Tuff Ghost

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

I have a 13000 song library on my iMac. Installed iOS 8.4 on my iPhone this morning and had Apple Music and iCloud Music Library going...Everything was working fine on the device. Got home and installed 10.10.4 and iTunes 12.2 on my iMac. It asked to turn on iCloud Music Library and I accepted. All of the sudden it starts overwriting my album art with completely wrong art (example: Weezer showed art for a Radiohead album) on both my iMac AND my iPhone, screwing up metadata by putting random songs in albums where they didn't belong (there was a Cursive album where the first track was listed as a Foo Fighters song). Even worse, when I'd click to listen to certain songs, it would play the wrong song/artist, like the metadata was hijacked. What in the ****?  I've had this library organized perfectly for the better part of a decade and Apple Music screwed it up in minutes.

 

I was able to restore everything through a Time Machine backup and made sure NOT to turn on iCloud Music Library when I re-opened the .itl file. What a disaster. Hopefully someone from Apple reads this. Thinking it may have something to do with a iTunes Match account I had briefly a few years back. But yikes, can't believe how much damage it did in 5 minutes.

Posted on Jun 30, 2015 7:45 PM

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

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  • by SZeke,

    SZeke SZeke Jul 2, 2015 9:46 PM in response to Tuff Ghost
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 9:46 PM in response to Tuff Ghost

    This happened to me too. I fixed it by replacing the entire iTunes folder from a pre-disaster backup. All is back to "normal", but Apple Music is not living up to its promise. Wondering why it happened in the first place. My hypothesis is that it is related to my past use of iTunes Match (even though I quit it over a year ago). So I am wondering if others on this discussion thread were past users of iTunes Match?

     

    I am very disappointed that Apple Music loses some important functionality without iCloud Music Library -- I can't add Apple Music to My Music or playlists. And being able to stream my own music on my iPhone would have been great.

  • by Zackadelic,

    Zackadelic Zackadelic Jul 2, 2015 10:29 PM in response to dudecctv
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 10:29 PM in response to dudecctv

    Apple music on my phone is still better than the phone version of spotify which only allows shuffling. So i will still use it there, but i wish i could use the iCloud Music Library functionality

  • by Zackadelic,

    Zackadelic Zackadelic Jul 2, 2015 10:30 PM in response to Whitehousej321
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 10:30 PM in response to Whitehousej321

    Finder -> Music -> iTunes -> Previous iTunes Libraries.

     

    This should help you know where the actions should be happening

  • by Zackadelic,

    Zackadelic Zackadelic Jul 2, 2015 10:37 PM in response to noah787
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 10:37 PM in response to noah787

    Yeah, it turns out my "solution" actually didn't work for me. Something is wrong in the files of my computer, not my .itl. I'll go to my library and everything will look okay, and then ill click a song and before my eyes the information of the song will change, all the metadata. But the song i originally clicked will still play. Interesting thing is, i synced the library with my phone, and all the music works correctly in my iPhone's music app.The song and all the information is correct. It's just too much work for me to try and salvage my library at this point. At least some people have their problem fixed form my solution but i guess i'm not one of them. Currently wondering if its illegal to illegally download music to replace all the songs i've bought over the years.

     

    An interesting find i just made: every messed up song in your iTunes library will have a new time on "date modified" which will be on the same day that you downloaded apple music and started using iCloud music library. So Apple decided to somehow modify all the tracks in our library without our permission. As far as I'm concerned, asking us if we want to upload our music doesn't = asking us to modify our song collection.

  • by Zackadelic,

    Zackadelic Zackadelic Jul 2, 2015 10:43 PM in response to Msalmeri
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jul 2, 2015 10:43 PM in response to Msalmeri

    Sorry man, after i posted that solution (which apparently worked for some people, i have yet to figure out why some were successful and others weren't) i discovered that my library too wasn't fixed, and upon clicking a song it would revert to a different song. I'm also not in the clear yet.

  • by mikeT222,

    mikeT222 mikeT222 Jul 2, 2015 10:57 PM in response to Tuff Ghost
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iTunes
    Jul 2, 2015 10:57 PM in response to Tuff Ghost

    my playlists have been completely trashed!!  signing up for Apple music was the stupidest thing I've ever done, I don't have a clue how to make things right again.  Thanks, Apple.

