Definitely a squeaky wheel situation here but also in Apple's best interest to find the root cause of the problem. Sending a couple of senior engineers to check it out is an appropriate response.
With any software application as complex and large as iTunes and with so many dependencies and interactions as it has there are bound to be more than a few latent anomalies lurking in the code. I know that people who don't deal with complexity at scale have a hard time understanding the situation and are quick to assume blame to Apple or to the end user. That's an emotional reaction but not very productive. Sending a couple of smart guys out to collect data and try to reproduce the problem is the proper response whether it's successful or not.
It sounds like Apple has put additional safeguards in place and hopefully these won't introduce new failure modes - a not uncommon occurrence.
These folks chiming in about making backups, I'd be listening to them very closely.
The disappeared iTunes library happened to me twice, so I'm a believer. I no longer use iTunes as my primary media manager. I downloaded the update today and just tried it to see what's changed, just for chuckles. The very first thing I noticed, besides the pervasive ghostly white everywhere (Sir Jony loves pale, ghostly tints to death) is that every single star rating I had on items is gone. Every. Single. One.
If this is progress and improvement, Apple needs some new leadership from Mr. Cook on down. What has happened to Apple software? It gets stupider and stupider.
Just this week I've noticed several songs "skipping" when I've added them to the now playing list. They played fine just last week but although they still show in iTunes and explorer (windows), the actual files are 0 bytes in size while retaining all metadata. Further, I scrolled through my library in song-list view, I have several now that instead of showing a filesize, it says "Stream" - these seem to be the offending files, 0 bytes in size for whatever reason... i.e. gone!
There is no obvious pattern to the selection of files; track 5 on an alabama 3 album, track 1 from a ministry of sound compilation etc.
When I sort by filesize, out of 6359 songs, 461 are now marked "stream" and checking each one, they're all 0 bytes in size. had some good ones there too.
edit* - I'm not sure if this is the same problem as noted in article or something completely different to be fair.
Who is James Pinkstone and why is he getting special treatment from Apple?
Let's not praise Apple just yet. iPhoto and now Photos has failed me spectacularly various times over the years and they did not even provide adequate phone support. Luckily I am smart enough to backup everything locally and geographically
Two different TCs (plus a replacement one from Apple) cr4pped out on me in the past five years. As a result, I do not use it any more.
Did you see how Time Capsule is designed? It's made to be pretty, not to run optimally. There is an integrated power supply and a hard drive in an enclosure that has tiny cooling vents and not even a fan. Drive and power supply overheat and usually fail right out of AppleCare coverage. You're much better off with an Airport Express and an external USB drive (although your Airport Express power supply is likely to fail, too -- three of mine have, but they're inexpensive to replace with aftermarket options). Of course it would help if there was some sort of provision allowing to aggregate multiple drives, but given how Apple arbitrarily removed RAID functionality from El Capitan, it's clear they won't add it to their Airport devices so I'm not holding my breath. Looks like you might be better off using third party solutions for serious backup needs.
Seem you never used either Apple device. Otherwise you would know that Apple Time Capsule does have a fan. Maybe not the most powerful or effective but there's a fan and supposedly very noisy when it's on full blast. And an Apple Express USB do not support a HD. Unless you meant the Apple Extreme. Which do support a USB HD but Time Machine can't use it for back up as it consider it an internal HD. But Time Machine will support a HD attached to the newest Apple Extreme. Now one can always use any attached HD for a back up by manually dragging the files you need to back up into the HD. But this makes it more difficult to restore a whole HD as Time Machine can restore your whole backed up HD on to a new one if needed.
My thinking is that one should never back up into a HD that is constantly on. I do my back up on to a USB HD that I plug in and turn on when I want to back up. It's not as easy as just letting Time Machine automatically back up on a set schedule. But i feel safer not having my back up drive on and connected every time I'm on my computers.
What I still don't understand about this is the loss of his original, personal music. Presumably, he used some app to create that music (Garage Band, ProTools, etc.) or it was created externally and the files copied to his computer. Those files would not have been copied or be created in an iTunes directory.
Opening those files would open them in iTunes, but iTunes makes a copy of them. Even if you choose to manually delete them from iTunes, iTunes asks if you want to trash the original, but by the original, they mean the copy in the iTunes directory. It would never touch a file outside of that directory. So how did those files disappear? I do this all the time - I receive audio files from external sources usually on CD-R, sometimes via Dropbox. I import them (and rename them) via iTunes. I edit them in Garage Band. I save them as a Garage Band file to a separate folder (outside of the iTunes folder) and as an MP3 file to another folder. Once complete and everything is okay, I delete the unedited version in iTunes. That deletes it from iTunes but doesn't touch either the Garage Band version or the MP3 file.
