Why is iTunes putting same artist multiple times?

It did it with me earlier again... I sorted it by

1. Changing the artist and album artist to XXXX

2. I then closed down iTunes Quit iTunes

3. Open iTunes

4. Change the artist to the original, by copying it from the proper artist

5. Close iTunes after you have done all those steps

6. If the tracks still don't merge, drag the rouge tracks to the desktop and then delete them from iTunes.

7. Close and open iTunes and then go to the artist and add the tracks from the desktop to the iTunes library.

8. Pain in the neck and long winded, but it worked for me.... 🙂

Glad you sorted it... Thought the update had fixed it - sadly not, but hey, keeps it interesting 😉

Whenever you are editing meta data, newly entered media started acting weird

This helped me

1. Make sure that all Artist name is same in all songs (by editing meta date through get info option)

2. Make sure that All Albums under that artist is same without any spelling differences (by editing meta date through get info option)

3. If you using Mac, go to media location

4. It should show all albums of single Artist in single folder (If not please edit meta data again for mismatching information)

5. Copy the folder and save in different location (preferably desktop)

6. Now open iTunes

7. Delete all wrong entries (move them to trash, its must to move to trash otherwise it will not work)

8. Now in the iTunes, you do not see that particular artist (and his albums)

9. Now add the media again into iTunes (this will fix the issue)

Lengthy process but still worked for me, we need to repeat same procedure whenever we add new media (unless apple comes with permanent solution)

This did not work for me...

If iTunes shows multiple instances of an artist or an album then what generally works is to select all related tracks and use Get Info to add say a trailing X to each of the fields that the tracks should have in common:

• For an album; Album, Album Artist, and Artist (if artist is the same for all tracks) *
• For an artist; Album Artist (and Artist unless there are guest/featured artists listed which should not be changed)

Apply the change which merges things together, then remove the excess characters. Occasionally it may help to close and reopen iTunes between the two renaming operations. Part of a compilation should also be set consistently.

* If tracks are to be synced to a non-iOS device there should be a common Artist and/or the album should be set as a Compilation.

Use the songs view and display the fields Album, Sort Album, Album Artist, Sort Album Artist, Artist and Sort Artist side by side so you see whether or not it is appropriate to edit Artist and if sort values could be causing any further problems. See Grouping tracks into albums for more help if required.

One further tip for really stubborn duplicates. At one point I had three lots of Various Artists in the artists view of my iTunes Match library that wouldn't respond to the usual trailing X treatment. What I found worked was to add the trailing X to start with, but then with each group that iTunes wanted to keep separate start typing a value and let iTunes autocomplete from Var... to Various Artists. Picking from the autocomplete lists seemed to work when pasting/editing the whole value didn't.

tt2

it didn't help me!

On my side I solved this concern by doing the following.

First I choose the display by Songs. Then I click the Artist column to sort it out by Artist names.

Second I choose all the same artist, right click "Get Info". Delete fields Artist & Album Artist. I just keep an X letter in the Artist field. Then apply.

Third I click again "Get Info" on all my Artist named X. Fill Artist & Album Artist fields with the good info et voila!

Hope it helps

Much simpler solution. In iTunes group select all "songs" by pressing "select" while clicking on all the album/artists songs. Now all the songs should be highlighted in blue. Next go to edit in the menu bar and select "get info". You will be asked if you want to edit the entire selection, answer yes. In "Get Info" under artist name type "aaaaaaaaa" and hit "Okay". Now in your list of songs scroll all the way up to "a" and you will find the same group of song. Now again group select all the songs and go to "get info" and type in the artists' name and hit okay.

You should now find all the albums/artist grouped properly.

For me was helpful to remove "Artist" and keep "Album artist" only. Which forces to automatically detect "Artist".

Wow, nothing helps. I spent so much time deleting, naming, renaming, and nothing helps. Never saw this in earlier versions of iTunes and completely surprised why Apple can't seem to reproduce it then patch. I'm on v12.4.3.1 and been seeing this #$%^ issue for at least the last two builds. I can see if this is some obscure application they have and plan on obsoleting it soon, but this is a bread-and-butter application where crap like this should be addressed immediately.

The odd thing is that under Albums view all the songs are properly displayed. So at least in the metadata iTunes uses it knows that these songs are related to the same album, same artist, etc.

...and we as paying customers should not have to be playing around with hacks like this!!

Thank you! Worked miraculously!

I've been dealing with this issue for months and you are correct, nothing works. Well, that's not true. I could sit here and remove the artist for the individual tracks and replace it with the album artist name. Then go back and add the correct artist and then look who those albums and artists and copy and paste, etc. I've done that so many times and I'm tired of doing it, especially when it's a compilation or a musical soundtrack. What really sets me off is that I've yet to get any fed back from Apple via the feedback assistant. As soon I fix one album I find another. As soon as there is a new update I find another and another. I've had it!

Group select all the track's (press shift while clicking on each track) then scroll down from "edit" and select "get info".

You are now going to do edit multiple items at the same time. Change the artist's name to "aaaaaa" and hit "OK".

Scroll all the way to the top of your songs and you will find the group of highlighted songs tis time with artist name "aaaaaa".

Repeat the "group info" procedure again but this time enter the correct artist name and hit "OK".

Scroll down to find all your tracks grouped under 1 artist.

Some times you may have to do this a few times but they will group.

I don't if you listen to iTunes with Apple TV but iTunes gets screwed up there as well with multiple listings this will solve that problem as well.

Yes, this has been pointed out many times already (for me, I must have done this 15 times for one of the artist groups I set, still pi$$es me off that it's not working and the time I wasted). But Apple is no longer a true customer focused company when it comes to their software. Not like the old days. Understandably so, now Apple has a massive company to run, shifting priorities, focus on new products to appease the critics that they are still innovators, lawsuits, typical corporate stuff. But when people (not just you!) post 'hacks' like this:

"Some times you may have to do this a few times but they will group."

the team leader or sr. manager for iTunes or software development should be all over this as it is an embarrassment to their product line and the people involved in development. More importantly: it's crappy customer service!

Is this the biggest bug or priority? No. But being in tech for almost four decades I would have to believe that this indexing issue is NOT a huge problem to overcome. Heck, I bet you could have an intern find the root cause and implement a fix in a day or two. Nope. All their focus is on the new iPhone now and how to make emojis look cool.

This post by Tron2008 is fine yet you deleted mine for not being constructive? Nice double standard.

Below is what I posted: