Has iTunes match gone haywire?

That's very interesting. Thank you for the feedback. I am going to send another email to the Apple advisor on this and mention this.

So frustrating. I cannot get past the senior advisor stage. I don't get opportunities to talk to them over the phone as I am at work including commute from 7 am to 7.30 pm. I have to snatch opportunities with a family to also prioritise to try and look at this when at home. But they are insistant on trying steps that I have told them I have already tried, I literally already tried everything. I'm not paying for a chat session out of my own pocket for something apple broke and I already subscribe to. The message needs to reach through the many layers to the actual expert software engineers/software technicians. If it only reached the attentions of them someone might be able to say, yes we aware and iOS 8.4 will fix or iOS 8.4 will is a change to the music app and the lists will be ok in this. Or whatever - but I just cannot progress this. I feel I have wasted so much time already, trying all the scripted steps, spending ages analysing and re- editing metadata, googling the issue til I'm blue in the face. Thanks a bunch Apple, it's clearly some kind of issue pushed by yourselves to iOS devices running match in the last few days - so dissapointed

more things I tried

chose one of the many duplicating artists 'Adam and the Ants' and deleted the tracks from my library on iTunes. I chose to keep the files instead of sending them to the recycle bin. Then I deleted the tracks from the cloud. This made him disappear from the artist list on my iOS devices. Then I added the files back to the library and updated match (after enduring metadata was perfect). Match uploaded the files to the cloud obediently. Then I checked my iOS devices and Adam and the Ants was back in the artist list but he was still duplicating with songs from the album split between the two entries. So that is no way of fixing and besides I wouldn't want to do this for hundreds of artists and tracks - that would take ages plus I lose all my play counts this way. I then changed his artist and album artist name to something random 'test' to see if it moved him under T and renamed him but it had no effect. He did move to T on the iPad but still showed as Adam and the Ants and was still split as multiple entries, so something is very very wrong at apple. They have ruined many many users library with some kind of glitches iCloud push. It really needs addressing

TThank you for reporting. I am very determined to sort this out for all users by putting pressure on apple. Would you also be willing to contact support on this and refer them to this forum like I have been doing. We need to really drive this home or like many glitches and bugs it may never get fixed. The more of us doing it the better. Apple have let us down badly here

i am going to post some more screenshots of the mess in my library tomorrow in the hope that apple bothers to look at the forum. It's user to user but when I refer them as part of support they should do us the courtesy of looking in here

I think they make it deliberately get in contact but I Got told I had to ring 0800 107 6285 Or for senior advisor try 0800 975 0614 (followed by extension 1141090) My own case ref is 829410896 if that helps link it up when liaising with them.

or go. Www.apple.com/support. I then selected iTunes, iTunes Player and done a description. I emailed them from within this. And later I scheduled a call so they rang me. Difficulty is there is no specific area for match to report on so I got passed around quite bit until I spoke to a senior iOS advisor and this is the point I am stalled at now. I want the advisor to pass onto match specialists or apple technicians but I am not sure that is being down and I am being ignored (I am emailing this advisor quite a bit but I am very unhappy)

SSorry to hear this. That is useful to know its 8.3 specific, unfortunately every iOS device I have is at 8.3 so I couldn't test. My brother does still run 8.2 and he reported no noticeable problem but then he isn't anal like I am so am not sure he would notice. Someone else said a really old 5.1.1 showed no issue, my Apple TV running iOS 7 variant doesn't either. So it's safe to say it's just 8.3. Would you also be willing to email or ring Apple support tomorrow too so we can really drive home this appalling issue?

OK, the good thing is at least people are calling them. Hopefully it registers in Cupertino that this is unacceptable - it prob won't do much good but I may see if I can email to a really high level if no cloud based fix is forthcoming. I may give iOS 8.4 a chance to see how it all looks after the update which I guess is imminent (Monday I presume).

im curious, when you removed match did you turn it off in iTunes and the iOS device? Did you go back to USB sync to get your music back on? Did the artist and album lists then look normal again after a traditional sync? I worry the metadata corruption has gotten so engrained into the iOS devices now that even a conventional sync will still have lingering effects

TThat sounds even worse than what the rest of us are struggling with. I'm not seeing that other than the messed up library list. I do remember a long time back after a restore something similar happening with my purchases and the only way I could stop it was to wipe and restore. Not a palatable proposition. Only think I can suggest is go to iTunes Store app on phone and check the downloads tab, see if downloads are being queued and try swiping left to delete/stop them.

this whole saga is a nightmare. It's clear Tim Cook and other senior bods at Apple don't use things like match or many broken functions littered in iOS 8. if they did you can be sure stuff like this would suddenly get fixed pretty quick! But we are mere dots/cash cows and cannot seem to be taken seriously or respected. I have spent so much over the years on Apple products that it now feels like a total slap in the face