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GreybeardCT Author

Level 1

16 points

I am seeing "gathering information" forever

When I start iTunes it goes through "Gathering information about your iTunes library" and the prgress bar goes all the way to the right. And nothing beyond that ever happens. Activity Monitor shows iTunes using (at this moment, 60% CPU but I have seen it as high as 170%. If I use the Stop button it stops but resumes shortly after. I tried turning Match off and then back on but that didn't change a thing.

When I originally did the Match it seemed to go fine. I had a few errors, quite a few "Matched", many "Uploaded" and even more "Purchased", and what seemed to be a lot of "Waiting" but those cleared mostly over a few days. Now everything is either "Waiting" or "Not Eligible" ...

I haven't seen anyone else with the problem yet and thought you all might be able to help.

Bill W

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on Nov 29, 2011 5:43 PM

Top-ranking reply

lobotomat

Level 1

4 points

Posted on Apr 23, 2017 2:37 PM

While the previous answers totally make sense, in my case however they did not help.

The "gathering information" simply hangs forever, no matter what I tried. The files I was trying to match/upload were in no way special/broken/garbled or alike.

For me, the problem appears to be routing specific. My provider's network seems to have problems communicating to Apple's iTunes match backend. What did solve the problem for me was switching to a VPN that used a different route.

So in case you run into this issue, the above really good hints do not solve it and you are on O2/Telefonica in Europe/Germany, try a VPN if available or wait and hope for the route to get fixed.

View in context

41 replies

Dec 18, 2012 2:09 PM in response to tmksnyder

Thanks tmksnyder - this was driving me nuts. One song I had edted the info on was duplicated, original info and "new" info. Deleted both and match came back to life. Thanks again.

Feb 7, 2013 8:40 PM in response to tmksnyder

Works great, thanks for the tip. I used screen shot (command+shift+3) to grab a picture of the files, turns out it was some synced voice memos. Deleting files from your HD doesn't do the trick, you have to empty trash, AND restart Itunes, it wasn't enough to stop and start Match.

Another failure of a simple function for Apple.

ldeaf2

Level 1

0 points

Nov 18, 2013 11:54 PM in response to tmksnyder

Any idea how to do this with Windows??

Turbopgt

Level 1

7 points

Jan 21, 2014 1:48 PM in response to GreybeardCT

For most people, turning off iTunes Match, quitting iTunes, reopening iTunes, and turning Match back on will solve this problem, when it is NOT a bad file causing the issue, as visible in Activity Monitor.

Apr 27, 2014 4:16 PM in response to Turbopgt

Turning off iTunes worked for me twice, but no more. Like others, hanging on Gathering Information.

I tried the Opening Files and Ports option described and two things appear very different for me: I don't see any album, song, or artist files at all, and while it's running it's only using 3% of CPU as compared to the 60% I'm reading for others.

Also tried looking for duplicates, deleting waiting ones and for that matter all identical ones. Still no luck.

Apr 27, 2014 5:25 PM in response to Bulkington

i'm having the exact same issue, and i'm not finding anything promising in the way of suggested fixes. if you manage to work a miracle, please let me know how you accomplished it!

Apr 27, 2014 7:18 PM in response to Bulkington

Addition to my last post: this is the file that keeps popping up:

->0x81e7917fd6d6b5b9

Any ideas what I can connect that to?

Apr 27, 2014 7:19 PM in response to bmichellej

Just saw your reply. No luck so far. Might be time for me to head to the genius bar.

Apr 27, 2014 7:32 PM in response to Bulkington

just got off of an hour + call with support -- with success!

i'm not sure what version of ios or itunes you're running, but i'm using the latest version of both mavericks (10.9.2) and itunes (11.1.5). here's what we did:

stop match
select the "songs" tab
scroll all the way to the bottom of your library; you'll see all the songs that you're trying to link up with your cloud (little dotted line cloud icon), as well as any "problem children" that may be living in your library
- duplicate songs are indicated by 2 little cloud icons stacked on top of one another with one diagonal line through the cloud
- songs that aren't able to be synced to the cloud have just one cloud icon with a diagonal line
remove those problem children from your itunes library (though you don't have to delete them from your hard drive)
also remove any of the songs/albums that you're trying to upload to the cloud from your library (but not your hard drive)
quit and restart itunes
in the itunes "file" menu (top of your screen), click "add to library"
find the new files (not the problem children, only those with the dotted line cloud icon) that you'd like to add and match and open them
in the itunes "store" menu (top of your screen), click "update itunes match"
wait for magic to happen.

i hope this works for you! 🙂

Apr 27, 2014 7:43 PM in response to bmichellej

How weird - we were on semi-parallel tracks. I was on the phone with Apple support too, but while I was on hold I realized that I hadn't emptied the garbage since I deleted the duplicate tracks (a step from further up the thread). I did that and clicked on iTunes and BINGO! It was already halfway through matching! I will definitely save the steps you posted in case (I guess it's probably more like when) it happens again. Congratulations to both of us and thanks!

Dec 23, 2014 3:05 AM in response to Turbopgt

that just worked for me. Thanks

I am seeing "gathering information" forever