Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

You are here: MacNN Forums > News > Mac News > Follow-up: Dalrymple's iTunes issues largely fixed, patch coming

Follow-up: Dalrymple's iTunes issues largely fixed, patch coming
Thread Tools
NewsPoster
MacNN Staff
Join Date: Jul 2012
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jul 25, 2015, 04:42 PM
 
We reported last week on fellow Mac journalist Jim Dalrymple's particularly bad issues with iTunes 12.2 and later on the Mac, centered around the arrival of Apple Music and Apple's attempts to blend the paid service's ability to store songs for later streaming or offline use with some customers' existing or previous iTunes Match libraries, which appears to cause much confusion, ranging from mislabelled entries in the iTunes library to missing songs in some cases.

In what Dalrymple called "an interesting and confusing day," he journeyed to an Apple office to work directly with iTunes engineers to both communicate the extent of his issues (more minor versions of which have been seen by some MacNN staffers), and to seek solutions and information on forthcoming solutions for the public at large. In anecdotal evidence, it appears that users who never signed up for iTunes Match are the least affected by the issues, whereas even long-expired iTunes Match customers are seeing iTunes libraries affected by mismatched data if they add songs from the Apple Music service, or if they delete songs that were once matched by iTunes Match.

The core issue appears to revolve around the blending of Apple Music's version of storing songs in a virtual iCloud-based music locker, and iTunes Match's version. Both services offer to replicate a user's entire music library (up to 25,000 songs plus any iTunes purchases), which allows full access to it from mobile devices for on-demand streaming.

The iTunes Match service, which existed long before the new Apple Music paid service, costs $25 per year and is still offered as a separate service for those who do not plan to subscribe to Apple Music. Apple Music, which offers a $10 per month paid service, expands on iTunes Match by offering the same matching and storage of a user's existing music library, but also allows them to add any song or album from the iTunes Music Library's 40-million-plus song collection (with a few notable holdout artists, such as Prince and the Beatles). The issues reported thus far mostly appear to be from people who have, or had at any point in the past, iTunes Match -- and are also now using the free three-month Apple Music service trial.

Like most iTunes Match customers, Dalrymple said that the service worked "flawlessly" for him, allowing him to access his own large library of music on any of his mobile devices, even a brand new one, on-the-fly for years.

When Dalrymple signed on for the free Apple Music trial, however, he began having issues with his existing iTunes Match library. "Before Apple Music, iTunes Match would show me all of my songs-matched, uploaded, and purchased," he said. "However, if you turn off iCloud Music Library and Apple Music, iTunes Match will only show your purchased content now. There is no way to separate iTunes Match from the iCloud Music Library. Before, you would turn off iTunes Match-now you would turn off iCloud Music Library."

Apple later assured him that none of his matched music files were ever actually deleted, and remained stored in iCloud -- but due to a bug, did not display when viewing the iCloud Music Library that acts now as a central repository for both iTunes Match-stored material as well as Apple Music-stored files.

"The missing and duplicate song issues that we've all seen in Apple Music are being fixed shortly," Dalrymple reported, saying that Apple has been able to restore "99 percent" of his previously-missing files. "They are certainly aware of what's been going on, I can assure you."

One of the issues Dalrymple experienced was that songs he had previously purchased or ripped from CD himself, which were previously tagged as "matched" in iTunes Match (the service identifies user-owned songs and instead of uploading them, "matches" them with an iTunes copy of the same song) were now being identified as "Apple Music" -- meaning that if his subscription ever expired or if he temporarily turned off the service, those songs were no longer available. This, he reported, was fixed during his session with Apple.

"I'll admit, I'm still trying to get my head around how this works," he said. The blending of the two services' libraries into a single iCloud Music Library does seem to be a point of potential trouble that has been realized for users who are or were using both services now, though over time most customers will likely use one or other (or in some cases neither) rather than both at the same time, since (once the kinks are worked out) Apple Music will largely duplicate the functionality of iTunes Match and then some.