He may have a case about the music matched by Apple Music and obviously something's going on since Apple has admitted so, but I still think he manually deleted a bunch of music.
As for those who have reported that their music files are actually there, but that they don't appear in iTunes, I would have to believe that means that the directory is screwed up, probably the iTunes Music Library.xml file and/or the iTunes Library.itl file, the latter of which gets automatically backed up in the Previous iTunes Libraries folder.
As for songs being deleted when storage runs low, I wonder if this has anything to do with the option where you can "fill unused space with songs". I wonder if turning that on also has the opposite effect in some cases: that it gets rid of song files when there's not enough space.
Regardless of what's going on, Apple should NEVER delete any of the user's tracks, even if Match is using the server version when streaming unless a user consciously elects that option. And even in that case, I think it should never delete from an OS device, only an iOS device. But even in that case, Apple's messaging, which has gotten really crappy in recent years, needs to be far clearer. I think Apple got this idea that making their products "zen" meant not having to inform users about what they're actually doing.
Two different TCs (plus a replacement one from Apple) cr4pped out on me in the past five years. As a result, I do not use it any more.
Did you see how Time Capsule is designed? It's made to be pretty, not to run optimally. There is an integrated power supply and a hard drive in an enclosure that has tiny cooling vents and not even a fan. Drive and power supply overheat and usually fail right out of AppleCare coverage. You're much better off with an Airport Express and an external USB drive (although your Airport Express power supply is likely to fail, too -- three of mine have, but they're inexpensive to replace with aftermarket options). Of course it would help if there was some sort of provision allowing to aggregate multiple drives, but given how Apple arbitrarily removed RAID functionality from El Capitan, it's clear they won't add it to their Airport devices so I'm not holding my breath. Looks like you might be better off using third party solutions for serious backup needs.
Do you live in an especially hot environment? Or in a place subject to electrical spikes? I've never heard of an Airport Express failing. I have several plugged in and operating 24 hours a day for many, many years. Never had a single failure. I realize that's anecdotal, but I haven't read reports of these things failing.
So far I see only a couple of users mention to at least backed up. You'd think after one incident of losing info a person would learn to backup. If any data is that important you'd think someone would backup. I mean how long does it take to do a backup the day you're working on something important? Backup, backup, backup people and once in awhile do a HDD copy or clone.
I think as a species we shouldn't even wait for personal experience to teach us a lesson. Witnessing someone else suffer should be warning enough to backup.
James Pinkstone, whose blog post about an apparent iTunes music deletion bug went viral last week, said on Tuesday that Apple flew two senior software engineers across the country in attempts to troubleshoot the issue.
This past Saturday, two Apple employees, identified only a "Tom" and "Ezra," flew from California to Pinkstone's house in Atlanta, Ga., in hopes of exposing a potentially devastating iTunes issue that wiped 122GB of music, some of it original compositions, from the musician's laptop ten days earlier.
Earlier this month, Pinkstone said iTunes removed most, but not all, locally stored tracks without his express consent, a nightmare scenario for users who have spent years, or even decades, curating their music library. An Apple Support representative was unable to pin down an exact cause, but speculated Apple Music compatibility issues might be to blame.
Last Friday, Apple issued a statement confirming that "an extremely small number" of users had reported similar problems. While the company could not reproduce the issue, it said an updated version of iTunes with "additional safeguards" would be released to address user concerns. The update was pushed out on Monday as iTunes version 12.4, but it appears Apple is no closer to identifying what, exactly, is going wrong.
This past weekend Tom and Ezra had Pinkstone reactivate his Apple Music account and proceed through the usual iTunes track syncing procedure that uploads unmatched files to iCloud for streaming access. Throughout the process, a specialized version of iTunes tracked potential code abnormalities, while the two engineers discussed options and next steps with a team back in California.
Tom and Ezra left Saturday afternoon, instructing Pinkstone to continue using the software as he would normally, for example buying songs, importing tracks and customizing playlists. They returned on Sunday to pick up the data logs.
After hours of troubleshooting and a real-world stress test, Apple was unable to reproduce the problems Pinkstone described in his initial complaint. The company is not yet ready to chalk it up to user error, however.
"One of the things on which Tom, Ezra, and I seemed to agree was that Apple is not off of the hook yet. Their software failed me in a spectacular, destructive way; and since I rang that bell, many people have come forward with similar stories," Pinkstone writes. "Some may be a result of user error, but I have a hard time believing all are."
