The Loop‘s Jim Dalrymple reports that Apple provided him with a statement regarding reports that iTunes is deleting music from people’s library without permission:
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.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We still think that these are cases of user error due to Apple’s convoluted and poorly-explained, poorly-implemented concept, dialog boxes, and overall user experience of iTunes, including iTunes Match and Apple Music.
If you have to ask yourself “Why is this so difficult? Am I an idiot?” then there is a User Interface problem, not a user problem. This is, after all, what we pay Apple for. Those type of questions are for Windows/Android sufferers, not Mac/iOS users. – MacDailyNews Take, July 10, 2015
SEE ALSO:
Apple destroyed my will to collect music – May 9, 2016
No, Apple Music doesn’t delete your music files – here’s how it works – May 7, 2016
Dalrymple: Lessons I hope Apple’s learned from last year’s Apple Music introduction – May 5, 2016
Apple Music and coherent product design and marketing – May 5, 2016
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
MDN’s headline is certainly misleading, no doubt intentionally. 🙂 Apple acknowledges that an “extremely small” number of users are REPORTING this problem, which we already knew. But Apple cannot reproduce the problem. Therefore, the “fix” is to make it harder for users to mistakenly delete their locally stored song files through “safeguards” (probably more warning messages).
Those locally stored song files should be backed up separately (along with the rest of the user’s data), because it’s MUCH more likely that the user’s computer (or storage drive) will fail long before iTunes starts “eating” their song files.
It isn’t user error..simply because no database application should EVER be written in such a way that it is even possible that local files are deleted. File deletion should be available AFTER setup/install and only with the user intentionally going through deliberate steps to do so.
correct.
It IS probably “user error,” EXACTLY for that reason. iTunes would never be written in a way that makes it possible to delete the user’s song files as a “bug.” The developer would have to put in code that intentionally “seeks out and destroys” the users song files. That does not happen by mistake, and there is NO “conspiracy” of Apple deleting users’ songs intentionally.
Here are three scenarios that probably account for most of these reports:
(1) The user (with subscription to Apple Music or iTunes Match or both) runs out of space on his internal drive and gets an external drive. He goes to iTunes preferences Advanced pane and changes the location of the iTunes Media folder. He assumes this makes iTunes move the existing iTunes Media folder from internal drive to external drive, which is understandable but WRONG. That new iTunes Media location is ONLY for song files added GOING FORWARD. All of his previously existing songs remain stored at their existing location.
After changing iTunes Media folder location, be deletes the existing iTunes Media folder to free up that space. Because he has an iCloud Music Library, iTunes starts accessing his songs from iCloud (not local storage) without a single complaint or error message. iTunes is working exactly as designed.
Months go by. Then something makes him realize (maybe an ISP outage) that he is accessing most his songs from iCloud, not local storage. He does not recall his actions when starting to use the external drive. The complaint is usually something like, “All of my recently added songs are there, but all of my older songs are gone. iTunes deleted them!” In fact, all of the recent songs are there because those are the ones added AFTER changing the iTunes Media folder location. He intentionally (unintentionally) deleted the older songs files in the old iTunes Media folder.
(2) The user already has his iTunes Media folder on an external drive. He changes the name of the external drive, or in Windows, the “drive letter” of the external drive changes (he does not consider the effect on iTunes). At that point, iTunes has lost track of its locally stored song files, but because he has an iCloud Music Library, iTunes starts accessing his songs from iCloud (not local storage) without a single complaint or error message. iTunes also changes the iTunes Media folder to the default location (on internal drive) for new songs that are added going forward. Months go by; he no longer remembers changing the external drive name or drive letter. Then something makes him realize that he is accessing most his songs from iCloud, not local storage… “iTunes deleted my song files!”
(3) And some users are just plain “dumb” technically. For example, the user gets a new computer, runs iTunes, and signs in with his Apple ID. Because he has an iCloud Music Library, all of his songs “magically” appear in iTunes. He never downloads them from iCloud and essentially does not understand the difference between his song files being stored locally or in iCloud. Later, he wants to sync his iPod (which requires locally stored song files) and can’t do it because his songs are being accessed from iCloud. Although his song files were never on his new computer, “iTunes deleted my song files!”
Apple’s new “safeguards” need to address these types of scenarios that make users believe iTunes deleted their song files. And YES, iTunes probably needs to be more understandable to typical users.
The music app deleted songs on iOS devices when Apple released the version tied to Apple Music. Even when you could prove they were there (taking up space), many songs, with unpredictable results, still had to be “added” the the phone over network.
correct.
Probably because iCloud Music Library was turned ON in Settings. You either sync the iOS device directly to your computer’s iTunes library or to iCloud Music Library. Can’t do both. Again, misunderstanding leads to misperception.
