Stp/Start/Stop as a way of breaking the blockage proved fruitless. Nothing.

I then changed the file to AAC. This had the effect of :-

1. Changing the cloud symbol next to the track from "Waiting" to one with an X inside the cloud denoting "removed from cloud"

2. Removing the track altogether from my iPad.

This morning I added another track. This time from an album from which most tracks were already on the system from the initial sweep.

It went through normally but took around 15 minutes instead of the usual 30 seconds that I was used to .

It is now clear that Apple servers appear to be struggling to cope with sheer size of the operation. Nonetheless, I am sure that a simple fix will be introduced shortly to put an end to this misery.

I did what you recommend and at least I made some progress, progress that I didn't see when started using the service 2 days ago, practically it jumped from 47 checked songs to 247 (200 songs successfully checked), and is almost there (I got 355 songs) but it's stuck again. I'm going to repeat deauthorize and authorize again to see what happens.

Ivan,

Can you explain how exactly you find out which songs are "acceptable" in plain English.

This would be much appreciated.

@Luftwaffles

I deleted all songs that appeared as not eligible (cloud icon with a cross mark) like songs with bitrate below 96kbps, or any that show error (cloud with a exclamation mark).

By the way, the process is still running, no stopped.

My list finally synced overnight. I need to give credit to Apple for fixing this quickly. I did not think they could respond that fast. Very good.

I'm not sure I would class 2 days as quick.

SteedGun wrote:

My list finally synced overnight. I need to give credit to Apple for fixing this quickly. I did not think they could respond that fast. Very good.

It's actually hung again, at least for me. Seems to have periods of functionality and then it stalls (we saw this happen in December as well).

I would say that we are probably over the hump but it will probably be a few more days before things are stabilized. Again, if last month is any indication.

KeithJenner wrote:

I'm not sure I would class 2 days as quick.

Neither would I and technically it's not "fixed" yet. I should be able to sync 24 songs at any time of the day and it should only take 10-15 minutes at most, not 30+ (which is how long it's been so far).

Again, not to beat a dead horse but if my cable was going in and out, I wouldn't call that "working". I don't see this as any different.

One thing I did was reboot and restart iTunes every few hours or so. If the service comes back to you and you have a stuck iTunes it will ignore you and move on. Try that. I know that this should work in hours and not days but it does appear that it is working a bit better today so try what I did. I hope this helps. 😐

Thanks Ivan.

Much appreciated.