Importantly, Dalrymple's issues are now largely resolved, though he did not make clear if he was given early access to the fix he said is coming. He is still missing a "couple of hundred" songs from his extensive collection, he noted, but acknowledged the possibility that he accidentally deleted those songs himself while trying to fix the issues he was having on his own.

Dalrymple theorizes that when he deleted a compilation album of songs by his favorite artist, Ozzy Osbourne, that iTunes Match may have accidentally deleted all the tracks from that album, and all the tracks of those same songs originally ripped from other CDs due to the confusion of the files being the same. He said that he will have to re-buy those missing songs from iTunes -- he doesn't have easy access to the original CDs he ripped them from, otherwise he could simply do that.

MacNN's advice for those using iTunes on the Mac, version 12.2 or later, is to avoid making any alterations to the existing user library as possible for the time being. It is also important not to dispose of the original CDs users may have added songs to their iTunes library from, as these serve as an ultimate lossless backup which can be used to restore songs that are accidentally or otherwise lost or deleted, either due to bugs or user error. As always, MacNN will let readers know when a new fix for the current issues is released.
     
wireboy
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Princeton, NJ
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jul 25, 2015, 05:10 PM
 
Well I was following this matter closely, and with considerable concern, until I came to the part about Mr. Dalrymple's favorite artist being Ozzy. Everything then became much clearer and the 'problem is between keyboard and chair' alerts started chiming.
     
wireboy
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Princeton, NJ
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jul 25, 2015, 05:11 PM
 
Actually, in case anyone decides to be offended, that was a joke. If it had been Black Sabbath on the other hand...
     
leabrae
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Oct 2014
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jul 25, 2015, 06:55 PM
 
More to the point is why Apple regards iTunes as part of OS X. I tried to delete the whole horror of iTunes--it is utterly redundant for me--but could not. Like too much else these days, very vexing
     
coffeetime
Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Nov 2006
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jul 25, 2015, 10:20 PM
 
iTunes is a hub of everything and it's getting bigger and more complicated to manage. It's like merging Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign into one. What a mess.
     
Charles Martin
Mac Elite
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Maitland, FL
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jul 26, 2015, 01:45 AM
 
This was answered in another thread, but I'm happy to repeat it here: iTunes is integrated into OS X chiefly due to its requirement for syncing iOS devices, which is a core function of OS X. It also integrates with QuickTime for media playback for DRM material like purchased movies and so forth.

There's lots of areas of OS X I don't fully exploit or in some cases never use, but I understand that things like (for example) the Terminal are not there for me to "rip out" but exist so as to make a more robust and integrated operating system for a wider audience than just myself. It's easy enough to ignore iTunes if you don't use it, and it's a real possibility that someday Apple may finally separate out the iOS syncing from iTunes (that seems to already be underway, since iOS devices no longer HAVE to by synced with a computer anymore), so in the meantime just don't use it, take the icon out of the dock, and relax.

I personally don't find iTunes at all unwieldy (though there might be a design decision or two one might reconsider), when I use it as a music player it works fine, when I use it to sync iOS devices it works fine and so forth. I was pleased, though, to see them separate out iBooks as its own program, and would encourage them to do that with podcasts as well (as they've done in iOS -- indeed, the approach they took in iOS is what I'd like to see happen in OS X regarding the separation of distinct functions).
Charles Martin
MacNN Editor
     
revco
Junior Member
Join Date: May 2005
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jul 26, 2015, 07:48 AM
 
@leabrae You can use Terminal to delete system owned apps like iTunes. Google "how to delete an app with terminal". You can then install an earlier version.
     
wireboy
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Princeton, NJ
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jul 26, 2015, 01:26 PM
 
Leabrea,

Your "very vexing" comment is the unfortunate focal point!

