25 replies to this topic

[nick68k]

So last night I settled down to watch some Star Trek that I'd purchased from iTunes on my Macbook Air and I discovered that all my purchased, non-downloaded media (which is the majority of it, 200 Gb or so) - music, movies and TV shows had disappeared from my iTunes library. The stuff that I'd downloaded was still there. I went over to my desktop, and the same had happened there. Both systems are 10.14.6. I quit the app and relogged my iTunes account, but this didn't fix it.

Looking at my purchase history revealed that everything was still there (yay, I guess) but nothing was available to stream from my libraries.

I spent a long time on Apple Support chat trying to resolve this - the best part of 2 hours, and was escalated through various advisors, but to no avail.

This morning I spent an hour on the phone talking to a very helpful agent at Apple Support, who sent me a spiffy Capture Data app, which duly captured 177 Mb of log files, system info, and a bunch of other stuff. This has been forwarded to 'iTunes engineering' apparently. I've got a follow-up call scheduled in a couple of days.

So there it is. No happy resolution to report at present, but at least someone who knows about this stuff may be looking at it. I'm assuming the problem lies at Apple's end of the pipe since both computers lost these files simultaneously.

I suppose if a resolution can't be found I'll just have to take my lumps and download everything onto the RAID and share that (right?). I'd be interested to know if anyone else out there has experienced a similar issue.

[Jeyl]

I know Star Trek isn't on this platform, but have you tried connecting your iTunes account to MoviesAnywhere?

[nick68k]

Hm, no, that's new to me. Thanks for the tip however. (I'm using the UK iTunes store incidentally; that may cause all sorts of exciting issues with that service).

[macdude22]

That sucks but if you've been escalated to product engineering you've truly experienced a unique bug.

[nick68k]

Indeed, lucky me eh?

So yeah, I dunno, nothing yet. Although I'm US resident I use the UK store, so I wonder if that has something to do with that, as all my (Apple) computers are now exhibiting this problem (although not, weirdly, the iPhone). I'm special!

edit: update, alright I've got a call scheduled with the Media Services division at the weekend. The plot thickens, or not.

[Matt Diamond]

Ugh, what a disaster. I feel deeply for you, and hope its sorted out soon.

This reminds me, I had a very old login for the UK store, funded with gift cards I bought myself while in the UK. But I haven't used it in a long time because most of the music I wanted eventually made its way into the US store. Not to mention Apple Music.

There's no way I'm going near that old account until your issue is resolved. :-)

[nick68k]

Update #2. Happy to report that my purchases have (mysteriously) re-appeared in my libraries. Thanks to the anonymous Apple employee/ghost of Steve Jobs who fixed it, knowingly or unknowingly. I still have a support call scheduled over the weekend, so I'll try and find out what was done.

[jos]

Have they been able to give you any new information in the follow-up call?

[nick68k]

Nope. I reported that the problem was resolved, and the support agent closed the case. She didn't have any further information for me.

[Matt Diamond]

A happy ending, but not particularly satisfying.

Can you imagine if a book or movie ended that way?  "We still don't know who shot the guy, but he made a full recovery and it's been over 3 years. So we've decided to close the case."
"Congratulations, Chief Inspector Bedaine! You've done it again!"

[nick68k]

I suppose that an exciting database error somewhere in Cupertino, or wherever the hell it is my data are stored (Beijing, probably), was fixed. Maybe the sysdiagnose I sent to Apple was helpful. We'll never know. But I get to stream DS9 again, so I'll take it.

[jos]

nick68k, on 24 February 2020 - 03:52 PM, said:

or wherever the hell it is my data are stored (Beijing, probably)

Maybe Apple just put your files in quarantine for a few weeks out of fear for the Corona virus.

[nick68k]

bUt mACs dONt GeT viRUSes

[jos]

nick68k, on 25 February 2020 - 09:02 PM, said:

bUt mACs dONt GeT viRUSes

Apple doesn't use Macs for their servers. They're all running Windows Server 2003.

[threebkk]

nick68k, on 16 February 2020 - 02:23 PM, said:

I'll just have to take my lumps and download everything onto the RAID

Why would you not download all of your purchases from the get-go?
Why would you trust Apple to not cut-off your access to that stuff?
I'm on iTunes 10, because I've tried iTunes 11 and 12 and they sucked hard.
Apple have proactively pulled the plug on the following services which I thought could not be revoked:
(this is different from just ending support)

a) movie previews AKA trailers - gone
b) music or song previews - gone
c) some songs, albums, movies have disappeared from my wishlist
d) there are probably a few additional things which have been disabled, but I don't recall them at the moment

Needless to say, I've been pissed-off about the first two for a while.
Haven't downloaded a movie trailer in years.
Would now be forced to get them through IMDB's site instead. Do-able, but a pain in the ass.
And, I sure as hell am not going to purchase any music from a store which has now disabled my ability to listen first.
Music previews are a great way to discover new music, of course.

