Dyhrthomsen

Q: Apple Music plays wrong version of a song when playing an album

When I play certain albums – e.g. The White Stripes – “Elephant” or U2 – “The Joshua Tree” - certain songs are played in incorrect version (i.e. live, bootlegs etc). Other albums are played correctly. The versions played are taken from "My Music" which is connected to iTunes Match. It is only when I use Apple Music the problem occurs. When playing from My Music the songs are played correctly. Any idea what to do?

iPhone 6, iOS 8.4

Posted on Jul 6, 2015 11:23 PM

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Q: Apple Music plays wrong version of a song when playing an album

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  • by swandy,

    swandy swandy Aug 16, 2015 6:43 PM in response to KGriff
    Level 4 (1,542 points)
    Apple Music
    Aug 16, 2015 6:43 PM in response to KGriff

    Thanks KGriff - that is what I figured (that you had downloaded the albums from Apple Music) because when I played the mistaken tracks directly from Apple Music they did play correctly.

    As far as your suggestion of signing out of iTunes/Apple Music/iCloud Library and then signing back in (1) already tried that several times and more importantly (2) that does not remove whatever you have in your iCloud Library. So when you re-sign back in - either from an iOS device or the Mac that physically had the tracks, I get a message that there is too many songs because it is figuring that I have 23,000 or so already and want to add more. According to my Apple supervisor there is a way of doing it - but it is a bit more involved than that apparently.

    But what I did try is setting up a totally new Apple ID and then uploading/matching the same problem albums in that new ID. With the same result. So I don't know if the files on my Mac (or their metadata) is somewhat screwed up and that is causing the issue. But considering that I have read quite a few posts of people having the same issue, I doubt it is that. Also the fact that such a relatively small sample of my total library got screwed up.

    But thanks for trying it out and trying to help,

    Steve

  • by David Cody,

    David Cody David Cody Aug 22, 2015 11:56 AM in response to KGriff
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Aug 22, 2015 11:56 AM in response to KGriff

    Thanks KGriff... this worked. I have been looking at my albums that were partially uploaded and partially Apple Music. This is a good indication that I either had a name issue with one of my files or they grabbed the wrong song out of the Apple library.

     

    We need to keep reporting these bugs to Apple so they will get them fixed.

     

    http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html

    http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

  • by swandy,

    swandy swandy Aug 22, 2015 12:21 PM in response to David Cody
    Level 4 (1,542 points)
    Apple Music
    Aug 22, 2015 12:21 PM in response to David Cody

    I have not only tried the feedback page (and BTW this issue is not just with iPhones and the Music app, it also happens with Macs and Windows computers), I have been dealing with a senior support advisor. Unfortunately, they have not come up with a solution either. I am just hoping that when iOS 9 and El Capitain are released that this "bug" will be straightened out. Because then is supposedly when Apple will increase the size of the library limit to 100,000 tracks and I want to add the rest of my iTunes library. Can only keep fingers and toes crossed at this point.

  • by CarlosX_PR,

    CarlosX_PR CarlosX_PR Aug 23, 2015 11:08 AM in response to Dyhrthomsen
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 23, 2015 11:08 AM in response to Dyhrthomsen

    This easily could be solved, Apple providing an option to bypass Match for specific albums/songs, and let the user force the uploaded song be the one to be played on all devices.

     

    The matching algorithm has never work flawless. You can tell when you automatically downloads music metadata and album art in iTunes.

  • by CarlosX_PR,

    CarlosX_PR CarlosX_PR Aug 25, 2015 6:00 PM in response to Dyhrthomsen
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 25, 2015 6:00 PM in response to Dyhrthomsen

    I found a way to workaround this:

     

    1. Right click on the song / Get Info

    2. Change song name substantially, for example: add " - Live Version" to the end. This is what do the trick!

    3. Click Ok

    4. Right click on the song / Show in Finder

    5. Grab the file and copy it to your desktop

    6. On iTunes, right click on the song / Delete / Delete Song

    7. Grab the file you just copied on the desktop and drop it on iTunes

    8. The new song will appear

    9. Right click on the song / Add to iCloud Library

     

    Done!