  • by derzornigemarkus,

    derzornigemarkus derzornigemarkus Jul 2, 2015 11:39 PM in response to Tuff Ghost
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iPhone
    Jul 2, 2015 11:39 PM in response to Tuff Ghost

    Since the whole iTunes Library and all the files are not reliable anymore, I just deleted them and wanted to get them from a backup. Turns out, that I do not get the free disk space back and now do not have enough storage. (See my new discussion "How to recover the free disk space of deleted files?")

     

    Is it possible, that the free space is not recoverable, because the music files have been touched by Apple DRM? I certainly cannot see them or do anything about it DaisyDisk shows them as not accessible for the user, admin in this case.

     

    Might have to set up the machine from zero

  • by SmokinSkull,

    SmokinSkull SmokinSkull Jul 3, 2015 12:55 AM in response to Tuff Ghost
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 3, 2015 12:55 AM in response to Tuff Ghost

    Hello all,

     

    I've had the same issues here but I managed to restore my library from a recent Time Capsule back up.

     

    However, I'd like to share with you all two things I noticed late last night in the hope it may lead to a solution. I have not had time to fully investigate this and what I've found may not explain all issues.

     

    1. After installing iOS 8.4 I noticed that if I delete songs stored on my phone it deletes the file and then hides the song in my iTunes purchase history. Therefore as I was cleaning up my phone before turning on iCloud Music Library I was unknowingly marking many of my iTunes purchases as hidden. I don't remember this behavior occurring in previous versions of iOS.

     

    For anyone not sure what I mean by hidden go to your iTunes account on a computer and look at the 'manage my hidden files' section. (This is where the dreaded free U2 album resides *shudder*)

     

    2. The next thing I noticed was all the files that have had their meta data/album art ect. messed up were tracks I'd bought from iTunes. On further investigation all tracks I looked at were ones which I had stored on my Mac's hard drive but had been hidden in my iTunes purchase history.

     

    I wonder if iTunes sees a purchased track on your hard drive and then looks for it in your purchased history - but then can't find it as it is in the hidden section - and then the bugs hit with messed up metadata and album art??

     

    I hope this is useful and makes sense - suffering from a serious lack of sleep here!

  • by ighanshyam,

    ighanshyam ighanshyam Jul 3, 2015 1:14 AM in response to Tuff Ghost
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Jul 3, 2015 1:14 AM in response to Tuff Ghost

    Okay i found amazing solution,

     

    Logout my account and relogin with same apple id, From

     

    Steps

    Step 1: Logout and Close iTunes.

    Step 2: Click on For You > Join Apple Music > Login with same apple ID

    Step 3: Now Click on My Music.

    1.jpg

    Step 4: Wait, for sync and Click on Play list and again move back and click on My Music.

     

    i found all the music back.

    2.jpg

    Now you are done.

  • by fishdoggy,

    fishdoggy fishdoggy Jul 3, 2015 1:30 AM in response to SmokinSkull
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 3, 2015 1:30 AM in response to SmokinSkull

    It certainly didn't restrict itself to hidden purchases with me. Most of my library consists of CD rips and these had wrong album art and wrong song/artist metadata. It could not have been more messed up. Some websites are reporting that using an old library file will fix the issue for everyone. Well it will not if your library has files that now have incorrect tags. Around 70% of my ripped music suffered.

     

    In my brief period with Apple Music I downloaded the Enhanced High Violet album by The National for offline listening. After I updated iTunes, even this album had wrong artwork! (Stereophonics).  The way that Apple tries to match your music in the cloud is obviously at fault...however NOTHING should come in and mess with our local files. That's very very wrong. May I ask Apple one thing: let us upload our music to the cloud without this matching nonsense. I cannot see the justification for matching, and why has it been so disruptive.

  • by Gerben Wierda,

    Gerben Wierda Gerben Wierda Jul 3, 2015 1:50 AM in response to zpaolo
    Level 2 (186 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 3, 2015 1:50 AM in response to zpaolo

    What a mess!

     

    I was able to get iTunes match without Apple Music on my Mac by signing out, clicking the Menu Item for "iTunes Match..." (which gives you the subscribe to iTunes Match page) then logging in, which turns the subscribe button into "Add this computer" and after hitting that I have iTunes Match without Apple Music.

