iTunes Match not recognizing some of my music

Apple has never disclosed just what constitutes a 'match' so your question really can't be answered other than to say I've seen the same thing happen with my tracks, too.

I have the same issue and beyond even.

1. Some songs i know are in the iTunes store arent matching (eventhough i checked all the info to make sure it links up with the iTunes store version. Meaning, if i delete the artowrk and choose "get artowrk" it gets the correct artwork, so i know its "linked" and should "match"

2. Some albums (american idot by greenday is one example), it will match some of the songs, but then other songs it wont, all from the same album (DVD rip so all the info is correct and again, "get artowrk" is working for all these tracks that dont "match".)

3. I have a big collection of old records that i digitized. I went trhough all my old records after digitizing them and made sure that any songs that were in the itunes store, had all hte proper info in order to work with iTunes Match when it came out. They have the right info, they "link" up (as stated above with album artowrk and all that), but ALL of my records wont match and are being uploaded. This is quite anoying as this was the main reason i wanted to get iTunes match, so i could get the clear digital copys of the records i digitized (without the cracks and pops of the record version).

These are issues that need to be fixed, and i hope they do soon. 600 tracks are mucking up my iCloud storage space when only about 300 of them should be.

The album American Idiot in the iTunes is different than yours... In iTunes, the songs Are we waiting and St Jimmy is just one with the name Are we waiting/St Jimmy, they had merged the songs in one. So, you will not be able to match half of this album

NoRefund17 - you described my problem exactly. I'm having all those issues as well.

(1) I know it's in iTunes and it's uploading instead of matching.

(2) I've tried deleting it from iCloud, re-ripping it, and then having iTunes match look at it again = same results.

(3) Makes no sense at all and appears to be random - will match an entire album correctly except for 2 or 3 songs and upload them. Clearly the entire album is on iTunes but for some reason it randomly doesn't match some songs and I can't find a way for iTunes to re-evaluate it and realize it's a match and not an upload.

(4) To make matters more crazy - this behavior is occuring with some music that I purchased on iTunes a while back, upgraded to iTunes plus a while back (when you had to pay extra to convert to DRM free songs), and iTunes is uploading this instead of matching it. Kind a nuts.

This is a pain and not sure why it occurs and it seems like it should be fixed. However, I have about 11,000 songs and the overwhelming majority of my music iTunes match handles correctly. The problem is the minority is significant, takes time to correct or match up mannually, and seems unecessary - it should work correctly for all my music.

I am having exactly the same problem. I have about 20000 songs and only 15000 have been matched by itunes match system. Some of the albums are as others stated well known albums and 1 or 2 songs have been recognised. It is very annoying, if there is no fix I wouldnt use this system.

You are never going to get 100% matches of your non-iTunes purchased music.

We don't know exactly what criteria Apple uses to match a song, but we do know it consists of waveforms, song length, file size just to name a few. I suspect the matching algorithms are also a "best of x" type of thing. Meaning if there are, say, 8 criteria a song must meet 5 of them to match (I'm just making up those numbers BTW). If the song doesn't meet the minimum threshold it will not be "matched" but will instead be "uploaded." This is how the system works.

So if your primary purpose in purchasing iTunes Match is to upgrade lower quality tracks to 256 Kbps tracks from the iTunes Store you will almost certainly be disappointed in the results.

I've experienced these issues as well. I've read multiple articles on iTunes match: how it's designed to work, how to use it, how to optimize it, how to fix errors, how to manipulate it, etc.....

While you can't expect any software or service of this nature to be perfect, especially the first go around, there are some glaring holes in iTunes match's algorithm/functionality. The most straight forward example I can give you are the Beatles. I've owned the full box set collection of studio Beatles albums on vinyl for 24 years and the CD version for about 19 years. These are well established albums that are completely and exactly mirrored in iTunes. I originally ripped my CD's to iTunes in MP3 format at varying rates between 160 kbps to 320 kbps; however, prior to performing iTunes match I converted them all to ACC at 256 kbps. The value in matching is two fold: (1) to standardized my entire collection, or most of it, at ACC 256 kbps, and (2) ability to move it easily to my other computers, devices, etc... At any rate when I finally activated iTunes match roughly 80% of my Beatles albums matched, while 20% uploaded. There is no reason for this. I know these albums exist in iTunes in exactly the same manner as my ripped version. The Beatles white album is the Beatles white album there are NOT multiple versions of it. Furthermore, why would it match 80% of the white album instead of 100%. I can give many other examples similar to this.

