iTunes Match deleted songs from my hard drive. How can I prevent this from happening if I try it again?
iPhone 4/Mac Mini, iPhone OS 3.1.3
Why do you think iTunes Match deleted the files? It does not have this capability.
mracole, thanks for your reply. This is why I'm posting ... I actually posted this before but Apple called it a rant and deleted it. Here are the facts: I had a 15 GB music library on a USB HDD. The music was all either ripped from CDs that I owned or purchased through iTunes. I signed up for iTunes Match and let it work on my system. It never worked right. I also had problems with accessing my library from my iPhone, possibly because I live in a mountainous area of PA and our cell service is sometimes poor. I contacted Apple support and they were polite and helpful as always but they could not resolve my problems. So I ended the service. I was assured that all my music would be there waiting for me on my HDD. It was not. About 5 GB of music was simply gone. It was no longer on my HDD. Some of it was my very favorite music, so I would not have intentionally deleted it. I don't know how I could "accidentally" delete 5-6 GB of music. The HDD did not fail. (I have since replaced it for other reasons.) I contacted Apple tech support and they said what you did: It is not possible. Yet it happened. I've re-ripped all my music and would like to give iTunes Match another try, because I understand that it has improved since the original launch. But I really don't want to repeat my first experience. Thanks for your interest. Any thoughts you've got will be appreciated.
Background understood, it is always important to start by making a secure backup of your Song files.
iTunes Match will certainly not delete any physical Song files stored on your computer.
Suggest you follow the tips here: https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4261
At the time, my Time Machine HDD was too small, so I wasn't backing up the external drive. Plus, I thought that iTunes Match would be -- effectively -- providing a backup service. I also did not think there was any way that Match could mess with my "physical" songs. And I am still in disbelief that it happened, but it did. There is honestly no other explanation. I did nothing with my music during that time, except let Match run its course. I wasn't even playing songs during that time because I didn't want to disrupt Match. And when I went back ... my music was gone. Additionally, Apple suggested that it might have been an HDD issue. I can't see how an HDD would fail so surgically -- just delete 1/3 of a music collection and leave the rest of the collection and all other data on this disc completely intact. Impossible. So, as Sherlock Holmes said, when we have eliminated all other possibilities, we are left with the cause, however improbable it might be. I'll take a look at your link and see what's there. I'm still hesitant, however, to relaunch Match. I'm looking into other services. So far no one here in this forum has offered any help other than, "it couldn't have happened."
I also sign up for iTunes match when it first came out and found between 2 MBPs and 2 iPhones, about a dozen songs disappeared from my music libraries.
I also disconnected from the service, afraid I had drunk the cool-aide. I tend to cut Apple lots of slack as a fanboy. I was upset by the loss.
I guessed,... with no factual basis nor finding any discussion or comments, that the problem might have been the discrepancies between the various playlists, total songs, slight differences in song metadata, etc.between my 4 devices. Perhaps iTunes Match just glossed over these differences as dupes, and deleted them all. Huh? You can guess too. But I'm afraid to start up again, although I would like to.
It does really happen, even though you can say whatever you want.
There is no "feature" in iTunes or the iTunes Match service which would allow or facilitate the deletion of any of your personal data. So there is something else going on. I suggest you run Disk Utility on the external HDD and see if the disk needs to be repaired. A disk with a damaged file system can randomly "lose" data as you describe. Do you know how the external HDD is formatted?
iTunes Match can in no way be considered a backup service, this is due to the inexact nature of the 'matching process' (see https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4112, for more detail).
Loss of files from a Disk is certainly possible through media failure. However, the extent of iTunes Match capacity is solely to influence the content of the cloud. Perhaps there was a coincident, or pre-existing, failure of the disk which was simply exposed by the iTunes Match interrogation of the disk content.
There are certainly other services which depending upon your goal may work well. For example, Google Play with gBeats IOS App works very well. My use of Match is to synchronise across several computers and to drive Apple TV and an IOS device - other IOS devices still use sync for specific music and are complimented by gBeats for access to the full library when local mobile signal strength is high.
The strong advice to always start with a secure backup remains but if your primary concern is iTunes Match interfering with physical disk content you can relax - it simply does not have this ability. (Apology to Sherlock, further investigation required).
