iTunes Match has been crippled on iTunes 10.7. Anyone else experiencing this? Please help!

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Level 1

67 points

iTunes Match has been crippled on iTunes 10.7. Anyone else experiencing this? Please help!

Running iTunes 10.7 on 10.6.8

So, I am still on iTunes 10.7 (yes, I have been with iTunes 11 and have tried iTunes 12, but in my opinion, 10.7 is hands down the best version of iTunes to date).

I have been using iTunes Match on iTunes 10.7 for over a year without issue. Anytime I launch iTunes or wake my computer up from sleep, it automatically starts doing an update and any new songs are instantly added to the cloud. It was reliable and worked flawlessly until about 4 days ago.

A few days ago when things started acting weird, the first thing I noticed when I opened iTunes was that it no longer updated iTuens Match automatically and the iTunes Match tab was missing under the iTunes Store tab where it normally always appears.

I manually tried updating iTunes match by going to the top of the page, under Store < update iTunes Match (at the top of the page) than iTunes Match appeared.

It did the 3 step process, but once you hit 'done' at the end. The iTunes Match tab disappeared The iTunes match column disappeared and if I right click any of my tracks, ALL my music had the 'add to iCloud' button (files that were already in the cloud).

I didn't lose any of my music. On my iPhone, all my music still appears when I have iTunes Match on.

Here is what I have tried to fix the problem:

1. Completely removed my Apple ID identity from iTunes: Turned off iTunes Match, deauthorized the computer and signed out of the Apple ID

2. Removed iTunes Store cache and quit iTunes

3. Did 'repair disk permissions' in disk utility

4. Changed my iTunes folder to 'iTunes 2' so it would create a new iTunes folder. When I opened in the new iTunes. It was a blank slate. When I reauthorized my computer and turned on iTunes match, it still wouldn't work. When I hit 'update iTunes Match from 'store' at the top of the page, it goes through the 3 step update, but once it is done, iTunes match disappears and none of the songs in the cloud appear (this is what leads me to believe that maybe I am not alone, and maybe Apple has stopped allowing iTunes 10.7 users from using iTunes Match)

5. I once again did step 1 and 2 and re installed iTunes using the saved DMG file.

6. I did an smc reset (this was a long shot chance of doing anything, but I wanted to exhaust all my options)

7. Restarted my computer

I also noticed that you can now longer download the iTunes 10.7 file from the Apple downloads page. When you try to download, you get this error message:

An error occurred while processing your request.

Reference #30.7ed16bd1.1425254177.1b62a8

This is another possible signal that worries me. That Apple maybe removing online tools like iTunes Match on older versions of iTunes.

Is anyone on here still on iTunes 10.7? Is iTunes Match still functioning normally for you? Do you have any tips on what I can do to fix this problem? Are there any library or preference files associated with iTunes that could be causing the problem?

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

Posted on Mar 1, 2015 4:30 PM

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Answer 1

ragepaw

Level 1

0 points

Mar 16, 2015 7:43 PM in response to steellogic

Same thing happened to me. I opened a ticket and support came back days later and said nothing was wrong and there was no reason why it shouldn't work. "Upgraded" to 12 to test and it worked fine. I went back to 10.7 and it stopped working again.

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Answer 2

steellogic Author

Level 1

67 points

Mar 29, 2015 10:13 PM in response to ragepaw

Happy to report that iTunes Match has returned to working like normal on iTunes 10.7 on my computer today. If any iTunes engineers read this thread, I really appreciate the fix.

Has it returned to normal for you?

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Answer 3

steellogic Author

Level 1

67 points

Apr 21, 2015 5:34 PM in response to steellogic

UPDATE:

Not working AGAIN!

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Answer 4

steellogic Author

Level 1

67 points

Oct 31, 2015 11:17 PM in response to steellogic

ISSUE FIXED:

There is a solution, but it does take time and you will lose metadata like song count and ratings.

The fix that worked for me and has been working for me the last 2 weeks so far is:

1. Delete the iCloud library - Be sure you have a backup of ALL your music before doing this. All you have to do is login to iTunes Match on a different computer - make sure it is a new library by holding down the option key as you open iTunes (I signed in on a computer running iTunes 11.4). Once has iTunes Match has done its process when enabled and all your music appears. Simply select them all and delete. It will warn you that you are deleting from iCloud. Once that is done, delete all playlists. When everything has been removed 'update iTunes match' one more time to ensure nothing shows up.

2. In iTunes 10.7, create a new music library by holding down the option key as you open iTunes.

3. Drag all the music from the iTunes Music or iTunes Media folder into iTunes (this will create a copy of the content - which you can delete once the copy has complete. If you don't have enough space on your computer, do the copy of the iTunes Media folder from an external hard drive)

4. Once complete, sort music by kind and 'create AAC version' for any songs that are not matched and under a different file format (such as mp3). Discard the old files. Remove audiobooks that may appear in the music library (if applicable - I had some audiobooks that got added to my iTunes library that ended up getting uploaded to the cloud)

5. Once you have done that, you should have all your media imported to the new iTunes library and your file formats should only show as AAC, Purchased or Matched when you sort by kind (be sure to delete the old iTunes Media folder once you have finished copying to free up space again). If you still have any protected purchased songs (songs still with a DRM lock) - create AAC version and discard the DRM locked songs.

6. Clean House - use this opportunity to fix bad song metadata, get album artwork for songs etc, basically as you want your media to look

7. Now login to iTunes store with your apple id.

8. Turn on iTunes match from the store menu

9. I would recommend using an ethernet connection, if possible, for a more secure connection and to improve time. It will normally take a few hours, depending on size of library and bandwidth connection.

If you still see a cloud symbol beside a song after iTunes Match has done the 3 step process, the song has not been added yet. Sort with the cloud symbol and highlight any songs that have the cloud symbol, right click and hit the add to icloud option.

10. Once everything has been added to iCloud, you should have a normal cloud symbol beside your music as shown below. The lightening bolt should be gone and all your iCloud music should appear - you should see the download button for songs you delete from the library.

Once you have done this, do NOT turn off iTunes Match, as this could cause the old problem again. iTunes match has been working flawlessly ever since.

Helpful Tip: before with my old library, I had about 2000 unmatched songs (from my 22,000 song library). These were songs that I added to iTunes Match before but didn't end up getting matched.

When iTunes match completed this time, I deleted all my AAC files (the unmatched ones). When I re-downloaded, about 600 of the 2000 songs ended up getting matched when they previously didn't, so I was very happy about that

Hope this helps someone out there!

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