In the long run it's not that big of a deal because it uploaded all of my non-match music (I didn't have an music at less than 128 kbps) but in the short run it was a giant pain in the rear. I looked at match as a way to quickly equalize (I had music ranging from 128 to 320 kbps in ACC and MP3 - wanted to get everything in ACC 256kbs across my entire collection) and standardize my library. Once standardization was achieved then I could easily move my collection between all my devices. I have a 12,500 song library. Roughly 9,000 songs matched or were purchased through iTunes. The other 3,500 were uploaded; however roughly 2,700 of these uploaded files should have been matched. In order to standardized my collection I had to re-rip many of these versus match doing it quickly. For me it was simply a matter of time and frustrating that match didn't save me time by completely functioning the way it should have.

I exchanged multiple e-mails with iTunes store. They acknowledged issues with match but no details and said they're always working to make it better and more accurate. Even though it doesn't always behave as it should it's still a pretty cool service that I believe has tremendous value and prefer over alternatives like Spotify. I have no doubt that match's ability will improve over time. Right now it is what it is. All you can do is let Apple know what your experience is and hope they're working hard to fix it. Even armed with the knowledge that roughly 10% of my collection wouldn't match correctly I still would have done it.

My problem is stranger than this: at least one song (Jumping Jack Flash, from Rolling Stones Get Yer Ya-Ya Out) "matched" incorrectly, so when I play this album on my iPad, I get a very coked-up, sloppy version of the song from a different concert and era (Jagger's singing is so bad I wonder if it's a bootleg). All the other songs are correct. My iTunes Library has it marked as "matched."

The problem now, of course, is that I can't get the correct version of the song onto my iDevices, since iTunes thinks everything is fine. Anyone else experience this?

That's interesting. How old is your copy of Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out?

I've got quite an old copy (purchased in the early 90's so possibly the original CD issue), and the iTunes versions are all the latest issue from I couple of years ago I believe.

Anyway, only one track matched for me, which was (you've guessed it) Jumping Jack Flash. All the other tracks uploaded. I just checked the track and it has matched correctly for me.

I wonder if yours matched with the Love You Live version. Jagger rarely bothers to complete any words on that album. "Jumin Ja Fla" is about as good as it gets.

Chris 36 wrote:

The Beatles white album is the Beatles white album there are NOT multiple versions of it. Furthermore, why would it match 80% of the white album instead of 100%. I can give many other examples similar to this.

Actually, that isn't true. There are at least two remasterings on CD plus the Mono version, and I think that there may be another version on Capital (although my knowledge of US issues isn't great).

If I have a criticism of the Beatles matching it is that it isn't tight enough. The Mono's matching to the stereos is more of an issue than non matches, as there is no way round it.

I'm interested that you had to resort to ripping CD's due to non matches. I am doing a similar process of standardising at 256kbps AAC wherever possible, and I made the decision to rerip everything, even knowing that Match was coming. My thinking was that checking for mismatches would be far more time consuming than ripping, which has proved to be correct. That didn't allow for having to get the CD's out for unmatched songs, so I'm really pleased I made the decision I did.

You nailed it: that's the version it matched to. My copy was ripped from a CD purchased probably about 10 years back. Sounds like the same version you have.

Given the widespread complaint about iTunes being excessively finicky about matching songs (She Came in Through the Bathroom Window being the main example), I'm quite amazed about this. Now I need to figure out how to get this fixed. Maybe delete the song from library and iTuness, then re-add and see what happens?

I tried doing that and it doesn't work. 😕

I'm guessing that it's all about the final hash that is computed and that's not something that's going to change by re-importing the same file.

Actually, you can delete and attempt to rematch files, sometimes to great success.

But first you must recognize that songs are often available in different masterings, so an old copy of The White Album might not match to the 2009 masters that are in the store. Also, albums that are reissued by different labels, vendors, or with minor changes to the files that were provided to iTunes (for example, when two tracks that flow together are split at a slightly different index) won't match properly.

If you are reasonably sure that the album you are trying to match is the exact album, then this is generally how it goes:

1. Match the album. Occasionally a track or two will upload inexplicably, while the rest will match.

2. Make sure the files you have (or that you just ripped from CD) are stored somewhere other than your iTunes folder, so when you delete them from your library, they will not get trashed.

3. Delete the cloud version of the file in question that shows as "uploaded." That track should now be missing from your cloud library altogether.

4. Add the file from your hard drive again.

5. Convert the file to a different format, such as WAV or MP3 (if the original was an AAC). Delete the one that you have stored elsewhere before the match mechanism runs, but leave the newly converted version.

6. Run the match mechanism again. Most of the time this will show the file as "removed." After this has happened, run the match mechanism AGAIN.

Depending on the file, you may get yet another upload, or miraculously you might get a match. I'd say 70% of the time it will just upload again, and that can be undesirable as it is now uploading a file that is not the format you wanted to upload. If that's the case and you have nothing better to do, you can delete the upload and rerun match on the original file again, twice (once getting the "removed" result and the next another upload).

RTW