So many problems with iTunes Match...

The worst implementation of any service I have ever seen. I am now being told my iTunes Match has expired, 5 months after starting it. All because I changed my password. It's not funny anymore, the hours I have wasted on this miserable mission to listen to my own music, is criminal.

I had all of usual problems with match at first, but gradually it became stable, then usable, and since I upgraded to iphone 5 it is awesome.

All of my albums have album art now, even non iTunes sold material.

All of my playlists are available, on iphone 5 and new ipad.

I can stream anything via 4g LTE and it plays instantly, even though I have just deleted all music data .

I think 4G LTE has really assisted in match working the way I desire. Every night,with a switch of my finger, I delete all data that was saved by being played that day, and therefore use very little data for music etc., leaving 26 gigs available.

A co-worker has iphone 5 on Sprint, which does not have 4g in this area, and it does not stream nearly as well when the data isn't stored already. It takes up to 20 seconds to begin, is likely to stutter during playing, and many times Siri said playlists and song titles could not be found.

With my iphone 5 on LTE, I will wipe all music data, and ask SIRI to play any playlist/song and it plays instantly, with no stuttering.

I wasn't using my ipad with 4g for music in my car previously, so I don't know how it worked prior to IOS 6, but I tested it after I noticed how well my iphone 5 worked, and it streams exactly the same, very smooth, with no issues.

I am so happy that in my case, upgrading to a iphone 5 with LTE has resolved all of my issues with match.

merman93 wrote:

All of my playlists are available

Including nested smart playlists?

Sorry,.. I'm not sure I have any,.. I'm not sure what that means.

What I can tell say is,.. I have about 20 best of playlists, Beatles, Hendrix, SRV, ZZTop, I have about 60 playlists that are just specific albums, ( this is for SIRI) Beat, Discipline, Three of a Perfect Pair, Wasting Light, etc,

I don't know that I would really need much else.

I have Bluetooth audio set up in my Acura that supports SIRI, so I just tap button, Siri beeps, I say "playlist hypnotize minds" and she says " playing Hypnotize minds" and immediately it starts, when seconds before, under general/usage music didn't even appear as I had swiped and deleted all data. I can tap again and request song title or another playlist and immediately it plays. I had to set up albums as playlists as SIRI didn't seem to like Album titles.

Previously, when I would add a playlist on ipad, the playlist appeared on iphone, but was empty. When I did that this morning, it took a while but eventually populated.

Ok so has anything been done about this issue?? This is rediculous. No one seems to know why this is happening? I can't access any of my song from my Mac Mini since i updated to Mountain Lion. I have access from my iphone 5 and iPad 2.

A Time Consuming but Effective Solution

My iTunes Match "library" contains 25,000 songs, sliced, diced, scrambled and useless, thanks to the good folks at Apple.

Who could imagine that Apple would unilaterally ruin my music libraries on every computer or mobile device I own. Who cares if the music in the Cloud is screwed up? This is my home music! I painstakingly uploaded over a thousand CDs. So nice to see that many were only partially uploaded, and that they were rendered totally useless. Bravo, Apple. I'm so proud to be part of the ecosystem that has me tearing out my hair on a daily basis.

I have tried a lot of apps to find duplicates and delete them, etc. They were of some little help, as was find exact duplicates in iTunes.

Finally, I pulled out my backup DVDs from 5/10/10 downloading into a new iTunes library that I will never sync with Match! Then I went to the iTunes store, and redownloaded the tracks I purchased after 5/10/10. (Apple must have realized that they botched the job, and started to allow redownloads of purchases.) With a little refurbishing, my library is restored - but without my toilsomely submitted CDs.

Of course, I can't access the library remotely.

I tried to very charily upload to the Amazon Cloud Player, in hope of accessing my music from anywhere. It is even worse than iTunes Match, but check it out. Their music library is more complete and substantially cheaper for many items than iTunes. Amazon purchases are easy to access, and you can stream them, instead of downloading and filling up your mobile devices.

Apple has lost a lot of sales because iTunes Match is so repulsive.

Jeff Ramsay wrote:

"A Time Consuming but Effective Solution

My iTunes Match "library" contains 25,000 songs, sliced, diced, scrambled and useless, thanks to the good folks at Apple."

How did Apple do so?

Regards and sorry for you.

If you have enabled iTunes Match, you can see for yourself. Apples algorithms are horrible. I have hundreds of disasterous tracks with, say, album art from Bach, a track name from Fats Navarro; for playback, a track name for Bartok, and the music that results from this is Peggy Lee. Over and over again, I encouter the same types of errors. Amazon Cloud Player is at least as horrible.

