my audio books are gone on itunes after catalina upgrade

I have a large collection of audiobooks (over 120GB in mp3 & m4a/b formats). Since migrating to Catalina(as part of setting up a new iMac) and importing into Books, there are the following issues:

1) All the history of plays, ratings & playlists has gone;

2) There is no way to manipulate metadata;

3) The files have been moved to an obscure library :User/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService, but the original directories in iTunes weren't tidied up. They're empty;

4) My Plex settings (used to play audiobooks on a Sonos system) need altering, with the loss of history;

5) Each audiobook appears as one file, irrespective of how many parts it has.

There are likely others to be discovered. Fortunately, I have backups and copies on an HDD connected to a router. However, I shouldn't be needing to restore; this implementation is very poor and close to not being fit for purpose. You have to ask why beta testing didn't pick up these issues. Does Apple assume we all use Audible or want to buy audiobooks from them?

I recommend that you either don't upgrade to Catalina at present or, if you do, don't open Books, as this will start the migration process. I'm now looking for other players for my iPhone / iPad or putting all the files into Music and classing them as 'Audiobooks', thus bypassing Books altogether I will also be contacting Apple Support to express my frustration and suggest that others do the same.

According to: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204230, iCloud photos need at least iOS 8.3. It may be that you need to re-enable Photos in iCloud on your Mac (now System Preferences-->Apple ID-->Photos in Catalina). There also appear to be security updates that you are missing, iOS 9.3.6 being the current version - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208010

They've been moved into Books. See What happened to iTunes? - Apple Support for more.

tt2

You're welcome. 🙂

tt2

Totally agree. This is a total disaster. No smart playlists, can't edit meta data., can't skip to a certain track. What were they thinking? They have destroyed a perfectly usable application.