iTunes Match issues on iOS 7

Darryl, actually the discussion I referred to is here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5415099

I was always under the impression that local songs are NOT removed from the device, because, honestly, what do you do when you fly, for instance? I believed you could have local songs and playlists (the whole reason for the iCloud download icon next to songs) so when iCloud was not available, you had some controlled content.

You're saying this is not the case?

Read the new manual, it seems clear. Your point is spot on about travelling, but I think we have to follow the advice of 512atx, unfortunately.

I am guessing that this is a change from the old days, and that Apple is moving toward an iCloud-centric world. Hopefully they will adjust things so we users have SOME choice about what to do.

I experimented with this for a few days (see my thread for the boring details, as I was still a bit lost), and have ended up here, until Apple provides better guidance.

Good luck.

OK, read the manual (at least the part about Music).

The problem is, the behavior of the phone does not follow the manual. First, I'm not out of space on my iPhone (10GB free) so there is no reason for my phone to delete music. Second, I don't have any synced music on my phone. It's all downloaded songs from iCloud/iTunes Match. Third, it works (normally, and as it always has since iTM came out) for a week, then suddenly, all my playlists completely disappear, and songs that are downloaded to the phone (and show in Music) do not play. They look like they are playing, but the countdown timer is stuck at 0:00. The little EQ symbol is bouncing up and down showing that it's playing, but it isn't

My behavior is faulty/broken behavior and not by design. I understand that if you keep synced music from iTunes on your iPhone, that iTM will replace it. But I have NO synced music. iTunes disables music sync if you have iTM enable. I just have the playlists and songs I've physically downloaded from iCloud. They should stay on my iPhone indefinitely.

Plus, when it disappears, I futz with it enough it comes back. So, more of a bug than normal behavior.

Do you go in and out of WIFI coverage with the phone? If so, and you have not enabled "Use Cellular Data" (in Settings>iTunes and App Store>Use Cellular Data), this may be part of the problem?

The situation you have described is similar to my recent experience, but because your questions are beyond my limited knowledge, so I will bow out here.

Good luck.

Robby153,

I do have Use Cellular Data enabled there, so that's not it. It's just frustrating when it happens, especially when it's been working flawlessly for days (or up to 1 week) at a time.

Thanks for your input, though.

I am having an issue that I haven't seen reported. I have iTM enabled on a current gen iPad. For many of my albums, the songs are not listed in track order. Instead, they are listed in either:

1. an apparently random order; or,

2. the last track is listed first, followed by the remaining tracks in order

I have reviewed the track data in my iTunes library and they are listed in track order. I can't identify any differences between the metadata for the tracks that are listed out of order and those listed in order.

In some cases, I have corrected or improved (from the first sort to the second sort described above) by deleting the tracks from iTunes, updating iTunes Match in iTunes, re-adding the tracks, updating iTunes Match. But this doesn't work consistently.

Has anyone experienced this? Suggested solutions?

Hi there,

Sorry this isn't directly related to what's currently being discussed but I only just got iOS 7 on my 5 the other day and it's basically ruined my phone, especially ITM.

I had all the issues with actually getting any music to show which wasn't made easier by the fact that I can't access the iTunes store from my iPhone at all anymore, only on my mac. After turning match on and off again several times, signing out of iTunes, restarting phone and so on, finally got my library to show. I'm having all the same issues as many others such as songs refusing to play or refusing to delete etc, songs taking about 20 seconds to even start playing... but I'm also having some other ones I haven't read anything about. Firstly, when I have the music app open the screen flickers like mad which is really uncomfortable to look at and disconerning as it has me wondering if it's a problem with the actual hardware of the phone (It's a brand new iPhone 5 sent out by my insurance company just 1 week ago, plugging my phone into my mac forced an update to iOS 7 onto it which I didn't want and couldn't stop). Secondly, I commute on the underground every day and so turn off "show all music" so I can easily tell which songs I have downloaded and can listen to in areas of no cellular/wifi. The songs I have downloaded are there and play fine...ish, but so are a ton of songs I've just streamed in the last few days and obviously they DON'T PLAY because they're not really on the phone but ITM thinks they are. Anyone else had these problems on top of the ones that seem to be standard to iOS7 now?

Haven't read the whole thread, but, sounds like I had the same problem.

Have iTunes Match. Handful of playlists defined. No tracks kept local to Mac. Bought some tracks from iTunes on Mac. Usually, I delete the Mac copy and only stream on that platform. For some reason, these newly bought tracks did not get deleted.

