Don't "upgrade" to Catalina if you have a large iTunes library

Certainly an option to consider. Also, a shorter USB cable connected to an opt./coax converter (and subsequent longer opt/coax run) might work. But I like the idea of a straight cable run...no intermediary devices.

 

Classic, as APPLE got you to do exactly what they wanted you to do and that is throw more $$$ their way to solve their stupid changes and screw-ups! Eventually, these latest changes of theirs with dumping iTunes as it stood, will end my time with APPLE, but for now (as long as I don't hit that update button, I will survive for the short haul).

 

I considered moving to a PC but have been with Apple for about 15 years. This was the lesser of 2 evils for me.

 

I hear you! We longtime APPLE customers are certainly going to reevaluate where we go from here and for me, it may not just be Catalina and the death of the iTunes platform that makes me move on, but even more APPLE's continuing endless price hikes on their products.

 

I ordered a 10m length--will report back after I receive it and try it out.

 

The also lost interest in professional film and video editors, completely pulled the rug out from under them in the name of the future (theirs only).

 

This is just awful. I have my music all tagged and picture embedded the way I want it running with JRiver on Win 10. And this computer is not connected to the internet, cannot update even if it tried.

 

In fact, I don’t think that the “lost” artwork issue is with the Music app, it’s worse. I have two Mac’s one still with Mojave and the other with Catalina, both accessing the same iTunes library in my AirPort. Mojave’s Mac shows flawlessly my entire library with artwork, Catalina’s Mac doesn’t. I say it’s worse because, as many have reported, most of the albums lost their artwork and some remain intact in Catalina’s app. If you go to finder, the artwork issue is consistent: the mini artwort icon on the left of filenames of those albums won’t show on Finder also , but those which are intact in iTunes, will still show mini artwork on Finder. This must be the Operating System and not the app itself.

I’m starting to believe this won’t have a happy end

 

I'm not sure that proves anything. The issue appears to be that Apple Music (the new app) has changed the way it caches artwork, something it needs to do to avoid having to open and parse thousands of music files as you scroll through your collection. So, when it is installed, it begins the lengthy process of opening those files one time and copying the artwork to a common place, which other apps (such as Finder) likely also employ. The problem is the time it takes to complete this initial caching, and also, it seems, that the caching occasionally fails to complete, leaving artwork intact in the files, but missing from the display.

 

I noticed that my JRiver MC 24 program does not display all of the files that are in my Music folder and posted about it on the JRiver forum. This reply might help those of you who have seemed to be missing files:

"From what I've seen, Catalina has more restricted access to folders than previous versions of OSX. When an app tries to access a folder for the first time I've been seeing a message box that app xyz wants to access "Music" for example.
You need to approve that."

 

And the inability to add RAM, etc. The picture is not so pretty.

 

I have iCloud syncing turned off on both my iMac that has my library and on my phone (I turned it on on the iMac once and it took weeks to clean up the disaster of mismatched artwork and tracks in the cloud that weren’t the same as the track in my library - never again!).

A new “feature” of iOS is that it now displays a banner every day asking you to turn it on. Unfortunately I mistakenly selected yes instead of the tiny “X” that makes the banner go away, and ended up messing up both my phone content and some of my main library.

 

I use the Music app in iOS 13 regularly and I think it asked me once right when I updated but I'm not even sure about that. It most definitely does not pester me every day. Probably have an Apple Music/iCloud setting somewhere that you haven't turned off?

 

it’s definitely off. I do use Apple Music.

 

The play counts are now stored inside the iTunes database an undocumented, proprietary system

Early versions of iTunes did make the play counts available in an XML file called iTunes Music Library.xml, you may be able to turn that back on (or restore it from an old backup) and get to the play counts that way.
For large libraries the XML file is likely to slow everything down considerably, which is presumably why Apple moved away from it. I find it very hard to believe any competent software engineer would consider XML a good technology for this kind of thing.
About iTunes library files

 

Yes I remains to be seen if they get it right, but using a flat XML file was definitely not good for large libraries.

if they can get the Remote app working and not mess with my artwork, I’ll be happy. Until then, no upgrade.

 

Haven't Apple soldered on there RAM for years now? It does suck they don't allow its users to upgrade their machines as PC manufacturers do. The one big downside to choosing Apple is being forced to be in their extremely closed-in environment which seems to get more closed off with each year with new OS updates and Hardware releases.

I turned on iCloud Music Library once after subscribing to Apple Music and it deleted my entire library and replaced it all with Apple Music versions. My library wasn't as big then as it is now but it was still a huge pain to get things back.

 

I get that pestering as well.

 

You can add RAM to Apple’s desktop machines, just not their laptops.

 

Thanks. Additional RAM cannot be added to my iMac (21.5'', late 2015). There are some other models where the RAM can be upgraded. Just my luck, eh? What I get for assuming, though.
Install memory in an iMac

 

For me, the two deal breakers for the loss of iTunes are the following:

1. No "Remote" app for iPhone or iPad.
2. Losing the ability to back up my music to another Mac

For number 2...I have a technique that a real like. I back up my music hard drive with Carbon Copy Cloner software. I back up all of my music files from my primarily hard drive to a secondary hard drive. CCC is great in that it will only add the files that are different than what is already on the destination drive.

Next, I copy the entire contents of the iTunes directory from my primary Mac to the secondary hard drive. I then delete the iTunes directory on my secondary Mac, and then copy the iTunes directory from the secondary hard drive. When I open iTunes on my secondary Mac, iTunes is identical to the primary Mac. Now I have 2 macs with the same music, artwork, and playlists, etc. My primary Mac is used for curating, ripping, etc while my secondary Mac is used for playing music only.

I used to use home sharing instead of two Macs. However, home sharing got glitchy recently, and I switched to local music only. There is nothing worse than the music stopping at a party due to a technical glitch.

I have 4 TB of music on my external hard drive. iTunes on a Mohave Mac with a iPad Pro for Remote works flawlessly. I really think all things considered, iTunes is a great solution on Mohave. I do not get the hate for iTunes. I will not upgrade to Catalina until 1 & 2 is resolved. That means I may never upgrade to Mohave.

 

New update to Catalina:

Apple Releases macOS Catalina 10.15.1 Update With New Emoji and AirPods Pro Support

This sentence in the release notes could be promising:

“Improves reliability of migrating iTunes library databases into the Music, Podcasts, and TV apps”

 

How does Catalina prevent #2?

 

I have 3 Macs with essentially the same iTunes contents (and a Windows laptop, too). I switched from n/w to local partly because of the issue you noted: everything can come to a sudden halt. Parties aren't the issue for me when that happens—working out is. Amounts to the same thing, technically. As for backups, I copy the iTunes folder to external drives...even have one offsite. Proven to work when I got iTunes up & running on the PC. I'm wondering if Catalina does away with the previous directory structure; that is, whether it'll still be possible to just copy the iTunes folder (or whatever it's called now) and use that copy if needed. That could well be a deal-breaker for me if so.

 

I feel that, being a designer we keep them going thru the 90's because it was the tool for us industry. Now its all lifestyle devices, selling content and cloud services.