iTunes buggery

[baward]

Hi,

iTunes has decided to remove, or make inaccessible, random some albums of music I added to it. I have no idea why. I am still on Mojave, and have full Time Machine backups.

What should I restore, in this situation? Thanks!

[baward]

...when I try to play one of my missing albums (now greyed out), iTunes actually plays a completely unrelated song to the one I intended. Weird and disconcerting. About 40% of my albums are doing this.

[Sam Spoons]

I try to have all my music (and everything else) on a computer somewhere with the cloud as a backup but recently iTunes has not been cooperating (about 80% of my iPhone app are shown as in the cloud since I upgrade to iOS14, admittedly not the ones I use regularly but they are few TBH). There will be a way to sort it out bit I haven't got around to it yet.

[muzines]

If you're disk is and your files are ok, maybe try restoring the iTunes database file...

[baward]

Thanks all for your responses. Hopefully, Apple have revamped iTunes for Catalina & Big Sur, before I finally upgrade.

[muzines]

Thanks all for your responses. Hopefully, Apple have revamped iTunes for Catalina & Big Sur, before I finally upgrade.

By "revamped", you mean "killed", right?

[baward]

Do I?

[Humble Bee]

iTunes died didn't it?

[baward]

I think that I have most of my music squirrelled away on another drive; Desmond if you were me, would you a) try and recreate your damaged album playlists by hand (Time Machining the iTunes .itl and .xml didn't do anything) and then install Mavericks or B) install Mavericks now and try and fix the music albums issue after that?

[muzines]

I think that I have most of my music squirrelled away on another drive; Desmond if you were me, would you a) try and recreate your damaged album playlists by hand (Time Machining the iTunes .itl and .xml didn't do anything) and then install Mavericks or B) install Mavericks now and try and fix the music albums issue after that?

Mavericks? I don't really know what your issue is but I doubt installing a ten year old OS is going to magically fix anything?

Assuming your files are stored in folders for albums etc, I'd probably just start with a clean empty iTunes and reimport the music - but it depends on what you usage of playlists is (I have a few, but they're not particularly important to me, I tend to use them for housekeeping more than anything else ).

Do you have a backup of your iTunes library at all?

[baward]

I meant Catalina, not Mavericks.

[baward]

iTunes library backup; yes I have plenty with Time Machine.I restored one when I know my missing music was intact, but when I came out of Time Machine and restarted iTunes, the missing/damaged albums were still M.I.A.

[muzines]

I meant Catalina, not Mavericks.

Well don't do that it you plan on running iTunes.

iTunes is dead in Catalina, and you have to use the "Music" app (and other ones) for iTunes library content. And it doesn't have a lot of the music features of iTunes.

[baward]

Thanks for all your comments.

[The Elf]

You could wean yourself off iTunes and use something else. You can get free storage on many cloud platforms and use something like CloudBeats (my solution), Evertunes, or the like to access it. You're in control and you don't have to suffer the bloated nonsense of iTunes any more.

[baward]

Thank you, great advice. I would dearly love to wean myself off iTunes, so I will check out those other options...

FWIW, as far as my 'missing' music (which it turns out is not actually missing at all) is concerned, I realised the other day that I am approaching it backwards. Instead of piecing together the damaged iTunes playlists, I have been checking whether or not I have an actually copy of the music on my NAS, and if so just deleting the iTunes playlist on my iMac - I want to try and keep the integrity of the playlist structure intact for when I upgrade the system.

Much quicker, while I am on the road to Catalina, and not using bl&%£dy iTunes anymore.

[The Elf]

an actually copy of the music on my NAS...

You have a NAS!? Then you have absolutely no need of iTunes! Just grab one of those apps I mentioned and live free of iTunes tyranny!

[baward]

Sounds like a plan!

[baward]

an actually copy of the music on my NAS...

You have a NAS!? Then you have absolutely no need of iTunes! Just grab one of those apps I mentioned and live free of iTunes tyranny!

I am enjoying my largely iTunes-free life, thanks again The Elf. I say 'largely' because I still find iTunes/Music useful when importing CDs. Is there another way to import music? Thanks.

[The Elf]

an actually copy of the music on my NAS...

You have a NAS!? Then you have absolutely no need of iTunes! Just grab one of those apps I mentioned and live free of iTunes tyranny!

I am enjoying my largely iTunes-free life, thanks again The Elf. I say 'largely' because I still find iTunes/Music useful when importing CDs. Is there another way to import music? Thanks.

I'm Windows based, so...

For ripping from CD I use EAC:
https://www.exactaudiocopy.de/en/

To sort out the text and artwork I use MP3 Tag Editor:
https://www.mp3tag.de/en/index.html

For playback on my iPhone/Pad I use CloudBeats:
https://www.cloudbeatsapp.com/