Can't open music library

[Howard Brazee]

I copied the Music folder from my Catalina iMac to my wife's. When she opened it on hers, the playlists did not have all of the songs, and she keeps getting the window message:

The Music Library file cannot be saved. An unknown error occurred (-54) (She finally checked off to not warn her again)

I looked this up and verified that both her an my Music have the same Music Media folder location.

I tried opening both of our Music Apps holding the Option key down, then selecting music\music\Music Library.musiclibrary that was modified today. But on both computers, I get the error "You cannot change the music library at this time because the current library is in use by a device".

I turned off both of our iPhones and iPads, and the other iMac, and still got that message.

I searched for a different .musiclibrary file on my computer and didn't find one (except on my Time Machine drive). I don't know how to verify that that is the library program that she's using.

I changed the sharing and permissions to full read & write for "Music Library.musiclibrary".

I found a itunes Music Library.xml from November along with an .itl & .itdb on both computers.


Any ideas what I should look for next?

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello.

-How did you copy the Music Library?
-"both have the same Music Media folder location" - what is that string on the two Macs - i.e. /Macintosh HD/Users/howardbrazee/Music/Music/Media for yours and /Macintosh HD/Users/wife's user/Music/Music/Media?

C

 

[Howard Brazee]

I copied the whole Macintosh HD/Users/HBrazee/Music folder. Neither one of us has a Media subfolder. My Music/Preference/Files has /Macintosh HD/Users/HBrazee/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music, and my wife's is /Macintosh HD/Users/PatBrazee/Music/iTunes.

We both have Music/Music/Media/Music Library.musiclibrary

 

[Howard Brazee]

I copied the library over again, and now I don't have that error anymore.

Playlists are still different. I thought playlists were in my musiclibrary file which I copied, but they didn't get copied, so I infer they must be somewhere else.

I also see some iTunes files (.xml, .itl, etc) which haven't been updated since I went to Catalina. I'm guessing they are garbage files. Upgrading OSX has left garbage files behind before (for instance my iPhone apps in iTunes).

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello,

Catalina's Music app converts an iTunes Library to the new format. Glad to hear the errors are gone after the re-copy.

It is my understanding that the playlists are usually stored in the iTunes Library folder, but maybe that changed at some point. If you are an Apple Music subscriber, I wonder if they may be stored in iCloud somehow?

C

 

[machub]

If you open iTunes and expect to access your local music library, you may be confused when you discover that your music library is not immediately visible.