  • by swandy,

    swandy swandy Aug 25, 2015 6:12 PM in response to CarlosX_PR
    Level 4 (1,542 points)
    Apple Music
    Aug 25, 2015 6:12 PM in response to CarlosX_PR

    Sure - if you only have a few songs that were "mis-matched". But my library that I started with had over 22,000 tracks of which almost 5,700 were live tracks. And a very large percentage of those don't play properly. In addition there a quite a few examples where the wrong studio versions have been used as a match instead of the correct version (like remastered versions).

    So while your "solution" will in fact work, for people who have many songs with this issue, it is not a very practical solution. Hopefully Apple will come up with something better by the time we have to start paying for Apple Music.

  • by CarlosX_PR,

    CarlosX_PR CarlosX_PR Aug 25, 2015 6:15 PM in response to swandy
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 25, 2015 6:15 PM in response to swandy

    Totally agree!

  • by CarlosX_PR,

    CarlosX_PR CarlosX_PR Aug 27, 2015 6:53 PM in response to Dyhrthomsen
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 27, 2015 6:53 PM in response to Dyhrthomsen

    Wow... I haven't realized how many live version songs I have, and how many mis-matched by iTunes. Even well known live CDs that are on iTunes.

     

    This is really a problem, and iTunes people must provide a way to work this out. Otherwise, this service could be useless to many people with out-of-the-ordinary music collections... like us.

  • by Mofo_,

    Mofo_ Mofo_ Sep 16, 2015 11:10 AM in response to CarlosX_PR
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 16, 2015 11:10 AM in response to CarlosX_PR

    Anyone download IOS 9 yet and tested this out?  If it's still a problem when I upgrade to IOS 9, I'm cancelling my Apple Music subscription. 

  • by Atedos,

    Atedos Atedos Sep 21, 2015 1:13 AM in response to Mofo_
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Sep 21, 2015 1:13 AM in response to Mofo_

    Yes. It's still a problem with iOS 9 and iTunes 12.3

  • by swandy,

    swandy swandy Sep 21, 2015 7:11 AM in response to CarlosX_PR
    Level 4 (1,542 points)
    Apple Music
    Sep 21, 2015 7:11 AM in response to CarlosX_PR

    CarlosX_PR wrote:

     

    Wow... I haven't realized how many live version songs I have, and how many mis-matched by iTunes. Even well known live CDs that are on iTunes.

     

    This is really a problem, and iTunes people must provide a way to work this out. Otherwise, this service could be useless to many people with out-of-the-ordinary music collections... like us.

    Have the same issue. The version of my iTunes Library that I used to test Apple Music/ICML was about 22,000 songs of which over 5,000 were live and probably at least half were mis-matched.

    BTW - The fact that an album is in iTunes has nothing to do with Apple Music/ICML. The album must appear in Apple Music as that is where the iCloud Music Library does it's matching to, not the iTunes Store that has many more albums/tracks available. But I have many albums (I love how badly the 40th Anniversary 4 CD version of "Live at Leeds" by The Who was so badly mangled) that are in Apple Music and though I an play them perfectly from Apple Music, I can't play my own "upload/matched" version.

  • by Phila Sports Guy,

    Phila Sports Guy Phila Sports Guy Nov 7, 2015 5:59 AM in response to swandy
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 7, 2015 5:59 AM in response to swandy

    The thread has taking on a few different topics, I'll look to reply to what was the early (original) issue regarding playing the correct version of a song on a Mac / PC (local) but incorrect on an iPhone.

