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Massive iTunes/Music problem
- Thread starter Smellmet
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from the mac user guide . . .
- In the Finder on your Mac, locate the app you want to open.
Don’t use Launchpad to do this. Launchpad doesn’t allow you to access the shortcut menu. - Control-click the app icon, then choose Open from the shortcut menu.
- Click Open.
The app is saved as an exception to your security settings, and you can open it in the future by double-clicking it just as you can any registered app.
Luckily I've just discovered that I've got a copy of my library on my Mac called 'iTunes not matched' which I made in anticipation of this which has all the files there, pre corrupt that I can re-load back. Just tested 'take on me' which is there in mp3 format and it works fine. Will be a bit of a laborious task, but I have a way out.
This has thrown up another question, why are these now corrupted files not showing up as 'matched AAC' like the ones that have been matched? Does iTunes Match replace files with straightforward AAC files and call them that and not 'matched' ones? The fact that 'take on me' is on my previous library in mp3 format suggests that it does do that.
This has thrown up another question, why are these now corrupted files not showing up as 'matched AAC' like the ones that have been matched? Does iTunes Match replace files with straightforward AAC files and call them that and not 'matched' ones? The fact that 'take on me' is on my previous library in mp3 format suggests that it does do that.
Yeah that works. The app point blank refuses to convert the file into any other format however. I think the files are borked.
Wow glad you found the working files ? ? ? - since MAX won't open them - my guess is they are corrupted
I don't know about Matching files - I use spotify for streaming and finding new music and keep my local music on iTunes - that keeps them separate - and less confusing for back ups
The way I look at things is "What would happen if my Apple ID suddenly does not work" - Photos, music, movies - gone!
At this point I'm actually considering rolling my library back to September, before iTunes Match got it's paws on it.
you can locate ffmpeg within Audacity manually. One other thing: because the album preview of your currently not playable files is okay as well the file size feasible, it seems probable that the m4a-container is damaged. If you can’t get audacity&ffmpeg to work it might be worth to give it a shot with a hexditor. This is tedious but maybe worth a shot.
I think even if I can repair them somehow it's probably a waste of time, I can't do it within iTunes, and I have copies of the files pre-match
The key to all of this, as you have discovered, is keeping really good backups, plus off-site backups. And you need them to go way back in case you discover a problem that's been lingering, undetected, for years. Like many, losing my iTunes library would be downright catastrophic - it's full of custom stuff that I simply can't replicated in any way (home-made recordings from a crank-phonograph, for example), so I really understand your anxiety and it's good to hear you found backups that work for you!
That said, an I expect others would agree; I will absolutely NEVER EVER in any way, EVER let anything automatically touch my iTunes library. Way, way, way too many horror stories. If I ever subscribe to a service rather than purchasing music it won't be Apple's service, because I don't want Apple's hands on my music library, period. I absolutely don't trust them.
If I were you, I would find an alternative way to get higher-quality copies of the songs/albums you wish. It's not really that expensive or hard to do so; especially if you are willing to purchase used CDs. So many previously-hard-to-find recordings are now easily available (Ask me how long it took me 'back in the day' to find my own copies of the out-of-production Buckingham Nicks and Pinkworld albums. Go ahead. I dare you to ask! ? I had to do it backwards, in the snow, uphill, both ways too!). I curate my library mostly from CD in Apple Lossless (even though I know full-well that's a placebo and that high-bit-rate MP3s and AACs are just fine), and then use Serve To Me / Stream To Me to play my music wherever I want. No need for anyone but me to touch any of it. No need for subscriptions. Safe.
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I've been super vigilant about backups for years, usually having four at any one time, 2 at home and 2 at work, I had assumed that everything had been fine, post-match (as I did it in September) but it obviously wasn't, and me not realising that meant that I'd made copies of my 'bad' library not knowing there were issues and made multiple copies of it. Thank god I made a pre-match copy and stashed it away.
After fully investigating this problem, it seems as though these AAC files that now won't play are ones that were originally mp3s that iTunes Match has replaced. It seems that there are two categories of 'matched' files, one that says 'matched AAC' and 'AAC audio files' - and proving this, the file in question 'take on me' is an mp3 in my pre-match backup, and now it's a corrupted AAC that won't play on anything. Basically iTunes Match has completely screwed my library up.
I've decided to bin iTunes Match and roll my library back to how it was before. I'd hardly made any changes to it since September anyway so it's not that much work. No way am I risking this again. It just cannot be relied upon safely.
Extremely disappointed with the service.
Final update on this
Since deciding to roll my library back I've been going through and deleting the corrupt files and I'm up to 'M' and I've deleted a couple of hundred already. It's clear to me what's happened here now. Everything that has been previously imported or ripped as AAC is fine, matched AAC are fine, mp3s that couldn't be matched are fine, it's everything that iTunes Match has just replaced as AAC, but not 'matched AAC' - generally speaking mainstream stuff that has corrupted. As I'm deleting them I'm at the point where I know when I click on something that it's going to be an affected file.
It is without a shadow of doubt that it is iTunes Match that has caused this. Apple support had scheduled a phone call with me to help and never did, which is crap (I ought to ask them for a refund really, but good luck with that), but I've cancelled the match subscription and I'm keeping the matched AAC files separate to the library I'm now rolling back should I come across an mp3 (after September once I know my subscription has not got it's paws on my stuff) that I think is a little poor quality, then I've got the decent files I've got from Apple that I've salvaged in addition as an option.
A lesson learnt indeed.
Since deciding to roll my library back I've been going through and deleting the corrupt files and I'm up to 'M' and I've deleted a couple of hundred already. It's clear to me what's happened here now. Everything that has been previously imported or ripped as AAC is fine, matched AAC are fine, mp3s that couldn't be matched are fine, it's everything that iTunes Match has just replaced as AAC, but not 'matched AAC' - generally speaking mainstream stuff that has corrupted. As I'm deleting them I'm at the point where I know when I click on something that it's going to be an affected file.
It is without a shadow of doubt that it is iTunes Match that has caused this. Apple support had scheduled a phone call with me to help and never did, which is crap (I ought to ask them for a refund really, but good luck with that), but I've cancelled the match subscription and I'm keeping the matched AAC files separate to the library I'm now rolling back should I come across an mp3 (after September once I know my subscription has not got it's paws on my stuff) that I think is a little poor quality, then I've got the decent files I've got from Apple that I've salvaged in addition as an option.
A lesson learnt indeed.
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