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

I'll add a data point here. I have a small 24,000 track iTunes library (I own a lot more, but that subset is fine for my iTunes setup.) iTunes Match is ON, synced across 4 devices, no problem.

When I first enabled Apple Music/iCloud Music Sharing, I saw a bunch of goofed up artwork and album assignments - but I was not able to deal with it at the time, as I was traveling. I noted that within 48 hours, the problem had essentially taken care of itself, and names/albums/playlists pulled themselves back together. Even though my collection is small, it required time to crank through it all.

At this point, I've got Apple Music/iCloud Music Sharing syncing across 2 Macs, an iPhone and and iPad. I've got a mix of store tracks, ripped CD tracks, and original music that no one else has. Zero problems syncing changes of all kinds.

BradPDX,

You are one of the lucky ones. 535 users have posted on this thread, and only a handful have reported no problems. As I said, you are extremely lucky. I only have 17,500 tracks in my library, but I quickly saw what iCloud was doing to it and I stopped it immediately and restored it from a Time Machine backup. I am not an iMatch subscriber, and I have a mix of tracks similar to yours.

I guess you're saying that, if a person is willing to wait until iCloud has uploaded one's entire library and worked its magic, everything will come together in the end. I wish I were willing to trust that would happen, but I just cannot do it. After following this thread from the beginning and reading what iCloud has done to 98% of the larger iTunes libraries out there, I'm just not willing to involve myself in a procedure that might cause me to have to restore my complete iTunes library again.

You are one lucky dude. You backed into a solution to the problem because you were traveling when it occurred. I guess you saw that it corrected itself before you really would have had to correct it yourself. I wish I had enough faith in Apple to just check the iCloud box and let her rip and see what happens. Maybe it would end up just like yours. I would need a whole lot of encouragement to do that. Glad it worked for you.

Similar experience here - although with a smaller library.

But what REALLY grinds my gears is that Apple Music SWAPPED some of my tracks with theirs. If I was just getting a bit rate uptick I'd probably be fine with that but they've swapped out incorrect versions!!! I've lost dozens of rare remixes that I can likely never get back.

I don't have and have never had iTunes Match. Apple Music was on for 2 days during the trial and as soon as I noticed what it was doing to my library I killed it with fire.

Repeated requests to support and their Twitter account have yielded....absolutely nothing. Complete blanking of the issue. No response. Nothing. Nada.

I understand that folks on this thread are having real problems, not dismissing that. But the very nature of support issues is that one only hears from those who are having problems - if stuff works, people rarely post messages or contact support to say so. The fact that there are 535 users on this thread does not, alas, tell us very much about the scope of the problem. It may be 10% of Apple Music users, it may be 0.01%, we really don't know. Of the 4 other people I personally know who are using Apple Music, no one has any significant issues - an equally meaningless figure.

I am an iTunes Match user, and so my library was already available in iCloud prior to Apple Music. I never had any significant issues with iTunes Match, either - it always worked as advertised.

I hope that matters resolve themselves well for you.

Im sorry but these instructions made no sense to me is there an easier way to explain them or include pictures step by step please.

I also had the described problems (activated iCloud library, local iTunes library messed up - track tags and coverart were not usable any more), so I decided to choose an old library file - cover problems were solved, but a few titles remain messed up - some can't be found and some show wrong tracks.

Any solutions than listening to them separately?

I called AppleCare today, the Labor Day holiday in the U.S., and was eventually forwarded to a Senior Advisor. When I initially called in, I said I was calling about Apple Music. The recording prompted me to give a serial number for one of my Apple devices. So I was able to determine straight up that Apple was taking calls for Apple Music itself. That is unusual as Apple Music is a service and not a device.

The advisor was able to clarify many things for me that have been problematic since Apple Music began. He explained that, when you activate the iCloud Music Library, Apple identifies tracks in your collection to see if they have copies. Now their definition of a copy might be different from yours and mine. Let's say that you have a "live" copy of "Gold" by Spandau Ballet from 30 years ago, and you have EQ'd your version on some third party software and re-imported it back into iTunes. Let's say you originally got that song from one of SB's cds and put it on one of your own compilations with a cd cover that you made yourself. When Apple identifies that track, they don't care about any of the changes you made to it. They just make their version of the song, which may not even be "live" along with a different album cover and definitely no EQ, available in your Cloud. You may not even like their version of the song. This is how all of our libraries were screwed up. Beyond that Apple just uploads the rest of your library for streaming to your iOS devices. Here I'm talking about all of the music they can't identify in your library.

