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Music library disappeared - not using sync library

Running macOS 10.15.1 on a 2017 5k iMac. Upgraded to Catalina a couple of weeks ago. Music (app) has worked fine for me until now, although I did lose some covers in the upgrade.


I do not use Apple Music (the service) and have not turned sync library on as I do not have enough iCloud space.


I have an iTunes library of approx 1TB stored on an external SSD. I use an alias to point the Music folder to this location. Within the Music folder my library is still in an iTunes folder. There is also a new Music folder, which has three items in it that I have recently added.


Today I noticed that my Music (the app) library was almost empty as I added some new files to it. I think I last synced to my iPhone about a week ago so it was all working fine then. The only items showing up were the three newly added ones. I rebooted my iMac and now it is fully empty - even the files I added a few minutes ago are gone. All that is available are a handful of tracks I purchased years ago from the iTunes Store but these are showing up as in the cloud and available for download, not as local files. 


I can still see all the music files in the correct place on the SSD using Finder but they are gone from my library.


Any suggestions? Has anyone else experienced a similar problem? All the posts I can see on here about missing libraries are being told to look at the support page about sync library, but as I said, this is off for me.

iMac 27" 5K, macOS 10.15

Posted on Nov 16, 2019 10:14 AM

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Posted on Nov 16, 2019 12:51 PM

Try Empty/corrupt iTunes library after upgrade/crash - Apple Community. Note that iTunes has a history of not playing nicely when media is at the end of a symbolic link. I've not yet tested to see if Music has similar issues.


tt2

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9 replies

Nov 19, 2019 5:57 AM in response to Pete Redrup

I bumped into this problem when I upgraded to Catalina. Everything in iTunes from playlists to songs were all gone. Everything I did. The music files were ok, but I had to redo every piece of organizing from scratch. After a month of getting everything organized and adding new music to the library, there was another update to MacOS.


After going to 10.15.1, IT HAPPENED AGAIN! The Apple Music app could not find the library THAT I WAS USING IN CATALINA before this 10.15.1 update. All that time spent re-organizing is gone again and the library I 'thought' I was using turned out wasn't being updated the entire time I was running the Apple Music App. It doesn't register any of the new music I imported or any of the music I put in the playlists. What library have I been using?! Where did all my work go?


Again, I'm using Apple's Music App, NOT iTunes.

Nov 19, 2019 7:53 AM in response to Jeyl

Are you making sure to properly close out of the Music app before shutting down your computer? I've had two recent conversations with iTunes users who have been closing the app using the red x that closes the visible window and then shutting down their computers. Both were finding iTunes would check the library for errors each time they launched it, and they'd been working like this for years. An empty library, or unsaved changes, both suggest that the database isn't being updated properly. In the world of Windows I'd generally look to third party antivirus as a possible cause. Do you have any such software on your Mac?


tt2

Nov 19, 2019 9:21 AM in response to turingtest2

Oh, I know the difference between closing a window and closing the application. I will re-double my efforts to make sure that never happens to me though. And I never get any anti-virus software. Cripes, trying to get Mackeeper off my system is like performing oral surgery. :)


Thankfully, after much meditation, cooling my head off and actually trying to piece together what had happened, I figured out what happened.


Everything I said about the first time my iTunes settings going bye-bye after upgrading to Catalina did happen, but I did make a back up of my music folder onto an always connected external device. While the back up wouldn't carry over anything I had done in iTunes such as playlists and artwork, I did have my music so re-organizing I went. Then this morning happened and my throat is still hurting from all the hard groans I was making (Still hurts as of now). When I looked at the library in my user folder, it listed as not being modified for over a month. Preposterous I thought. I've added almost 200 songs since I converted to Apple's Music app. This app wouldn't continue to work if the library wasn't catching on, so... what if the library I was using was not in my user folder?


Upon doing a search, I discovered I had three library folders. One on my main comptur, and two on my backup drive. The one on my computer and on the backup drive indicated that they were modified last month, but another showed that it was modified yesterday morning. For some reason, this library was buried inside the backup drive's music media folder itself. So I dragged that library file and replaced the one that was in my user folder, opened Music with the option key held down, selected the newly replaced library folder, hit done and bingo. Everything came back.


So now it all makes sense. When reconstructing and re-organizing my music, I somehow linked the Apple Music app to a library that was on an external device and after the OS was updated, Music didn't loading that library. I tested out the library that is now located in my user folder to see if any modifications I did in the Music App affected the 'Last Modified' entry in the library file. It did. Hopefully with the library being in the appropriate location that this will prevent a hiccup from happening if I need to update again. And if it does, I'll at least know that library is good and I'll have a new back up of it.


Do you concur with this conclusion?

Music library disappeared - not using sync library

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