Apple may not have a solution in the can, but the company is obviously making a concerted effort to find one. Perhaps most telling is Apple's willingness to send out two senior engineers -- cross-country -- to a customer's home over what amounts to a software bug. Few companies would do the same.
I purchased a iPhone6s and the Apple people in Portland assured me they could transfer all my information from my iPhone5. They dropped all of my 254 songs that I had spent a life time collecting. Of note is 5 songs I purchased from Apple remained including a strong suggestion I join the Apple Music Plan.
Apple had no answers to my music drop problem. My new MacPro would not allow me to open Open Office! I found a way. So Billion Dollar Cash Cow Apple is totally greedy! It controls my choice of Web Sites with their kiddy activated program. Sending Engineers out to check programs is a scam!
Apple had no answers to my music drop problem. My new MacPro would not allow me to open Open Office! I found a way. So Billion Dollar Cash Cow Apple is totally greedy! It controls my choice of Web Sites with their kiddy activated program. Sending Engineers out to check programs is a scam!
Comments
If this is progress and improvement, Apple needs some new leadership from Mr. Cook on down. What has happened to Apple software? It gets stupider and stupider.
There is no obvious pattern to the selection of files; track 5 on an alabama 3 album, track 1 from a ministry of sound compilation etc.
When I sort by filesize, out of 6359 songs, 461 are now marked "stream" and checking each one, they're all 0 bytes in size.
edit* - I'm not sure if this is the same problem as noted in article or something completely different to be fair.
Which has it's own issues, like 'Time machine is not available. Do you want to create a new one. This will delete your existing Time Machine back-up'.
Or something similar to that.
Apple failed to do a reliable backup software.
I am backing up with CCC and have no problems with that.
Seem you never used either Apple device. Otherwise you would know that Apple Time Capsule does have a fan. Maybe not the most powerful or effective but there's a fan and supposedly very noisy when it's on full blast. And an Apple Express USB do not support a HD. Unless you meant the Apple Extreme. Which do support a USB HD but Time Machine can't use it for back up as it consider it an internal HD. But Time Machine will support a HD attached to the newest Apple Extreme. Now one can always use any attached HD for a back up by manually dragging the files you need to back up into the HD. But this makes it more difficult to restore a whole HD as Time Machine can restore your whole backed up HD on to a new one if needed.
My thinking is that one should never back up into a HD that is constantly on. I do my back up on to a USB HD that I plug in and turn on when I want to back up. It's not as easy as just letting Time Machine automatically back up on a set schedule. But i feel safer not having my back up drive on and connected every time I'm on my computers.
Opening those files would open them in iTunes, but iTunes makes a copy of them. Even if you choose to manually delete them from iTunes, iTunes asks if you want to trash the original, but by the original, they mean the copy in the iTunes directory. It would never touch a file outside of that directory. So how did those files disappear? I do this all the time - I receive audio files from external sources usually on CD-R, sometimes via Dropbox. I import them (and rename them) via iTunes. I edit them in Garage Band. I save them as a Garage Band file to a separate folder (outside of the iTunes folder) and as an MP3 file to another folder. Once complete and everything is okay, I delete the unedited version in iTunes. That deletes it from iTunes but doesn't touch either the Garage Band version or the MP3 file.
He may have a case about the music matched by Apple Music and obviously something's going on since Apple has admitted so, but I still think he manually deleted a bunch of music.
As for those who have reported that their music files are actually there, but that they don't appear in iTunes, I would have to believe that means that the directory is screwed up, probably the iTunes Music Library.xml file and/or the iTunes Library.itl file, the latter of which gets automatically backed up in the Previous iTunes Libraries folder.
As for songs being deleted when storage runs low, I wonder if this has anything to do with the option where you can "fill unused space with songs". I wonder if turning that on also has the opposite effect in some cases: that it gets rid of song files when there's not enough space.
Regardless of what's going on, Apple should NEVER delete any of the user's tracks, even if Match is using the server version when streaming unless a user consciously elects that option. And even in that case, I think it should never delete from an OS device, only an iOS device. But even in that case, Apple's messaging, which has gotten really crappy in recent years, needs to be far clearer. I think Apple got this idea that making their products "zen" meant not having to inform users about what they're actually doing.
Do you live in an especially hot environment? Or in a place subject to electrical spikes? I've never heard of an Airport Express failing. I have several plugged in and operating 24 hours a day for many, many years. Never had a single failure. I realize that's anecdotal, but I haven't read reports of these things failing.
Engineers out to check programs is a scam!