Lost a playlist in "Music"

[John W F]

My unit is an old iMac desktop probably around 2017. (27inch version).

It recently crashed and due to my lack of computer skills, I took it to Geek Squad who got it back up and running.

After way too long a period of not updating I updated to Monterey version 12.7.2 about two weeks ago.

The machine has been a bit "glitchy" with a lot of time spent watching the spinning multi colored wheel and a few other assorted quirks, since the update to Monterey.

This morning I have lost a playlist in "Music" which contains a vocal warmup that I use every day. It is the only playlist that has gone missing.

After having Geek Squad work on the computer I plugged in a Samsung solid state drive and started automatic backups to Time Machine, however I am getting a notice, fairly regularly, that Time Machine hasn't been backed up for 1,550 days. ( I did go through a long period of being discouraged about the short lifespan of mechanical drives and went without using Time Machine for a long time).

If I open the banner about lack of backups the Samsung shows as being active.

If I click on the Samsung drive it shows that I do have copy's in Time Machine. If I click on Time Machine in the list of apps on the desktop, it shows regular backups from the time that I started using the Samsung drive.

I have gone through the Time Machine backups and tried to restore my "Music" library but am not doing something correctly as nothing changes. (I am not getting my missing playlist restored)

The individual songs, from the missing playlist, are still available, when I click on "Songs" in "Music.

Thanks for any insight you can offer and I will add needed info, if I can. I am not very slick with computer.

John

 

[IWT]

Hi John

I am not very slick with computer.

That applies to all of us; take my word for that.

Firstly: Time Machine (TM) can only back up from the day it was first activated. I'm sure you understand that, but I mention it because it cannot retrieve Songs from the Music app after the event.

So "going through the TM backups" will not find nor restore your missing Music Library nor individual songs for the reason I mentioned.

I think that your Samsung TM backup, if it really was a backup at all, because, as you mentioned, no TM backups had been acquired in over 4 years, may be at fault.

My guess, truly a guess, is that the Samsung TM backup was not set up properly. No offence intended and I may be wrong anyway.

however I am getting a notice, fairly regularly, that Time Machine hasn't been backed up for 1,550 days.

Now I need to understand this better:

The individual songs, from the missing playlist, are still available, when I click on "Songs" in "Music.

So they are not "lost" then?

Tell us a bit more about the situation, bearing in mind my comments above, please.

Ian

 

[John W F]

Hi Ian,

Thanks for your response and thoughts.

No offense taken. I am interested in learning and realize my ignorance of most thing computer.

I suspect that you are correct in thinking that the Samsung wasn't properly set up. I struggled with it. I assumed that it would give me an option to partition and that I could figure out how to do a complete backup, but the process was confusing enough that, once It appeared that I had designated it as the drive for Time Machine, I stopped figuring that I would learn how to do the complete back up, later. My bad. I stay pretty busy and find it easy to ignore unpleasant tasks.

If I open Time Machine from system preferences I have 2 options; The first titled Time Machine 484 GB available Backups: May 7 2015

The second option shows the Samsung T7 1.75 TB available Backups ; December 14 2023 - today, 7:53.



When I open Time Machine from the side bar symbol It opens a page showing backups. The page that opens show "Desktop". If I click on the iMac or Macintosh, icon I can go to applications, find Music, click that but it goes nowhere.

I had assumed that I would be able to reload past configuration of Music and restore m missing playlist, but no luck so far.

Because of this I assume that you are correct in thinking that the Samsung wasn't set up correctly.

The results are the same if I click on the T7 icon on the desktop. It shows the backups but I can't open Music from there either.

I have found most all the songs, In my "Music" page / app?, that were in my missing playlist; so, the songs aren't gone, just the playlist that I had them compiled in. I guess that I can rebuild the playlist but haven't had the time to try.