Has iTunes match gone haywire?

My problems with the iTunes Match link seems to be related to the Apple Music launch. I signed up for the 3-month trial, and now can gain access to my songs. The media coverage of this service does say that Apple masked iTunes Match to make users buy it, and the "fixes" that people on the community pages recommend can get complicated. Thanks for the advice.

OK, so after another late night and stubborn perseverance, I have managed to solve my issues with Apple TV. On the Mac, where my iTunes library is, I went in to itunes and logged out of my iTunes account. On Apple TV, I switched off iTunes Match (it's still called iTunes Match on Apple TV), and logged out of my iTunes on that too.

Re booted the Mac, into iTunes, and log in to my iTunes account. It asks if I want to use iCloud music, as I have music on the Mac. I answered yes. It did its thing, and it works as normal. I then switched Apple TV back on, logged back into iTunes, and switched iTunes Match on again.

And then, all was well again. No more repeat albums, missing artwork etc - all is as it should be again.

In total, that has been over a week now that I have spent trying to solve this, all because Apple can't be bothered testing their new crap before unleashing it on the user - and then refusing to admit there is an issue, and giving no advice whatsoever. They are conspicuous by their absence on the Apple forums too.

As I said - a disgrace.

Thanks for the tip. I just signed out of iTunes and iCloud on Apple TV, restarted and signed in again. "iTunes match" is now working fine and all my devices and computers are back to normal. A lot of time wasted trying to get them back in shape but now that's in the past and enjoying the new service. Wondering what will happen when the three month trial is over though.

All the "problems" for iTunes Match go away when you sign up for the Apple Music trial. I guess we forget that when iTunes Match was launched, there was similar confusion about why we needed it. It's been good that users have registered concerns/complaints so quickly, as the Apple techs may read them.

iTunes Match had a clear advantage for the user, in that it allowed storage of all your music in iCloud, and access to that music anywhere wifi / 3G was available. In addition, you could you could listen to your music in higher quality 256k, even if you had originally ripped your CDs at 128k. If you own your own music, this is a great setup - as long as it works.

Apple Music is a different matter altogether. For starters, it's £10 per month after the free trial ends, rather than the £20 per YEAR we pay for iCloud / iTunes Match. Secondly, if you don't want to stream music you don't want to own, it's pointless. If I hear a song I like, I'll go to the iTunes Store and buy it. If I don't know what it is, I'll use Shazam to find out, and then buy it. Simple.

Clearly, many people want to listen to what's popular now, without having to buy the songs. They don't mind that they don't own them, as they listen to them until they are tired of them, and move on to something else. Apple Music, Spotify or whatever is perfect for them. I, and many like me on the other hand, use iTunes as a digital library of music we buy and keep.

It's only later in life that you look back at the music you've liked over the years, and it's nice to have it all to hand.

Same here for me. Logged out of iTunes and iCloud on Apple TV, then logged back in again. iTunes Match re-loaded with everything all in the right pace this time.

I would like to thank everyone for their hard work in sorting out this "issue." You have all been very helpful to me. Thank you!

I would also like to say that I'm very disappointed with Apple and the shady business practices they are using. The blatant subterfuge that they have stooped to in order to have people sign up for this monthly service is ridiculous. The fact that they changed the name of iTunes Match to iCloud Music Library on all products that have been updated but have not actually changed the name of the service, along with moving it's location within iTunes, indicate to me that these are not actually bugs that were missed in QA, but rather deliberate measures taken to cause confusion and weasel out a couple extra subscriptions. I, for one, have cancelled my iTunes Match from renewing and will not be signing up for Apple Music. Ever.

I agree. Sadly I have lost trust with Apple. I depend on my music. It is my work. Lucky I back up. But this iTunes Match debacle with Apple telling us just turn off and then turn on does not fix. I am very disappointed.

I'd LOVE to see my album artwork ALL on iTunes Match. 24k+ songs and artwork shows up for mostly purchased music only, VERY FEW artists from downloaded CD's show up. Getting sick of seeing that musical note in place of art work from a CD/Album cover!

Anyone know of a remedy? I'd call Apple, but they had trouble figuring out an email problem, so this will probably be wasting hours on the phone for nothing.

