Kenji

Kirk you’re right, I tried moving a copy of my iTunes library back from the M1 Ventura machine to the old Catalina Mac, just to sync with Apple Music from there. It wasn’t being recognized by the older version of the Music app, and I realized there was no point wasting a lot more time on it. But, turning on syncing did bring the “My Shazam Playlist" down from Apple Music in the devices that aren’t my primary iTunes library that I don’t want Apple Music to mess with. Easy peasy. I can export that playlist from my iPhone and Airdrop it to my main collection. That works fine. I think a paragraph of two on Shazam would be a good addition to your next edition of the TC book, Kirk. It’s great being able to sniff out and identify tunes you hear in movies, TV, in cafes or wherever, and then automatically have them added to an Apple Music playlist. And worth noting that it only works if iCloud music syncing is turned on. And that you don’t have to sync all your devices, so you can still protect your main library on another device. Just a thought...

Lots of people I know have both desktop and laptop Macs. I have a Mac Studio, a 2012 Mac Mini that served me well for a decade and still runs fine but stuck at Catalina and no longer gets security updates. And I recently bought a used 2015 MacBook Air 11” ultraportable that can’t go past Monterey, and will probably stop getting security updates some time next year. Do you have an opinion on whether the Mini with Catalina would be good to host that secondary iTunes library syncing with iCloud, or would the MacBook with Monterey be a better choice, in terms of MacOS and Music App versions? --The old desktop Mac is Catalina 10.15.7 with Music App 1.0.6.10 --The somewhat newer MacBook is Monterey 12.6.3 with Music App 1.2.5.7 If it would work OK, I’d rather be syncing to Apple Music from the Mini.

Oh that’s a great idea I didn’t think of, setting up a second library with a sub-set of my main library, on another Mac. I’ll have to try that. Thanks @kirkmc! Maybe you suggest that in your book, Take Control of MacOS Media Apps, but I just bought it and I’ve only read part of it so far. So just to be sure what you are saying, you check the box for ’sync library’ in the Music app on the secondary Mac device but not on the one with your main iTunes library. You still are logged into your iCloud account on both devices so you have access to Apple Music on both Macs but the main iTunes library on the one without ‘sync library’ checked is safe and untouched? And both Macs have the same Apple ID?

That Apple Support page has my answer: "If you can’t add songs to a playlist, make sure you sync your music library with Apple Music." I don’t sync my music library with Apple Music so that’s why I don’t see and can’t create a playlist from Shazam. Shazam is great, and since I have Shazam as a complication on my Apple Watch, it’s always right there to identify songs I’m curious about, often in movies and TV soundtracks. @kirkmc do you sync your iTunes library with Apple Music? Do you use Apple Music at all? I’m guessing you subscribe, if only just to keep up to date on the service for your Take Control book and other writings...

I have a large music collection in my iTunes library, ~90,000 tracks collected from many sources over the years, carefully categorized, often with custom album art, so there is no way I’m willing to risk iCloud syncing messing with that. I just signed up for three free months of Apple Music, which I’ve never used before. The main reason I did was to be able to play any of the full tracks I’ve Shazamed. I can play those full tracks now in Shazam, but I can’t get them to show up as a playlist in Apple Music in either the Music IOS app or the Music Mac app, despite having Apple Music active and signed in. I have “Sync Shazams to Apple Music’ turned on in Shazam, but I don’t see that playlist in the Music apps. I do see that Shazam has access to my Apple Music account, in the Music app account settings. Do I need to have “sync library” turned on in the Music App for Shazam playlists to show up in the Music apps? I don’t think I would want to do that. Kirk, if you are reading this, I’ve owned previous versions of your iTunes FAQ books, but never paid attention to the Apple Music parts, since I wasn’t using it, and didn’t plan to. I just bought Take Control of Mac Media Apps, and am working my way through it. But doing a word search in the PDF for ‘Shazam” drew a blank. So I’m asking here. I know you you also have a very large iTunes library. Do you use iCloud sync for your iTunes library?