[Cougar]

None of those things are purchases, so that's not quite the same. Music previews still exist, too. I expect they're broken for you because you're on an old iTunes version.

Apple's trailers site is alive and well, though it looks like it's stuck in a 2008 time warp:
https://trailers.apple.com/

[threebkk]

Cougar, you say all of that as if it's fine and expected.
It's neither.

Cougar, on 23 April 2020 - 04:35 PM, said:

Music previews still exist, too. I expect they're broken for you because you're on an old iTunes version.

Yes, I am certain that they still exist, but only if we are using versions of iTunes defined by Apple as “recent enough”.

And, I've already noted why they're broken for me:
Apple has pulled the plug.
Meaning, pulled it from iTunes 10.
They would have needed to spend some time and energy in disabling these services.
More than spent if just doing nothing.

Also, iTunes 10 is not “old”.
It's just not recent.

Nobody told me this would happen when I spent $2,000 USD on a new MacBook Pro.
At time of purchase, iTunes was working fine.
That is not the case now, and through no fault of my own.
I've done my best to keep the hardware working and looking good.

Cougar, on 23 April 2020 - 04:35 PM, said:

Apple's trailers site is alive and well…

The movie trailers I was referring to were movie trailer downloads in iTunes 10, and prior, where the whole file could be downloaded BEFORE VIEWING so that, in case the viewer isn't living in San Francisco, and doesn't have blazing-fast internet, he can still watch the trailer without s tud-d-d-eri… ng (studdering). The downloads would appear in the Movies section, and could be viewed again-and-again while offline. No data allowance eaten-up.

At some point, they changed movie trailers to streaming-only which was a real WTF? move, but even those streaming trailers stopped working at some point, and now there are no more trailers from inside of iTunes 10 at all.

[threebkk]

Cougar, on 23 April 2020 - 04:35 PM, said:

None of those things are purchases, so that's not quite the same.

You're right. It's not quite the same.

But, it should be ample evidence to prove that Apple do not have our best interests in-mind.
They will cut-off beloved services when they want to, not when we are good and ready for them to go away.
If I were that guy, I'd sprint back home to grab as much of his stuff off of their servers as possible… ASAP!

This is why we do not want anything “cloud” based.
Because, it's not a cloud.
It's a private server.
Somebody else holds the keys.

Would you park your car in somebody else's garage just because they promised to open the garage door whenever you wanted to drive it? Don't be naive, please. It puts us all at risk.

[Matt Diamond]

Quote

Don't be naive, please. It puts us all at risk.

How does it put you at risk?

I have music that I bought from Apple shortly after the iTunes Store went online. 2003-2004. 16 years later I can still play all of it, and far more conveniently than when I first got it. (More devices, less DRM)

Whereas I lost about 1/3rd of my LP collection within 5 years, because the place I stored them freshman year got too hot over the summer. Those cost me more than iTunes songs, and I did not get cloud backup for that price.

Yes, there is risk for buying media from Apple, but the alternatives aren't risk free either. Apple's track record is good for media that you pay for. (Services are completely different. They could pull the plug on Apple TV or Apple Music quite easily. But that's the nature of services over products.)

Quote

This is why we do not want anything “cloud” based. It's a private server. Somebody else holds the keys.

As you said yourself, you can download everything and not rely on Apple's servers. There's no reason to be dramatic, or call people naive.

Quote

They would have needed to spend some time and energy in disabling these services.
More than spent if just doing nothing.

It's not obvious but that last sentence is not true. Software maintenance doesn't work that way. I wish it did; my job would be easier.

[threebkk]

Matt Diamond, on 23 April 2020 - 10:05 PM, said:

It's not obvious but that last sentence is not true.

May not be true.
Or, it may be true.
Are you inside of Apple's iTunes team? If you can verify that Apple didn't proactively disable all of my broken features, I would be truly grateful, but… I think it's all conjecture on your part.

Matt Diamond, on 23 April 2020 - 10:05 PM, said:

How does it put you at risk?

It puts us all at risk.
Have you not been watching the overall pattern?
If not, I got a lot of explaining to do here.
That's a lot of work, and typing.