Apple Says It Doesn't Know Why iTunes Users Are Losing Their Music Files (theverge.com)

Earlier this month, an Apple Music user James Pinkstone claimed that the online music streaming service deleted 122GB of music from his library for no apparent reason. Several Slashdot readers noted they had also faced a similar issue or knew someone who had. The iPhone maker has now acknowledged a bug in iTunes that is apparently causing the glitch, however, it adds that it doesn't really know why "some" users are facing this issue. The Verge reports: The company confirmed that "in an extremely small number of cases, users have reported that music files saved on their computer were removed without their permission." However, Apple was unable to reproduce the bug, indicating it doesn't really know what's going on here. The company adds: 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.

Comments

Seriously incompetent

[sunderland56]

They're really claiming that they don't know why this is happening?

Note to iTunes software engineers: grep through your code and find all calls to delete(). Investigate the code in those areas. If you can't add some basic debug code - or if you're unsure of what "grep" is - maybe you should consider a move to management.

Re:Seriously incompetent

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that this got modded +5 on Slashdot is a clear sign people here have no clue what the fuck they're talking about anymore. Anyone who has ever worked on any complex software is aware that unusual sets of rare circumstances can result in unforeseen behavior and the solution is rarely as easy as "grep for problem."

I've no doubt iTunes devs know exactly where all the file-deletion calls are, and all of them are legitimately necessary. The question is, what secondary functions call those, and what tertiary functions call those secondary functions, etc. on down the rabbit hole; what assertions and double-checks are used to ensure only the appropriate files are removed; what is the entire set of circumstances that results in a delete when there shouldn't be one? The answer absolutely is not going to be found right at the site of the delete call.

To hazard a guess: iTunes has various methods by which it caches music downloaded from a user's online library, or from Apple Music. These files might be stored locally permanently (the user can specifically request to locally cache stuff so it's available w/o internet access or if they want to make permanent copies of items in their online library) or temporarily (when the user simply chooses to play a song or playlist from the cloud). There are also local files that may exist in the user's online library, but are the user's actual original source files. So some of these items iTunes can (and should) safely delete under various circumstances, while others should not - if I had to bet, some unusual set of circumstances results in iTunes incorrectly seeing files that should be permanent as temporary, resulting in their deletion. Control-F "delete" doesn't do shit to help find the source of that sort of problem.

Re: Digital hoarders

[Man On Pink Corner]

iTunes is a dumpster fire of astronomical proportions, but at some point the user has to take some responsibility for not entrusting valuable data to a flaky consumer-grade application. This sounds like a case where the wrong tool was used for the job.

Re:Digital hoarders

[vel-ex-tech]

That's cute. When you're a DJ, 44khz isn't enough. 16 bits is fine. Do you know why? Should I bother telling you?

It has to do with that Fourier transform thing. When you have two different tracks that are in different keys and have different tempos, you need more samples than 44khz to do the pitch and tempo shifting to match the two tracks.

Keep feeling smug, though. Clearly I must be wrong.

standard corporate bullshit answer #3

[citizenr]

Just like they didnt know why 'some of users laptops GPU died' for almost 4 years before admitting fault and reluctantly being forced to a recall.

Re: Digital hoarders

[93 Escort Wagon]

He probably didn't. iTunes scans your computer for music files and automatically "adds" them to your iTunes library. And then deletes them for you when it "makes them available from Apple Music."

Except it doesn't move them to the iTunes library - it copies them. So unless you delete the originals yourself, you've got another copy of the file... but I can imagine a lot of people would do exactly that, because why would you want two copies on your computer?

I am not really sure how much I agree or disagree with the gp post. People do need to take some responsibility, and we tech-heads know better than most what can go wrong with tech. But most people aren't like us; and all of these companies sell their hardware and software with the message that it'll magically take care of everything for you - Apple perhaps more than most (it "just works"), although Google and Microsoft are certainly not hubris-free.