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Seems to be scanning user drives, comparing every single audio file to their itunes/whatever database, deleting all the matches, copying all the files that don't match to their servers and then deleting them. How is this even legal, I'm not sure. Thought I'd share this story as a warning:

“The software is functioning as intended,” said Amber.
“Wait,” I asked, “so it’s supposed to delete my personal files from my internal hard drive without asking my permission?”
“Yes,” she replied.
...
What Amber explained was exactly what I’d feared: through the Apple Music subscription, which I had, Apple now deletes files from its users’ computers. When I signed up for Apple Music, iTunes evaluated my massive collection of Mp3s and WAV files, scanned Apple’s database for what it considered matches, then removed the original files from my internal hard drive. REMOVED them. Deleted. If Apple Music saw a file it didn’t recognize—which came up often, since I’m a freelance composer and have many music files that I created myself—it would then download it to Apple’s database, delete it from my hard drive, and serve it back to me when I wanted to listen, just like it would with my other music files it had deleted.

https://blog.vellumatlanta.com/2016/05/ ... seriously/

That is not what Apple Music does.

"Amber" was incorrect and that is pointed out in the articles I've seen. Mac Rumors

adampk17 wrote:

That is not what Apple Music does.

"Amber" was incorrect and that is pointed out in the articles I've seen. Mac Rumors

That article doesn't completely let Apple of the hook, however:

Mac Rumors wrote:

Amber's statement is inaccurate according to an Apple Music support document. Original files are never altered and remain available and deleting personal content is not the intended behavior of the service, but it continues to be unclear if Pinkstone and other Apple Music customers who have had content deleted have experienced a bug or mistakenly deleted their content themselves because of a confusing user interface. Multiple Apple Music listeners have disagreed with iMore's point of view and have said they too have experienced music deletions that weren't self-initiated.

I haven't used Apple Music but I've had iTunes delete files from my HDD without any action on my part on multiple occasions. I've posted about it here on this forum.

I have a collection of several thousand songs. Most of them are MP3 which were either purchases online (Amazon, Google, etc) or ripped from my own CD collection.

However, there are a number of albums I have which were originally ripped into WMA format. These were converted via iTunes.

A couple of times now I've found albums missing - the folders and artwork images are still there, but the music files are gone. When this has happened (at least, when I've noticed it) is generally right after I do a full reset of an iPod. It's always the albums that were originally WMA format, and it's always entire albums. I don't touch the files in my iTunes library directly, and all of my iTunes settings are default. I know of at least two other people who've reported the same issue. And, I've had one Apple tech at one of their stores confirm that she's seen the same thing happen - but couldn't offer any explanation.

Whether this is a bug or an intended "feature" I dunno... but it's annoying as hell. And it's not me mucking around in the folders (as tends to be suggested when you post about this in Apple forums) because I don't muck around in the folders, and even if I did, that wouldn't explain why the folder and images are still in the same place and only the audio files get removed.

@cphite There's a checkbox that says something like "convert to AAC before adding to library" which may be responsible for that.

Seems to me that at the very least, they've got some bugs and/or confusing UI design, which is leading to "accidentally" deleted files. So while the original blog may be a bit over the top, there's definitely SOME sort of problem here.

Ninjitsu wrote:

@cphite There's a checkbox that says something like "convert to AAC before adding to library" which may be responsible for that.

No... That just tells it whether or not to convert the files automatically when you import them into a default format, rather than importing them as-is. I've had that suggested before, changed it, and it didn't fix anything. And frankly, if changing that setting *did* fix the issue it'd still be bull****

To give you an example, this actually happened a few weeks ago. I bought some CD's at a local record shop and ripped them using iTunes. They imported normally. Later that day I tried playing some Gamma Ray on my iPod and the album wasn't there. I've had it for years; I had just listened to one of the tracks the day before. Now it was missing from the iPod, from my library, and from my HDD. The folder was still there, the album art was still there - the music files were missing.

I don't care what my "convert to AAC before adding to library" setting was, there is no legitimate reason for iTunes to delete a completely unrelated album that's been there for years, when I import something else.

cphite wrote:

The folder was still there, the album art was still there - the music files were missing.

I don't know WTF is going on with the folks who are losing music files. I'm not exactly an iTunes fan, but I subscribe to both iTunes Match and Apple Music and I've never lost any files.

I hope the solution is found one way or another.

cphite wrote:

I don't care what my "convert to AAC before adding to library" setting was, there is no legitimate reason for iTunes to delete a completely unrelated album that's been there for years, when I import something else.

