iTunes match issues

If it's stuck for more than an hour or so I'd stop and restart it.

I finally got some matching to work by selecting some songs then right clicking and "add to iCloud". I'd try it with just one song first as a test, see if even that works.

How to Fix Step 2 and Step 3 Errors in iTunes: Music Media Formats, and Checking Firewall

This solution assumes that you do not have corruption in your iTunes library database. To fix that follow the steps in Apple Support KB ht1251 above.

Step 1, 2, or 3 Hangs: Problems with Media Formats.

If you have heterogenous media formats in your music files, some of them will FAIL iTunes match, causing it to hang. This is a software error in iTunes match, which should mark the files as "Not eligible" instead of remaining stuck in an endless loop. These errors never occur if all the songs in the music library are unprotected AAC 256 kbps music files encoded by iTunes 10.5.1.

There are two basic ways to upgrade your song media formats to iTunes 10.5.1 AAC encoding - encode all of them at once, or do them selectively. In either method, you must delete the original version from iTunes and your file system. If you previously loaded them to iCloud, get rid of them there also.

You will be able to see a hung file in OS/X under Activity Monitor -> iTunes -> Inspect Process -> Open Files and Ports. In Windows you will have to use standard Task Manager inspections.

In my iTunes library, I found that certain AAC (m4a) files which were encoded in before 2011 were stuck, and m4p Protected AAC files. I had already fixed the encoding of MP3s, so I was suprised that music previously encoded by iTunes was hanging up.

You may convert all files which were not encoded at 256 kbps AAC with a right-mouse click. Find them:

1) individually in iTunes as you discover them in Open Files and Ports trace, or

2) by creating a sort smart playlist that matches their pattern. For example, a playlist with bit-rate < 256k.

After converting them, you MUST delete the previous file(s) from your iTunes library. I suggest you move the actual file to trash, and delete the trash. Archive the files if you wish. If any of them were already matched to iTunes Match, you must delete them there also.

After getting rid of older media formats, re-run iTunes match. Step 2 should complete, and your Open Files and Ports window should no longer show any music file open in your iTunes library. If it does show, convert it and remove the old file from your library.

If you have converted your music library and Step 3 is still stuck, it is likely a Firewall problem. Check the last line in Open Files and Ports, and use the information in the last rows to check your firewall settings. The upload port is shown in this form, 192.168.1.1:53089->72.21.214.201:https. If you see this type of row, but nothing is being uploaded, a firewall or other issue is blocking that port.

In my case the block was created by my broadband modem settings. Check with the installation guide for your modem - typically they can be managed by a http:// address such as http://192.168.1.254. Change the firewall settings as needed.

The Activity Monitor hint is a good one indeed...on mine about 3/4s of the way down you can see how iTunes Match is scanning through my iTunes library and at the top of the reporting window it says Recent Hangs: 0 - all this despite the iTunes Match "page" in iTunes apparently being stuck at Step 1

It's interesting that iTunes Match doesn't seem to fully take into account the parts of your library that have already been scanned and matched and ignore those. Watching the Open Files and Ports information - I can see that is looking at songs that have already been matched and even where upgraded songs (higher bit rate versions) have already been downloaded from the Cloud. You would think it would somehow know only to look at new songs or songs that are in a "waiting" icloud status.

I noticed upon closer inspection of my library that all the songs that I had been waiting to upload and were just sitting there for hours and days and never getting past Step 1 - for each there was actually ALREADY a matched version in my library!

So what I ended up doing was to delete all the ones that said waiting and moving those audio files to a separate folder I created located utside of my iTunes media library directory - that way I could always get them back into iTunes if for some reason I needed to. That basically solved my problem.

I also had a large amount of podcast, downloaded interviews and other audio files that were not "music" per se and so would not be matched by content in the Apple store...iTunes Match uploaded many of those "unique" files of mine to the cloud, so I have to believe that they now have many tens of thousands of similar files on their servers from all the users in the world that basically no one else is ever going to want to download.

My last step was to shut down iTunes Match and set my store information so I won't be automatically rebilled. The ability to upgrade over a thousand music files was nice but the overall service didn't make much sense to me, was not supported well and basically a big pain to work with. It turns out that having locally stored music files on my iphone is a lot easier to manage. I think I will just treat the iTunes Match service as a cloud backup and turn it on just 2/3 times a year and then turn it off again.

Do you have lots of music files without cloud icons on your iphone? Do you have a bunch of audio files that are not music but other types of sound files like podcasts, interviews etc?

Oh, I think what it is telling you is how much data you have in the cloud - not stored locally on your iphone. You can check this, I think, by attaching your phone to your computer and launching iTunes and then checking which, if any, files are actually stored on your device.

Thanks, this worked for me also. I went to iTunes file and duplicates. Deleted all duplicates and it worked.