So many problems with iTunes Match...

Yeha, but I want a way to do it from within the Music app, like just a button somewhere that makes it really quick and easy to toggel this on and off. And there should be an option to not show iCloud content when you don't have internet.

Ok, i thought you didn't knew that.

But I totally agree, there should be a button for it.

Which would make it a lot easier and faster to switch.

but for now this should do the trick, maybe something for a later update.

Just got Match.

9,000+ songs. 95% are in "Matched" status and the rest are in "Uploaded" status. Only missing a handful of art work. I also converted all the 128kps in my library to Apples's 256 Matched AAC. It was a little strange Deleting those songs and seeing the file name stay there with the Cloud and the arrow to download the new file from Apple... but it worked just fine. What a great invention! Now my wife can listen to all the music at home via Apple TV without having to turn on a computer. The iPhone had already taken over car audio, and Match will add to it. Well done Apple!

I have 21500 tracks on iTunes with 18500 uploaded ..dunno why different number, oh well..of which 760 are paid for iTunes tracks. I want to play from my PC on the road, without loading up my hard disk or using an external hard drive. All were listed as "Matched" but only the iTunes paid tracks would play. Now I'm going through and deleting the ones that don't play..some of which are AACs..can't work that out..anyway, as long as you don't tick the Delete from Cloud button, the track comes back as a shiney new 256 kbps AAC that plays! The problem seems to have originated with my original uploading from an external hard drive. I notice that the 760 paid for have been downloaded to my hard disk..don't think I asked for that, but maybe I pressed the wrong button!..gonna try deleting them and see if still play...then I will really be streaming from the Cloud..which..er..was the whole pont? lol Hope this might be of use to someone tearing their hair out like I was!

Sigh...

I've read through almost all 25+ pages of this thread and can add my name to this growing list of iTunes Match users having issues with this incredibly buggy software. I won't go into all the specific problems I've encountered because they are mostly what I've read here. I realize that Mr. Jobs was sick when this was introduced and implemented, perhaps that's the reason why the Beta version of iTunes Match "slipped through the cracks" so to speak, but the fact remains is that there are SERIOUS ISSUES with this software. If he were still with us, I'm sure he would not be too pleased, just like he was ****** with MobileMe.

I purchased my iTunes Match subscription on Christmas Day, 2011, and have had problems since that first day. I did get iTunes Match to sucessfully complete the first three steps once, but when that occured, I encountered an issue that really ****** me off, more so than ANY OTHER ISSUE THAT I'VE HAD WITH THIS CRAPPY SOFTWARE, and that is after getting past the insatllation, I found that Itunes Match replaced my matched explicit lyrics songs with clean versions!!! And I only found that out by accident while playing back one of them! So, I turned off iTunes Match and tried it again, and never got it to get past step one of the initial process: "Step 1: Gathering information about your iTunes Library". I tried toggling Match on and off, updating iTunes Match, updating Genius, etc, etc. and nothing works.

iTunes Match in my opinion, is becoming as big a failure as MobileMe was, and we all know how Mr. Jobs felt about THAT. This software still works like Beta software. Too many problems that are just not worth the money at this time.

At this point, all I want is for iTunes Match to be a part of the "it just works" Mac analogy. Unfortunately, it isn't. WE have to put in too much work just to get it to work for us!

And for the users who have no problems with iTunes Match, that's wonderful! But I think at this point, you are outnumbered, and I wish you continued sucess with your usage of iTunes Match! I hope to be able to count myself among you, hopefully soon!

Warmest regards,

Mike.

I've been running Match since it launched in Australia. It took me well over three months to get my library uploaded and unfortunately it does a pretty bad job of streaming once I leave home and access the library over 3G. I realise that it's better if you download the songs/albums to your phone once before leaving home, but the idea is that you have full access to your library at all times, this is not the case. Songs take 30 seconds or more to buffer... it's just clunky and no fun.

Now, Spotify just launched in Australia and I got a free month of Premium membership. That service rocks. All songs start almost instantly. You can sync your iTunes library with it and have all of your library streamable. Plus you can access pretty much any song that's had a commercial release, anywhere (3G) and anytime. Radio apps, music discovery apps, subscribe to your friends playlists and libraries. Bloody awesome!

iTunes Match - $30 for the year = fail.

Spotify $144 - for the year = win.

I'll be paying five times the price, for a service that is ten times as good.

I noticed that certain songs just do not match no matter what I try. A few are able to match when I try matching it again after a long time, say a few weeks. But what's troubling is that some songs can become unmatched. I actually removed some matched songs and tried rematching them. They were unable to match the second time around. Fortunately, I had backed-up the matched AAC version of the song with my account name attached (which I had downloaded from when it matched). Unfortunately, even that downloaded matched-track doesn't match and gets uploaded.

iTunes Match is officially driving me nuts, just added an album ripped from a CD and it didn't match 4 of the tracks, this adds to me hideous list of albums with odd tracks not matched, my library is now a complete mess of differnet bit rates and volumes, I checked the iTunes store for the track lengths and they match the store exactly, so although the length of track thing does seem true in general, it doesn't always seem to be the case. There is some other hidden ,atching process going on here as well. I just wish they gave the user some control over it, or just use some common boolean search things as well, look at the album overall tell the user that certain track lengths don't match, and ask do you want to replace them with the one they have, it would solve so much messing around and head banging.

I really hope Apple's iTunes Match engineers are constantly working on getting this mess sorted, but seeing how clunky iTunes still is I'm not holding out much hope.

After two weeks of trying to get iTunes match to either match or upload my 10,000-track library, I've given up. There are albums with one track missing and different material available on iPhone vs iPad. Apparently, Apple didn't think it important to tell users that unless you have a 5+mbps upload speed, this service is not for you. I've had similar and very unpleasant experiences trying to download purchased TV shows via Apple TV. I don't know what the problem is but this is very un-Apple and, frankly, will make me far less likely to assume -- as I have in the past -- that if it's Apple, it's good.

I would suggest to consider match as a breakthrough but still on a developing process. Give it a year or two...or three.

I'm really sorry to see all you guys having problems. I love the service, and it works great for me (except when I'm on the bus and have to rely on my phone's 3G connection here in Brazil, which is pretty lame...).

Now, since you've already paid for it and are gonna have access to the service for many months, I suggest deleting everthing you have in the cloud and trying to start from scratch. Song recognition and upload might have improved in the last 5 months, you might have a pleasant surprise, who knows? 😉

Message was edited by: Helbert Pina

It doesn't matter what anyone says, including Apple... this service IS STILL IN BETA!! I have been at trying to match my library (16,000+ songs) for almost 24 hours with constant "hangs" in Step 2. I was expecting it to "JUST WORK", but my Google Music service on my Media Server does a way better and faster job than this. Bottom line - Apple is no better than any other software/hardware company. Their products have issues, and this is the latest one in a long list.

Hopefully it will come out of BETA soon and really work not taking days to match a large library. Sad...

You serious man? You just said that the service is still in beta but you use exclamation points.

Very serious... it's not in beta, but it should be. With this many problems? $25 for a buggy app that constantly hangs/freezes/etc? Twenty-six, yes, 26 pages of comments in this string alone?? For a product that released how many months ago???

I pine for the days of old when Apple products "just worked". Unfortunately, those days are long gone and have been replaced by corporate price gouging of the masses to beta test "one more thing"...

It works to some customers, they're happy. If you're not happy, take your money back. It's that simple.