iTunes 12.2.0 have deleted all of my playlists and most songs...

I had the same problem and am well acquainted with those feelings of devastation (I am a classical listener and have spent hundreds of hours over the last decade and more, importing cover art and working on tags, making composers' names consistent and applying specific genre terms such as "Orchestral". I have Time Machine backups and was about to apply the strategies suggested by Richard Grant but I came back to it a couple of days later to find that all was restored to normal. The problem had disappeared as mysteriously as it had arisen. So it looks as if Apple got it sorted. Maybe I was just lucky with my timing. These are strange times we live in, when the tentacles of a vast corporation can tinker with something as personal as your music collection without you knowing. I tried iTunes Match for a couple of years. I benefitted from some audio format upgrades but, apart from that, it just kept messing up my tags and cover art. A few weeks ago I had a taster of Apple Music, then withdrew within the same day when I realised I was going to have to re-download all my previous purchases, now with DRM restrictions placed on them. So I'm never going near any of these cloud-based services again (if I can help it). I'm happy to organise my own collection on my own hard drive and backups and sync any devices directly to them, as I always have. Young people and newcomers may feel different; it is clearly aimed at them.

I know this is heresy for all of you Appleisti, but it needs to be said. Apple. *****.

I have exactly the problem described in this question: I turned on my iPad and all of my playlists are gone. All of the replies to this question, including all the replies from the gods at Apple relate back to finding prior music libraries on desktop computers. There is no indication why all of the playlist developed on the iPad, and all content not purchased directly from Apple has been deleted In a pattern I am becoming all too used to, the support teams at Apple (if there are in fact any such things) deal with this problem by pretending it does not exist.

So, here's a restate of the problem: update to the latest version of iTunes has deleted all of my playlist and all content which I uploaded to my iPad. Is there a reason for this? Is there a fix for this? Please note, I do not use a Mac computer, and these playlist were not copied to my desktop computer. Again, this is an iPad, not iPod, not Mac question.

I could kiss you! Nothing else I tried worked until your fix. 🙂

This worked! Thank you so much, Richard.

richard grant

Okay, try not to panic. There are two things to try.

First, you should try to turn off iTunes in the Cloud, which I think requires going into Store > Account Info and selecting "Deauthorize This Computer" or something like that. (I can't check because I've got it turned off.)

Now quit iTunes. Look in the folder Music > iTunes > Previous iTunes Libraries. Hopefully, there is at least one document in there with the file extension .itl and a date *prior* to when you updated to to 12.2. If you find such a thing, then do this:

Back in the main iTunes folder, rename the files iTunes Library.itl and iTunes Music Library.xml (just add "corrupted" to the beginning of the file name, or something like that). Now rename the previous version to iTunes Library.itl, drag it into the main iTunes folder, and restart the iTunes app. (The XML file should regenerate automatically.) If all goes well, you should be looking at a version of your iTunes with all your playlists and songs restored. If you are given the option to use iTunes in the Cloud, just say No -- this seems to be where these problems are coming from.

If you can't find such a file, then you can look for one in TimeMachine -- just be sure the backup was made prior to upgrading to 12.2. Again, bring this into the iTunes folder, replacing the version that's been corrupted. I really do hope this works!

I hope Apple has taken note of this nightmare and is working on a fix.

Hi Richard. Your solution worked, THANK YOU!!!

I am wondering if I will lose everything if I re-Authorize my computer again.

I am wanting to play a rented movie and it tells me I have to authorize this computer.

Thanks for your help.

Hi doublea13,

No, you won't loose anything.

Thanks 🙂

Richard Grant, you are a genius! Arigatou!!!

Thanks Richard!

Richard Grant, you are a life-saver!!!

Thanks to you, over 3.000 songs recovered, plus many playlists and customized genres that had gone missing! I could have never recreated all this.

Your solution worked for me without first removing my macbookpro from iCloud; also, I removed the .itl extension from the corrupted "iTunes Library.itl" file.

Thank you so much!

I use Apple Music on my macbook and iPhone/iPad, and yesterday all of my music I have added to my library through Apple Music and as mp3 files was gone (besides one album purchased through iTunes). All of my playlists and smart playlists were gone too except for a couple of really old playlists I had made years ago on a different computer. What I did was:

1. Quit iTunes

2. Move the "iTunes Library.itl" file out of my "iTunes" folder in my "Music" folder and to my desktop

3. Opened iTunes

After that, everything was almost exactly as it was two days ago.

I was pretty shocked and heartbroken when I saw that everything I had spent countless hours on was gone. I hope that through this method or another those of you in the same situation can get back what you undeservingly lost.

Non of the solutions worked for me.

I didn't update iTunes recently.

My iPod was stolen a week ago and I enabled lost mode immediately.

The only thing that might have happened is that my iPod's memory was erased.

I use iTunes 12.3

Try Empty/corrupt iTunes library after upgrade/crash.

tt2

Hi Richard,

So i have also this problem however your fix doesn't work.

If I restore the .itl file i can open iTunes and see the playlists but within a few seconds of iTunes connecting to the iTunes store it resets the playlists to the old and wrong ones. If I turn off the wifi i don't have this issue.

Can I export the playlists with the wifi off and then re import them ???

Thanks in advance.

Guy

Guy Harding wrote:

Hi Richard,

So i have also this problem however your fix doesn't work.

If I restore the .itl file i can open iTunes and see the playlists but within a few seconds of iTunes connecting to the iTunes store it resets the playlists to the old and wrong ones. If I turn off the wifi i don't have this issue.

Can I export the playlists with the wifi off and then re import them ???

Thanks in advance.

Guy

Yes, turn off your wi-fi before connecting to a backup .itl. You can use iTunes > Preferences > General > iCloud Music Library > Off to stop the library trying to update itself and then turn wi-fi back on again if you wish.

tt2