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

@AppleLoverWindowsHater, I never had the issue discussed in this thread (and I have an active iTunes Match subscription), but for what it's worth: none of my artwork or metadata has been touched by Apple Music. Over the course of a decade I have embedded custom artwork into every single file and I have added information like year, genre, composer, band members, additional musicians, producers, lyrics and even trivia to my almost 10.000 tracks by hand. Suffice it to say, I would be absolutely devastated if this information got changed or lost....

My experience with Apple Music has really been great so far - all my music is synched correctly between my iMac, iPhone and iPad and, as I said, none of my custom artwork or metadata has been changed.

i find it really bizarre how this could be affecting some and not others. Also how this seems to be all geared at iTunes Match subscribers. I have never used ITM and yet I had the library disaster. Almost 20K songs, many rare, live, unreleased. Most all of them replaced, deleted, messed up artwork. Luckily I was able to restore from time machine, turned off apple music and icloud music library and have not touched the new itunes update, nor will I. I also found Apple Music streaming very slow, like 2 seconds to start a song, where Spotify and Google Music start instantly. To me it is obvious Apple Music was not ready to be released, nor does Apple care. What they did with Aperture and Photos was a mess. Not to mention iWeb and all the other software they abandoned or destroyed. Mess with people's music and photos? That is diabolical. Seriously. I have decided to go back to Google Play Music. Can upload 50K of my music for free, use Radiant Player on my Mac which is an awesome Google Music desktop player/library. I"m sure in the fall when Apple starts allowing 100K tunes Google will do the same. I love OSX and IOS but Apple software is just not worth messing with anymore, except for Final Cut. Apple Music is for people with small libraries who want the latest cheese whiz for the masses. It is not for music lovers with large libraries full of different genres of music.

Ditto, jctez. My experience is like yours. I have 17,500 songs that I have carefully edited since I bought my first Mac in 2007. Some of my stuff is also rare, live and unreleased. I've never used Match, but this iCloud Music Library wreaked havoc with my stuff. Just like you, I restored from Time Machine. However, after following this thread all along, I finally installed the new iTunes update and left iCloud Music Library UNCHECKED. So far all seems well. I have also noticed a slowdown in streaming. Like you I don't think Apple cares. Actually there is no way to contact them about this and have a real conversation. I still have AppleCare for my latest iMac and iPhone 6 Plus, but the people on the other end are clueless about this stuff. I agree with you that Apple Music was just not ready to be released. I do like the idea of being able to stream anything you want whenever you want. However, iCloud Music Library is a disaster, Radio does not allow you to delete your custom stations if you want and Connect is worthless.

I think there MIGHT be a simple reason iCloud Music Library is affecting some but no others. The people who have been affected the most are people who have libraries they have carefully edited over the years. Maybe the people who have not been affected so much have a more generalized selection of music. Who knows?

Your idea about Google Play Music and Radiant Player is a good one. I think I'll look into that. Thanks for the good post.

It does change covers.

I redid all the albums Itunes on my Mac but on my iPhone a few covers have gone barmy. Apple must love george michael because it has replaced 4 albums correct covers with George Michaels face. Someone else have this problem? Itunes on Mac all redone but on Iphone goes weird?

can someone suggest something, this is beyond crazy

PS)I have deleted and transferred all music from my Mac to my Iphone but covers are still wrong, never have been a subscriber to match or Music

Replying to myself!

deleted and transfered all my music 5 times to my iPhone and now finally have albums with correct covers!!!! perseverance worked.

Jazzman...you can stream anything you want with google music. their library has even more than spotify I have found. their ios app is great too. and they are the ONLY streaming service with ''genre sort." which i need desperately as I listen to everything from world music to blues to rock to classical etc. And again, you can upload 50K songs for free, for instance if you want all your Beatles catalog and bootlegs in your library, you can. Can't do that with Apple Music or Spotify. The Radiant Player for Mac works seamlessly and has different skins you can choose for design. It is free but I donated to him for his work. He updates it as well. Check it out for sure. I am not sticking with Apple Music or itunes. I have no desire even it didn't mess up my library. The UI is awful, it is an awful user experience, and like you I could care less about Connect or Beats 1 radio. Not my thing. Good luck to all here, it has been a real mess and their lack of support makes it even worse.

Great post and most helpful info, jctez. Explain something to me. When you started using google music, did you upload all your music into the google cloud or what? Then do you download it to your computer if you want to keep a music library on it? Then do you just delete your iTunes library and just buy music from whatever source you like and import it into your google library? Then do you just use Radiant as a player if you like?

thanks and what I did was I created a google play music streaming library, and the stuff they were missing ie bootlegs, rare tracks, beatles, etc I just uploaded from my music files. I copied the files out of my itunes library into a google folder I created and uploaded from there to my google library. I have not cleaned out or deleted my itunes library yet. I was waiting to love Apple Music. But that ain't happening as we know. So yeah I just uploaded music from there that I wanted in my google library that they did not have. The other cool thing is, in google you can edit information, group/sort however you want, and add art work. And it all syncs to your phone/ipod/ipad exactly how you want it!! Imagine that!! If I want to purchase something I just purchase from Google Music and it is in your library just like itunes. Then you can download the files from your library to your computer if you want. Also, in my experience, when I choose to sync to my phone for offline listening, google music files sound better in my car than spotify. Never had a chance to do this with apple music as the sync took so long for offline play I gave up. I use Radiant Player on my iMac at home instead of using the web browser version mostly. Radiant just mirrors your library, but you have some options to change the looks, though he updated and now there are only two skins but both are nice. You can control it from the menu bar or the dock as well. I just prefer using a desktop version instead of a web browser. Hope that helps. I have tried them all but for me and my vast library and musical tastes and my love of artwork and genre sort, google has worked out the best for me. Radiant Player makes it even better. I had high hopes for Apple Music but nope, not for me, even if it DID work correctly.