Also, this article is about iTunes (on Mac and Windows PC), not the Music app on iOS device. 🙂
Nah, I never went anywhere near the awful icloud music library and I had this problem too. And boy did Apple take a long time and many releases before it finally went away. Music kept disappearing from my iphone on many occasions. Thankfully they finally fixed it.
I have two 27″ iMacs in my office, one of which is still running OS 10.6.8, the other El Capitan. The reason for employing the older OS is specifically because of iTunes. Version 10.7 of that app is simple, logical, and useable at a glance. (And all the meticulous work I invested with Cover Flow is still there and gorgeous!) However, iTunes on the El Capitan Mac is a freaking nightmare. I loathe it beyond measure and refuse to fall prey to its labyrinthine construct and “hidden” functionality. Where has Steve’s original philosophy of app design gone?
Steve Jobs was a genius, but one of his greatest strength was being able to put himself in the place of “typical” customers, and NOT think like a genius. To see through the eyes of his loyal customers, and quickly KNOW what works and what does not work. He never had to do “market research.” It was like an instinctual level of awareness… And he had the corporate power to enforce his decisions.
Technical people are smart, but they often design from their own perspective. What is simple and obvious is NOT to a non-technical customer. Many users fear “just trying stuff” in a complex looking app. That’s the main problem with iTunes. It makes TOO MUCH sense to its developers… and not enough to its users (on average).
Having said that, I love clicking on “random stuff” to see what happens. 😉 For example, while playing a song, HOLD DOWN COMMAND KEY and click the tiny (WAY too tiny to be useful or recognizable) album artwork square along top of iTunes window (to the left of the Now Playing info). It expands into what I call the secret “MaxiPlayer”… That’s a cool feature – Why is it SO carefully hidden? Only a developer knows… 🙂
Too many ex-Windblows employees left to their own (old) devices.
Absolutely. I use my 2007 iMac primarily as a music server with the 10.6.8 v of iTunes. It serves my ATV, phone and Macbook or old iPhone I use to play music on the porch. I tried just last night to find home sharing on my El Capitan laptop. What the hell? I had to look up articles to find you can only get to it if you switch to artists and find a tiny arrow and pull down. That is the most Windosian thing I have ever run into on a Mac. It seems totally aimed at coercing me to buy music instead of listen to the tons I already have. Lazy, stupid, engineer centric crap!
Even years ago when iTunes was a much simpler application, some people already had problems with the differences between the stored music file and the files on the iPod/iPhone. My boss would get frustrated in trying to remove files from his iPhone and delete the files from his computer. He did not think of it as a database where you change the configuration and then resync to put the music that he wanted on his device.
Playlists confused the situation even more. Most people do not know anything about pointers, and that is perfectly understandable. Apple needs to simplify and clarify the whol iTunes/iCloud situation – what you own versus what you don’t and how to access it. This can be improved and Apple is the company to do it. Otherwise, many people will just throw up their hands and go to media rental/streaming as the path of least resistance – an area in which Apple is not as strong.
iTunes also has a serious syncing problem. When I try to sync photo’s, only the first picture of the album gets synced. Just bought some new music videos. They won’t sync unless you drag and drop them in manually(on new iPad Pro) and they won’t sync at all to my older iPod. Never had that problem with the last iTunes version. I’ve seen comments elsewhere that people are having problems syncing their iBooks as well. Sure hope the new update fixes these issues. Won’t be making any more purchases on iTunes until it’s fixed.
Any progress thrashing the multitude of bugs out of iTunes is a good thing. I wish it didn’t take customer complaints to get Apple moving on identifying problems and fixing their software. 😛
My latest boring tale of iTunes woe: My library decided to inconceivably divide one music artist into two music artists. I found nothing in the metadata for the files to indicate why. So I did this:
A) I decided which of the two (same) artists to make the actual artist.
B) I named the artist for the other files something different. I like cows, so I changed the artist to ‘cow’.
C) I then changed the ‘cow’ files back to the actual artist’s name. √ Problem gone.
I also ran into a WTF?! problem rebuilding my iTunes library from its ‘iTunes Music Library.xml’. It went fine except that:
1) A huge pile of podcasts (none of which had been downloaded) were inexplicably shoved into the My Music collection.
2) This same podcast crap was shoved into my ‘Recently Added’ list for My Music.
3) One of the podcasts was broken out into separate ‘Artists’ according to what person had conducted the podcast that week.
I had to ‘Delete’ each individual piece of WTF podcast garbage out of my new My Music data. Thanks for wasting quite a lot of my time Apple. You suck at database management.
I have had a similar problem with DVD’s that I have ripped and imported as “Movies” into iTunes. The current slop version of iTunes determines them, without permission, as “Home Videos.” So, I have to go into “info” on those files and re-assign them as “Movies.” Pisses me off, big time.