     

    What you likely need to do is the following on the iPhone;

     

    • Turn of iCloud Music Library in Settings
    • Sync your iPhone to your Mac (like the good old days).  Make sure all the songs you want are 'checked' and all the music you want on your phone is selected correctly in iTunes to make sure they are in scope to be synched
    • Once your local iTunes is synced with your phone do a quick check to make sure the proper version of the song you want plays - it should since it can only come from your local music library now.  
    • Turn iCloud Music Library back on in Settings - and select 'Merge' when prompted.  This is the key step, it will only add to your library those songs not already stored on the device, most people would select Replace which basically allows Apple to replace the songs on your iPhone with any version of the song in the cloud which may not be the correct version you want - i.e. Live, Acoustic etc

     

    Depending on the number of songs in your library the initial 'clean' sync could take some time - and then when you turn the iCloud Music Library back on that does it check but that is relatively quick. 

     

    At this point going forward, I won't say it is perfect but for the most part Apple has kept my music aligned to what songs I have added (locally) and those I have added from the cloud - it is the initial combination of the two that often causes the issues.

     

    Hope that helps, it has for me - of course though every setup is different so always good to have backups etc just to be safe.

     

    Regards

  • by HypKin,

    HypKin HypKin Nov 7, 2015 6:07 AM in response to Dyhrthomsen
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 7, 2015 6:07 AM in response to Dyhrthomsen

    works now for me after i subscribed to itunes match additionally to apple music...

  • by ApexAftermath,

    ApexAftermath ApexAftermath Nov 28, 2015 7:08 AM in response to HypKin
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Nov 28, 2015 7:08 AM in response to HypKin

    So I just signed up for Apple music and after it was done "uploading" music I noticed this issue. So if I'm understanding correctly, if I want to be able to play all the weird different versions of songs I have like bootleg recordings, I will need to also get iTunes Match? For example I have this remix of the Imperial March from the force commander video game soundtrack and "my music" on Apple music shows it with the correct name for the remix but when I actually play it, the song that plays is just the normal imperial March from the Empire Strikes back soundtrack.

     

    So once again, to be clear, the reason I'm not getting the songs I want to hear is because without iTunes Match this kind of exact matching will never happen, correct?

     

    If this is the case what should I do next? Do I just sign up for iTunes Match and it will take care of itself of do I need to sign up and then somehow wipe and force an icloud rescan?

  • by swandy,

    swandy swandy Nov 28, 2015 7:25 AM in response to ApexAftermath
    Level 4 (1,542 points)
    Apple Music
    Nov 28, 2015 7:25 AM in response to ApexAftermath

    ApexAftermath wrote:

     

    So I just signed up for Apple music and after it was done "uploading" music I noticed this issue. So if I'm understanding correctly, if I want to be able to play all the weird different versions of songs I have like bootleg recordings, I will need to also get iTunes Match? For example I have this remix of the Imperial March from the force commander video game soundtrack and "my music" on Apple music shows it with the correct name for the remix but when I actually play it, the song that plays is just the normal imperial March from the Empire Strikes back soundtrack.

     

    So once again, to be clear, the reason I'm not getting the songs I want to hear is because without iTunes Match this kind of exact matching will never happen, correct?

     

    If this is the case what should I do next? Do I just sign up for iTunes Match and it will take care of itself of do I need to sign up and then somehow wipe and force an icloud rescan?

    Supposedly iTunes Match has less issues with "matching" than iCloud Music Library - the part of Apple Music that uploads and keeps track of your music library. The reasons seem to be that (1) iTunes Match matches the iTunes Library whereas ICML matches the Apple Music library and (2) apparently the logarithms that are used for the two services are not identical. ICML apparently "matches" based upon Artist Name and Track Title while ignoring other metadata including Album title. You can try changing the information in the track information (change the Artist name from The Who to The WhoO) and then re-adding the tracks to ICML. It does seem to work most of the time - though a PIA if you have a lot of mis-matched tracks.

    I have quite a few - mainly live tracks - and am waiting somewhat patiently for Apple Music to update the service - probably when they increase the track limit to 100,000 towards the end of the year - and hopefully they will come up with a solution.

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