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

Hi all,

Some info for you...with sucess (so far)

I ran Doug Adams Track Sift app, bought from app store and cleaned out my dead playlists. It took over night. Ran better than the basic script (which kept crashing out a la automator script) so thanks for that!

Now with a clean local itunes, switching on and off match seemed to do no good and the duped playlists kept returning. After speaking to itunes support they told me my cloud data had been cleaned accordingly and said maybe it was a connection to the data problem....

iTunes on the mac was struggling to connect to the cloud, error 4010, when toggling match on/ off so following some other leads I turned match off, updated genius results from the store menu in itunes.

This didn't work first time so I signed out of itunes, then back in. Re ran genius update, was fine this time. I'm pretty sure I powered down my Mac at some point in this rigmarole!

Eventually, turned on match again and it appeared to sync ok, no duped playlists, iTunes loaded in a sensible time and all my expected playlists are good.

am just about to try turning on my iPhone/ iPad to see what happens...

Hope that all made sens

Same issue. I have tried all kinds of things but it's just driving me crazy!!

A few weeks ago I created a playlist on my iPhone while in airplane mode on a flight. When I returned home, my iPhone, MacBook Air, and iPad had hundreds of this one playlist I had created. I deleted them manually, one by one, from my Mac, but now they remain on my iPad, my iPhone has lost ALL of its playlists, and neither will sync with the Mac (gets stuck at step 1 of 7 "waiting for sync to start").

I've read the posts above, but technology isn't always intutitive for me, so could someone outline the steps I need to take to resolve this problem? Thanks

Well, I finally decided to contact Apple for this problem. After a few days, they proposed me to reset my iTunes Match account. They are supposed to do this today or tomorrow, after having turned off Match on all my devices.

I was able to fix this on my imac and i-devices. Here's a post that describes what I did: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3896938

hth

Apple has successfully reset my Match account.

I had then to turn it on again, but then the process stopped after step 1 ... To solve this problem, I had to manually delete the "SC Info" folder inside /Users/Shared. Then, Match ran successfully.

Since, the 50000 duplicate playlists have disappeared, and I have turned Match on again on my iPhone/iPad with success.

So, the only working solution for me to this problem was : "contact Apple"! Hope this will help ...

I have 2 MacBook Pros, an iPad, and an iPhone and I keep having the same issue. It seems like you guys are getting it to work.

I follow these steps:

1. Make sure all devices are on latest versions possible.
2. Turn off iTunes Match on all devices (2 MBP, iPad, iPhone).
3. On one MBP, hold shift and turn on iTunes Match.
4. Playlists sync down from iTunes Match servers, including the several thousand playlist duplicates.
5. I run a script (I use Automator's script) to delete the thousands of empty / duplicate playlists.
6. Run "Update iTunes Match" on the MBP after deletion. I presume this compares the local version with the "cloud" version.
7. Wait... (varies)
8. Turn on iTunes Match on each other device (MBP, iPad, iPhone).
9. Result.

The problem should be solved, but it isn't. The thousands of playlists are deleted on the MBP, but exist on all other devices. This tells me that my deletions aren't getting picked up the the iTunes Match, and thus aren't getting pushed down to other devices.

I called Apple Support, but they just said "You can delete each playlist one by one, or make a script - you seem like an intelligent guy..." This is pretty aggravating, since the problem seems to the Apple iTunes Match servers.

If this is the sign of things to come, then iCloud doesn't stand a chance against Google, Amazon, and other robust and tested services.

I think your problem is that you have to turn match off on everything except the MBP, then run the script to get rid of the duplicates, THEN hold shift and choose update so that it replaces the match data with your iTunes library now free of playlists.

@ Neil I agree with Oslice that you have to turn match off on all devices. On one MBP, turn match on, delete the duplicates, and wait as long as you can stand it. Say, overnight, letting this sync back to the server. Then, quit match, turn off iTunes, restart iTunes and turn match on again. Hopefully, the dups will be gone and stay gone. This worked for me. Holding the shift key had no effect, as far as I could tell. Then, turn on your i-devices one at a time and see if they playlists properly sync, thus eliminating the dups. Finally, hope that turning on your other MBP doesn't sync the dups on that computer back to the server.

Good luck!

I have had the same issue. I tried automator and applescripts... nothing worked. Honestly, the easiest way was for me to spend the 1.99 on the TrackSift app from the app store. This worked perfectly. I left my computer on overnight as was so psyched to be greeted with the following!

After MONTHS of being unable to really use iTunes, I finally have a solution! Thanks Dougscripts.com!!!

ok, It seems here is the windows solution if you have multiple empty playlisst in itunes.

first, turn off itunes match.

get the script for deleting empty playlists for windows here: http://samsoft.org.uk/iTunes/scripts.asp or search the web for scripts for itunes for windows. Then you will download a .vbs file. you just need to run it.

If you want, then you can turn on match again. It might repopulate them, so please try some of the procedures listed in previous post on this tread (for mac users), but using this script. Please note, YOU HAVE TO TURN OFF match for the script to work. If you dont, it will continue in a eternal loop.

Automato didnt clear my multiple empty playlists! This is now slowing down my laptop n iPad !

Anyone have solutions?

Hi...

When I use the KillEmptyPlaylists Script, it deletes only 1 playlist at a time. Can you tell me what I might be doing wrong? We have an iphone, 3 touches, and an ipad but our main computer is a PC. Our family is going crazy with this issue!! Tech has been literally NO support, but after reading this board, I will call back tomorrow armed with some information.

In the meantime, if you do know what I have been doing wrong to get the playlists to delete, PLEASE let me know!

Thanks!

Hi there,

I've just downloaded the live copy of the script from my site and checked that it still works as expected. It should kill all empty top level playlists. Is there an error message? I don't have iTunes Match so I've no personal experience but previous conversations suggests these phantom playlists all turn up at the top level. Am I right in assuming the rogue playlists are not created inside playlist folders?

I might extend the script to clean nested empty lists and, if relevant, any folders that have no remaining playlists after the cleanup, but as far as I'm aware this isn't an issue with iTunes Match at present.

tt2

tt2,

It worked!! I went to bed and came back in the morning and they were gone! Thank you SOOOOOOOOOO much. This has been an issue for our family for several months now, and the folks at Apple were not of any help.

For all future problems, I will turn to these forums...

Phoggy