I can’t believe what I just had to do: On my server Mac, a few weeks back. I read up on you to stop new podcasts from automatically downloading. So today, after rebuilding my iTunes database, I notice on my MBP that I’ve got the same problem, again. So, what was it I did on my server weeks back? Surely I remember. Surely it’s somehow intuitive enough for me to figure it out again. I figure out now to use new apps on my own all the time! Why not iTunes, again. But NO. I can’t figure it out again. Thank you Kirk, I go and find that stupid “Defaults” button stuck at the bottom of the podcasts list. That’s where the setting is buried. Not in anything called preferences in an intuitive spot. Nooooo. Apple just shoves a ‘Defaults’ button on the interface, expects you to somehow expect it, find it, push it, and there we go. I can turn off automatic podcast downloads. JUST KILL ME. 💀💥🔫 Ow.
slop.
My first act upon any update of iTunes is to make sure Apple Music is turned off. In part it’s the fact that I don’t want my lossless files turned into lossy stuff somewhere in the cloud. But mainly I have zero interest in the disposable crap that Apple seems to think is music. I’ve got thousands of recordings of jazz and classical music that Apple will probably never make available. Much was not even commercially released. And I’m simply not going to risk poor Apple QC forcing me into days of recovery from backup.
Itunes has never been any better than it was when you mainly used it to rip your CDs for convenience. Everything else is just lard. Whenever Apple tries to get rid of ripping is when I go elsewhere.
I don’t want Apple to ever touch my music. After Cook forced that dreadful U2 crap onto my computer I have gone out of my way to disconnect any cloud dependence or access. Still I run into issues out in the deep woods when my shuffle runs across some song I unfortunately bought from Apple. I am informed that it can’t be downloaded because of network issues. Huh? My song I bought and downloaded onto my computer. I am still working on eliminating all Apple songs.
Why can’t iTunes be about playing local music and Music be a separate app to stream music? If Apple had focussed on improving their music PLAYER they would by now have produced something suitable for delivering high quality output with real EQ functions. They could have at least bought SRS and incorporated their sound software and transitions. I use SRS MyTunes on my iPhone and it is awesome. Too bad they sold and it was discontinued.
Syncing should also be a separate application for Mac that actually completes syncing. I usually have to sync many times just to get a new set of playlists onto my 16gb iPhone. Usually I give up and use iMazing to just drag over. Not a great solution since I then can’t go back and just tweak the playlist.
In other words everything I try to do with iTunes is dissatisfactory. Apple may be the leader in SELLING music but clearly they don’t care about making LISTENING better.
Completely agree with the July 2016 MDN opinion.
Apple spends lots of money to make a great product, but they drop the ball when it comes to using it iTunes. As they slink toward minimalist hell, they make it harder to get anything done.
MDN’s 2015 opinion, that is.
MDN’s headline is totally clickbait, while The Loop’s headline is closer to factual.
“Apple acknowledges iTunes Music deletion, preps fix” vs “Apple comments on iTunes deleting music”
An even better headline would be “Apple comments on reports of iTunes deleting music”
I paid a professional Mac dealer to backup my iPhone 4S to an incremental upgrade from Snow Leopard to Yosemite.
The only music synced or transferred to my new 5SE WAS BOUGHT FROM ITunes (4 albums). Over a hundred ripped cd albums — poof!
Doubt the highly recommended Mac shop pros are to blame … 😡🤕☹️😳😖
agree with the poster that suggested this bloated buggy app be split – into at least 3 apps I think
music / video player (perhaps two apps)
phone ipad sync / management (apps)
streaming app
I pay for spotify instead of apple music because I don’t want apple to kill all the audio that I painstakingly collected and cataloged.
I finally got fed up with iTunes. Now use Swinsian as my primary music app. It doesn’t do everything iTunes can currently do, but it does everything a music player should do. And it does it with a sensible UI. iTunes is a nightmare.
http://www.swinisan.com/
Actually, it’s http://swinsian.com/
For those saying no iTunes Music issue, or dumb user – I beg to differ. I am a long time Mac and iTunes user, and had issues when using the trial period for iTunes Music.
I have a very large library of CD ripped music, and play almost exclusively from playlists that match original CD arrangement. Started the Music trial and selected the iCloud option. When playing from my playlists found more tracks missing than present. Stopped my trial. I have not yet rebuilt my playlists – but those I have rebuilt I found original music in my library – but the playlists are almost universally hosed. When I finally recover from this, I won’t be re-trying iTunes Music any time soon. Even though my music still appears to be on my computer, Apple made it unusable in my preferred arrangement. I had everything backed up, so wouldn’t have lost music anyway – but rebuilding playlists is a pain I didn’t need.