I have also been having this issue basically since the time you have posted this. Since then, I’ve contacted Apple Care several times and have spent several hours on the phone. The results have been shocking-
I have iCloud Music Library and iTunes Match both turned on, and yes, I’ve been having a problem with the metadata and artwork being replaced as well. In fact, earlier this year I complained to Apple Care again, because it basically started replacing the songs with completely different songs on my other devices.
There is no doubt that the Matching is far from perfect.
The responses from the Apple Care Service have me flabbergasted.
Apple Care that i spoke to are completely unaware of this issue, in fact even senior advisors are unaware of this issue. People confused iTunes Match and iCloud Music Library and Apple Music. They were just not aware of their products. As a person who has been an Apple and iTunes customer since 2004, this is the worst service I’ve ever received. Apple Care used to be phenomenal.
Anyway, I was called back after several days and one of the first advisors told me, that it’s happening on his devices as well, so that’s how it’s intended to work. I was like huh?! He even refused to escalate it to engineering. After completely being let down by them in 2015, I just let the matter slide.
Earlier this year, I went out and bought a bunch of CDs and started imported them. When the same albums showed up on my Apple TV, I played them, and I realised that they weren’t the same songs as the ones I originally imported. Of course the artwork and stuff wasn’t accurate either. It was actually replacing the songs themselves!!!
Earlier it was just the metadata, now it’s also the actual content! This is unbelievable!!! How is Apple actually making this product worse let alone fixing it?
I called Apple Care again, and the same countless hours on the phone with people having no idea what I’m talking about, I finally get contacted by a person from customer relations. Initially he was very kind and I believed he would try his best to at least tell me what the problem is.
Today I get a call from him with a completely different and stern tone, telling me that there is no resolution that Apple can provide to me at this time, and he said the conventional, “We have taken your feedback on board”. He further went on to say that if Apple believes that there is genuine improvement needed they will do it, but I cannot be told about the internal operations.
Of course I don’t want to know how they deal with this, that’s their business, I just care about the problem being solved. But the attitude doesn’t give me the impression that Apple genuinely cares about this being fixed. Why else would it escape the training of these Apple Care professionals? Furthermore, there was some talk of iTunes Match causing a problem when its enabled in conjunction with iCloud Music Library. It amazes me that they would not tell customers that before, especially when iTunes Match is a paid service. I have reset my iCloud Music Library so many times!!! it’s just annoying it isn’t fixed yet. iTunes is generally just so buggy!
I’m thoroughly let down by Apple and after over a decade of using iTunes, I’m considering moving. How can an issue like this go unnoticed and not dealt with for over two years? Are people who actually care about their music curation and metadata accuracy lost? Or is Apple just not bothered? iTunes was what made Apple great at one point.
Here I was hoping for High Resolution Music, turns out Apple can’t even fix their 256kbps AAC song matching.
I sincerely hope and wish that someone from Apple reads this thread. Has anyone tried contacting Eddy Cue or Craig?
