iTunes Music Weirdness

[DaveWT]

I have just noticed some strange behaviour in my iTunes music on my iMac. It is rare that I play music on my iMac. I have a couple of playlists synced to my iPhone where I usually listen while driving. I do not subscribe to the Apple Music service or otherwise have my music in the cloud.

I have now noticed strange duplication of some (but not all songs) in my iTunes library.



Notice in the ABBA album, "Chiquitita" is duplicated with different "Last Played" dates. I can click on either selection and each will play and then the "Last Played" date gets updated to the current date. But other songs in that album did not get duplicated.

However in the Arlo Guthrie album, all the songs got duplicated and in the case of the first selection ("Alice's Restaurant Massacre") neither shows a "Last Played" date, although this has certainly been played. Clicking on the first instance allows it to play, while clicking on the second instance will not play and instead just starts playing the second selection ("Chilling of the Evening")



My Fleetwood Mac album got completely duplicated also, but in this case the first instance of a given song shows a "Last Played" date and is playable when clicked on. The second instance of the same song does not show a "Last Played" date and is not playable.

I am curious if anyone has an idea of how such random duplication could have happened and short of just going in and manually deleting the extra copies, is there a better approach to try first to clean up my Library?

 

[chas_m]

Do you have either Apple Music (subscription) or iTunes in the Cloud?

 

[TimRichards]

I have a possibly- related weirdness, my playlists seem to duplicate themselves, with a number being added after the name given. Such as 'Smooth Jazz1'

 

[DaveWT]

Chas, I think you missed my second sentence:

"I do not subscribe to the Apple Music service or otherwise have my music in the cloud."

And in fact I have never dabbled in either of those.

 

[chas_m]

In that case, I think the likely culprit is either a confused iTunes sync with devices, or just a bug in iTunes itself (it was just recently updated).

 

[DaveWT]

I guess I will just manually delete the duplicates and keep an eye on it.

 

[DaveWT]

Not sure if this is a further clue to what has gone wrong...

If I go to delete a song that shows a "Last Played" date it prompts me whether I really want to delete that song. Of course I don't because that is the copy that will play, so I "cancel".

Then if I try and delete the second instance of a song (the one with no "Last Played" date) rather than prompting me as to whether I want to delete it, instead it prompts me if I want to "Hide" it. So iTunes is treating the two copies quite differently.

 

[chas_m]

I would try deleting the obvious duplicate (the one that has a "1" in the title or some other indication that it is not the original) and see if it "comes back."

 

[DaveWT]

Yes, last night I went through and in each case of a duplicate I kept the one that actually played and tried to get rid of the one that wouldn't. In some instances the offending one would prompt me if I really wanted to "DELETE" it, but in most cases the offending one prompted me if I really wanted to "HIDE" it. I proceeded anyway as there was no sense seeing items that were duplicates but wouldn't play. The other thing I noticed that in many cases, I recall ripping a CD to get the songs from that album into iTunes and the duplicates (that wouldn't play) were labelled as "purchased" which is very strange. Why would I have purchased songs that I already owned? I am aware that some people have used the iTunes Match to get a higher quality version, but I have never even gone that route. It is almost like the iTunes store accidentally tried to do an "iTunes Match" even though I had never requested it.

Off the topic, but I had a strong reminder of another major failing of iTunes. While doing this cleanup I decided to listen to my music on my iMac as I was doing it. Generally I play the music in the car in "random" order and I keep hearing the same old selections every time I am in the car. And other selections never get played.

When is Apple going to figure out how to do a real random play order?

 

[chas_m]

The other thing I noticed that in many cases, I recall ripping a CD to get the songs from that album into iTunes and the duplicates (that wouldn't play) were labelled as "purchased" which is very strange. Why would I have purchased songs that I already owned? I am aware that some people have used the iTunes Match to get a higher quality version, but I have never even gone that route. It is almost like the iTunes store accidentally tried to do an "iTunes Match" even though I had never requested it.

Off the topic, but I had a strong reminder of another major failing of iTunes. While doing this cleanup I decided to listen to my music on my iMac as I was doing it. Generally I play the music in the car in "random" order and I keep hearing the same old selections every time I am in the car. And other selections never get played.

Second part first: when you choose “random,“ iTunes construct a truly random (internal) playlist. The problem is that it doesn’t construct a new “random“ playlist each time you get back in the car. It’s the same playlist, ergo you get the same songs in the same order.

Now back to the original topic: have you double checked to make sure that iTunes in the Cloud is not turned on, nor family sharing?

 

[DaveWT]

Second part first: when you choose “random,“ iTunes construct a truly random (internal) playlist. The problem is that it doesn’t construct a new “random“ playlist each time you get back in the car. It’s the same playlist, ergo you get the same songs in the same order.

Now back to the original topic: have you double checked to make sure that iTunes in the Cloud is not turned on, nor family sharing?

Well, I certainly don't consider such an action "random" if it duplicates its playlist every time you play it. I would hope it would generate a new random sequence every time you ask for the playlist to start playing.

And as to iTunes in the Cloud or family sharing, as far as I can see (perhaps I am missing a setting somewhere?) neither has ever been turned on and in fact I am usually signed out of the iTunes store when not actually trying to get something, so it shouldn't be giving me anything I am not expecting.