I don't know when happened, probably post Catalina, but missing 2 important Playlist. One called Master Playlist and compendium of all 800 playlist into one big playlist.. So that about 30 hours of work. And another called Tape which was all music download from cassette tapes, about 100 hours of work for that one.

The other 800 playlist are there, but where find those two and what happened to them?

Playlists are records in a minisql database, not individual files. For the average user the only way to access those playlists is through the Music app. If a search in Music does not turn up either playlist they have been deleted and are unrecoverable. If you have Time Machine enabled you could go back in time to a point when you know the playlists were present and restore the Music Library.

Thanks Joe sounds hard and hairly, but maybe not? In TM where is the music library?
Ok in finder I see in root of my main external drive... "kevs library"

Could I do a find drag and drop replace from 4 months ago and see what happens?

But if some of my playlist that are good now #802, #803 are not there, I would just go back to what I have now, ok?

Is dangerious? Cause what I have now is ok, up to date expect for those missing ones? Also can one "see what old library has in there? ie if playlist looks correct?

However you reclaim your old library, either by drag and drop (even possible?) or by Time Machine (preferable), retain the original; do not replace it. Then go into Music's Preferences>File and just change the Music Media Folder location to the new Library. Restart Music and see how everything looks. This way you don't lose or overwrite anything in the existing library and you can do this switching with multiple past versions until you find what you want. You can even export the newly found Playlist: File>Library>Export Playlist… and then import it into your current Music library.

Thanks Ira, good point, so don't even have to "save" current library, I just pointed to a library in TM 4 months ago and see what happens.

The progress bar came on was real slow, so thought be hours and then I saw a message, " would you like to move and rename the files in your new media folder to match, the 'keep media folder organized" preference.

I chose no, as seems dangerous, or?

Anyway, then I guess was done, relaunched, no luck. So try again.

BTW, another music question: when search Al Green in artist, comes up twice, (different albums), but name exactly same, any idea why coming up twice then/?

And any idea why Music would delete an important playlist?

Anyway, alas, bizarry, not working as I went all way back to 2 years ago, library, and still showing the current library exact, and I know not right, as I've added things since then. but I did not say yes to that quesiton on others maybe thats why?

No luck, even 2 years back same library, have no clue baffling.

NEVER RECOVER A FILE FROM TIME MACHINE BACKUP SET VIA DRAG AND DROP

Be aware you cannot restore an individual playlist you can only restore the entire library and the playlists that existed at a specific point in time

Recovery using Time Machine is very straight forward and not at all difficult

1. In your user home folder navigate to Music/Music
2. Select Music Library
3. Click on the Time Machine icon on the menu bar
4. Select "Enter Time Machine" from the drop-down menu
5. Select the date you want to restore from in the time scale on the right edge of the screen. Somewhere close to the last time you last remember using the two missing playlists.
6. Click on "Restore"
7. You will be offered a choice of "keeping the original", "keep both", or "Replace
8. Click on your choice (see Ira's suggestion)

JOe, TM working but I guess Catalina madness as if I go back over 5 months the itunes library is not where it is now.. (ie home, music, library) . so can't find older version to replace. Ironically I see offer, a folder with super old version from 10 years ago, but where is music library from OS before CAtalina?

Also:
1) Do you know why Apple or Catalina would delete playlist?
2) any clue on the Al Green question above, thanks!

Ira/ Joe,

My guess is you cannot replace a pre catalina "itunes" music library with a new post Cataline, "music" library? Maybe not even same extension.. etc.

You are correct! I just went browsing back in Time Machine and ~/Music/Music/Music Library did not appear until August 2019. Prior to that it was ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Library.itl and a host of other folders and files. I recall that Music (nee. iTunes) has evolved (revolutionized?) its structure a few times over the last 20 years, but each time the conversion has been relatively transparent to the user because it was handled automatically by the new app version and for the vast majority there has been no data loss including carefully curated playlists.

That leaves the questions of what happened to your two playlists and when it happened open and probably unsolvable.

Before going any further...

