Itunes keeps changing my song info that I have changed in the past back to the info when I bought it.

In iTunes go to Edit > Preferences > Store and turn off

• Show iTunes in the Cloud purchases
• Share details about your library with Apple

On any iOS device go to Settings > Music and turn off

Show All Music

Close iTunes. Reopen. You may see your changed data straight away, or it may revert when you play content.

tt2

I have also had the same issue almost identically. I like to keep my iTunes very organised, so if the artists column contains a featuring artist for example, i will change this so that the artist column only contains one artist for organisational purposes. A standout issue is organising the artist 'Jay-Z', however it keeps reverting back to 'JAY Z' or JAY Z FEAT.'' which is annoying, despite changing the sort artist and all other fields to prevent it happening again. This tends to happen when iTunes is restarted or when i shut down the computer.

The suggestions above by turingtest2 wont work if you want iTunes to download the artwork when adding music from cds.

This was not a problem in version 10. We held off upgrading to 11 as long as possible, but finally our purchases could not longer be seen in 10 so we were forced to upgrade. It was bad enough that version 11 changed the sorting rules, but to change the customization that we want is really problematic. What is the point of being able to edit the info if the changes wont stay?

We similarly like to keep music better organized by standardizing band names. We have also recreated albums from multiple sources and the items purchased from the iTunes store keep reverting to the way they want to list them. This makes us not want to buy anything more from iTunes. I'll go to other sources to purchase and import them into iTunes.

larch

The feature that downloads artwork should be independent of those options, but you do have to be signed into an AppleID to use it.

tt2

I have had this problem in the past, and thought I'd solved it, but after upgrading to iTunes 12 it has resurfaced but only for a small number of tracks within my library.

I already had the iTunes settings as per turingtest2's fix above, and have changed my iPhone settings. But some of the tracks affected are not ones synced to my iPhone.

The problem (iTunes overwriting the track information I have entered) applies to 285 of almost 8,500 tracks in my library and I can't work out why it's only these that are affected. The tracks include ones that are synced to my iPhone and some that aren't, some tracks I've bought from iTunes and some I ripped from CDs, some that have been in the iTunes library since I first started it and some that I added just last year, and anywhere between just one and all the tracks from the same album have had their information altered. Restarting iTunes and/or playing the tracks does not help.

Any ideas what's going on and how I fix this? I'm getting pretty tired of re-editing my track information over and over again....

For iTunes purchases the recommended settings about ought to fix things. There is another potential issue with mp3 files that have multiple tags.

Multiple tags (mp3 files only)
The ID3 specification allow files to have multiple tags in different versions and languages, but iTunes only works properly with single tags. When multiple tags are present iTunes can sometimes fail to apply updates to the tag that it reads back either on subsequent playback or import (presumably updating one of the others in the file) and it is also possible that iPod/iPhone/iPad & iTunes may have different rules for which tag they give priority to. This could lead to situations in which everything is properly organised in iTunes but then inexplicably falls apart on an iPod/iPhone/iPad. There are 3rd party tag editors that can manipulate multiple tags but I don't have a recommendation offhand. A workaround in iTunes is to use right-click context menu Convert ID3 Tags... > None a few times to remove all existing tags and then Convert ID3 Tags... > v2.3 to build a fresh tag with the information still held in the iTunes database. I've read in the past that iTunes isn't fully compliant with the v2.4 spec. although this may no longer be the case, however support for v2.3 is widespread so I would suggest using v2.3 over v2.4.

Note this process removes any embedded artwork. There are scripts that can save artwork as local images in the album folders or reinsert those images, to wit: savealbumart and restorealbumart.

Backup your library and test first with a single album that you know you've had problems with in the past.

tt2

Mine is doing exactly the same RamblinChris, you are not alone. However, when i double click the tracks in order to play them, they revert to the correct information for a short period of time, until it decides to change back...

The 'convert ID Tags' feature i came across the other day but wasn't confident with it. I also dont think this feature is available on all tracks as i haven't found it since...

All i know is that i'm becoming increasingly frustrated with iTunes amongst others, and i'm very tired of having to correct my library info time and time again...

If anyone does eventually find a solution, please let me know!

Have you set the preferences in the way that I recommended in my first post to the thread?

Do you use iTunes match? If so that may also interfere. Unfortunately I cannot test it.

My script UpdateTagInfo should work to refresh iTunes with the current content of the files' tags.

tt2

I don't use iTunes Match, im trying to simplify what i use to overcome this problem.

Isn't the tag info only required where i have missing track information? I have complete track info but this changes in time automatically anyway.

I am downloading MP3 auto edit tag info software as we speak. Hopefully that can provide the changes i need and fix the issues.

I will keep you posted

Thanks

Just checked out the software, the tracks that i have had issues with did not need fixing or additional info - i can visibly see that isnt a problem, its the sorting columns that automatically revert to information that i don't want.

In addition to what you said about right click... convert ID3 Tags... i can't find this tab. I run my iTunes with Windows 7. Never used to have this problem, only the last 12 months this issue has risen.

If I turn off the "Share details about your library with Apple" it also turns off the "automatically download album artwork". If I try to turn on the get album artwork it makes me share. Very frustrating.

The changes seem to happen once a week.

The next thing we are going to try is to make MP3 versions of the songs and then put the iCloud versions on an exclude playlist. That list is full of songs we don't want to sync to the iPods.

Larch

I believe that either of these two preferences are turned on

• Show iTunes in the Cloud purchases
• Share details about your library with Apple

iTunes may attempt to pull the original metadata for your store purchases from the iTunes store. It doesn't actually change the tag stored in the file, but it shows the original metadata in the library. If you turn both options off, and you see the correct info, or playing restores it, or you use the script, then you should continue to see the correct data thereafter.

Other possible reasons why metadata might change is if third party software alters it, or if there are multiple tags and the internal code of iTunes is changed such that it has cause to read a different one. I've addressed multiple tags earlier in this thread. Windows Media Player is one of the programs that can cause problems. See Getting iTunes & Windows Media Player to play nicely for details. If you use a 3rd party auto correcting tool of some variety then iTunes won't see the changes until it has cause to refresh the tags, e.g. playback, my script, or removal and reimport. Personally I wouldn't trust the likes of TuneUp to fix things they way I would. See Grouping tracks into albums for more on that score.

tt2

larch45 wrote:

If I turn off the "Share details about your library with Apple" it also turns off the "automatically download album artwork". If I try to turn on the get album artwork it makes me share. Very frustrating.

With that setting off you can manually download artwork. Select and right click.

tt2

I have just turned off 'show iTunes in the cloud purchases' so i will see if that makes any difference over time...

Many thanks for your suggestions to date.

You're welcome. 🙂

tt2