I'm leaning toward giving Match a second chance, as I sit here, having re-ripped about 500 songs to my iTunes libary. Thanks for your reassurance ... but I still don't entirely trust the service. Something went wrong, and it may or may not have been Match's fault ... but it still makes me leery.
Thanks for your advice, but that HDD is gone. I find that external drives last, on average, 2-3 years and then they get squirrely. So that particular drive has long since been run through the shredder. I take pretty good care of my equipment and I'm not too terribly stupid about Mac stuff, so I did periodically test the drive. I never had any indication of a problem with it. It was a Mac-formatted drive, and I didn't abuse it. As I said, something definitely happened to my music. It might or might not have been related to Match. I'm going with the probabilities here, and (likely) giving Match another chance. I doubt that whatever weird combination of circumstances that happened to me will happen again.
I posted this because I wanted to see if my problem was widespread. If there were a few zillion people out there saying that the same thing had happened to them, then I would definitley not be using Match again. However, the problems seem, in general, to be less catastrophic and more manageable than I had.
Thanks for your suggestions.
Yes, that was exactly my concern. Songs that I knew for certain had resided safely on my external HDD, and which had been played by iTunes with no fuss, were NOT THERE after I shut Match off and went back to basic iTunes. They just weren''t there, I swear. So whatever people say, something occurred. Perhaps it was Match-related and perhaps not, but there was an incident.
In any case, I think I'm going to DOCUMENT my library and give Match another chance. This time, if it happens again, I will be posting evidence. For example, note that right now, my library consists of freshly ripped tunes saved on a brand-new 1 TB WD My Passport HDD formatted for Mac by the manufacturer. I have 1,642 songs, 4.5 days, and 12.83 GB of music.
If anything happens to my music after I turn on Match, you guys are my witnessess ...
Thanks!
Would recommend you go for a small NAS housing a RAID, this way should a drive fail you can hot swap with no downtime. For iTunes Match do carefully review the User Tips in this forum - they cover 90+% of known iTunes Match questions and issues.
Best of luck.
I don't think anyone is denying that you lost data. Obviously that did happen. What we're saying it is likely not the iTunes Match service or iTunes that was the root cause. The catalyst, perhaps, but not the actual cause. When data disappears from an HDD the culprit is generally something much deeper than just the software that was beign used.
Just be sure you also have a good backup scheme in place for all your personal data. iTunes Match isn't a backup service.
Typically a 1 TB WD My Passport HDD is a low cost consumer USB solution best suited for portable backup at best, certainly not a robust choice for secure access to high volume digital media.
Would suggest you use the Passport simply as an offline USB backup to take a complete copy of your library say 1 per week, or 1 per month depending upon amount of use.
Using at least a 2 bay NAS, such as ReadyNAS or Synology, with certified compatible 1-2 TB drives, in RAID 1 or 5 configuration is a much better option for your main storage. This way even a complete drive failure can be accommodated with no loss of data.
It is entirely your choice but using low grade USB drives as the main storage is risky at best.
I can attest that what the original poster is talking about can happen.
I recently purchased the new Clash Boxed set. On the computer where I keep all my media I erased my old Clash songs and then ripped the new CD's. I cleaned up all the Album Art and the Meta Data.
While at work I noticed that my Cloud Library hadn't updated to the new versions of the Albums so when I went home I checked my computer and sure enough iTunes Match was off for some reason. After turning it back on and waiting for it to finish it's setup I checked the Clash Albums and they were all back to the versions prior to my Boxed set purchase. When I checked my Hard drive the only versions of the songs were the old ones. So it appears iTunes DID delete my new media.
This goes back to my one gripe about iTunes Match which I otherwise love. We need to the ability to set a Master Library that controls the cloud and the option when turning on Match to Merge Libraries or Overwrite what's on the cloud without having to go through hacks.
I had the same problem. I have read all of this thread. I had exactly the same experience. I believe that iTunes match does not honor music you rip from CD's and just deletes it.
I think it's because ripping music, even for your own use is actualy not proper copyright use. But still! I think it ought to come with a warning as I also had about three thousand songs that are lost from old cd's that I threw away as I trusted apple. Yes. I can go back to my old back up and see what is there but geez!
iTunes Match deleted songs from my hard drive. I had to re-rip them. How can I stop this from happening?
