Following multiple reports of an issue that causes music from personal collections to be deleted, Apple has confirmed The Loop it only affects a small number of users and that a fix is incoming in an iTunes update next week.
Early reports that Apple Music has been permanently, and completely unexpectedly, deleting users’ locally-owned music libraries may not be Apple Music’s fault. As it was reported just yesterday, a bug discovered within iTunes may be the issue causing those local music libraries to be deleted, with plenty of Apple Support community threads complaining about the issue.
“In an extremely small number of cases users have reported that music files saved on their computer were removed without their permission,” Apple said. “We’re taking these reports seriously as we know how important music is to our customers and our teams are focused on identifying the cause. We have not been able to reproduce this issue, however, we’re releasing an update to iTunes early next week which includes additional safeguards. If a user experiences this issue they should contact AppleCare.”
Recently, Apple Music came under fire as separate reports surfaced outlining that Apple Music subscribers had been hit with huge music libraries being deleted unexpectedly. Many chalked it up to a mismanagement of features between Apple Music and iCloud Music Match, which has a tendency to replace songs, previously owned, with tracks matched with Apple’s cloud service. While this has raised its own issues for Apple Music subscribers with an extensive collection of owned music, that doesn’t appear to be the direct issue in this particular instance.
While the causation of the bug is still unknown, as Apple has failed to reproduce the issue, the company’s statement suggests Apple has narrowed down the issue to iTunes rather than the Apple Music service. It’s unclear whether the fix will arrive with a minor or major iTunes update.