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

I'm kind of surprised to still see so many people upset / frustrated / making plans to use other products. Initially that made sense - it looked like iTunes was munging collections and rewriting metadata of our actual files. But then Apple released an iTunes update and a very detailed support document. In that document, we all learned this problem only affected some users of iTunes Match, not everyone. And for those that were affected, it only affected the the match data, not actual metadata in your actual files. And Apple provided clear instructions on how to reset the match data. Users who tried those instructions then reported that all was well, their original data was just fine, and that resetting match fixed everything.

So the whole thing turned out to be a bit of a tempest in a teapot. Things weren't nearly as bad as feared, and there was a clear and easy path to repair.

Yet, people are still really upset. Hey guys - bugs are in all software. They happen. Our meticulous collections were not in fact damaged and people who applied the recommended steps reported that everything did in fact work as advertised.

My only challenge now is to get the collection down to 100,000 tracks so I can actually take advantage of it. But I'm no longer ******,  or fearful of enabling iCloud Music Library.

>> "we all learned this problem only affected some users of iTunes Match"

That's wrong. I never used iTunes Match, but I've had massive problems." 

>> "So the whole thing turned out to be a bit of a tempest in a teapot. Things weren't nearly as bad as feared, and there was a clear and easy path to repair."

That's all false, from what I've seen. It's still a huge issue for me. A deal breaker for iCloud Music Library.

No Scot, there is no way to reset the match data when you are still a iTunes Match subscriber.

No Scot, the iTunes update didn't fix everything.

For me, turning off iCloud Music Library :

- still empties half to 80% of my playlists,

- still duplicates them each day,

- still matches some tracks that I purchased into Apple Match DRM ones

So yes Scot bugs are in all software but please don't talk to us as to kids.

I currently cannot use an Apple service I'm still paying for (iTunes Match) because of their matching process.

That is why I am still very upset / frustrated / making plans to use other products.

Ah - apologies in that case. I had gotten the impression from posts by several others a few pages back that all was well after all. Sounds like Apple have cleared up many, but not all of the problems.

Scot,

It seems to me that Apple has cleared up some but not many of the problems as you say. The only useful information I have received regarding this whole debacle has been from this discussion thread but most certainly not from the powers that be at Apple. They are so isolated in their ivory tower that they have no way of hearing from and interacting with their customers. I am still using iTunes due to my huge library, but meanwhile I am following this discussion and sitting on the sidelines while looking for an alternative until Apple fully addresses this or just ignores it totally.

Just to show you how isolated from their iTunes customers Apple really is, I recently called AppleCare about the problems. They had no clue about the issues and could offer no help. I looked into Google Play Music and, when I had questions, they had both phone and chat support available. So I chose chat. I chatted with a most knowledgeable person at Google who was able to tell me exactly what I wanted to know. Although Google Play Music is not for me, I was able to communicate with them, and unlike Apple they answered my questions.

I still love Apple hardware and most of their software, but I am a music person. I would just like to find a separate music library(without a cloud) and player combo(i.e., a music jukebox) for my Mac that is separate from iTunes. I want to physically load my iTunes library into that jukebox and back it up so that all will be well going forward in the event Apple continues to go down the slippery slope with further catastrophic iTunes updates in the future. I have yet to find what I am looking for.

curious-what don't you like about Google Music? It is almost exactly what you just said you are looking for. Take your folders out of iTunes and load them to google. If you don't want to stream their vast catalog for 10 bucks a month, you can purchase and download them to your folders. Then back them up. Unless you are looking to upload FLAC or other high fidelity files I think this is the closest we are going to get. For now. Beats iTunes that is for sure. I will only use itunes for movies and tv to stream to Apple TV. Which lately I have mostly switched to Amazon Fire Stick for that content other than HBO Now. Like you I still love OSX and IOS but Apple software I have given up on. Except FCPX, the rest is all crud now.

jctez,

Enjoying the conversation!

1. I do not want to eliminate iTunes. I want to use it as is without the Cloud Library and keep my iTunes Library intact.

2. In examining Google, unlike Apple Music, the first thing you have to do is upload your music into their Cloud. At least that is what they told me. They also told me they match your songs with the closest matches they have ACCORDING TO THEIR STANDARDS. They said they have a way for customers to reload originals of songs they match incorrectly.

3. I don't want a cloud that mismatches a lot of my stuff. I don't want a cloud at all. I just want a stand alone library program with its own player. I have recategorized the genres of thousands of songs and edited the EQ on many to suit my taste. Plus I have made many cd compilations with custom designed cd covers that I have uploaded. It would be impossible for any cloud matching service to do anything but wreak havoc with my music library. It's like Apple for an example. In trying to match songs, they ran roughshod over album covers, EQs and genres. Their match settings paid absolutely no attention to them at all.

4. Unless you have a generic music collection, I think it is virtually impossible for a cloud matching service to do anything good for you. Unless they set very strict matching standards, you will only find yourself trying to unravel what they have messed up.

Hope all this makes sense.