For those who have less than 20,000 songs, have unlimited data on you phone, have complete access to Google's products at work and don't cate about iTunes, Google Play is your answer. Nothing beats having your own ripped CDs available to you. iTunes Match and iTunes Home Sharing are a debacle and the thousands of posts on the web can prove it. I don't think spending 18 hours to make something work is worthy of the slogan "It just works".

I'm trying my best to understand why this is now working for me, when it had many hiccups before, and yet so many MANY users are still utterly frustrated.

Last November when I charged $25.00 to purchase a 1 year membership to Imatch, my " non iTunes purchased" titles exceeded the limit allowed, so I was forced to examine my collection and decide what made the cut and would be included.

I formatted a new hard drive, and created a new iTunes library, then after 2+ days of my system being scanned iTunes Match was operating. My first mistake was in not verifying all of the album artwork that I had meticulously paired was showing up in my new library before I scanned. Obviously if it wasn't in the library n my home version of iTunes, it wasn't going to show up elsewhere. By February,After several attempts of troubleshooting, I decided to totally start from scratch again. I did succeed in having all artwork paired up, including 200 albums of non commercially available compilations, and 1000 individual tracks, each with unique artwork, from local musicians obviously all of these had to be uploaded as they could never match to anything in iTunes catalogue. My main issue for most of this year was streaming to my iphone 4 in the car. Constant delays. Extremely long pauses between tracks. Etc etc. But iphone 5 and LTE has been my savior. I have no issues that I had previously, see my previous post. So what have I done differant than anyone who s still frustrated? I wish I new.

I assume most of these posters received their one year automatic renewal notice, as I did last week, and will be parting ways with iTunes Match soon. Until iphone 5 LTE, I would have been joining the crowd and canceling, but finally this October, nearly a year of frustration down, I am happy with the system.

I had many conversations with tech support. I learned that certain songs on albums I had wouldn't match to iTunes because they were shorter/longer, or differant. Understandable.I learned certain labels wouldn't allow maching, even though iTunes sold their product.

I hope all the posters find a solution soon, even if it is merely allowing their subscription to expire in the next few weeks.

I am unsubscribing to this thread as I finally have a stable usable system. Good luck.

I for one and having a fantastic experience with Itunes match. No complaints at all . But, I have all my music backed up on either a laptop or local external harddrive as mp3s that I uploaded to Itunes match. Most albums matched, some aren't no big deal for me. But, I use Itunes match on my apple TV and everything is perfect, artowrk, no missing songs etc. I fail to understand why people are having an issue with this product. My library conisist of nearly 2,500 songs in the cloud, nothing missing what so ever. Why do people have more than 20,0000 songsuploaded is beyond me. I have maybe a 1,000 CDs but, only my most important ones are up in the cloud. Amazon may be a great service but, if you have an apple TV it's useles for people like me. When I do get an Itouch or Ipad, I will not use Itunes match for those products. I will just use my mp3s backed up from my other sources. Simple as that, no problems. I think people just don't understand how Itunes match is meant to be used or how it actually works. Before you upload your songs, make usre and have back up of EVERYTHING.

Goodluck

GlennW1971 wrote:

Before you upload your songs, make usre and have back up of EVERYTHING.

This is excellent advice at any time.

Thanks. I back up iTunes every six months. That saved me, along with throwing in the towel on iTunes Match, and redownloading purchases made since the last backup.

What I lost was dozens of hours uploading CDs to Match, and deleting them from my hard drive. A disaster from start to finish.

Thanks, GlennW,

The reason that I wanted to have 25,000 audio tracks on iTunes Match, is that I live in two places and travel abroad frequently.

I am a true melomane as the French say. I have been collecting music since 1956, and can remember where, when, and why I made most of my purchases.

iTunes Match held out such promise for my set of circumstances. I have never been more disappointed with Apple.

Frankly I think user error is the biggest problem with iTunes Match issues. With due respect. Or expecting it to do something Apple doesn't say it can do.

I have an eclectic collection now up to 5000 songs - even some 'mono' recordings and all have uploaded perfectly for me. All artwork perfect. All track lists and titles perfect. I just don't see how anyone can call iTunes Match a disappointment. It's done everything I expected (and read) it to do. It delivers EVERYTHING it promises. Please read the tech support specs and write ups on how to use it properly. Maybe we can all learn something by 'the instructions' - imagine that!! Lol!.

It's one of the best products Apple's ever made in my experience with it.

Sorry others are having difficulty - I just can't imagine how!?! People need to be more specific about the issues. Oh - I've also loaded about half my library direct from CD's. All perfectly operating for me.