Stuck on "Saving Music Library..." and some metadata lost

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Level 1

8 points

Stuck on "Saving Music Library..." and some metadata lost

I recently transferred all my data from a MacBook Pro to a MacBook Air M2 and upgraded to Ventura. My Music Library file is where it has to be by default and my mp3 files (around 250'000!) are on a external SSD. All the links for records with "album artist" filled in are wrong: "iTunes" being the name the folder where the MP3 are copied on the SSD, if I have a record, say, from Neil Young, most files are in iTunes/Music/Neil Young/Album Name/01 Song Name as they should be EXCEPT if Album Artist is filled in (e.g. Artist is "Neil Young & Crazy Horse" and Album Artist is "Neil Young"). The info tells me this file is in iTunes/iTunes/Neil Young/Album Name/01 Song Name but the second iTunes folder does not exist and indeed the original file is still in iTunes/Music, etc...

I have tried all solutions I could find (including most if not all suggested by turingtest2,) to no avail. I ask Music to search for the files in the background and it does after a few hours, but when closing Music it is stuck on "Saving Music Library". Any idea how to solve this? Thanks in advance

MacBook Air

Posted on Apr 2, 2023 12:52 AM

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Answer 1

turingtest2

Level 10

277,729 points

Apr 2, 2023 05:18 PM in response to pbeauverd

Hi there.

If you open and then close Music without attempting any repairs does it still hang on saving the library? If so you might try rebooting your computer, then hold down Option+Cmd as you launch Music which opens in its safe mode. You may find it then closes and reopens normally.

As for the broken links see my user tip FixLinks - an AppleScript to repair broken links in Music - Apple Community. It seems this with a tweak should be able to repair things. From a quick read of what you've written it seems that Music thinks that some tracks are stored using the pattern .../iTunes/iTunes/<Album Artist>/<Album>/## <Name>.<Ext> when they are really stored in .../iTunes/Music/<Artist>/<Album>/## <Name>.<Ext>. If so locate these lines in the script:

-- evaluate artist folder

set theArtist to album artist of aTrack

if theArtist = "" then set theArtist to artist of aTrack

and replace with this:

-- evaluate artist folder

set theArtist to artist of aTrack

-- if theArtist = "" then set theArtist to artist of aTrack

i.e. ignore the normal precedence given to the album artist field when predicting where a track should be stored.

If I've misunderstood and the artist folder is still named after the album artist if filled in then use the script as it is.

tt2

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