1. In Music > Preferences > General be sure the box labeled "Synch Library" is checked as that will save your Library in iCloud and you can always restore from there
2. If you have any recently created playlists, on the Music menu go to File > Library and export those playlists to a safe location on your system
3. Make a note of the current date and time (that way you can always restore to the present status from Time Machine and don't risk further loss in attempting recovery)

Since you don't know when the critical playlists were lost...

1. In Finder select ~/Music/Music/Music Library
2. Click on the Time Machine icon on the menu bar and select enter Time Machine
3. Go back in time as far as you can
4. Click on Restore
5. Select Replace (remember you can always restore the current library from your noted date and time if you need to)
6. Launch Music and see if the lost playlists are in that version of the Library and if they are, you can import the newer playlists you previously exported and the problem is solved

If that Fails...

The only other thing I can think of is to go back to an earlier iTunes version in Time Machine, restore that, then let Music open that and convert it. I am not sure of the specifics, but I think I could work them out if that becomes necessary. But I would prefer to see if my first thought works.

Thanks Joe, but this path: ~/Music/Music/Music Library

Does not exist pre Catalina, where the old itunes library was..... So can't work right? in TM? It wont find it... cause you opened that specific finder window ~/Music/Music/Music Library.

Since you don't know precisely when the two playlists were "lost", I was suggesting you start with the easiest restoration first. If that does not work then you are going to have to go into pre-Catalina versions and convert them into the current Music version, but that is a more complex and time consuming operation. Before proceding you might answer the following questions and thereby save some time.

• Have you added any tunes to your library since installing Catalina?
• Have you created any new playlists since installing Catalina?
• Have you used either of the two missing playlists since installing Catalina?

When you have answered those questions, I can plot a complete strategy for recovery for you.

Joe I have not done anything since I installed Catalina a couple of months ago. So these playlist are from long time ago.. maybe year old?

But is it too hairy to do, get pre Catalina Libary back?

What you describe with Al Green does not seem to be a problem. I search my Library for Al Green and I see this. Is that similar to yours? If Al Green appears in any other compilations, the search will show those.
Are you saying you see the artist picture labeled "Al Green" twice? How many spaces between the first and last names?

Ira


Now I understand the one with Lyle Lovett, of course, but why are there two, same exact spelling and spaces?


https://imgur.com/8JtTy83

No, but it will have to be converted to the new format in order to play it. My three questions are intended in part to determine what will be lost when you recover the playlists, but there may be an option that will enable you to get the playlists and import them into your current library. If you wish to proceed I will work on steps you will need to follow.

Joe, as have not added anything new playlist wise in long time. So we can give it a try.

Will Catalina though annihilate the missing playlist eventually anyway?

Annihilating a playlist is not something inherent to Catalina. When I upgraded to Catalina none of my playlists vanished. Based on many of your other postings, I would say you have a ghost in the machine.

See my comment above.

TO RESTORE YOUR LOST PLAYLISTS.

NOTE:

• these instructions include provisions to protect and quickly restore your current status, just in case. Ccomments will be colored orange, and critical items red, safety steps are green
• There is no reason to believe Catalina or the current version of Music has any reason to delete or omit any playlist.

PROCEDURE:

1. In Finder drag the Music folder in ~/Music to your desktop.
2. In Finder select ~/Music (where ~/ is shorthand for your user folder).
3. Click on the Time Machine con and select "Enter Time Machine" on the drop down menu.
4. Scroll back in time one year (or to whatever point in the past your choose).
5. Select the "iTunes" folder in /Music.
6. Click on "Restore".
7. Launch Music while holding the Option (⌥) key.
8. On the Menu that appears select "Choose Library".
9. Navigate to ~/Music/iTunes.
10. Select "iTunes Library.itl" and click Choose. Music will automatically convert the iTunes Library to the current Music library format.
11. When the conversion has completed, check to see if A new ~/Music/Music folder has been created and if either or both of the playlists are present in the new Library.
12. If the playlists ARE present: breath a deep sigh of relief that you will not have to re-create the two playlists then take a deep breath, move the Music folder you placed on the desktop to the trash, post back here that the operation was a success, and heap lavish praise on my shoulders for the success 😜.
13. If the playlists are NOT present: I don't want to know about it Seriously, there are several possibilities, including but not limited to, the playlists were not in the version of the iTunes database you restored because you either went too far back or not back far enough in time, or the playlists themselves were damaged and Music was unable to convert them into the new format, the playlists were simply too long to be successfully converted. Whatever the case I can think of one other last ditch recovery possibility but it would require another Drive and Installing Mojave or Catalina on it.
14. To return to the status quo: delete ~/Music/Music and !/Music/iTunes then drag the Music folder you placed on the desktop in step 1 back to the ~/Music folder, then open Music while holding down the ⌥ key, select "Choose Library", navigate to ~/music/Music, and click Choose.

