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

I agree. When I turn on iCloud library it deletes song/albums from my phone. Please fix Apple. Steve Jobs would never allowed such garbage to be released.

Leave Steve out of it, it's tacky of you to invoke the dead.

Back whenever iTunes was first made available for Windows, I got it, imported my music collection, and watched iTunes completely screw up track names, files and folders. A later version (or at least discovered later by me) had a checkbox for NOT allowing iTunes to "keep my collection organized", which is the only thing that made it usable for me. So even in Steve Jobs days, iTunes could screw up your music. This problem isn't occurring for the first time, and it probably won't be the last. As I see it there are two factors at play:

1. Music identification is actually somewhat of a hard problem. Identical tracks can belong to more than one album, and if you are into rare recordings or local artists, it is worse than useless. The classical music market has lately been driven by compilation albums, which means that any normal album you import may fragment into several compilation labels. How many third party apps are there that claim to fix your iTunes? Some apps other than iTunes do better or worse at this. The only solution is to add items slowly and make corrections manually, and then NEVER allow an app to change information. As a result, I have multiple apps that I use to access my music, but none of them get to change files or folders, except a tagging app when I want it to.

2. It is in Apple's DNA to control the user experience more than most in order to make things "just work" for most users. This is often a good thing, and one of the benefits of tightly controlling hardware and software integration. It causes headaches in other areas (not being able to get apps approved, etc.). The control of music probably works well for the average user, and is a headache for audiophiles with unusual collections. There is a dance that Apple does: release a tightly controlled experience, and then make options available to give up some of that control for users that have different needs or know what they are doing. Eventually, they find the sweet spot in the Larry Wall Philosophy: "Easy things should be easy, and hard things should be possible". Apple has made two mistakes with Maps and Music, and they are based on the same problem: You cannot develop a service overnight, and expect it to be as usable as a service that has matured over time with many user interactions, issues and bug reports.

I've been doing some testing of Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora, Google Play Music, etc. Apple Music, even without the issues on this thread, was simply confusing to me in what it did with the UI on devices and iTunes. When I started playing with Spotify, I thought "Oh so THAT is what they are trying to do". I may keep whatever free options are available for all of the above (which are similar, except for Pandora), but I finally went for the paid option with Spotify, because:

1. Spotify is easy to use and understand, and makes sense out of the box. It also will play or sync local files without touching them, but in 80-90% of cases, it already has the music I have and more. That is only a slight edge over the other services that are similar.

2. Spotify is now integrated into the djay app on iPad. That was the kicker for me that pushed me over the edge. Other services will probably be integrated into DJ apps eventually, but right now, Spotify has it, and that was more valuable than a bunch of other features.

I think you are misunderstanding the point of iCloud Music Library. It's not so much that it "deletes" songs from your phone. Rather, by flipping this switch, you are telling the phone whether to show content you've manually placed on the phone, or the contents of your cloud library. In Music Library mode, your phone will give you access to everything you're keeping in the cloud, which should also include the tracks you manually placed on the phone (assuming you tell it to "merge").

Chaging the .itl file did help me, but only for a little while. Once I started playing the (previously) corrupted files, they would start disappearing, one by one, and again, the corrupt file would have mislabeled art work, play the wrong file, etc...

The link below SEEMED to fix the issue, but once I went into my folders, files are still DRM protected (they were not previously), mislabeled, plus all the artwork is missing. Like 90% of it. Playing the music is the same. All files need to be relinked, etc... I have 145GB of music, and now it's all messed up. Somehow the files have even corrupted the backup I had of all my music.

If your music library shows incorrect details with iTunes Match or Apple Music, and you previously cancelled an iTunes M…

i cleared everything off my iPhone music apart from some playlists. I then switched on iCloud music library in iTunes (my master music collection) and let it sync to the cloud.

later I looked on my iPhone in my music and for some songs and albums I had completely different artwork. For example, the well known Thriller album cover that I have in iTunes came down from the cloud as some random Michael Jackson cover. Likewise some other albums were a picture of the correct artist but not the album.

everything locally on the Mac remained ok so I just switched off iCloud music library on the Mac and iPhone, then manually went back to sync my music as before. All is back to normal on the iPhone but of course I cannot save anything locally From apple music

i Do like the streaming part of Apple music but just as important to me is having the correct album art as I tend to identify a favourite album by its cover and am able to speedily select it.

i Really hope there is a way Apple can iron these things out

I only just came across this problem and wanted to warn people that it may rear its head when you try to sync.

I had installed Apple Music on my IPhone and ICloud Music must have turned on automatically and taken all my music to the Cloud, However the music on my phone stayed the same until I switched ICloud Music off to sync one album with Itunes on my PC. All the music on my phone disappeared until I turned ICloud Music back on. Loads of tracka were greyed out and some live versions of tracks on live albums were replaced by studio versions. For example, I have Led Zeppelin's "How The West Won" which I ripped from the CD. A live version of "Stairway to Heaven" was changed to the studio version from "Led Zeppelin IV".

This basically means that, despite what Apple says, I am unable to access my Music Library from other devices (such as my IPad) as the Cloud version of my music is completely corrupted.

