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Q: iCloud music library matching issues?  Here is what I did to solve it

I will caveat this by stating that this may not work for everyone.  After hours of messing with this so that it would finally "just work", I wanted to share all of the steps I went through in order to correct mismatched songs (live version/acoustic version, wrong album, sometimes even wrong artist!, incorrect/low quality artwork, missing ratings, missing lyrics, etc.)

 

First step:  If you originally had a canceled iTunes Match subscription, follow these steps from Apple to completely wipe your iCloud Music Library and start over fresh.  But don't do steps 6 on - just stick to iTunes and one device.

 

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204964

 

Second StepMake sure iCloud Music Library only on one iTunes and one device only.  This makes it easier to investigate. 

Wrong song (live/acoustic/wrong artist/etc)

I went through each and every song on my device (non-purchased songs), which was tedious and very time-consuming.  But it gave me assurance that I had addressed every issue.  If you encounter a song that is the wrong version, follow these steps:


1. delete the song off your device first.  Click on the three dots (...) in the lower right corner of the playing song and choose "Remove from My Music).  This will remove it from your iCloud Music Library.
2. After a few moments (sometimes a bit longer), you will see in iTunes that it will show "Removed" as the iCloud status.  Once it is showing as removed in iTunes on your PC, then edit song title like the example below.  You will add the - Original to the name of the song.  This will force iTunes to Upload the song rather than try to match it. 


Current Song Title:

Under The Gun

Edited Song Title:

Under The Gun - Original


3.  Then right-click the song and Add to iCloud.  It should then upload the song, rather than match.  Unfortunately, I have discovered that if you edit the song back to the old title, it will eventually revert back to Match rather than Upload and you will have the wrong song again.  So you have to keep the "- Original" in the title, which isn’t ideal but at least it works until Apple addresses this.  I did have an instance where some of my edited songs (with Original in the title) went back to Matched.  I’m not sure why - at the time I had the title as something like Under the Gun (Original).  So I changed them to the "- Original" and haven’t had the issue again (three weeks later).  It's possible that iTunes saw the parenthesis and ignored it when matching the song and when I changed it to a dash, it uses that part of the title to attempt a match, thus resulting in the upload.


I didn't like having to do this, but I couldn't find another way to address them, even after spending a lot of time talking with Apple about it.  That was their workaround to the issue.  I had several older Def Leppard songs on albums not available in the store and instead of automatically uploading those songs, it matched them to live versions of the songs that are in the Store.  I had an album by a rock group called The Storm, which is not available in the store, but one song (Call Me) matches the same name of a song by a more recent R&B/Jamaican band also called The Storm.  iTunes matched it to that song.  By using the steps above, I ensure those songs always appear as uploaded.  I had numerous songs from Cinderella, Bon Jovi and other artists that even though the album/song I have in my iTunes is currently available, it still matched to a live version of the song.


In addition, I created a Smart Playlist called Original, with the rules searching for song titles with "- Original" and thus I can periodically check to ensure the uploaded status didn't change down the road.



Wrong artwork/matching to incorrect album (or not the high quality artwork you have spent so long accruing)

I have lots of iTunes songs that while playing the right song, it shows the wrong artwork (Best Of/Greatest Hits, etc when I have it listed in iTunes as the original album). The song details shows my correct info as per my iTunes list, but the artwork doesn’t match.  In addition, I have spent countless hours (call me a geek) searching and importing high-quality artwork for my albums.  I want those to display on my device.  But unfortunately in the initial load, it defaults to the artwork currently in iTunes for any purchased or matched songs.  Here is how I corrected that:


Go into iTunes and select all the songs in the album, then right-click, Get Info.  Then go to Album Artwork and CMD-X/ Ctrl-X the artwork to cut it.  Then CMD-V/Ctrl-V to paste the artwork back in.  Then click OK.  After approx 15-20 seconds (depending on network, etc) you will see iTunes do a quick refresh and you will see the artwork update on your device.  I did these one album at a time to ensure the refresh/update happens. 

Every once in a while as I was doing this, the update would never happen. I had to close iTunes down, wait a few minutes, then restart iTunes again. Then I clicked on File, Library, Update iCloud Music Library.  I waited for the spinning wheel to stop to show the update was complete and then I started again on the album that wouldn’t update.  That addressed the lag in updating and I would continue on with each album.


Ratings Missing on your device:

Another issue I had is where my ratings were missing on about half of my songs when viewed on the iPhone.  I fixed this by going into iTunes and sorting all my songs by rating.  I then highlighted all the songs in a certain rating (i.e all 3 star ratings), then right-clicked, selected rating and chose No Rating.  (This will drop all the non-rated songs to the bottom of your sorted list - keep that in mind).  Then I scrolled down and saw all the songs I highlighted, I right-clicked again and chose 3 stars again.  This updated back to my iPhone in a few minutes and after doing all songs like that, all my ratings were properly appearing on the iPhone.


Lyrics missing on your device:

Much like ratings missing, I have a lot of songs missing lyrics.  You can take a similar approach as with the artwork, but this one will be much more time-consuming so I haven't done it yet.  You can right-click the song, go to Lyrics, CMD-X/ Ctrl-X the lyrics to cut them.  Then CMD-V/Ctrl-V to paste the lyrics back in.  Then click Ok.  However, as this is per-song, not per-album, this will take me a long time to do.  I just hope Apple fixes this one as I've already invested too much time on all the prior steps.


Hopefully this will work for you and alleviate some frustration.  It's a long, arduous process but it did finally resolve my issues.

iMac (27-inch, Late 2012), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Sep 1, 2015 1:55 PM

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Q: iCloud music library matching issues?  Here is what I did to solve it

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  • by swandy,

    swandy swandy Sep 1, 2015 2:34 PM in response to fewpix
    Level 4 (1,536 points)
    Apple Music
    Sep 1, 2015 2:34 PM in response to fewpix

    Thanks for this information - though there have been several threads with a similar solution to yours, it is good to keep it up front.

    But - depending on the size of (1) your iTunes Library that you use to setup iCloud Music Library and (2) what percentage of your library got screwed up, this might work, but might not be the most practical solution.

    For example: I setup iCloud Music Library/Apple Music from my wife's iMac (it only had about 22,000 songs as opposed to mine which had about 60,000). Of that approximately 5,000 were Live tracks (where I have noticed the most mistakes) and probably around 75% of them were mis-matched. So, not really practical to edit all the titles.

    I do know from speaking to an Apple Senior Supervisor that they are very aware of this "matching" issue and he said they are hopeful to have a solution/resolution when iOS and OS X are updated in the next few weeks. We can only hope.