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iTunes match - on iPhone iPad split albums and wrong album artists

Hello everyone,

I'm having real trouble with iTunes match. So I have no issue actually playing the music, but the albums are being not only split but they have the wrong album artists. None of the issues are present on iTunes on my Mac, its all on iOS.

Firstly, I'd say my iTunes library was pretty much well organised pre-match. Albums had the correct art, the ID3 tags were such that everything looked correct and made for functional searches when using an iOS device.

All of my issues seem to be because of match. At first when I saw the split albums I thought it was just the ID3 tags being messed up somewhere but I've since wasted hours experimenting and I just can't seem to fix it.

I've tried (in no particular order)

Turning match on and off

Re-booting all devices

Making sure the iOS devices had all music wiped (via iTunes) before enabling match

Using iTunes to correct ID3 tags

Using the Yate ID3 editor to correct ID3 tags

When I say correct I mean select all tracks in a given album and make sure:

Album artist equal

Artist equal

I've tried the 'add a space on to artist / album artist then take it back off' trick

Remove any other 'mixed' fields such as composer

Check there is only one cover art file and it's the same for all tracks

Remove any mixed sorting fields

Renamed files

Renamed folders (then re-imported)

Now the interesting thing is that there is no pattern, some are correct and some are not. One album for example is Energy Never Dies by the black eyed peas. I bought this from a shop and ripped it. It's split into 3, one artist is the Black Eyed Peas, one is Elton John and one is Rhianna.

I've noticed the when the artist is wrong it's always the same artists (Elton John and Rhianna for example)

Interestingly, the wrong artists are different on the iPad to the iPhone, but the albums are split the same. Also, the one of the bad artists is one I made up for a mix tape, which makes me think the bad info is not on Apple's servers.

It's as if some old album artist data on the device from what was on there pre-match is corrupting things, but I don't fancy wiping the devices.

One way around it is to delete all artist and album artist info, but keep the album name the same (for grouped tracks). I can then search by album name and the album art is correct. This isn't ideal though as I cannot search by artist.

I've done some research before coming on here and I've tried quite a few fixes what have been suggested but I'm still no further forward. I'm hoping someone has some ideas otherwise I'm going to go through my library and remove all of the artist info as the work around like I say.

I'd like to report the bug to Apple but I can't seem to see a way of doing so. If anyone knows how to do this I'd appreciate a tip please.

Many thanks in advance,

Kai

Posted on May 4, 2015 3:01 PM

Best reply

Brandon_71

Level 1

0 points

Posted on May 5, 2015 3:30 PM

Had the same problem. Complete mess. I found a solution that solved it for me, but it's a chore. Anyways.

First I restored both the iPhone and the iPad. It seemed like the devices remembered some of the wrong metadata, so this seemed like the only solution. Then I deleted everything from iTunes Match and created a new, empty library. I added a few albums by an artist, for example Stevie Wonder. In iTunes on the Mac the metadata was correct, but on the iPhone it was still a mess. Albums split up, some with Elton John as artist, some with Miles Davis.

I then selected all the albums I just uploaded and deleted them (make sure to check the "also delete from iCloud"). I then added them to the library again, but changed both the artist and album artist name to something else, for example Stevie Wonderboy instead of Stevie Wonder. I updated iTunes Match and all the songs and albums were then correctly placed under Stevie Wonderboy. Finally, I changed the artist and album artist name back to Stevie Wonder and it worked!

In steps:

1. Restore devices

2. Delete iTunes Match library and create a new one.

3. Add albums and select "Update iTunes Match".

4. Delete albums from the cloud and make sure they are gone on your iPhone or iPad (do not select "Update iTunes Match").

5. Add the same albums again and change artist and album artist name. Press "Update iTunes Match".

6. Make sure that the albums and songs are placed correctly under the new artist name on your phone or iPad.

7. Change the artist and album artist name back to original name. Do not press "Update iTunes Match" after changing the name back, just let the changes trickle through.

This worked for me. Have to do this for pretty much every band and artist I add to iTunes Match. What a mess. Hope it works out for you.

Also, remember to backup!

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146 replies

May 20, 2015 9:31 AM in response to Kai2k

OK.....so since my last post I have spoken to another senior engineer and again has given me the same story...."I will consult other engineers and see what we can find" Seems like they don't want to escalate this issue any further as an update may be needed...who knows.

Anyway, £24.99 refund and resulting back to copying files across manually!

May 20, 2015 11:35 AM in response to Kai2k

Hi all

I am from Hong Kong and I have got the same problem last week while I tried to import a 25-track Live 2-CD

Artist name: "葉麗儀" (Exist in iTunes Store)

Album name: "45年香港情演唱會" (NOT exist in iTunes Store)

It seems fine on my MAC/iPad Mini 2(iOS 8.1).

But on my iPhone:

1. On artist tab - it split to two "葉麗儀" as artist name (First one: 21 tracks, Second one: 4 tracks)

2. Search - when I search "葉麗儀", for album, it split in two "45年香港情演唱會", however one of it display wrong artist name "泳兒“(artist name shows in grey colour on search page), which is another artist name of the album I just import before "葉麗儀"'s "45年香港情演唱會". But when I click on the songs, the "Now playing" shows everything correctly.

3. Reload iTunes Match on iPhone - I tried to turn off and turn on the Match on iPhone. Same problem appeared. However it looks different!!! It split but the 20 track vs 5 track this time!!! (But I haven't make any changes on my MAC iTunes library! eg. no rematch or even no rename)

I finally find a way to solve this problem...

