WARNING: iCloud Music Library just destroyed my Mac's iTunes Library

I think it's possibly apple music rather than old school match causing all the grief here. Complete speculation on my part but I am dead set against Apple Music so I did not join it. I was an existing match user though, reasonably content with the service. When I installed iTunes the icloud music library was enabled by default (same happened on my iOS devices). I have left it alone. Of course I am checking daily but I do not see any corruption on my iTunes local files (every single track that was matched historically was and has remained on my hard drive ever since). So it seems maybe agreeing to join Apple Music is the trigger. If you are a match customer and have not joined apple music then maybe users are not seeing the same issues. Naturally, I wouldn't want to select 'Update iCloud Music Library' to do a refresh yet though in case that causes carnage. Pre iTunes 12.2 when one started iTunes and was a match customer it would every 7 days show across the top that it was updating match/collecting data and apple would send back the results. I wonder if iCloud Music Library does the same thing on a weekly basis.

pepp1 wrote:

Nope, I have an active iTunes Match subscription and I'm in the same situation as Ciarals: my iTunes-Match-based library has gone and now on my iPhone there are only few "physical" songs.

When you turned on iCloud Music Library within iTunes, did it do any extended syncing with the cloud? In my case, the icon and a blurb did appear indicating progress on matching, but it got done fairly quickly within about 10 mins or so. So I was thinking iCloud Music Library only quickly looked up my iTunes library (about 13,000 songs) with what had been synced previously by iTunes Match to the cloud, found it to be in order and therefore didn't do anything further (and didn't destroy anything as a result).

It's been about three years since I used Match and my experience then was good. Earlier this week I re-subscribed and within a few minutes I noticed problems with my music library. iTunes Match became Mis-Match...What a nightmare!

I called Apple support and spoke to three different specialists for several hours. My case was escalated and I got some excellent help from a very knowledgeable person. We set up screen-sharing and he guided me thru the process of restoring my music library using Time Machine to a state before Match.

The problem now is that I can't use iCloud Music Library without turning Match back on. I am requesting cancelation of Match and a refund. Wha is going on?

I use iTunes to maintain a lossless library ripped from CDs and use Spotify to stream. I'm invested in the apple ecosystem (mac/appletv/iphones) and was looking forward to apple's streaming offering, but I'm staying with Spotify. Frankly, apple's design decisions are baffling, with a reliance on icloud/match and the UI looks like it was designed by committee with too many layered, unintuitive menu options. It didn't have to be this way, apple could have taken the existing music app, added an icon for streaming, and been done with it, vs. this needless complexity.

Yep, I agree. Apple Music should of been kept very separate from iTunes music. A separate app preferably. Essentially Apple Music is just a glorified radio station where the user can pick what plays. I am not really a radio listener looking to discover new music so it's not for me. I use match, I like what I like and I wasn't ready for all this change. The music app and iTunes was just doing just fine before all of this.

I would be very interested to hear whether anyone did not subscribe or opt into the free trial and whether they are staying clear of iTunes library corruption by just sticking with their existing match. I suppose it could be useful for Apple's troubleshooting - assuming they are willing to admit there is a problem

28,000+ song library, carefully managed over years - gone in minutes. I also have had iTunes Match for a while. I have a call open with Apple since yesterday which has been escalated to Dev.

Ok thanks. Did you opt in for the Apple Music trial though? I just want to determine if that is the sole trigger. I did not, I skipped it so I am not signed up for apple music in any way, shape or form.

Scottyboy99 wrote:

Yep, I agree. Apple Music should of been kept very separate from iTunes music. A separate app preferably. Essentially Apple Music is just a glorified radio station where the user can pick what plays.

It's not just that. When I bought my Mac I spent some months with no music at all on the Mac, just using Spotify, adding albums to my Spotify library and using that without taking up disk space. Apple Music is a glorified radio station AND an endless access to a huge back catalog of artists. Actually I don't care at all about Spotify or Apple Music radios and suggestions, I get my suggestions from people I know and from other sources, What I wanted from Apple Music was the ability to access streamed music as if it was part of my "local library", control it via third party apps like Cartunes, control it via Siri and have the opportunity to add the music that is not in their catalog in an easy way (Metallica... Beatles...). Looks like it's not as seamless

I did sign up for the  Music trial, family sharing.

Wendy Griswold wrote:

Has anyone else had this happen WITHOUT ever having iCloud Music Library/iTunes Match enabled? Installing Apple Music/iOS 8.4 has changed the artwork for some songs on my iPhone. The choices aren't entirely random, but for instance it will change all artwork for the tracks on a compilation to each single's artwork. Or in some cases a crappier version of the correct art (ie adding a "Deluxe Edition" sticker on top).