This advisor had been around long enough to have been an iTunes Match subscriber as well, so he was no new kid on the block. He and I agreed that Apple's iCloud Music Library would be a much better service if the subscriber could control the match and upload process rather than Apple. Wouldn't it be nice if you could pick and choose the music that you want loaded into the Cloud at your own pace rather than have Apple try to handle your 20,000 track library all at once? Something like that just has to be full of errors, and isn't that exactly what we have discovered? He even said that other advisors he discusses things with regularly have agreed ever since Match began that it would be best for the end user to be able to control the Match and upload of their libraries. Maybe there is hope yet.

This was a very interesting and rewarding discussion. I love Apple Music. I'm getting great recommendations in "For You" and "Connect". Streaming is great. I'm not using the Cloud because I don't trust it yet. Yet I don't need it. I buy the music I want anyway. So I will just continue to enjoy it and hope that one day I can control my own Cloud. If not, however, that's not anywhere near a deal breaker for me.I hope this information is valuable to some of you.

Just another person „in love” with Apple Music, which tries to give a solution-tip with hard self-limiting.

BTW: talking about iTunes Match is wasting time. Apple Music and iCloud Music are same problematic and buggy for people with iTunes Match never enabled.

Not so fast. I hated AM initially. It screwed up my library like all the rest of you, but I restored it from a backup. I still hate the Cloud and won't use it, but I do like the other features of AM. Since I buy the music I like anyway, I don't need to download tracks from AM to carry with me on an iPad or iPhone. Yet I like the recommendations AM makes in For You and Connect and regularly stream them. I did try Deezer and Google and hated them as well. So I am not just another AM lover. I've been at this music game a long time, have a large collection and know what I want from a music service. I don't think any of the music services have the Cloud thing right and won't until they let the end user control the match and upload process.

Exactly, I don't know why they put everything together(Music player and Apple Music) They should do two separated apps. Not mixed together at all. They spoiled all my music library ( sorted out now), Apple distributing product which is not fully tested.

.......

You do realize that the $10 you pay for Apple Music Service per month gives you access to almost the entire iTunes catalog? Let's see...buy less than120 songs for the same amount (per year), or have thousands of songs. Gee...I wonder which is the smarter choice.

AND given that for just $5 more, a group of 6 can share a membership.

But you go ahead and keep on paying for individual tracks.

This happened to me with a 20,000-plus song library when AM was first launched - the library was completely messed up without any sort of pattern or reason. When it happened I turned of the cloud, cancelled the auto-payment, and basically continued to NOT USE Apple Music (sadly, I haven't used in over a year or two, since a similar disaster with Match when it was launched), and stayed with Spotify which never has these sort of technical meltdowns that require hours of IT work to fix.

This week I decided to check in and see if this problemhad been addressed because there are discovery features in AM I'd like to use, and also integrate it with my library which uses ratings and smart playlists for management. So I turned the cloud on and checked my library a couple hours later, and once again it is completely messed up. Songs that shows as duplicates are actually completely different doings by different artists, an those songs have been deleted. There must be over 1 or 2,000 instances just judging by the icons.

I hate this because I would still purchase songs thru Apple Music if I had a fully functioning players and streaming service, and want ti use one reliable player/streamer, but at this point I don't trust Apply anymore and don't see the point of making the same mistake over and over.

I agree totally. I tried it again, same thing. And for ME, ''For You" was complete garbage. Google used Songza which they purchased last year and it is miles better than For You. You just have to give it a minute to get your listening habits, if you click thumbs up on your songs it gets even better. And as for Cloud service it is the only service that gets it right. All of my bootlegs and rare tracks get uploaded into my library exactly how I want them, artwork intact as well. Using Radiant Player on my desktop instead of Google on the web is a big plus too. According to IOS 9 beta users, AM is no better and nothing fixed. Don't think it will be either going by Apple's recent track record with their software updates. Sad. AM is not for serious collectors and multi-genre listeners in my opinion. It's more cheeze whiz for the masses.

My 34,000 song library was entirely unaffected by AM, all music, wherever sourced is right where it is supposed to be.