icloud music library will not update/display on Mac

[Gregory1498576213]

We approach, what, 9 or 10 months. Haven't heard from them since Halloween, which seemed like an appropriate day. I am thinking of sending the Apple support folks & brass something like "you are cordially invited to a get-together on April 1st, 2017, to celebrate the one-year anniversary of iTunes Support case #1080111280. Nothing fancy, maybe just hors d'oeuvres and some wine. Casual-dressy. Bring your own tech". Although do we think that might be construed as just the tiniest bit sarcastic?

[Gregory1498576213]

"Look upon my works, ye [Apple] mighty, and despair!" OK, maybe a smidge over the top.....but I think I finally got my iCloud Music Library to work, at least close enough to be vaguely functional. Going back to ancient history, I had always received "Error 4001" and a shutdown of the update, when trying to update IML, so that I could never access my ~18,000 Apple recordings, which I had lovingly tagged and edited over the years. Anyway, I tried (yet again) creating a new library - this time I got one which revealed some 2,600 tracks in "waiting" status, which could not be changed with any of the simple ways: File/Library/Update IML, etc. I managed to individually delete them and then re-add them, from the media folder on my external drive. So I now have a library which displays (and will play) all my owned tracks as well as the Apple music tracks, for the first time since April of last year. (The last time I heard from iTunes Senior Support & the "Customer Experience Team", with a prompt from Eddy Cue's office, was Nov 11 of last year. They're completely AWOL.)

 

As I look at it more carefully, virtually all the tracks display the cloud logo, in spite of the fact that the large majority of them are my "owned" tracks, in Uploaded, Purchased, or Matched status. They are all located where they should be, on my external drive, where I keep all media files (also backed up weekly to Time Machine, a second external drive, and ongoing offsite at Backblaze). So I feel fairly confident that "cloud" status does not put them at risk of disappearing, but it is a little unnerving that iTunes is only reading them from the cloud, not from my physical drive. (When I play a track, I can see the faint display bar quickly moving left to right, obviously downloading, in advance of the darker display bar as the track actually plays). If I hit the cloud-download button on an album, the tracks then duplicate themselves on my external drive, and with nearly 700GB of music, that's a lot of potential duplication.

 

The OCD side of me is still not happy that it doesn’t "look right", but it does function (no thanks to Apple Senior Support), and for that I am relieved. Goes without saying....thanks, Kirk, for your help along the way with all this.

 

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[Gregory1498576213]

Well, iTunes is pointing to the same folder on the same external drive I've been using for years. And if I select a track & do Command-Shift-R.....nothing happens.

 

 

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[Gregory1498576213]

Yeah, as nearly as I can tell, all the music is where it's supposed to be, it's just that iTunes thinks it's in the cloud, not on my physical drive. In finder, on my external drive, here are the files for the tracks above....

 

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[Gregory1498576213]

Maybe start from scratch? :-O

 

Yeah, I guess I know what you're saying, but (1) I have a thousand hours invested in meticulously tagging and editing, and (2) this is the first moment in *almost* a year in which I can make my library actually, mechanically function, at least vaguely as it is supposed to function. On the one hand, it is disconcerting to see that iTunes can inexplicably only read my files from the cloud, rather than from my external drive, where they have happily and peacefully resided lo these many years. On the other hand, this is the only moment I've had since last *April*, that my library has functioned like it is supposed to function. And I have to take some relief in knowing that my external drive, with its ~75,000 tracks, is also backed up (weekly) to a second drive, and to Time Machine, and to Backblaze offsite. Surely my actual music files are redundantly safe. So that's the dilemma I face, just shut up and use it "as is" (even though it's incomprehensively bizarre), or keep trying to f*** around with it, and risk the current usability, broken though it may be. Apple Senior Support & "Customer Experience Team" ----> still AWOL, eleven months later.

 

If and when we reach the one-year mark (weeks away), I think I'll follow through with my original angry threats, last spring, to send physical FedEx letters to the brass, now soon to be on the upper floors of the shiny new spaceship. May well fall on deaf ears, but at this point, couldn’t hurt. Maybe just be cathartic for me, like the below, and there's something to be said for catharsis.

 

Grrrrrr.

 

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