iTunes Match Step 1 is stuck! What can I do?

Same thing happens to me, worked fine the first time but now just hangs on step 1. 😟

i got the same problem. i've spending 3 nights to finish the step 3.

i just want to cancel the itunes match, now

How to solve stage 3 lockups, yes it does work been doing it myself.

Stop match.

Choose an album that has tracks waiting, delete the whole album but keep files.

Add files back into ITunes then highlight the whole album.

Right click and go to add to icloud. Bingo it loads the album to the cloud.

Before you ask, yes you have double the tracks, but when it uploads the old ones go.

THANKS! That did it for me! But I must point out that people shouldn't delete the files from their computer unless they're already in the cloud. In my case, I lost the service after signing out of my account and logging in again. But that's what you should do if you're stuck in STEP 1. Just delete the music from the iTunes and then it'll work. GREAT! THANKS!

Worked for me as well. However, if I try and Update iTunes Match from the menu bar, it freezes right back up. So my playlists won't sync.

I had the freeze problem on step 8. I was trying to import photos via the network. Before it reached step 8, I stopped the sync, I deselected the my pictures folder via the network and the problem was solved. Aparently the iTunes doesn't like to sync filders via the network.

Did not work for me.

Here is what I've done:

- I've rebuilt my library

- then spent 5 days on my library to delete dupes

- re-encoded some low bitrate songs.

- deleted songs above 200Meg (DJ mixes)

- fixed any missing covers.

- then I marked all my music as "iTunes U" to get an empty music library.

- started iTunes Match. Went through the steps 1 to 3 - finished

- pulled 50 songs back from iTunes U and restarted the match.

- went through step1 to 3 in half an hour!

- moved on with another bunch of 200 songs, stucked at step 3 song 20.

- stopped match and restarted iTunes. This time it went through.

- moved on with another bunch of 200 songs, stucked at step 1.

- stopped match and restarted iTunes, stucked at step 1.

- checked some threats here how to fix step1 issues. no luck. was not able to pinpoint the song who causes the trouble.

After spending 12h in this loop I gave up. Decided to wait for any update to give iTunes match another try.

What a dissappointment...

I was stuck with this as well and found another forum that gave me an answer, which was a combo of the above suggestions. I have a lot of music 80GB and 3000 files stored on a NAS device. First shut down itunes and delete the old library file as suggested above. Startup and set your library location where you want it. Then do as SUPERPRIM suggests and sign up for the itunes match with an empty library. Then drag in your music about 200 files (<10GB) at a time. Its tedious, but no hangups. Took me a day on and off, but now have music in the cloud which is so nice. Time for setup did not increase as the library got bigger so I expect this to work when I add new music later.

I did not try bringing in any non music (lectures, etc.) files into the music library with the itunes match turned on. I'm hesitant to try this...

That is pretty much the way I did. But I did not work out without hang ups.

Better wait for an update than struggeling with a beta products. Had this years ago with Windows.

Ditto. Got to start all over after stall on Step 3.

anybody sucessful with iTunes 10.5.3 came out yesterday?

Tried match again with no difference to iTunes 10.5.2

After just buying this and reading other people's posts I'm asking immediately for a refund why is something that should be so simple with apple is always so hard lol there service is a joke on the express lane they can't fix it either

You can actually see which file is being processed, see my post here

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3674800?tstart=0

I'm also on the first step, but at least I can see it's progressing

I've abandoned the service and received my refund 30 days ago. It always stucked at step 1.

Now I'm giving iTunes Match another try Here is what I've done so far:

1. I changed all my music to content type "iTunes U" in order to create an empty music library. All ratings and playcounts are not affected.

2. I activated iTunes Match and it went through all 3 steps in just a few minutes - no wonder, because there was no music.

3. I labeled some of my music (about 10 albums) back to music and let iTunes match do a refresh. Works through in 5 minutes. All good.

4. I then spent my time labeling back my music in bunches of 20 albums. Doing a screenshot helps me identifying songs that cause the match to stuck.

Resumé:

I now have processed 3500 songs out of a total of 17000. I only had one stuck at step1. I was able to locate the "bad" song and removed it from my library. Then it went through. Sometimes the upload stucked at step3. In that case there was almost no upload speed. (keept an eye on my uload speed). Usually my uploadspeed is about 50-60Kbit/s. I hit stop on iTunes Match and restarted it again without leaving iTunes. In most cased it goes through. Problems on this might caused by my provider - maybe.

I don't know why I'm doing this. iTunes Match is a buggy product, that's for sure. Maybe it is sport to find out what's causing the problems, or maybe I'm more fanboy than I thought 😝

Thank you Oslice!!! Worked for me. I was going crazy until I read your suggestion about rebuilding the library.

Thanks from Argentina!