Serenity Caldwell has been writing and talking about and tinkering with Apple products since she was old enough to double-click. Managing editor of iMore, she hosts a number of popular podcasts and speaks frequently at conferences. In past lives she worked at Macworld and Apple Retail.
iTunes may play a role in reports that Apple Music was replacing user libraries with DRM-encumbered files.
Apple on Friday confirmed to iMore that a very small number of users have reported seeing issues with iTunes removing their locally-stored music library. The company has yet to be able to reproduce the error, but plans to release an update to iTunes next week in hopes of fixing this issue and reducing customer confusion. A spokesperson for Apple told iMore:
In an extremely small number of cases users have reported that music files saved on their computer were removed without their permission. We're taking these reports seriously as we know how important music is to our customers and our teams are focused on identifying the cause. We have not been able to reproduce this issue, however, we're releasing an update to iTunes early next week which includes additional safeguards. If a user experiences this issue they should contact AppleCare.
This confirmation comes after a concerned designer blogged that Apple Music was deliberately deleting music files and replacing them with DRM-encumbered copies, and our follow-up about a potential bug in iTunes that may have been to blame.
I'll note that because Apple has yet to reproduce the issue, we still don't know for sure what caused this mass deletion — whether it's a bug with iTunes or elsewhere. Regardless, this is not deliberate behavior on the part of Apple Music or the company, and I'm glad to see the company reaching out to affected users; I'm also hopeful that the forthcoming iTunes update will also address accidental music deletion from a primary music library by changing the wording on the download removal dialog box, or another similar step.
iTunes and Apple Music are far from perfect, and any steps the company takes to improve the software and service are welcome ones.
Reader comments
Apple confirms reports of potential bug in iTunes; safeguard patch expected next week
Have to say just because a 'small number reported' doesn't mean that this 'bug' isn't a huge problem because until you actually turn on KIND column and examine what records have been drm'd, many folks probably don't even know their files have been duplicated with copy-protection.
Additionally, I reported the problem last year and Apple reported they couldn't find a problem -- so I quit MATCH and have been cleaning my files since. How many others did the same thing?
My guess is that many don't even know they have a problem.
Cue the Apple/iMore apologists who said It was user error...
FWIW it could still be user error. Nothing said here actually rules that out.
Read the article. "Potential" bug. We still don't know if it's user error, and Apple can't reproduce it.
Maybe their just holding it wrong eh? Apple would NEVER downplay a potential problem. LOL
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That would just be absurd. Apple is always completely honest about their problems. ;)
LOL! The iMore'ians and some of the other Apple fanboys have been saying user-stupidity/error on this one from the beginning. But I'm not going to pile on Apple with the poor quality issue as this stuff is hard to do and the software and hardware have become so complicated. But iMore knows even less about this stuff and their always-on Apple-bias just gets old.
Only the files labeled "AppleMusic AAC Audio File" in the Kind column belong to Apple, all other files belong to you. Apple rearranged your library because you requested that by subscribing to iTunes Match. It substituted its high quality iTunes Store tracks to your local files in the library only, it never removed your local files. Your local files are there, you can always add them manually to your library.
So what did you expect? Apple would give you the whole iTunes inventory for $25 a year? Of course these matched songs are DRM'd because they are Apple's files. If you want yours then just purchase the song. Purchased songs belong to you and are not DRM'd.
Must be just you and me in the whole world. I complained about it months ago. Both on a machine with developer beta iMac and regular release MBP. Over six hours of tech-support, yes six, on three separate days with no resolution of the problem. I am quite aware that I should not, and do not, expect support for my developer beta software run machine but it was used as an example with Apple of how it's not working even recently in beta. Or should I say is working to remove my files?
Next, one person Writing in his blog and then Apple admits to do it but not until an article in iMore appears to indicate otherwise.
