iTunes Match - Inconsistent Results

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Level 4

1,102 points

iTunes Match - Inconsistent Results

Having achieved success with all library tracks now available in the iCloud, how can the inconsistent iTunes Match results be resolved? Taking the example below Track 1 (So Far Away) is shown against 2 instances of the same album and as 3 states, notably (1) Available for download from iCloud, (2) Duplicate in iCloud and (3) Available locally - surely it should be shown against only 1 instance of the album and only in state 'available locally'? Similar patterns appear occassionally on several tracks in the library, given it has several thousand tracks attempting a manual correction for all is a little impractical. Any advice much appreciated.

Example:

iTunes 10-OTHER, Windows Vista, iMatch giving inconsistent results

Posted on Jan 5, 2012 10:14 AM

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Answer 1

Jan 5, 2012 10:16 AM in response to mracole

I cannot see your picture. For some reason it's not showing up for me. I don't know if you need to reupload it or its just my computer.

See if that can get fixed and I will help if I can.

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Answer 2

mracole Author

Level 4

1,102 points

Jan 5, 2012 10:18 AM in response to carltonfrombedford

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Answer 3

Jan 5, 2012 10:25 AM in response to mracole

Did you originally purchase the first three songs?

I would say that the items with the cloud with a line through them are ineligible and just need to be deleted.

The first three look like they were originally purchased from itunes and just have different metedata then the ones below.

This happened to me when I first turned on iTunes match. I deleted the duplicate tracks and then test the rest.

You might to the bar at the top of your music and right clicking and turning on icloud status to see what is happening with the tracks also.

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Answer 4

mracole Author

Level 4

1,102 points

Jan 5, 2012 10:41 AM in response to mracole

The songs were purchased once as a single album purchase from iTunes in this case.

Looking at the response from 'carltonfrombedford' is the suggestion that manual deletion through the full library is the best route? My concern is pure volume and I note that the pattern is replicated on a third computer also linked by iTunes Match.

The additional information requested, together with the original picture is below for reference:

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Answer 5

Jan 5, 2012 10:52 AM in response to mracole

Okay that is what happened.

Click on the icloud status at the top and it will show these songs by the icloud status rather than by artist or artist name and you can see how much of these you'll need to delete or keep. It may call some duplicates that are not techinally duplicates but rather the same songs that are on a compilation cd. I would check those. But when my library did this i just went through and deleted them.

If the other computer is linked to the same itunes match account when you delete on one computer and press the delete from icloud also box, that when you update match on the original and the other computer it will reflect the changes you made on the original computer.

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Answer 6

mracole Author

Level 4

1,102 points

Jan 5, 2012 11:05 AM in response to carltonfrombedford

Many thanks - there are c60 songs shown as Duplicate iCloud status. Selecting these as a group and deleting is straightforward. However, many of the songs shown as 'Download from iCloud' appear to have metadata such as track plays associated with them - keen not to loose this information - there are c150 songs in this category, presumably it would be possible to download each one. Following this it would then be necessary to show local duplicates and delete those without the additional metadata.

Even if all steps above are completed, there are still songs shown against more than one instance of the same album - it is not clear to me how to resolve this?

Perhaps there is an alternate solution?

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Answer 7

Jan 5, 2012 11:21 AM in response to mracole

You can highlight all of the download from icloud tracks and right click and then press the download from icloud and delete others as you said.

I'm confused about your other point.

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Answer 8

mracole Author

Level 4

1,102 points

Jan 5, 2012 11:40 AM in response to carltonfrombedford

OK, taking the example shown in the graphic of 'So Far Away' it is shown against 2 instances of the same album - even if the song with the correct metadata is downloaded it is not shown alongside the remaining songs on the single album.

The result would be to persist 2 instances of the same album, one starting with track 1, the other starting at track 2 - a very messy result.

Looking more closely, the only other item that may be the route of the issue is the volume entry in the song metadata. This always has a different value between the song available for download and the same song shown locally.

Will check back for updates in a few hours - any further advice much appreciated.

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Answer 9

Jan 5, 2012 11:51 AM in response to mracole

I think if you would highlight all of the songs that go in the same album, right click and select get info, then click your info tab you will find the the metadata is not the same for both of them. If artist, album artist, or album is blank then that means that you do not have the same metadata for all the tracks you selected. I would tell it who the artist is, the album artist and the what the name of the album is and then press okay and it should put it in the same spot. I'm sorry, also make sure the genre is the same.

I'm not really a play count guy. I don't really keep track of all that so me deleting the whole bunch out and reimporting them or downloading them is not a big deal to me. I know that a lot of people keep up with that stuff for smart playlists and other things, but i've never done that.

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Answer 10

mracole Author

Level 4

1,102 points

Jan 6, 2012 3:24 AM in response to carltonfrombedford

Thank you, it appears that the best answer is therefore to:

(1) Sort on iCloud Status;

(2) Delete the items shown as Duplicate;

(3) Download those accessible from iCloud;

(4) Use the Get Info per Song to determine which of the local duplicates to remove; and

(5) Update iTunes Match to replicate the results for all associated devices.

Whilst this is an intensively manual process it is only necessary for a very small percentage of the total files. Overall iTunes Match has worked very well.

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