iTunes Match "Waiting" Status

I have spent all night trying to figure some of these issues out. I figured them all out finally and the toughest one was the waiting issue. I tried 'update iTunes Match' which worked on everything except these last 52 songs or so. I finally figured it out though. For the songs with issues I converted them to AAC which solved the problem, and I thought I had deleted all of the originals, but I was wrong. These were the ones I forgot to delete and were getting stuck on the 'waiting' thing. I reconverted them to AAC and made sure I deleted the originals. Next time I ran the update they all had x's on them so I had to then go through all 52 songs and add them to the cloud and then on my next iTunes Match, it fixed them all. Unfortunately these last songs were all recordings from my cassette tapes and were of low quality and so they all needed to be uploaded.

If anyone knows a trick on getting them to match it would be much appreciated though. Would love to listen to my old cassettes in pristine quality.

Rob

I can see from some of the replys on this forum that there are a great many patient itunes users with a great deal of time to play with it. For myself I am a longstanding mac man ( first one in 1988) but this latest iteration , having paid for icloud match 2 days ago, I do not want to have to spend night s figuring out how to fix the exact same issues other people have been faced with in this thread (waiting, greyed out songs on iphone, converting songs etc etc). My motivation for subscribing was partly because a lot of CDs I had ripped became corrupt somehow and would not play all the way through in itunes but jump to the next track, so from the brochure it implied that the match service would replace with a copy from the apple library. I am still 'waiting' so to speak

The alternative was to ask Apple for my money back today, to which of course the reply was NO. I suspect the final solution will be to right off the 21 quid and go back to using spotify- simple and works everytime

I have tried everything listed and my songs are still in a waiting status. I tried for a couple of hours this afternoon and again this evening. I am so fustrated and feel like i got ripped off $25. i have even tried deleting all my songs and reloading individually. it wont even upload 1 song!! if i knew i was going to have this much trouble with itunes match i would have NEVER downloaded it. it is worthless and a waste of time. At one point the cloud (when hovering over the symbole) stated downloaded to icloud but the icloud status stated waiting... which one is it? now i get to waste my time on the phone trying to talk to i.t. I have already tried to look up their number but it states i might have to pay to get it resolved... of course, i have to pay for something else! i think if i paid for a cd then i should be able to upload it to any device i choose to, especially if i have paid for the **** device! not have to pay apple to download it to my ipad, iphone and ipod...

I've had a few "Waiting" songs, but it's still syncing most stuff, so I'm just hoping for a fix for the final ones. But personally speaking, if I was having the issues some of you are having (in that it practically doesn't work at all), I'd book a Genius Bar appointment and get them to sort it out for me. Even if you don't have a laptop or any device to show them, you could go along with your Apple ID details and ask them to look into it for you.

I signed up the first day. iTunes Match, after processing, said I had 3666 songs, but after waiting weeks, there were 145 'Waiting'. Today, I thought I'd dig in to find out what was what. I have discovered that all of my 'Waiting' songs were AAC Protected, meaning they were purchased from the iTunes Store in my case. Digging a little deeper, I discovered that nearly all 'Waiting' songs were duplicates, but not flagged that way. One album, in particular, 'A Bug's Life', showed up as a triple duplicate, with every song, 'Purchased', 'Matched', and 'Waiting'. I've done nothing in particular with this album since I bought it.

My hypothesis is that as the iM database got better over the days, it reclassified songs that it got wrong the first time, and as a side effect, created these duplicates. Alternate hypothesis, since I have more than one Mac on the same account, with some of the songs in both places when this all started, maybe it's a result of double-matching. Or both.

I am in the process of checking and weeding out all the 'Waiting' and 'Matched' duplicates, so I don't know if this is a complete solution.

iVision4U, and anyone else who can help,

I am having the same problem with approximately 10% or 1000 of my songs stuck in "waiting." I tried Updating iTunes Match to no avail.

I wonder if I can try converting these files to AAC, but how do I do this??? When I select a "waiting" song, then go to Advanced on the menu bar, "Create AAC Version" can not be highlighted or selected.

Just for those who might have the same issue:

I purchased many songs from elsewhere before iTunes started selling songs in our country. Some of them where also stuck at "Waiting" status as some of you mention here.