No one wants a cloud that mismatches stuff, but I personally have wanted a cloud service for my own collection for many years. I have a 2.7 TB collection of largely rare / out of print / unavailable music on my "master" Mac at home, while most of my listening time is from work during the day, and sometimes on a separate laptop in other situations . If I drove a car more often, I'd want access to it from a phone as well. I have tried many convoluted systems over the years to gain access to my home music collection from work, including Home Sharing + Slink, VNC + Icecast, and others. Match initially showed a lot of promise here, but its tiny 25,000 track limit made it a non-starter.

iTunes continues to work fine as a standalone player, but I've been wanting to throw my money at Apple for a very long time to solve this problem, hence my very strong interest in this working flawlessly. Apple Music streaming of music from outside my collection is fun to play with, but not nearly as nice as hearing my own curated collection.

Matching is probably a harder problem to solve than it appears, but I believe it's solvable. Your custom playlists with custom covers should "just work" in the cloud. Whether they will when Apple gets this right is still an open question, but I have a lot of faith they'll nail it.

I have spent the last few days uploading my collections to Google Play, including non-identifiable albums, out of print stuff and FLAC files. I have had nearly ZERO problems with tracks albums or artwoK. And this is the FREE version. I am also able to have custom stations and playlists. Apples problems merely spurred me to look at available options, and I am impressed by Google.

2.7 TB of music? How do you manage that? How would anyone manage that? Are they WAV files or what? I couldn't have that much music in three lifetimes.

strannik,

In order to use Google, did you have to allow them to upload your music into their cloud first? Do you have a lot of tracks that you have added artwork to yourself + your own EQ settings + genre settings? Did they try to match those anyway or leave them alone? If all this works, can you then download everything to your Mac for standalone use? Do you now still have your iTunes library in addition to whatever you have with Google?

JazzmanJohn wrote:

 

strannik,

 

In order to use Google, did you have to allow them to upload your music into their cloud first? Do you have a lot of tracks that you have added artwork to yourself + your own EQ settings + genre settings? Did they try to match those anyway or leave them alone? If all this works, can you then download everything to your Mac for standalone use? Do you now still have your iTunes library in addition to whatever you have with Google?

All of my music is in a system of folders and files.  I have been dropping album folders onto the web interface and letting it upload.  I have had to add artwork to a couple of albums.  Many of my files have embedded artwork, plus I have a "folder.jpg" in each album folder to make sure that the artwork doesn't get lost.  I don't have the greatest upload speeds, so it is taking a while.  I did take the laptop to a Starbucks with super speeds and was able to upload the entire Beatles set  (Flac) in an hour or two.  I don't really care about how they classify genre, as long as my albums and playlists are intact.

At the risk of thread drift... I've been spending around $100/month on LPs and  CDs for about 35 years (I'm 50 now). I started digitizing my LPs six or seven years ago, then all of my CDs. Then another music collector friend asked me to digitize his CDs, followed by five other friends, and then a *very* serious music collector lent me his 5,000-CD collection to add to the pile. All told, I've been digitizing music relentlessly into iTunes for the past six years (not to mention maintaining an eMusic subscription and the occasional Music Store purchase. I only do albums, no singles. So the collection is around 10,000 albums now. So to answer your question, it all just grew organically, and it's almost all ALAC lossless.

Yes, managing it has become something of a hassle. 4TB drives are cheap these days, but backups are a hassle (thanks Backblaze!). I use a lot of keyboard shortcuts and smart playlists to mark candidates for deletion or archiving, etc. Doing that more aggressively now, trying to pare down some of the cruft (yes there is cruft!).

It does feel like a lifetime's worth of music, but really it's only about 400 days of continuous playback, all told.

Scot,

How on earth do you ever have time to even listen to music and choose a playlist or album to listen to?

Jazzman: I don't know if you are confused or I am confused LOL. No offense here, but you seem to be contradicting yourself. You say you don't want iTunes, but then you say you want iTunes untouched and still want it. All your folders are by artist in itunes music in your finder. If you want them to stay in itunes music folder but don't want to use itunes as a player, there are plenty of alternative players for you to use, that point to your itunes folders. But back to Google: you seem to have a problem with ''the cloud" but like I said earlier, only the songs you are streaming and purchasing are in the cloud. If you purchase them you can download them and own them and back them up, just like itunes. When you upload to google, they are stored in the cloud, but the hard files still live on your hard drive. Think of their cloud as back up. I uploaded all my beatles releases and bootlegs. Not one of them lost artwork. Not one bootleg had a track replaced. Google does not have the beatles in their library. Another example: Google has the entire Rolling Stones catalog. So I added all of those to my library and stream them. BUT: I have hundreds of live and rare Stones boots. I uploaded all of them, and no artwork was missing, no songs replaced with released, studio versions. Not one. Since I still have my itunes music folder, those boots are still in there, and in google folders that i used to upload. I don't mind, I have the room and consider the doubles, along with time machine back ups, a good thing. If I did not have the room, I would delete the itunes files, as I don't use itunes. THEREFORE: everything is in google play music. Organized any way I want. And just a note you CAN organize by genre in google play. Click the ''edit information" and you can change genre, create your own genre, change artwork, etc. I created a genre called ''new sh*t" where I put new releases, and one called ''listen to'' for albums I want to check out but don't want to file just yet till I know I want them forever. Seems to me it is perfect for what you say you want. But perhaps I am just not understanding you correctly. Good conversation this is cool :-)