Music library disappeared - not using sync library

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

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.

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

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?

You're welcome. 🙂

tt2

Sounds like you've gotten to the bottom of it. 🙂

tt2

That is correct sir. I'm just dreading the next big update/upgrade that I will have to do that could throw another wrench into the gears.

Thank you for your time and advice.

You're welcome. 🙂

tt2