I have now Apple Music with iCloud enabled and iTunes Match. Took long time to reset the bad album covers, disappearing playlists and other problems.

Another problem that I discover is  when in iTunes I "Remove download" on matched song and re-download it the song is matched BUT the re-downloaded file is .m4p and is Apple Music AAC Audio File with DRM protected NOT DRM-free!

Before = Original Song

After Match !

Also some of the files that were matched appear as iCloud Status = Apple Music with FairPlay version 2 as if they were downloaded originally from Apple Music and not matched, not to mention the artwork is changed in most cases.

This is a quote from Apple site https://www.apple.com/au/itunes/itunes-match/

"How iTunes Match works.

iTunes determines which songs in your collection are available in the iTunes Store. Any music with a match is automatically added to iCloud for you to listen to at any time, on any device. Since there are more than 43 million songs in the iTunes Store, chances are your music is already in iCloud.³ And for the few songs that aren’t, iTunes uploads what it can’t match (which is much faster than uploading your entire music library). Even better, all the music iTunes matches plays back from iCloud at 256-Kbps AAC DRM-free quality — even if your original copy was of lower quality."

Also as far as I seen on iMore site http://www.imore.com/how-check-if-your-macs-songs-are-uploaded-matched-purchased -or-apple-music-drm-laden

"

You use iTunes Match (or both Apple Music and iTunes Match). This status means that Apple has scanned and matched the track in your Mac's library with one in its iTunes Store catalog; when you re-download it on any other device (up to 10)—or delete and re-download on your Mac—it'll show up as a 256kbps Matched DRM-free AAC (m4a) file.

You can use Matched files to upgrade poor-quality MP3s you may have from CD rips on your original device, or to simply stream your music to all your other devices; when you cancel Match, any of these files you've downloaded are yours to keep."

As I said I have iTunes Match and iCloud Music Library enabled so any downloaded song from Apple Music should be DRM free as I understand. In my case they are all DRM with FairPlay version 2 and all are m4p files.

another quote from the same iMore site:

"You use Apple Music, and Apple Music alone. This status primarily means that you've downloaded a song from Apple's streaming catalog. In addition, if you use iCloud Music Library—Apple Music's version of iTunes Match—without an iTunes Match subscription, any matched song you re-download on another iOS device or Mac will show up as an Apple Music file."

Good Article. http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/17/8981783/best-music-streaming-service-2015-spot ify-apple-google-tidal-rdio

Thanks for the advice

Really want to use Apple's service, but it completely disregards my own music collection as my own, and wants to destroy it, I cannot use it, and will be going to Spotify.

Apple take heed, turn off the enforced use of iCloud to have offline copies of music, and your service will flourish. If you dont then it will fail

APPLE......

In the iCloud Music Library, do not automatically match and upload a customer's library. Let the customer control what gets uploaded and how. I.e., if a customer has a lot of curated music files, let them upload them first. Then let them upload anything else they want. Then match whatever is left over. Give the customer some control over what is uploaded and how it is done. Avoid tampering with the metadata of customers' music files and how they have their music libraries organized at all cost.

Combine the iTunes Store and New Music and just let subscribers play complete songs if they desire from the iTunes Store.

Allow subscribers the ability to delete their custom radio stations as needed.

Either greatly improve Connect or eliminate it. Currently it is worthless.

Here is what I wrote to Facebook friends about the issues

Update: Google Play Muisc has turned out to be THE service that Apple Music should have been, and is now my primary cloud/streaming choice. I can do the usual things, have music discovered by preference, create radio stations from playlists or artists, Use other people's playlists, etc.  But the FREE version is now allowing me to upload my entire collection (up to 50,000 songs) into their cloud, WITHOUT MESSING UP MY ALBUMS, TRACKS OR ARTWORK.

Apple Music Fail:

The UI is incomprehensible, there is a HUGE support forum thread on how turning on iCloud Music has largely destroyed people's iTunes collections, and there is no free option. I couldn't even figure out what it was until I looked at Spotify, and saw what it was *trying* to become. I decided that I would use the 3 month free period to seriously evaluate streaming and cloud options for music. Here are the conclusions I am coming to:

Useful going forward, whether paid or free: Google Play Music, Spotify, Pandora and Vox (possibly, although Google Play Music looks even better).

Not Useful and cancelled (or soon will be): Amazon Music Player and Apple Music.

Definite Winners: VLC player for desktop and phone/tablet: Open Source Software does it right again.

Streaming from the NAS box: Air-Playit and Plex both have their strengths and weaknesses. The build-in DLNA server on the NAS is good enough for all in-home use, with Air-Playit providing internet and web access to media files.

Apple needs a Steve Jobs to yell at them when something is not up to snuff - like Apple Maps and Apple Music.

Apple must be going after the teeny bopper target market. They are most certainly not targeting serious music collectors.