After turning on iCloud/iTunes match, my playlist was duplicated 2000 times

To close the loop (at least for me). After running script to clean duplicates, had syncing issue where devices woul. Fixed the syncing issue by restoring devices -- iphone4, ipad2 -- to factory settings and restoring backup.

I have recently had this problem. My solution is different but it works, at least for me.

when I stared, I had well over 20,000 blank playlist. it has been a day and still no problems.

Steps:

1. I kept all the devices with iTunes match 'ON'.
   2. I went on my computer and opened iTunes. There I created a playlist that would show up before the duplicated playlist. For example: The playlist that was duplicated was named 'OX' so I created one called 'ON'.
2. I then gathered all the devices and made it where the screen would not turn off, so I could see if all my devices would update with this, ON playlist in the ipod app. I recommend keeping the Ipod app open tell you are done.
3. From there I got a weight on the 'delete key' and started to delete the duplicated playlist, OX. As I was deleting them, I would periodically stop to check if I was making progress by going to my iPhone and scrolling to the bottom of the playlist in the ipod app. There It will tell you how may playlist there are.
   
   

THEN BOOM PROBLEM SOLVED!

So frustrated to see that the attempt I made to create a playlist while 35,000 feet in the air on a flight back home ended up creating literally thousands of duplicate playlists named the same thing with nothing inside.

The solution below worked like a charm. I hope it doesn't get over-written by the junk list of playlists on my iTunes Match account & that it over-writes the server with my corrected playlists.

benguthrie wrote:

This script:

with timeout of (45 * 60) seconds

tell application "iTunes"

delete (every playlist whose name is "<Playlist Name>")

end tell

end timeout

was great, and fast. It killed 6000+ playlist within 3 min or so.

Thank you.

Same happened here for me - I created a list whilst on a plane for 8 hours in aircraft mode - 8000playlits later, and the most frusrating thing is that they are ALL empty - so the playlist that caused all this in the first place isn't even there - it was a good one as well!!

Ran the script and got rid of them but they came back almost instantly, bearing in mind my library is synced across my 4s, my ipad and my parents' iphones i really don't want to have to fuss around wasting time trying to fix it, i've already wasted at least a day of my life messing around with match anyhow . .

Maybe I should just turn match off again - probably much easier!

Just curious, have you upgraded to the new iTunes 10.5.3? Wanted to see if that version makes a difference before I try this again on my next flight.

Just checked this. New iTunes version 10.5.3 does not make a difference. Must be something inherent in the iCloud or IOS5, perhaps?

I had created a playlist while on a flight and ended up with 24,000+ empty playlists and was losing my mind trying to individually delete them. I had scheduled an appointemnt at the Genius bar tomorrow and figured I would do some searching through the forums while I waited. Thankfully I came across this forum and the AppleScript fix from FDVrebeto13 cleared my empty playlists out in a matter of minutes. I haven't turned iTunes Match back on yet on my other devices so it remains to be seen if this fix will work across all my devices but at the very least the Applescript deleted the playlists on my MBA.

EDIT: Well 10 minutes later and all the playlists are back on my MBA. Guess I will keep that appointment after all.

Thanks so much

Apple I hope you are listening. This bug needs to be fixed or at the very least addressed in a Support Note.

FDVrebeto13 wrote:

I created an applescript:

with timeout of (45 * 60) seconds

tell application "iTunes"

delete (every playlist whose name is "Holiday")

end tell

end timeout

This sets a timeout of 45 mins... If you have over 30k I suggest changing it to over an hour by substituting the 45 with 60 or whatever suits you.

You must change the name to whatever your playlists are named (mine were named all the same so it worked, if not checkout dougscripts.com [and yes you guessed it, mine were called Holiday: nothing like this to get you out of the Christmas spirit]).

After I deleted them I left it untouched overnight since I guess it replicates with the itunes match severs and takes some time.

Early morning I updated itunes match, manually, and this did it for me.

Hope this helps.

You can monitor progress with the following script in case they don't all go away.

tell application "iTunes"

countplaylists

end tell

I saved this scripts in the folder:

/Users/username/Music/iTunes/Scripts

If the folder "scripts" doesn't exist... create it.

