Huge music library suddenly empty after trying to switch to another library - backup from Time Machine does not fix

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Huge music library suddenly empty after trying to switch to another library - backup from Time Machine does not fix

Today I launched Music on my Macbook Pro and decided to try using multiple libraries. At this point the laptop's library looked normal.

I copied the Music Library from my iMac to my Macbook Pro, gave it another name and put it in the Music/Music folder. The content for both libraries (one lossless, the other lossy) is on the same remote HD, connected over wifi.

After disconnecting my iPhone and iMac from the domestic wifi and restarting the Macbook, I could choose the copied iMac library by holding down option, but when it came up it was an empty library. Oh well, I could research that problem in due course, but nothing lost so far.

I option-launched Music again and selected the Macbook's own library, which was fine 10 minutes earlier... and it was also empty.

What???!!!! That's the work of more than 20 years of organisation that's disappeared.

No need to panic. I have Time Machine. So I restored the Macbook library file from a backup earlier in the day (the modified date was months earlier as I hadn't added to it in a while).

I launched Music with only that library in the folder, fingers crossed.

Still empty!

I restored the whole Music/Music Folder from a Time Machine backup.

Still empty.

I restarted.

Still empty.

I've searched these forums and found lots of people have lost their Apple Music libraries, but not like this, and not when a backup file doesn't fix the problem.

Can anyone offer me any hope?

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Mar 16, 2023 11:49 AM

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Answer 1

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turingtest2

Level 10

274,516 points

Mar 24, 2023 11:08 AM in response to Night Ed

It seems you may have moved on but should you wish to revisit the issue see Empty/corrupt iTunes/Music library after upgrade/crash - Apple Community. In particular you may need option-start-Music and explicitly select a restored Music Library.musiclibrary database rather than assume Music will pick it up automatically.

tt2

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Answer 2

Night Ed Author

Level 1

5 points

Mar 17, 2023 1:04 PM in response to Night Ed

So no hope then.

I still have all the thousands of music files (390Gb lossy, 350Gb lossless) but can you imagine the hours, days and weeks that went into constructing playlists, adding cover art, getting everything presented just how I wanted it since I first started using iTunes more than 20 years ago?

Apple Music has been a poor successor to iTunes all along. It lost nearly half my cover art during the transfer and routinely puts the wrong album covers on the tracks it transfers to my iPhone. Many of the albums on my iPhone suddenly have each track twice following the “upgrade”.

One thing's for sure. Unless a miracle happens and someone can help bring my Macbook’s music library back to life, I will not be using Apple Music again.

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Answer 3

Night Ed Author

Level 1

5 points

Mar 19, 2023 4:59 PM in response to Night Ed

Disappointed but not surprised that no one from Apple has got involved here.

I have found a partial solution by installing a specially modified iTunes app on my Catalina OS and reviving my last iTunes library from September 2021.

Goodbye and good riddance to Apple Music.

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Answer 4

Night Ed Author

Level 1

5 points

Mar 26, 2023 12:37 PM in response to turingtest2

Thanks for the advice. On checking my ~/Music folder to see if any of the advice in that link might help, I noticed something I had overlooked before: a folder called AppleMusicLibrary.

Like the co-existing ~/Music/Music folder it contains a file called Music Library and a folder called Media. The date modified on the library was the day I last added an album. And this library file is 925Mb, whereas the one in ~/Music/Music is only 54Kb.

So I option-launched the app, steered the dialog to this newly discovered AppleMusicLibrary folder and the library within, and lo and behold there was my collection.

So that's ”Phew!” and ”Doh!” at the the same time. Why is that duplicate folder with a different name in there? I have no idea. Why didn't see it before? I have no idea.

Thanks for prompting me to revisit the issue TT2. Now... do I continue with the hacked iTunes or revert to Music? I’ll have to ruminate on that...

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Huge music library suddenly empty after trying to switch to another library - backup from Time Machine does not fix

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