Thanks Joe, I got to #10, but then itunes library both restored and originals are greyed out:

https://imgur.com/ZZm7avf

Hah! Easy for you to say!

I've been distracted by this thread's focus on playlists, which I've never used, and didn't think to relate it to music until you posted that.

I kept myself busy for two months of lockdown by importing an immense amount of new music and upgrading an immense amount of old music (Catalina 10.15.5 & 6/Music 1.0.6.10), and I was PLAGUED by disappearing music.

Sometimes I'd add a bunch of new songs to an existing album, and upon checking to make sure the transfer had been successful I'd find that c < a + b - with no particular rhyme or reason - and I'd have to recreate the original album from a backup.

Other times a transferred song appeared in the album in which it belonged, but the song file itself was nowhere to be found.

And still other times I'd add a classical piece with the same name and composer as an existing piece, but with a different ensemble, and the transfer would appear to have been successful, but I'd later find that Music had decided that the two pieces were the same, deleted one of them, and left me with two entries pointing to the remaining piece.

After an immense amount of hair tearing, I'm still missing one piece that was neither upgraded nor a new import.

So, YEAH, it's altogether possible that kevs's missing playlists are victims of Music's vagaries.

Like I said, ghosts in the machine.

Ira those post are not useful. I noticed Joe has often fixed what seems insoluble.)

Though love that phrase Ghost in Machine or Gremlins.. sometimes stuff cannot be solved. But to imply that the issue is on my end, we've seen you say that several times about Catalina stuff that turns out I was right and CAtalina, is a beast/ mess, and screwed up lot of things for mac users. Top developers and Joe have confirmed this.

If you don't have answers, just say don't have answer or don't reply.. But off topic annoying.. Oh Kevs it's his issue. Again, seen many times JOe dives in and solves these unsolvable problems, right after you say that.. Waste of space on this forum.

That said, I've seen you offer fantastic ideas,/ support in past, but these recent continuing comments are completely useless. (albeit nowhere near as bad as one other user here who will often write personal crazy criticisms, and jabs that have nothing to do with anything)

That said, even some of these new senior Apple techs can't solve some of their own issues.

This is what I see and the difference is I have the iTunes Library.itl and you do not. Music is looking for that library file as the basis for conversion. You do however have an iTunes Library.xml which was a format that long predated iTunes Library.itl. The iTunes (Original) set is from 2015 and the iTunes is from 2016. Since Music found something it could convert when you installed Catalina, otherwise you would have lost all of your playlists, the data exists in Time Macnine. I can only surmise that you went too far back in time for the restoration.

When you are in Time Machine you can not only journey forward and backward, you can drill down through through the directory structure. You are going to have to do some detective work to find the correct version of the iTunes folder to restore, but it is there, somewhen. Just look for an iTunes folder that has the iTunes Library.itl file.

In the meantime I would recommend deleting both iTunes and iTunes (Original) folders from your drive as all they are doing is taking up disk space and adding clutter (which can easily lead to mistakes). I would also encourage you to compress a coup of your current Music folder (just in case) while all of this is going on.

Joe, thnks, deleted the Itunes folders.