  • by oomoot,

    oomoot oomoot Jul 3, 2015 6:01 AM in response to SZeke
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    Jul 3, 2015 6:01 AM in response to SZeke

    As far as I've come by, everyone had an iTunes Match subscription once including me.

  • by hoangnguyen3110,

    hoangnguyen3110 hoangnguyen3110 Jul 3, 2015 6:19 AM in response to bravewolverine
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 3, 2015 6:19 AM in response to bravewolverine

    I have done both two things. Not sure which one solve but my icloud music library off now.
    - On itune (computer): Preferences-->General--->Untick Icloud Music library and hide apple music

    - On Iphone: Settings--->Music--->turn off Icloud Music Library

     

    Share if it can help you, it can help others

     

    Cheers!!!

  • by bpeacock22,

    bpeacock22 bpeacock22 Jul 3, 2015 6:34 AM in response to Tuff Ghost
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Jul 3, 2015 6:34 AM in response to Tuff Ghost

    Well FINALLY I've found some more people with this problem.  I was on the phone with Apple Support pretty quickly and have been escalated to "Engineering".  I haven't touched my iTunes library of purchased music for a few years, since using Spotify.  But i wanted to give Apple Music a fair shake.  So when iOS 8.4 came down, I upgraded my devices and started selecting some albums that I had on Spotify to re-create playlists in Apple Music.  Then iTunes 12.2 hit and when I got home I upgraded and turned on iCloud Music Library there.  That's when it all went to [poop].

     

    At first, I thought it was just cover art that got messed up.  But noooo.  It would show art for one album, the title for another, an artist from yet another, and all the tracks of something different.  Click the track to start playing and it would actually play a track from the album the art was showing for.  I turned off iCloud Library on everything.  Of course, the albums I had chosen to stream went away but I found that my purchased music was still borked.  I signed out of everything everywhere then investigated my actual track files, but they were irrevocably screwed.  I even tried replacing the iTunes Library.itl file.  My library just rebuilt with the bad data.  So I was forced into a Jurassic Park "hold on to your butts" style system reset.  I restored my iTunes folder from a Time Machine backup.  I spoke with my Apple rep and told him what I'd discovered.  With the restore, my own purchased tracks were set right.  But now I needed them to wipe out my iCloud Music Library data.  I said I couldn't turn anything back on it would just sync the bad data again.  He agreed with my plan and now I'm just waiting to hear back.

  • by JazzmanJohn,

    JazzmanJohn JazzmanJohn Jul 3, 2015 6:49 AM in response to Tuff Ghost
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 3, 2015 6:49 AM in response to Tuff Ghost

    I have been following this thread and have a couple of observations and questions. My library contains 17,500 customized songs. I have EQ'd a lot of these songs and categorized them the way I want. I was really excited about Apple Music until it happened. I thought the idea of making all of my music available to all of my devices was cool. Little did I know that Apple would start making a complete mess of my library once it actually started. So I checked the little iCloud Music Library box in preferences, and away we went. As the process went along, I looked at what Apple was putting into my library and noticed immediately that it was adding songs with incorrect metadata and albums/cover art as a match for existing songs. Some of the songs added had an inferior sound to those I already had. I stopped the process after it had added about 1,000 songs. So now, how do I correct this mess? I found that I could easily delete/hide the added songs by just right clicking on them and hitting delete/hide beside the songs in my library with the little cloud beside them. Once I did that, my iTunes library(even with being signed in and Show Apple Music checked in preferences) returned to normal. As long as leave the iCloud Music Library box unchecked in preferences, I will no longer see any songs that may have been added to my library by Apple. I don't know if those songs are just hidden, deleted or what, but as long as they don't affect my original library, I don't care.

    I also found out that, if you just sign out of Apple Music, the only thing you see when you load iTunes is your original library. Am I missing something here? I'm sure there are many of you have seen whole libraries corrupted, and I agree that would be a nightmare. However, if you can use your original library just by not logging in to iTunes, that's one workaround. Second, aren't these songs that Apple adds to your library just in the Cloud unless you actually download them?

     

    Please let me know if I am missing something here.

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