I am a fan boy from way back, decades back in fact, and Apple has quite simply lost their way in the user experience department. As someone who has had a 25 year plus career as a UX/UI designer and developer, Apple has long been a source of inspiration to me, and even a fount of specific design ideas from which to borrow, but these days the UX/UI that I see coming out of Cupertino is a disorganized, inconsistent and half-baked mess. There have been decisions made in the last couple of years that are just plain wrong, and I am not talking about squishy personal preferences and opinions here. I am referring to things that are objectively and quantifiably inferior design choices that have worsened the user experience.

It would be easy to tie this change to the devastating loss of Steve Jobs and the passing of the reigns to a solid and accomplished but seemingly visionless CEO, although I am not entirely sure that is the issue. There are plenty of very talented UX professionals at Apple. A whole boatload of them. I am concerned rather that the issue is that their activities now fall under the ultimate supervision of someone who is a hardware designer beyond compare but for whom software seems to be a bit of a stretch.

Mr. Ive has consistently delivered hardware that pushes the envelope of elegant, functional devices to incredible new heights but his leadership of Human Interface Group activities has resulted in software interfaces with glaring, first year design student blunders. Color schemes that destroy visual hierarchies, the elimination of crucial visual clues that were in place to establish functional relationships, apparently in support of a visual aesthetic. Form stopped following function in Apple software a number of years ago and it is a very sad thing. The disastrous state of iTunes these days seems to be fallout from this situation, although in all fairness it has been a bit of a Frankenstein's monster of functionality, held together with bailing wire for a while now.
     
dreamignition
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Jul 2015
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jul 26, 2015, 03:50 PM
 
The biggest I'm having with the new iTunes (iCloud Music Library / Apple Music & iMatch) is that is has given no consideration to my entire media library and wiped out all of my TV Shows & Movies - other than the one's purchase from the iTunes store. I've tried restoring from an older library and disabling iCloud Music Library and it is still corrupted. It also changed all of the tags on my movies from Movies to Home Movies. Absolutely not up to Apple standards. Seems like they overlooked all media types except for music.
     
rexray
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Santa Fe, NM
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jul 26, 2015, 08:43 PM
 
Good article - thanks for the info. This is the first time I've seen anyone articulate the difference between Apple Music and iTunes Match. I'm also impressed that Apple brought Dalrymple in to work with them. Very hopeful indeed!
Earth is Heaven in Drag.
     
GaryDeezy
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: May 2013
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jul 27, 2015, 01:09 PM
 
Just the fact that one of the countries most vocal Apple supporters has to know someone at Apple and has to literally go into an Apple office to get his issue resolved is indicative of the Apple our $$ have helped build. Where do mere mortals turn for fixes like this?
     
Charles Martin
Mac Elite
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Maitland, FL
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jul 27, 2015, 08:10 PM
 
GaryDeezy: as the article clearly states, a "fix like this" is coming soon (no official date released, but we expect it to be this week) for everyone. Yes, Dalrymple has access most people don't have, but as with our own Sanjiv Sathiah, Apple seems to be aggressively inviting journalists who have had issues to meet with engineers, not for an elite fix it service as much as to learn more about where the problems are specifically hitting users. Tech journalists are very good at explaining what steps they've taken, what issues they've seen, and articulating the process in ways that perhaps a typical consumer would not be.

As someone who first worked with Dalrymple back in the 90s, I can assure you he is not acting out of pure self-interest, but as a spokesman for users who are suffering with these bugs.
Charles Martin
MacNN Editor
     
JackWebb
Junior Member
Join Date: Aug 2007
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jul 28, 2015, 09:19 AM
 
In order to have any list of tracks I like in Apple Music I must turn on iCloud Music. The problem with that is I have hundreds of GB of tracks (mostly historical recordings) that can't be matched at Apple which iTunes insists on uploading. I don't want that and that will never work. All I can do is start a new iTunes Library apart from all my tracks but then I can't have both Apple Music and my own tracks at the same time because I have to relaunch and change iTunes Libraries each time. So I just go back to Rhapsody and wait for this ridiculous requirement to be lifted.
     
pottymouth
Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Nov 2003
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 14, 2015, 04:49 PM
 
Wait, so is this problem supposed to be resolved? Because I'm just running into it now.