Actually Apple has "not" confirmed the problem. They said that they "cannot reproduce it". If some users took the wrong options for their iCloud/Apple Music then Apple can put another "yes/no" pop-up on top of the decision making process. Or they will reformulate the options and then instruct people on "how to" really use it and what follows after one decides for this or that. But if they do not know what's the reason if any, they cannot solve a problem.
That's probably because Apple refuses to put media purchased outside of itunes, IN itunes. In fact, they don't like it when users do that anyways, and probably consider that "user error".
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This is dead false. I buy music from other places all the time and iTunes has no problems with it. Why would it? There's nothing stating where the files came from, and even if there was, why should iTunes care?
This is how iTunes warns you when you try to remove the source file uploaded to Apple Music:
Do you want to keep your original copy of this song?
This is your original copy of this song, and might not be stored on any of your other computers.
[Cancel] [Keep File][Delete File]
Managing to delete the original source file from the file system despite this warning is beyond any routine human error... The mysterious disappearance of some music files from the file system is beyond the normal workings of iTunes. When iTunes deletes a source file with explicitly clicked Delete button instead of the "Remove Download" button, it deletes it from the iCloud Music Library and from all the subscribed devices, but it does not remove the file from iTunes Music folder. That song may be added again manually.
There is also a utility to check the sanity of the Library. The command File / Library / Organize Library offers a "Consolidate Library" option which duplicates all the referenced files into a specific directory in the Music folder. If any music files are skipped by iTunes then they can be added again manually in the library. Not a rocket science but if people are too lazy to manage some digital library then they can live happily with their CD and vinyl kiosks.
Too lazy? Can manually manage their songs? I've got nearly 25,000 songs. How long should I devote to this project? How many days? Weeks? Apologist.
If you have 25.000 songs then you already learned how to rip, to tag a song, to attach an album artwork etc... And you know well the value of Time Machine backups to save your precious work. If you rely instead on iCloud Music Library as backup, which Apple warned you several times against, then you can be sure those 25.000 songs are enough to make you a troll.
Funny, that word "backup" and how people think their choice to not have one after an issue occurs is not their fault.
I totally agree with you, but when I turned on Apple Music it destroyed 1/3 of my library. Scrambling, changing artwork, and replacing rare live versions. I have two back ups. One Time Capsule and a bootable Super Duper every month. My Time Machine backup failed while restoring. I was told that the backup was corrupt. Lovely. This is just one more reason I am looking to leave Apple. My laundry list of issues with Apple bugs is well over two dozen.
My Apple products are actually a lot like the Monoliths from 2001 A Space Odyssey. They're F@#$ing beautiful and no one knows how they work.
I have the most beautiful devices and they all work like ****.
Kev inYVR
If you think the grass is greener on the other side, you have a very rude awakening coming your way.
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This is not just a Mac problem. I was attempting to play my locally stored music on my iPhone and found much to my dismay that many if not all of my songs were now cloud based and required an Internet connection (which I didn't have at the time) in order to "stream" play. Extremely frustrating situation. And I had just purchased and downloaded several songs recently and they had all migrated to the cloud without my knowledge or permission. And I am not a member of Apple Music.
My daughter experienced the same situation.
I'm not sure they 'migrated to the cloud' - did you download the songs directly to your iDevice? Usually these days you need to select it on each device unless you've got 'automatically download new X' selected in Settings. iTunes will assume that you wanted it cloud-based unless you tell it otherwise.
Just curious: are you an iTunes Match subscriber?
This happens to me regularly. I do not subscribe to any match/stream/cloud services. I sync all of my content to my iPhone by physically plugging it in to my mac and selecting what I want in iTunes. No matter how carefull I am, there is always a substantial percentage of that content that turns out to not actually be on the phone when i want it -- just a cloud icon so I can download or stream it. Not much help when there's no signal. This has gotten so bad that lately I've started bringing my old iPod Classic around with me because at least I can trust that the content I put on it will still be there when I want to listen to it.