Unlike Tuff Ghost I haven't lost my Itunes Library on my PC so I have shut off ICloud Music on my phone and re-synced my music from the PC.

I had also to stop using iCloud sharing in all devices (iPhone6, iPhone 5 and iPad) and will stop my 3 months free subscription after trial period ends.

Music Match did same to my personalised Lists: Messed all up and this again is way below Apple quality standards 😉

Did this work for you? Can you elaborate?

jctez wrote:

nope. they replace them with DRM tracks. Some of them at least, some have reported all. Meaning you have to go thru all your tracks and look at ''Fairplay" in the track info. If it is marked ''2" they made it DRM. You no longer own it or can do anything with it, even though you PAID for the track. Also, Apple is deleting posts on the forums about this right and left. Instead of making an announcement and apologizing and fixing it they are keeping it under wraps and deleting forum posts. Check the Spotify posts on this forum. Ppl are saying they have been deleted right and left. They also troll and post positive comments too how it all "works fine." I wanted it to work too man. I wanted one place where I could stream and have all MY music in one place. AMusic is not it. Google is for now. Even if Apple say it is fixed I am not trusting it. Not with my photos or my music. I moved to Adobe for my photos and Google for my music. Lesson learned.

jctez,

I am ****** of on Apple and my library was messed-up and many songs were DRM'ed. Even now I have problems with iTunes Match and Apple Music. BUT please don't post some silly and untrue remarks like the one in your post above.

In this very thread on page 30 on July 18 at 10:37pm = over 3 weeks ago I posted a post with two screenshots showing how my mp3 song became DRM'ed. Apple never deleted this post and you can check it yourself.

So please don't read posts from Android lovers and Apple haters on Spotify and other places because they are totally false and most important:

CHECK THE FACTS BEFORE POSTING GARBAGE!!!

excuse me? learn to read then spew. I wrote "Check the Spotify posts on this forum" ON THIS FORUM. There is a long thread on this APPLE FORUM entitled with Spotify in the title. Read the posts about people complaining Apple deleted their posts. ON THIS FORUM. So perhaps you should "CHECK THE FACTS BEFORE POSTING GARBAGE!!!"" I have never been on an Android forum in my life.

here you go. try reading before accusing. Re: Spotify is better than Music, don't switch over until following problems are solved: iCloud library bug, artist/song stations, playlists (constructive suggestions!)

I had the same problem and went from 8000 songs to 450!

In iTunes under My Music tab I went to File/Library/Update iCloud music library

Hey presto - all 8000 songs back.

Jctez

Pardon me for saying “on Spotify and other places”.

But the facts remains the same: Apple does not deleting any posts. There are many Apple haters that are looking for every small problem to complain about Apple. Well, here they found a huge one and they are also adding more fuel to the fire.

So in regards to what I wrote, just because people are saying that Apple deletes post it does not means it does! I am talking about a decent post on the subject and not an offensive ones.

In regards to me – well since Friday I cannot play any Apple Music songs on my computer – it says that I have to login to Apple Music… while I am logged in, and Authorized, I can play all Apple Music on my iPhone and I cannot even sync my iPhone with my computer because again it says I have to authorize it…

So yes I am very disappointed from Apple handling this mess BUT I will wait until they fix it and in the meantime I ignore all the noise coming from those Apple haters.

In the 90’s they hated Microsoft and particularity Bill Gates, now it’s Apple and tomorrow it will be another successful company. 95% of those haters are very unsuccessful people in their own life, they never learn and are not willing to learn how to be successful so instead they hate and inventing stories…

I had many complaints when Apple Music first started, but I have learned how to make it work for me now. I am happy with everything but the Cloud feature, and I really don't need that since I have a 128 GB iPhone and can carry any music I need on that device for mobile purposes. Plus I usually buy music that I really want anyway.

I hope Apple is paying attention somewhat to these posts as I would like to see users able to manage their own music uploads to the Cloud instead of Apple doing it all at once when you check a little box on your computer. As the owner of a large, complex music library, I will never again trust a third party to do anything with my music. If I can manage it myself, I might use the Cloud or Match service. Since I imported some of my music to iTunes many years ago, some of it is imported at 128 kbps, and it would be nice to upload it to the Cloud to get playback at 256 kbps.

I now have the "Connect" feature working properly and am following over 650 artists plus, through "liking" songs I play, the "For You" section is full of recommendations that are spot on considering my listening tastes. I can stream almost anything I want in the "New" section. The only thing missing here is, since I'm not using the Cloud, I can't download music to play offline. Like I said previously, however, that's no deal killer for me since I buy the music I love anyway.

Since Apple Music started, I have also downloaded Deezer and Google Play Music, and I did not like either one at all. I have reviewed countless other music services as well, but I am sticking with Apple Music. I have come to love it. Who knows? Maybe one day we'll be able to control how music is uploaded to the Cloud from our computers, and it will be played back at 256 kbps.

If you activated the Cloud, did not pay attention and don't have a backup, you just might be screwed. I had to clear out my iTunes library on my iMac and iPhone and reinstall it with a backup myself. I hated AM at first! Now I am back to doing what I really enjoy, and that is listening to great music. That's what it's all about.