I was completely ignoring this story because I have a full backup of my 40K+ tracks that I have not connected to iTunes Match/iTunes Music due to the 25K track limit. I keep a separate, thinned down library with just 24,900ish tracks for this purpose. Today I noticed that a whole mess of music in that thinned library—music that I ripped from CDs years ago—is listed as iTunes Music when it most definitely is not.

Example: One of my first CD purchases was the Led Zepplin's complete studio recordings box set. I later ripped those 10 CDs to 85 MP3s. As of right now, 25 of those 85 tracks are showing as iTunes Music files.



In fact, I can easily sort by date added and subtract the small amount of music I've added via iTunes Music since 6/30. Of the remaining 24,904 songs, 3,184 are now listed as "iTunes music". I am 100% positive that not a single one of those is actually an iTunes music file.

I'll probably just delete EVERYTHING from my iTunes cloud library tonight and resync my thinned library and see how it looks in the morning. I imagine that's what this Dalrymple guy did?
     
Mike Wuerthele
Managing Editor
Join Date: Jul 2012
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 14, 2015, 07:15 PM
 
Yeah, I'm not convinced its resolved yet. More over the weekend.
     
pottymouth
Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Nov 2003
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 16, 2015, 04:11 PM
 
I completely deleted everything from my cloud library and threw out my iTunes library files, just to be sure (but not the folder with the actual music files). When I reopened iTunes, it made me a new library and I signed into the cloud. It was completely empty, as expected. Then I dragged my music folder full of 24K+ tracks onto the iTunes window and went to bed.

Now it shows I've got 36,724 tracks.
Only 148 say "Matched"
16,710 say "iTunes Music"
20 say "Ineligible", but these are low bitrate bootlegs. Not surprising, but I don't remember this being a problem with Match before.
The rest all say "Waiting," but I don't know whatfor. They don't seem to have changed since yesterday.
The extra 12,000 tracks appear to be duplicates. Many of them show both a track in black type and a matching track right below it in gray.

I know this isn't a place for tech support; just putting the info out there.
     
Mike Wuerthele
Managing Editor
Join Date: Jul 2012
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 16, 2015, 08:09 PM
 
Long story short, the update fixed some problems, but not everything. We'll be discussing it soon.
     
Sanjiv Sathiah
Junior Member
Join Date: Jun 2013
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 16, 2015, 08:44 PM
 
It is honestly hard to believe that Apple would push out an update like this that has ended up creating serious corruption issues for people's music libraries. Clearly, their testing procedures were deficient in this instance.
Electronista Staff
     
pottymouth
Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Nov 2003
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Aug 17, 2015, 04:01 PM
 
I don't think there was anything "corrupted" in MY library; the files are all still there in the same folders I've always had. The problem is just in the iCloud Library where iTunes took a quick peek at the files I was adding and judged some to be iTunes Music files for some reason. I found that it worked almost flawlessly when I would add music an artist at a time; it was only when I'd try to add a dozen or so files at once that it seemed to choke and start making mistakes. Deleting the mistakes and re-adding seems to work every time, but that's definitely a PITA.

This really isn't even new to iTunes Music. I had this problem in back in iTunes match where it would "Match" half the tracks of an album and upload the rest. Most times I could just delete those uploaded tracks, re-add them, and suddenly iTunes would be perfectly happy to Match them.

The people that got screwed by this were the ones that threw out their music files after uploading them to the cloud. Most of me just wants to smack them for being fools, but I can absolutely see why someone would expect Apple's iCloud to be a safe backup and not think twice about it.
     
   
Thread Tools
 
Forum Links
Forum Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Top
Privacy Policy
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 10:44 PM.
All contents of these forums © 1995-2017 MacNN. All rights reserved.
Branding + Design: www.gesamtbild.com
vBulletin v.3.8.8 © 2000-2017, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.,