iTunes Match Deletes Playlists

[BalrogWing]

I've found that when iTunes Match syncs my iTunes library up with iCloud, it removes playlists and tracks that don't have an album that it can find. It doesn't remove the music from my iTunes library, but from my playlists and also removes the playlists completely, so the music is just sitting in my library.

For example, I have some recordings from my sister's flute recital from college in a playlist. If I have iTunes Match enabled and it syncs up my music, the playlist is deleted. The tracks are still in my library but not in any playlist and the playlist I did have for them is gone completely. Has anyone else experienced this or know how to fix it without creating a completely separate iTunes library for this other music?

 

[bosabri]

Yes the same thing happened to me. It turns out that if a playlist contains only songs that are not part of the iTunes library, and you have Music Match turned on, then when syncing to your devices that also have iTunes Match turned on, the playlist doesn't sync. When you turn iTunes Match off and back on, on any device, it asks if you want to delete or merge the content of that device. No matter what choice you make from this point forward that device doesn't have the playlist (because it's not part of the iTunes library) and is therefore removed from your other devices as part of the sync. It sucks and I learned the hard way after having 90% of my playlists deleted and random songs deleted.
Rules to live by in the Apple iTunes Match / Apple Music world:
1) Make sure all songs on your primary device (such as your laptop or Mac or whereever you run iTunes) are synced to iCloud first. If some are listed as not able to sync (little cloud made of dotted lines) then you need to reencode the song at a higher bit rate above 128kbs. You can do this by burning it to a CD then importing it again at a higher bit rate. Again this totally is B.S. and an F***ing waste of time, but it works.
2) Create playlists that contain only songs that have been successfully uploaded to iTunes Match and uploaded to the cloud.
3) Now turn on music match on your phone or other devices and wait and wait until they wirelessly sync. This could take hours depending on how much content you have.
4) Don't merge anything otherwise you get duplicates.
5) Never sync using the lightning cable connected to your computer. This would require turning off iTunes Match on your phone and deleting everything you just synced. IF you do turn it off and on again, don't merge or you get duplicates.
6) Cross your fingers and hope Apple makes this whole process a bit more user friendly in their next updates.