iTunes Match stuck on Step 2

Completely agree. I started iTunes Match after purchasing it on Thursday. It's now Friday and it has not finished. It goes from Step 1 to Step 3 and then back to Step 1 again in an endless repeat loop. Does anyone know how to fix this?

<Edited by Host>

Rick,

The two times that iTunes Match has really been stuck for me, here is what has worked:

1. Under the "Store" menu, turn off iTunes Match.

2. Also under the "Store" menu, select "Update Genius" and let it run to completion. It may be slow but it will eventually finish.

3. Turn iTunes Match back on.

Your mileage may vary, but as I said the two times that Match was stuck on Step 2 for more than a day, this has worked for me.

Apple: why did you "sanitize" my question? You cut out the last part of it! I am asking what works to motivate Apple to provide help and fix a problem. Apparently you read these lists very carefully, but the only time you step in to do anything is when you want to silence those who question. I am very disappointed in Apple right now.

Thank you, Brad. Sadly, my mileage did vary. I tried this step and iTunes Match is still stuck in an endless loop. I also tried the quitting of iTunes Match while holding Option and then a second time while holding Shift. None of these solved it either. Apple! Seriously - why isn't a simple solution posted here when so many are having this same problem? It's very disappointing.

My iTunes Match has been getting stuck in an endless loop for about 4 months now. It happens to both of my computers (iMac,Mini) everytime I open iTunes, which makes me think is perhaps a software related issue. In both instances iTunes keeps trying to gather info on my library, just to end up crashing when trying to upload content that for some reason iTunes couln't match but they do sell in the US store. I have been forced to delete albums that "I thought" were causing this problem. It's quite anoying but I'm hoping it gets resolved with Mavericks.

I've also used Match for almost 2 years now and this is the first time I have had an issue. I've been on the same screen for days now (leave my iMac on 24/7). If it restarts, it re-populates the "dead" songs again. I delete them and it still doesn't complete. I've removed all songs that are either not matched or uploaded. Anything that is an error, ineligible, or a duplicate has been scrubbed. Still stuck on 3584 of 4137. I've restarted, rebooted, etc. Please Apple, what am I doing wrong, or better yet, what is wrong with Match? It has worked flawlessly for a long time, but this is so frustrating.

This is exactly what happened to my while changing my Harry Potter audiobooks from music to audiobooks (apparently did it during Match). I'm going to try this and hope it works. They greyed out songs were these books and was driving me nuts as I tried to delete them over and over. Thanks for the tip, will report back.

Yup, this did indeed fix my problem. Thank you mrjdale!

Brad, you are a lifesaver. It worked for me. So far anyway. You never know ;-)

I have found that on occasion when my iTunes Match becomes stuck at one of the three (3) steps, without changing anything with iTunes, not closing the App at all or selecting stop, but going into Network on my [System Preferences] control panel...

Turn Off your Wi-Fi or Ethernet adapter, wait for a few minutes and then re-enable the network adapter and see what happens.

My iTunes by itself jumps back to Step 1 and often times will continue right through to the end. Not always, but I repeat the process and eventually iTunes succeeds in a good scan. I prefer this to closing or Force Quitting anything or restarting the Mac. This does make me wonder whether one of the problems causing iTunes Match to stall may be network related, some packet blockage or something and toggling the network jump starts everything.

Hope this helps!

I had this problem the very first time I tried iTunes Match, and it has led to more problems. After freezing during Step 2 of the matching process, all of iTunes became unresponsive. I was forced to quit the program and restart my computer. From then on iTunes would not start due to a "Locked disk" error.

This error persists despite taking ownership of all files in the iTunes folder, under the "security" tab in properties. It has CONTINUED to be a problem even after I have uninstalled and reinstalled iTunes. Incredibly frustrating.

Does anyone have any idea of how to fix this?

I am running Windows 7 (64-bit)

Thanks Brad!!!!

Thanks Brad!

This worked for me. Had to do it about ten times to get my 4000 songs matched.

Hi folks,

I found a solution in case your MATCH is still buggy...

JUST BOOT YOUR MAC HOLDING THE SHIFT KEY (until you see a progress bar).

Then in itunes disable and re-enable iTunes Match.

It should rescan all your library and eventually works.

At the end just reboot your Mac normally.

Best regards from Paris.

Nico

Redgas wrote:

After being exasperated by this for several weeks now I finally seem to have solved the issue. My problem was Step 2 being stuck with 72 files to go in a library of about 4500 files.

I hope this works for others.

1. I backed up all my music files to an external drive
2. I then deleted all my files and emptied the trash
3. I then ran iTunes match...
4. Guess what Stuck at Step 2 with 0 of 72 files left - there were no music files in my library
5. I then adapted http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1451?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
6. I deleted both the iTunes Library.itl & iTunes Library.xml (in the link it suggests moving the .xml file to the desktop to reimport later).
7. I restarted the computer (to make myself feel better & make a cup of tea)
8. I reopened iTunes - this forces iTunes to make a new .itl & .xml file
9. I then ran iTunes Match and redownloaded (not imported the backups) from iTunes match
10. So far...so good - no more stuck files - I am convinced there was a corruption of the .itl &/or .xml files and having followed the advice of the link above where you reimport the .xml file & the problem recurring I suggest in my case the .xml file was to blame.

I hope this helps others. iTunes - this is pretty poor for a paid service and needs work.

Thanks a lot Redgas!

I had tried several times, always had Itunes restarted at a certain point in step 2. I have tried everything (rebooting in safe mode, run Genius, swtiching on and off, etctera), unsuccesfully.

Then I have tried with your method and it worked, I guess my previous library was somehow corrupted.

So I could upload about 15500 songs in about 12 hours...which is quite good.

Thanks again!