Not as bad as some of the people who's whole libraries were effed up, but still very irritating if you've spent a lot of time making sure each album had the right art.

One thing that might help anyone else in this particular boat - iCloud Music Library can be OFF on your computer and still be ON on your iPhone. Which is insane since I told it not to turn on on my computer, but it auto-enabled on the phone anyway, and screwed up all the artwork there. Check your Apple Music library settings - Apple Support

Wendy Griswold wrote:

One thing that might help anyone else in this particular boat - iCloud Music Library can be OFF on your computer and still be ON on your iPhone. Which is insane since I told it not to turn on on my computer, but it auto-enabled on the phone anyway, and screwed up all the artwork there. Check your Apple Music library settings - Apple Support

If you are in that situation you are lucky: just turn it off on the phone, delete all music from the iPhone and then resync with iTunes (with iCloud Library disabled of course). It should restore all your music on the iPhone

What I describe below falls under the heading, "your mileage may very"....consider yourself advised.

Background:

• I have approximately 2400 songs in my library. It represents a mix of the following:
  • iTunes purchases (some protected, some not)
  • Amazon.com purchases
  • Ripped CDs
  • Legally downloaded MP3 from other sources
• All of my music has some metadata including:
  • Album art (some downloaded, some customized)
  • Grouping data
  • Customized genres
  • Play counts
  • Star ratings
• For one year, I used iTunes Match. I let this subscription expire several months ago.
• After upgrading to iTunes 12.2, I immediately turned in iCloud Music. The sync went relatively quickly and the result was messy to say the least. The symptoms match what is described in this thread. My guess is that the sync went quickly because it used "old" iTunes Match data which I thought was deleted when my subscription expired.
• I have a complete clone of my MacBook Pro SSD including my iTunes library from June 26 which made me feel comfortable experimenting. If anything went awry, I could easily restore my clone. Do not attempt any resolution steps without having a back up of your iTunes library stored somewhere safe.

My Resolution Steps:

1. On my iPhone and my iPad, I turned off iCloud Music. The steps below were done on my MacBook Pro running OS X 10.10.4.
2. I deleted my corrupted iTunes library directory stored under $HOME/Music.
3. I started iTunes 12.2 which created a new iTunes library. It immediately prompted me to use iCloud Music, to which I answered affirmatively.
4. I clicked on My Music and it showed a rather large music library, most likely from the messed up sync. I selected groups of 500 songs and deleted them all. I also deleted all of the synced playlists.
5. I exited iTunes 12.2 and deleted the iTunes library it just created.
6. I started iTunes 12.2 again which created a new iTunes library. It immediately prompted me to use iCloud Music, to which I answered affirmatively.
7. I clicked on My Music and verified that all of my synced songs were deleted. I also clicked on Playlists and verified that all of my synced playlists were deleted.
8. I exited iTunes 12.2 again and deleted the iTunes library it just created.
9. I restored my cloned / backed up iTunes library from my external HD.
10. I started iTunes 12.2 again. When it prompted me to use iCloud Music, I did not enable it. I then verified that my iTunes library contained the correct / expected metadata.
11. I opened iTunes preferences and manually enabled iCloud Music. I then went to my song list in iTunes and noticed that every song was marked with the "missing from iCloud" icon.
12. I selected groups of approximately 500 songs, right-clicked and selected Add to iCloud Music Library. Each group of songs took iTunes several minutes to sync with iCloud. iTunes will display a spinning circle icon near the top right of the window when sync is running. When it is complete, this icon goes away and synced songs will not display a cloud icon next to them.
13. When each group sync was complete, I checked the song metadata and verified that things still looked correct / as expected. So far, everything looks good. Album art is correct, song / album / artist titles are correct, and other metadata looks correct.

I am now syncing my last group of songs. Once that is done and verified, I am going to enable iCloud Music on my iPhone and see what happens.

Did that, restored my iTunes library on my Mac which made everything look like before. Then I deleted all from my phone and resynched. Most artwork and descriptions are good. It's mostly the artwork related to the Artist which is still a mess. It seems that Artwork of artist in my collection is randomly applied to other artist's in the collection. Album artwork seems to be OK, same for titles of the track.

This will be a hard nut to crack for Apple I guess. My suspicion is that if you are a Match user, or like me was a Match user in the past, these issues arise. My daughter's libraries are clean still, and they haven't used Match in the past.

Here's an official Help post about missing music, etc. after updating iTunes: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203225

Thanks you saved my ***. This worked, and now I will stay far away from icloud library.