Hope this helps.

Message was edited by: Mosi

Thank you so much! I had no idea Automator had the ability to delete blank playlists. I had 30,233 duplicated playlists and turned on Automator and it ran for about 15 minutes (all that time I thought nothing was happening because I just got the spinning beach ball) but all of the sudden I got a message saying it was complete, and all the playlists were gone! After suffering with this problem for over a month and about 10 hours talking to Apple support, I'm finally free of my playlists! My computer had been extremely bogged down, iTunes stopped responding 75% of the time, anytime I tried to view playlists on my iPhone 4S my phone would freeze for about 2-5 minutes. My iPad's music App had completely become unresponsive. Thank you guys so much! You have no idea how happy I am!

Looks like I have fixed teh problem, here is what I had to do:

1) Have apple delete all your iTunes Match stuff in the cloud. That HAS to happen, otherwise nothing will get fixed.

2) Turn off iTunes match and use Doug's Remove Empty Playlists to clean up your playlists.

3) Turn on iTunes match and re-index and upload.

4) Do an Erase all Content and Settings on your iDevice (iPad, iPhone or both as in my case)

5) Set up your iDevices from a backup or as a new device. Now they should be syncing again, mine would not for over a week now.

What a nightmare. Didn't realize how dependant I was on iTunes and iDevices!!

Wow. I fixed my problem unexpectedly.

I created a playlist on my iPhone 4S. It somehow duplicate to what seemed thousands.

I first started right clicking and deleting, and it seemed to work, but then later, when I right clicked on the playlist I only got a "Eject Disc" option.

I clicked on Eject Disc option like 20 times, and then got bored. I stopped, but I watched it. almost a minute later, the playlists started disappearing slowly and now the thousands are all gone.

I was just patient with it and it worked. I didn't do anything else or change settings beforehand.

Good luck everyone!

I have the same problem that developed today. I was trying to get the iphone 4s to see all of the music in Match. I turned Match off and on, and everything seemed fine, until I noticed there were suddenly thousands and thousands of duplicate playlists. Now iTunes can no longer save the library file because it's running out of memory, and my incessant deleting (I can't try the apple script because I'm on a PC) has not seemed to produce any results. This is a disaster bug.

Oslice wrote:

I have the same problem that developed today. I was trying to get the iphone 4s to see all of the music in Match. I turned Match off and on, and everything seemed fine, until I noticed there were suddenly thousands and thousands of duplicate playlists. Now iTunes can no longer save the library file because it's running out of memory, and my incessant deleting (I can't try the apple script because I'm on a PC) has not seemed to produce any results. This is a disaster bug.

Oslice... there's a Windows script at http://samsoft.org.uk/iTunes/scripts.asp, look for the KillEmptyPlaylists script. I had to let it run for over 36 hours to most everything, then some came back and ran it again, until down to no empty playlists.

I'll also add that after doing this my iphone/ipad wouldn't sync anymore, so had to restore and then all is working since (about a 3 weeks now).

Good Luck.

Sorry but I wish Apple would just solve the problem. I have 25,000+ blank playlists and this seems to have affected my upload quota as what was previously 12,000 songs has now maxxed out and I can't upload anymore or pretty much do anything.

I've had iTunes Match turned OFF since the first week of launch because of this problem. Basically wasted $25 on a piece of crap.

Nothing from Apple in terms of either acknowledgement, support or fixes.

Terrible.

Thanks for the advice. The script worked to clear out the playlists on my computer; however, when I update match, the playlists return. It seems like there are fewer of them. I'm now around 6000, was above 14000. I'm not sure how to get iTunes to let the Match server know that I've deleted all of those playlists. I've removed all my other devices from Match to make sure they aren't keeping the empty playlists going. I guess I'll just keep removing them, leaving iTunes open, and hoping some day the server will recognize that they have all been deleted. At least it's better than having to sit on the phone with Apple trying to get to tier 3 support. That said, I think Match is still very much a work in progress - limited genius functions, smart playlists are broken. At least it was only $25...

Oslice, I had to run the script several times and then eventually the playlists didn't come back. Definitely annoying.