Add these tracks to playlists. iTunes Sync operation, tracks downloaded to iPhone via Music App are gone, but these recently bought tracks are on the device.

What finally seems to have cleared the issues was (not sure all this is needed, but, all these occured at one point or another in fixing):

1. Delete physical bought tracks from Mac iTunes
2. Remove said tracks from playlists
3. Turn off iTunes Match on iPhone
4. Remove tracks left on iPhone
5. Turn iTunes Match on
6. Redownload playlist tracks to iPhone via phones Music app
7. Readd bought tracks to playlists on the iPhone
8. Download these tracks
9. Resync to verify stuff back to working normal

My problem is slightly different. I have a specific playlist that consists of about 175 tracks, most of which are purchased music through the iTunes store and some matched 320 kbps MP3 files.

While the list of tracks updates and I have all tracks downloaded to the phone, I get intermittent situations where several of the tracks no longer show as downloaded but instead as iCloud tracks. When I select to download, the download "circle" initiates and then appears to finish, but then the track reverts back to showing as being an iCloud track.

One of the tracks is a direct purchase through the iTunes store. I also see in my listing of songs that iTunes match has created duplicates of some tracks, one which shows as downloaded and the other as an iCloud track.

I really think this is an iOS7 bug, because this never occured when I was running iOS6.

OK, I may have stumbled on a solution that corrected my Playlist sync'ing issue.

1) In Settings/Music - turn off iTunes Match

2) Close the Music app by double tapping the home button and swiping to close

3) Power off the phone

4) Leave phone powered off for 5-10 minutes

5) Power On phone

6) Go back to Settings/Music - re-enable iTunes Match.

7) Launch the Music app

When I performed the above steps, iTunes Match re-loaded my tracks. Everything was in perfect order with no tracks listed as in an iCloud status.

This is the same issue I'm experiencing. The eternal processing icon is really driving me crazy.

The problem is persistent since the update though. Often I will check one of my computers and it will have deselected "show itunes movies and TV from the cloud." Or sometimes the option isn't even there in itunes to select. The latest glitch is that even though match is selected on my Apple TV units, none of my library will play... I see them as purchased on my Apple TV units, but none of them are accessible. The whole apple cloud ecosystem has become a massive ***** I spend more time solving problems than enjoying my 9,000 songs, 185 movies or 385 TV shows.... I wish I'd have stayed with solid media like DVDs....

Not a happy camper

Just an update to my previous post. I added some newly purchased songs from iTunes to a specific playlist. While the playlist looks fine in iTunes, the resulting change made the same playlist on my iPhone 5s go haywire again.

1) Songs previously downloaded showed up as in iCloud status and could not be re-downloaded. The number varies. On occasion 13 songs are listed as iCloud, then it goes down to 2, up to 7, back down to 1 and so on.

2) Song Title/Artist/Cover Art were either incorrect or missing for some songs

3) The newly added songs did not sync to the playlist

4) Songs not part of the iTunes playlist were showing as part of the iPhone 5s song list.

5) The playlist listing of songs "shakes" up and down as if some background activity is going on.

I'm convinced the problem is a combination of iOS7 on the 5s and iTunes match. My iPad 2 running iOS7 does not experience this, just the 5s. I really do think the 7.0.2 update broke something with iTunes Match on the 5s because this did not happen when I bought the phone on launch 9/20 and through the 7.0.1 update.

Well, it's not just 5s, as I'm using a 5, and I have problems with that too. Often a playlist with 100 songs, suddenly only has 3 or 4 songs and is even missing the title song, or the message comes back that I'm "not authorized to play this content." The whole, cloud, match, itunes and iOS ecosystem is a massive failure for me right now... IAnd as I've listed above, I've got Apple TVs all over the house that won't play any of my cloud based library right now. It will play previews, and shows that I own them, but the ball spins, and spins, and then gives up. Try to buy a new item, sure, fine.... but not on an Apple TV. Only on a computer.... I'm really fed up with this kind of stuff, because it always occurs behind the scenes, when I haven't done anything to change settings... So tomorrow, when the Apple TV help line in the midwest opens again, I'll call them, and they'll charge me a service call to fix whatever they've done on their end to screw up what was a perfectly good streaming system on the TV... I think I'll turn off the auto update feature, and wait with bated breath to see how each update plays, before I allow my machines to update in the future...