In my case it was a non compatible file extension. I got from online store (not iTunes) aac versions as .mp4 files (some of the albums where like this - not many luckily). Once I changed the file extension to .m4a and pushed "Store/update iTunes Match" everything worked fine. I did not even have to reimport or locate the renamed files.

(it where 320kbps versions and I did not want to loose the quality if possible)

See if this works for you:

1) Go to Store -> Update Genius

2) Then, go to Store -> Update iTunes Match

No, this issue still not resolved for me...

Since I originally signed up fo iCloud iTunes Match;

a) 128 out of 888 song remain in Waiting status,

b) Songs play OK on iMac, all Album Artwork is OK

c) on iPhone, songs in Waiting Status do not play, and

Album Artwork has not been assigned to 6 out of 58 Albums.

d) the Waiting songs are 256 kbps (VBR) .m4a files, like most of my other iTunes Library.

Some older CD's are 128 kbps,

I have tried...

e) iTunes, Store, Update Genius then Update iTunes Match, with no effect...

f) iTunes, Store, Logout then Login, Turn on iTunes Match, and the rematch does not fix it...

I am at a loss to know what to do to fix this...

iTunes Match must be working OK for most people, since Apple continues to roll out the service to China, Japan, etc...

So why is this issue still not resolved, for me...

Robert.

DuePeace...

Fianlly, a simply solution [sounds complicated, but; refer "really good news" at the end]

In iTunes…

Select View, Options…, and check iCloud Status to display the status column,

best viewed as iTunes Album List sorted by Album…

a) Select Store, Update iTunes Match, [to ensure all songs are at the most up to date iCloud status],

b) select an iCloud Status "Waiting" Song, right click, Create AAC Version,

the Original and New version of the Song will be listed,

c) right click the Original version, select Delete, and check Also Delete from iCloud,

[initially, keep the Original version on file]

d) wait until the iCloud Status indicates "Removed"

e) select the New version of the Song [the old will have been removed from you local iTunes list]

right click and select Add to iCloud.

f) be patient, eventually, the sat us will change to Matched, or Uploaded, as is appropriate...

Now the really good news…

You can do the above with multiple Songs selected.

Don't go mad until you have proven it works for you…

Have fun…

Robert

Note:

The Waiting Songs were already an AAC Audio File, 256 kbps (VBR), encoded with iTunes 10.1.

The new AAC Version is the same, but now encoded with iTunes 10.5.3.

Right click on a Song, and select Get Info to see Song detail...

Add to the beginning of step d) select Store, Update iTunes Match, and

It's a workaround, but I'm afraid I don't personally like this idea (or rather, don't want to do it), because you are transcoding your audio and therefore degrading its quality... Also you're losing all of its play count / last played iTunes metadata.

Jowie,

I have just finished processing the last of my Albums, and note...

a) All of the "Waiting" status songs were already AAC Audio Files, 256 kbps (VBR)

encoded with iTunes 10.1. The peculiar thing is that so are all of my other Songs,
which iCloud was quite happy to Match.

The "Conversion" takes only a little over a second per Song,
so I am tempted to conclude the "Conversion" may simply be adjustment to headers,

or whatever, that magically make the Song compatible with iCloud.
I am also tempted to conclude that as a result, there is no loss of Audio quality.

b) You will be intersested to know that Metadata is preserved...

Here is a copy of the Song info:

The first image is a "Waiting", now converted and "Matched", and as you can see, the metadata has been preserved, Times played, Last time played, etc..

The second image is a typical Song which "Matched" the first time I ran iTunes Match.

Hope this helps every one...

01) After AAC Conversion by iTunes 10.5.3, now compatible with iTunes match...

02) a typical AAC conversion from Audio CD, by iTunes 10.1, compatible with iTunes Match

Robert...

1. I just tried "Create AAC Version" with a file that was already AAC... It took over 10 seconds and during that time the processor went up to 100%. I would very much assume that transcoding was taking place.
2. I did not realise the metadata would be preserved though, so that's good news! Just a shame the transcoding happens.
3. I wish they'd hurry up and allow files with chapter markers in them! I have loads of AAC mix files I have added chapter markers too, and this makes them also get stuck in waiting...

I can't even get the conversion menu up when I right click a "waiting" song