I've been using iPod Classics forever it seems to carry and play music on the go and in the car. My last iPod Classic 160 gb is still going strong, but now I also have an iPhone 11 and a car with Apple Car Play, multiple bluetooth headphones, so the iPhone is my go-to music player now. But for some reason, I struggle to play music in the car on the IOS Music app. I have a huge library in iTunes and don't use the Apple Music or Match services. The IOS Music app controls elude me. I struggle to get it to play an album or a playlist. When I do play a playlist, the play order is not as I set it up. Is it me, or is the app a mess for playing albums and playlists downloaded from iTunes? Is there a better player app for ease of use in the car with Car Play? Are these stupid questions?

I'm one of the few remaining members on PlanetMUG, an online only Mac user group running on FirstClass BBS software and one of the last vestiges of the once-mighty Berkeley Mac User Group, BMUG. Another member posted that many of his old songs appear to play in iTunes on his Mac but there is no sound on those tracks. I asked him if time is elapsing at the top of his iTunes window, and he says it does. He said he believes this problem started when he deauthorized several old Macs. So here's my question. If these are tracks that has Apple Store DRM from back in the day, and they had been downloaded to machines that are now deauthorized, would they appear to be playing but not have sound? Would this be the symptom of deauthorized DRM tracks? What else could be causing his problem? I've suggested he try two things. --try playing the problem files with another player app, --check song info in iTunes to make sure the volume isn't set to -100% He is running macOS 10.13.6 so I assume he is on iTunes 12.x

When I got cable internet going again and bought a newer Roku, all is good with AppleTV+ now. The Daily Show S1 was pretty good, but how did it cost as much as the final season of Game of Thrones? That's crazy.

Thanks for replying Kirk. I am sure I'm logged in, because I can download episode two, just not play it through the AV adapter to my TV via HDMI. If I try to play the downloaded file I get an error message that the AV adapter cannot process HDR encoded content. so I deleted the downloaded file and tried again to stream it OTA usng my cellular service. That works if I only watch on the iPhone, but if I try that mirrored to my TV through the AV adapter, it fails with an error message that the attached device is not authorized to play protected content. I guess that the first episode, being a teaser available to anyone, is encoded to be as universally compatible as possible, without DRM protection. Episode 2 probably is protected, so fails when iPhone is connected via HDMI. It plays OK when not connected to AV adapter, but I'm not going watch a show or movie on a six inch scree. I'll be reconnected to home internet again in a few days, I wonder if the AppleTV app for Roku will allow me to view AppleTV+ shows for free using the AppleTV+ subscription that came with my new iPhone. I guess I'll find out soon enough.

Good question. I certainly wouldn't want to watch a show or movie on a tiny screen. News, maybe. AppleTV+ subscription came free for a year with my new iPhone 11, and I want to check out the content. At the moment I don't have cable internet at home, so I tried streaming The Morning Show, an AppleTV+ exclusive program, over the air using my cellular service, connected to my TV via HDMI through the AV adapter I bought at the Apple store. Worked fine for episode one, but not for episode 2. Probably an encoding compatibility issue, I suppose.

I connected my iPhone 11 via HDMI to my TV, and watched the first episode of The Morning Show. No problem, played well. Then I tried to watch the next episode, and it kept failing after less than a minute with ane error "problem loading content. Multiple tries, same exact result. Next I tried downloading the episode, and I had to connect to wifi because it would stream but not download over cellular. Now I see the error message, "connected device not authorized to play protected content." Grrr.... Suggestions?

Thanks for the replies. That was a typo. should have read 160 gb. The problem was on the iTunes side. Suddenly for some reason nothing was checked. in the iPod Music page.Although there was around 100 gb of music on the iPod, all from the iTunes library. I don't know how that happened. After posting I ended up synching, and the deleted all the music on the iPod, then I selected a bunch of music to synch onto the iPod. That was what I hoped to avoid, having to re-chose all the music to put on the iPod, but it wasn't as bad as I expected. Thanks for the suggestions.

I have a very large iTunes library, iTunes Mac 12.9.5.5 which I sync via USB to my 16 gig iPod Classic. The iPod is about 70% full, mostly music and many podcasts. Recently for some reason iTunes lost track of which tracks were synced to the iPod. iTunes seems to think I have nothing on the iPod. I have music sync turned off now, and all the music is still on the iPod. And all ther music is in iTunes. I don't use Apple Music or other streaming services. What is the best way to get iTunes to see what is on the iPod to get back in sync?

I like Overcast too.