I delete the album from iCloud. Then rename the artist as "fdsgdheragfdhghergfdsv" (meaningless name). Import to iTunes Match after rename. Then after upload process, rename the artist name to "葉麗儀".

May 20, 2015 2:59 PM in response to Gary Hollow

Well done, Gary.

Your solution looks like a useful workaround for this problem.

Finally, it works here - the affected album displays right on Match for the first time.

But it tooks a very long time today, to reach the Match library again after rename the artist in the last step.

Not fully operational at the moment on ALL devices. Even iTunes on Windows can not access some files in the cloud (from second lib. on iMac).

May 20, 2015 3:46 PM in response to smarthifi

Update: iTunes Match works again on all my devices. Gary's solution cured the splitted album sort from the Match database!

May 21, 2015 12:53 AM in response to smarthifi

Sounds like a good save there Gary, unfortunately for me I need Apple to come up with a fix, as its happening for literally hundreds of albums / Artists for me

s2s

Level 1

41 points

May 21, 2015 6:58 AM in response to Gary Hollow

Thanks Gary, this solution worked for me.

May 22, 2015 4:21 PM in response to Gary Hollow

Gary (and/or other contributors), when you say delete the album from the cloud, how do you do that without removing it from your iTunes library altogether?

This is such a frustrating bug. On my iPhone, I switched off iTunes Match, removed ALL songs off the device, then restored Match, causing it to reload the Match database. Still have albums split.

Any way to report this to Apple without being a developer?

s2s

Level 1

41 points

May 22, 2015 7:52 PM in response to the_damselfly

the_damselfly wrote:

Gary (and/or other contributors), when you say delete the album from the cloud, how do you do that without removing it from your iTunes library altogether?

This is such a frustrating bug. On my iPhone, I switched off iTunes Match, removed ALL songs off the device, then restored Match, causing it to reload the Match database. Still have albums split.

Any way to report this to Apple without being a developer?

Select tracks in iTunes, select "Delete" from right-click menu, select "Delete from iCloud" in the 1st prompt, select "Keep files" in the second prompt.

Now your music are deleted from iCloud, iTunes library and your iPhone, but files are still in your hard disk.

Now drag these files to iTunes again, iCloud status should be "waiting", before the iCloud status is changed, select and change these tracks' Artist. then "Add to iCloud", after it is done, matched/uploaded, change the Artist again.

May 23, 2015 8:44 AM in response to s2s

Thank you s2s, I will give this a try.

Level 1

8 points

May 23, 2015 1:54 PM in response to Kai2k

My music on my iPhone is a total mess as well. Ray Charles Ultimate Hits Collection is broken up into many artists including Ibrahim Ferrer. These two artists have nothing to do with one another. My Saint Germain albums are broken into individual tracks.

We should not be jumping through hoops and loops, Apple needs to confirm that they are working this issue and that it will be resolved. Too many people are having problems. If this issue continues, I will no longer use iTunes Match, not worth it. There are alternatives on the market.

May 23, 2015 4:27 PM in response to X!

Well, the delete/re-import/upload/re-name process did work for me. After removing the files from iTunes and the cloud, I reset the pertinent values using multiple file selection and Properties in Windows explorer, then re-added the files to iTunes. After the album and songs reappeared on my iPhone, I corrected the album artist fields in iTunes and these were synced to the iPhone.

I only tried this on one album that I had tried multiple things on previously. I don't think I have the time or patience to do this for my entire library. This really needs to be fixed.

Anyone have any experience with a different platform for this functionality? Google, perhaps? They already run the other 94% of my life...

May 23, 2015 4:29 PM in response to the_damselfly

I've just signed up with Amazon ... I'll report back later, but so far it looks good.

I've been using iTunes match since the beginning... but this bug and the 25,000k limit mean Amazon now looks better on paper at least.

cheers

May 23, 2015 4:39 PM in response to Michael Ward5

Good luck and please do report back! I just signed up for Match and it's a real disappointment. Apple just isn't what it used to be. At least I've got everything I own ripped now... Assuming we can still use the files with Amazon.

May 25, 2015 12:26 PM in response to s2s

Thahis s2s. This worked for me, with a slight modification.

I am using iTunes 12.1.2.27, on OS X.

Here's the steps I took, after fixing my library on my computer:

FYI: I did not turn off match or rebuild my devices to do accomplish this.

1. Make sure that your offending (split) album is fixed in iTunes

2. Select all of the album and right click and choose delete from the menu that appears.

3. A menu will appear asking if you would like to keep files or delete them from your disk. KEEP THEM.

4. The album will still show up in your library, this time with the cloud icon next to it. This is the match version of it, likely corrupt. Right click and delete that as well, confirm removal from iCloud.

5. Go find your files in your iTunes media folder and import them again.

6. Update iTunes Match and give it approximately 1-2 min to update to your iOS devices.

This worked for me, fixing a broken Ascii.Disko album, I didn't have to remove album artist or sort fields or anything like that.

I am going to move forward with the rest of my library and I'll report back.

Good luck!

dduncil

Level 1

0 points

May 26, 2015 6:08 AM in response to Kai2k

I just wanted to add that I am having the same issue. It started around the end of April, so I would say it is a new issue. I filed a report. Hopefully they fix it soon. Deleting and adding back the albums hasn't worked for me.

iTunes match - on iPhone iPad split albums and wrong album artists