Some people that have called have been able to get their iTunes Match up and running again. For me, it depends on who you get at Apple Care. The guy I worked with at Apple Care around July 20 messed up my iTunes Match that had been working on my iMac 5k. I'd called because it wasn't working on my MacBook Pro. Now iTunes Match doesn't work on my iMac 5k or my MacBook Pro but it does on my iPhone. I called again today and the person I spoke with said since it was working on my iPhone 5s there wasn't a problem with my account. She put me on hold. I gave up waiting and had to get back to work.

I you haven't already, try resetting your library as described here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204964.

I have some 18,000 songs; and album covers are missing (randomly) from iTunes Match/iCloud Music Library on both my MPB and my iOS devices. Everything is fine in my "master" library on my iMac Retina. I'll be trying resetting next — as soon as I have a few consecutive hours to spare.

OK - I decided to do something radical last night. I followed the steps in the support article I pointed out above (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204964).

Short story: it didn't help with adding missing album covers to iTunes Match in iCloud Music.

Long Story: After following the steps above, and just to make sure, I didn't just reset my iCloud Music library, I also removed ALL my music from my iTunes library and started with a clean slate so-to-speak — that's not a biggie for me, because I'm an album guy (otherwise known in some circles these days as "boring") — in short, after following the steps above, I opened iTunes, did the "restore" step they talk about (during which I was signed out from my iTunes account) and then exited iTunes and removed all the contents from the iTunes folder, as if it were a new computer.

I opened iTunes to restore the default folders and files, and then I quit again.

Then, I added all folders of my music (1054 albums) back to the Automatically Add to iTunes folder; after that, I had to "restore" some album covers. Then I signed into my iTunes account. iTunes asked me if I wanted to sign in and add my music to iCloud Music (clearly, after signing in, it recognized me as an iTunes Match subscriber and recognized my "new" library). I choose yes — and then it did its "nontransparent magic thing" (which was a lot faster this time around). Mind you: at this point, my library was complete with covers, and everything in proper order. When iTunes Match was finished, I went to my MBP and iOS devices — both had empty libraries — and signed into iCloud Music. A short time went by, as the library was loading on each device — and once the library was up: boom — same album covers as before were missing, even though these albums have covers in my "master" library.

One other thing I noticed during this little time-wasting exercise: This time around, iTunes Match UPLOADED several matched AAC files that I had previously downloaded to replace lower quality songs. Three months later, it no longer matches previously matched songs from albums still available in iTunes?

I wish it would just work — as we were promised (before the June update and the run-up to Apple Music, which I'm not subscribing to, my covers were all present in the cloud ).

I Wish I could give you some insightful tips, but afraid I can't. Itunes match worked great for me since it's inception. Now since apple music and icloud music match no longer works. I have tried many workarounds, resets, apple customer service, upgrading/downgrading software all useless. Some says my itunes match works flawlessly others it's a nightmare of a mess. Never 2 days the same. So it has to be linked to bugs in icloud or they're putting bugs in itunes match. Best advice I can offer is be patient as it appears to be all apples end. ps im now on 8.3ios and itunes 12.1(i think...last one before apple music anyway) and even my main music library is affected. anyone else has any useful tips please post. Maybe there'll be a fix in ios 10 or 11.

Still waiting for my promised call back from Apple Care about iTunes Match not working. I had been told the senior specialist would look into getting me some sort of credit, which I've asked for. It has been several weeks now. My last call to Apple Care, a few days back, shows they have my case. Apple Care put me on hold but I had to give up after a long long wait and get back to work. I thought they would call me back like promised. It has been since July 14th I've not had iTunes Match service on my MacBook Pro and about the 20th since no iTunes Match service on my iMac 5K. My iPhone 5s iTunes Match still works. The 1st Apple Care senior specialist I told with on about the 20th explained that using Apple Music would be better. Except I won't be able to use my own library of rare or old CDs and other files on my other machines and iPhone like iTunes Match allowed. I'd been using iTunes Match since it first came out for work, I'm a classical composer. In years past Apple Care has been able to work things out. I keep waiting for my call or eMail. I am aware Apple monitors this. Hello Apple? Can you please respond?

Are you sure about not being able to upload CDs not in iTunes Store? I'm an iTunes Match subscriber also and I still have access to albums I converted to MP3s. Also, I added a CD the other day that was not in the iTunes store and it uploaded the audio files, just like iTunes Match used to do.

I'm on OS X 10.10.5 and iTunes 12.2.2.25.

Not that it helps you out any, but as far as I can tell everything is working good also on my iPhone 5 running iOS 8.4.1 and on my iPod Touch running iOS 6. But I have not researched every thing. Just seems like all the music is there.