No stomach to continue: The big one was called master playlist, years ago, I had to drag all 800 playlist one by one to create it-- to keep cohesive sort order of tracks. If you don't do that Music is too chaoitic to get the tack order right. But this was with older ipods.

Do you know if newer iphone, if you have 800 playlist, would the iphone, in music -- have ability to just to to the next playlist? If so I wont have to recreate that.. ok.

You would think Apple would have that feature by now but who knows.

I am running iOS 14.2 beta on my iPhone, and Music will play to the end of an album or the end of a playlist, but it stops there. However, you can create a playlist of playlists, and it will play to the end of all the playlists in that playlist. While I haven't tried it, I expect it to be possible to nest playlists three four or more levels deep. I see no reason why you couldn't create a playlist that includes all of your playlists.

Thanks Joe what is the fastest way to do that?

Ok just tested, make one call all playlist? Then drag, 1 in then 2 etc.

800 drags, but way better than what I did before which is dragging all songs from each one manually. Unless even faster way.

Also in playlist, just see song, album, time, is way to add a column of another category? I know how to that when in songs, but playlist can you..?

And any idea on my double Al Green thing?

I don't know how many playlists you have, but the way I did it on either the iPhone or Mac is...

1. Create a new playlist
2. Drag an existing playlist (not tunes from the playlist) and drop it onto the new playlist
3. Repeat the procedure with another playlist.
4. Continue until all playlists are added.

If the primary objective is to have a playlist that will play every tune your have there is an easier alternative

• Create a new SMART Playlist using this rule.
• The advantage here is new tunes will be added automatically with no action required on your part.

Playlist View Options (at least in Big Sur)

1. Select a playlist
2. On the menu bar select View As Songs
3. Then either select View > Options or press ⌘J to bring up the column browser

NOTES:

1. When adding a playlist that has tunes that duplicate tunes already in the playlist you will be prompted whether or not to add the duplicate tunes.
2. As most of my playlists are "Smart" I have yet to discover how that will affect the content of the "Master" playlist but I expect it will change dynamically as tunes are added

Kevs--my apologies if you found my musical reference (4th album by The Police) to be making light of your situation. The original post did deal with music. As one who has experienced personally, and also helped others with, tech problems, I know how frustrating they can be. And at times I have found that a break with humor can ease the frustration; and sometimes not, I guess. I will strive to be more relevant with my posts with regards to yours.

I have used this suggestion, but find that even with the "random" option checked, I was listening to the same tracks too often and not enough of the rest of my library. I found that with this added condition I heard more different tracks. You can modify the number "3" to any number that works for you and your library. If you set it to "is 0" you will play music that has not yet been played in the library, if there is any.

Thanks JOe, never done a smart playlist, but yours playlist is music and select random, don't think would achieve what I want is just continue playing all the playlist through I have 1 -800 right?

Ira no problem as some of your post past are great, but yeah.. if can't solve issue no point is saying user has issues; trust me I never ever post unless there real issue, way too busy. And we've seen some of these confounding/ intractable things get solved.

That would play through all the music you have, not the playlists. You can then sort the music in the playlist in ascending or descending order by playlist order, title, genre, year, artist, album, or time. I tried that on my library and it will take 638 1/2 hours to play it through. To be truthful I'm not sure how useful that would be. But then I can't imagine keeping track of 800 playlists.

Also Joe, any guess on my Al Green question?

My playlist Joe are exact albums and order etc I've sorted playlist by comment field, 1,2, 3 to 800, and when in playlist can then do a 2nd sort for proper track number, but does not seem to work when in general song.... library.

BTW Joe, can one insert images now here? not sure.

No guess on Al Green question.

The image tag is still deactivated.

Thanks Joe, has there ever been an insert image feature on Fine Tuned? Must use 3rd party.. still/ always?

The image tag has never been supported on FineTunedMac. That decision was made to conserve on disk space and keep the hosting cost low. Remember we have no sponsors, and no membership fees to cover the cost of operation.

Thanks Joe, never thought ot that, images take space. And this was started by that Apple tech writer guru whose book I bought a long time and taken over by you and few others?

Yes.