Well, that's a fair point. I haven't used iTunes in a while, my iPod's been collecting dust lately. Hope the issue gets fixed for you :|

iTunes (especially the Windows version) is an incredibly messy blob of spaghetti code, and especially recently, seems to be a giant ball of bugs wrapped in duct tape. That said, I've never had iTunes mess with my music collection as long as I leave the 'let iTunes manage my collection' setting un-checked.

SuperSpy wrote:

iTunes (especially the Windows version) is an incredibly messy blob of spaghetti code, and especially recently, seems to be a giant ball of bugs wrapped in duct tape. That said, I've never had iTunes mess with my music collection as long as I leave the 'let iTunes manage my collection' setting un-checked.

And me, I let iTunes manage my music. I've never had, nor been afraid of, iTunes delete my files. Lucky I guess?

Do you only listen to iTunes music? (Including Apple Music and Match)? If you stay in the Apple ecosystem you are generally fine... if not, all bets are off..

SuperSpy wrote:

I've never had iTunes mess with my music collection as long as I leave the 'let iTunes manage my collection' setting un-checked.

Good point. I also have that un-checked. I've been using iTunes for ages and I've never had a problem. Everything remains in sync over 5 computers and all of my mobile devices.

druidcent wrote:

Do you only listen to iTunes music? (Including Apple Music and Match)? If you stay in the Apple ecosystem you are generally fine... if not, all bets are off..

Match is specifically for music purchased outside of iTunes.

End User wrote:

SuperSpy wrote:

I've never had iTunes mess with my music collection as long as I leave the 'let iTunes manage my collection' setting un-checked.

Good point. I also have that un-checked. I've been using iTunes for ages and I've never had a problem.

Same here, although I only used it for adding songs to my iPod and a very rare CD rip (use WMP or EAC for that usually).

It is indeed very messy and installs a load of bloat on Windows.

Ninjitsu wrote:

It is indeed very messy and installs a load of bloat on Windows.

iTunes wears many hats so its UI is a tad dense.

Not sure what you mean by bloat. The app appears to be under 200MB and its memory footprint is roughly 52MB.

End User wrote:

Ninjitsu wrote:

It is indeed very messy and installs a load of bloat on Windows.

Not sure what you mean by bloat. The app appears to be under 200MB and its memory footprint is roughly 52MB.

Background processes - bonjour, itunes service, ipod service and a fourth thing iirc.

I guess you guys weren't crazy after all Apple Confirms Music Deletion Glitch, Says Fix Incoming in Future iTunes Update

adampk17 wrote:

I guess you guys weren't crazy after all Apple Confirms Music Deletion Glitch, Says Fix Incoming in Future iTunes Update

Apple wrote:

We have not been able to reproduce this issue, however, we’re releasing an update to iTunes early next week which includes additional safeguards.

Not sure how they can issue a fix if they still haven't been able to figure out how it is happening.

Sounds like the software equivalent to the "spray and pray" approach.

just brew it! wrote:

Not sure how they can issue a fix if they still haven't been able to figure out how it is happening.

True, how can they confirm it either, for that matter? If they haven't been able to repro it.

So what about the dude who got his stuff deleted? Hopefully Apple throws some money at him. It was his livelihood that their software deleted, after all.

jihadjoe wrote:

So what about the dude who got his stuff deleted? Hopefully Apple throws some money at him. It was his livelihood that their software deleted, after all.

If you read the entire blog post, he had a backup. He got his files back. So his rant was more of a "people with irreplaceable music files who don't back their drive up will get screwed" rant than an "I personally got screwed" rant. Which doesn't excuse Apple's bug, but Apple doesn't really "owe him" for anything other than maybe the time he spent arguing with them, and the inconvenience of having to recover his files from the backup.

just brew it! wrote:

adampk17 wrote:

I guess you guys weren't crazy after all Apple Confirms Music Deletion Glitch, Says Fix Incoming in Future iTunes Update

Apple wrote:

We have not been able to reproduce this issue, however, we’re releasing an update to iTunes early next week which includes additional safeguards.

Not sure how they can issue a fix if they still haven't been able to figure out how it is happening.

The title of that MacRumors article was poorly worded. Apple did not confirm there was a glitch as they have not duplicated the issue. The only thing Apple did was comment on reports of a glitch.

Apple is not providing a "fix". Apple will be providing "additional safeguards".

The Loop that had the original quote from Apple:

http://www.loopinsight.com/2016/05/13/a ... ing-music/

“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.”

I'm still left wondering what these "additional safeguards" could possibly be, given that they don't know how the files are getting deleted in the first place. Changing existing code without understanding the failure mechanism runs a risk of introducing new bugs, while simultaneously *not* fixing the existing one.