My iTunes got messed up :(
May 12, 2021 12:50 PM Subscribe
I did a bad thing and now my itunes is messed up. I danced with the devil and got involved with Apple's dumb iCloud stuff, and now the simple mechanical sharing of songs and metadata between my phone and computer can't happen anymore. This screenshot shows the root of the problem I think, which is that I unselected "iCloud" from the Preferences menu on my computer, but it's still in effect according to my phone, and I don't know how to fix it. I tried restoring my phone from backup and that didn't do anything.
I've been using itunes since like 2000 or earlier to curate my little song collection. I make heavy use of smart playlists and ratings to make my own algorithms so I only ever hear what I want to hear.
I started messing around with Apple Music the other day against my own better judgement and now I completely regret it. I got nothing out of Apple Music and I wish I had never touched it.
The current state of my phone is that a lot of songs I own, and downloaded in like 2005 from friends, not even talking about the nebulous state of "ownership in the digital age" at all, these are my files, aren't on my phone. The error message I get when I click on one of the disabled songs is that I have to go into my computer's preferences and turn on iCloud sharing. But WHY should I have to do that when before I used to be able to just run the files through the usb cable.
I don't want to turn iCloud sharing back on because when I did that, the metadata was all messed up. I have a lot of smart playlists that are tuned to only give me songs I haven't heard within X time period and those dates were all out of sync.
I tried just deleting the Music app off of my Mac and it wouldn't let me.
However the message I seem to be getting now is that it won't let me go back to regular 2000-style mechanical syncing at all unless I do that! I'm freaking out!
If the answer is "No, this is unfixable, but you can do what you were doing before with a completely different set of devices" I will accept that! I just want everything back the way it was.
I've been using itunes since like 2000 or earlier to curate my little song collection. I make heavy use of smart playlists and ratings to make my own algorithms so I only ever hear what I want to hear.
I started messing around with Apple Music the other day against my own better judgement and now I completely regret it. I got nothing out of Apple Music and I wish I had never touched it.
The current state of my phone is that a lot of songs I own, and downloaded in like 2005 from friends, not even talking about the nebulous state of "ownership in the digital age" at all, these are my files, aren't on my phone. The error message I get when I click on one of the disabled songs is that I have to go into my computer's preferences and turn on iCloud sharing. But WHY should I have to do that when before I used to be able to just run the files through the usb cable.
I don't want to turn iCloud sharing back on because when I did that, the metadata was all messed up. I have a lot of smart playlists that are tuned to only give me songs I haven't heard within X time period and those dates were all out of sync.
I tried just deleting the Music app off of my Mac and it wouldn't let me.
However the message I seem to be getting now is that it won't let me go back to regular 2000-style mechanical syncing at all unless I do that! I'm freaking out!
If the answer is "No, this is unfixable, but you can do what you were doing before with a completely different set of devices" I will accept that! I just want everything back the way it was.
I don't see any settings in your second screenshot, just your music-free iPhone, which is unsurprising since you told the system not to sync to iCloud. Removing the cloud management does indeed remove all music from your phone because your cloud library, not your local library, controls syncing with your phone. But there's nothing in the Music app (or in iTunes, which has been replaced by Music in newer versions of MacOS) to prevent you from syncing your music to the iPhone via USB cable if you're not using the iCloud library. iCloud vs. local syncing seem to be mutually exclusive.
Your first screenshot leads me to believe you haven't actually turned off any iCloud music sharing (Apple Music, iCloud Music Library, iTunes Match, etc). It could be telling you to check the box again because your system thinks you're still a customer. This article is one of many that tells you how to turn the service off. Once you have that sorted, iTunes should start looking at your local music library again for its playlists, etc. Hopefully you have a TimeMachine or other backup from before you started messing with the iCloud library, just in case.
I'm assuming you still have all your music on your Mac, since your second screenshot doesn't tell us anything about that. The Summary item on the top half of the screen should show you options for syncing to your phone from your computer, once you have the cloud library turned off.
Be sure to have a recent backup of your local music files. If worse comes to worse and you have to wipe out your library and start from scratch, you can't do it without your files.
Good luck!
posted by lhauser at 5:58 PM on May 12, 2021
Your first screenshot leads me to believe you haven't actually turned off any iCloud music sharing (Apple Music, iCloud Music Library, iTunes Match, etc). It could be telling you to check the box again because your system thinks you're still a customer. This article is one of many that tells you how to turn the service off. Once you have that sorted, iTunes should start looking at your local music library again for its playlists, etc. Hopefully you have a TimeMachine or other backup from before you started messing with the iCloud library, just in case.
I'm assuming you still have all your music on your Mac, since your second screenshot doesn't tell us anything about that. The Summary item on the top half of the screen should show you options for syncing to your phone from your computer, once you have the cloud library turned off.
Be sure to have a recent backup of your local music files. If worse comes to worse and you have to wipe out your library and start from scratch, you can't do it without your files.
Good luck!
posted by lhauser at 5:58 PM on May 12, 2021
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by bleep at 1:23 PM on May 12, 2021