Apple really needs a global "physical sync only" setting so that you can actually be sure of what is on your device.
It is normal for purchased iTunes tracks because Apple must give you a way to download any purchased track without having to dig deep into your purchases. You want Apple recognizes on your iPhone a purchased and manually synced track but I'd rather suggest not to expect that because such a match would require restoration of the DRM on purchased tracks. So do not give a cause to record labels, just download it again ;-)
This is not normal but it's a different bug from that which the article is about. I've had this on and off for a year or more.
On iOS devices, the way you (should) be able to tell if something is local or in the cloud is the presence of the "download from the cloud" icon. In many many cases, that icon appears next to a track, seemingly indicating that it isn't on the device but can be downloaded, when in fact, it's already on the device.
This is not related to the bug in question, but it's a real bug that happens to a lot of folks every since the last update.
This is not a bug and that icon is not meaningless. If you tap it and download, that means you "downloaded" it, i.e. that download is permanently in your local storage. If you don't click, it will still play but Apple can remove that temporary storage any time. For offline listening you must explicitly tap that icon and store the track locally.
Wow. Apologies continue. So much for "It just works."
I'm a relatively new Apple user (2015 Macbook Pro, Iphone 6s+, Ipad Air 2). "It just works" could not be any more further from reality.
It's definitely not 100% true, but Apple devices definitely work a lot better for me than other devices (E.g. Android, Windows)
im glad this finally came to light because i have gone through the same problem on 3 different laptops. the older products become more and more obsolete with every update. APPLE PLEASE DO SOMETHING!!!
And yet, this still doesn't prove a **** thing.
I haven't noticed anything but I don't listen to music on my laptop or any apple device besides my iphone. I don't even know if I have any music downloaded.
I unfortunately had this happen recently. My Mac had been inactive for a couple of days, and when I woke it up, I noticed the Trash icon was showing to be full when I normally empty it out before shutting it down. Thank goodness I checked to see what was in there or else I would have deleted over 12,000 songs (both MP3 and Apple MP4 files) from my collection, which has been curated over many years. When I was done freaking out, I put everything back in my Music folder, but because the Apple files and regular MP3 files are mixed together, it's extremely difficult to see where the files originally housed, as some of the metadata has changed as well. After putting the files in iTunes back it is completely screwed because now there Are no less that 2-5 copies of each song I put back! I'm nervous to go through and try to check he duplicates, because of the number of tracks (over 11,000 that have duplicates, not counting remixes and various live versions), but also making sure that I'm not deleting the original file! While I agree that having a back up is KEY, to hear from various tech news outlets, that this is 'user error', and Apple seeming to discount the issue because it cannot be replicated and saying, "ok, we've heard a couple of you say there's an issue so here's a fix, hope it works." is a bit disheartening. Whelp...off to try to make sense of this chaos....
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also Apple has not been able to reproduce it, confirms it may not even be a bug..... Out of the affected users, no one has even bothered creating a new iTunes library and re-importing to test before jumping to conclusions..
That would be always a first test before saying its a problem. Who knows all these issues could be just be due to a corrupted 'iTunes' library........ I'd laugh at the end if that is all that it is..
A corrupted iTunes Library wouldn't delete files. The owners of those claims pretend that their music files are physically deleted from the file system and blame first Apple Music, then iTunes for this. iTunes is never supposed to delete files, even with user's consent. All it does is to move the files to the Trash, and that, if the user clicks "Move to Trash" button. iTunes never moves files to the Trash by itself.
I have had issues with Apple Music playing 20 seconds of a song and skipping to next song. crazy stuff.
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Personally, I don't trust the competency of people who can't even make a Constitutional Democratic Republic work. And too many of them work for Apple.
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After checking on iTunes on my laptop, I can definitely confirm some of my music has been deleted from iTunes. Still how the heck did this happen? Apple has some explaining to do.
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