Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with iTunes

Work banned iTunes, how to get music on the ipod?

Caravantea — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 09:30:43 -0800

Dad's a consultant, and travels constantly for work. Work provides a laptop, but won't let him install iTunes. Is there a way to get music & audiobooks to synch to his ipod through an external drive, or cloud computing or something? Doesn't have to be iTunes, just a way to connect my dad and his music without offending corporate IT.

Scrobblin on a Mac with no privileges

puritycontrol — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 08:34:17 -0800

Please help me install a Last.fm scrobbler for iTunes on Mac OSX 10.5.8 without administrator privileges. I'm a Windows guy, so please keep the explanation simple! This is for my iMac at work, which I've been using for a few months.

I know that you can scrobble iPod tracks, but my iPod is formatted for a PC. And my desk is tiny, so I'd rather not have to bring in an extra set of speakers and hook the iPod up to those. Thanks in advance.

iTunes is ruining my music!

Germs of Love — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 13:45:04 -0800

iTunes is ruining my music! After importing or ripping an album, an average of 5 tracks will skip and begin playing again at the start. This gets VERY stressful when I import about 5 albums a day and don't get a chance to listen to the music until a few days later, causing me to have to re-import many times over to make sure all the songs play through. This has been going on for a few months now and seems to be getting worse. I know the discs aren't scratched and the imported tracks are not corrupted before going through iTunes.
I think the tracks are fine UNTIL I attach album art and correct the tags.
My usual method is to rip disc/drag-and-drop into library, right-click > get album artwork, copy the album artwork, right-click > clear album artwork, highlight all > get info, correct the tags and paste album artwork, press OK.
When the tracks begin playing again, the time scroller does not reset, it's as if the track was recorded that way and it continues playing to the end.
I've tried completely un-installing and re-installing iTunes but it has not fixed it. A quick Ask MeFi search brought up the question of lack of RAM, but I doubt iTunes needs more than 4 gigs to play a song correctly.
If any more information is necessary, please ask. I'm at my wit's end here!

Itunes Not Getting Info from CDBB (Mac) (though it seems to be trying)

snap_dragon — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 09:59:08 -0800

Itunes is not retrieving titles for CDs from CDBB. It tries to but gets nothing after a few seconds. I am not sure it is even connecting to CDBB or what error(s) are occurring. I even reinstalled Itunes 9 (9.0.2 - newest) and it still does it. I do get the response "This CD was not found in CDBB database. You can enter information for the CD and each of its tracks. If this is not a commercial CD etc etc etc"...I've tried several CDs such as the Doors, Pete Townsend, Roxy Music...all ones that have worked on previous Itunes incarnations. I am not sure if it is an Itunes thing, a Mac/computer thing, or CDBB thing. This is a new thing and wasn't happening before. I have had the computer about a year if that matters. Any suggestions? Thanks for your help and have a good upcoming holiday.

help me fix my corrupt uncorrupt itunes library

sammich — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 06:27:46 -0800

My iTunes library is somewhat corrupt. The actual library file is fine, but I have about 700 (out of 14k) songs that are pointing to random files around my hard drive. Where do i start in repairing the file? i have no idea how or when this all happened. all my music files are on a external drive, but all the music files in question point to random files on my system disk. song random file paths for example (from my itunes library.xml):

<key>Location</key><string>file://localhost/System/Library/Input%20Methods/SCIM.app/Contents/Resources/SCIM.help/Contents/Resources/zh_TW.lproj/sty/index.css</string>

<key>Location</key><string>file://localhost/usr/share/junit/javadoc/org/junit/Assert.html</string>

<key>Location</key><string>file://localhost/Applications/iCal.app/Contents/Resources/VS_Graphite_Divider.tiff</string>

I don't want to start my iTunes library over. I'd like to keep my ratings and play count. I looked at various iTunes scripts that report missing files but to iTunes these files aren't really 'missing', they just don't play. There's no good way to determine which files linked badly unless I try playing them and itunes just skips it over. I do have a backup of my itunes library.xml file from a year ago, would there be a way to merge the two together while filtering out the bad links?

How many songs do I have to listen to before I start again?

jacquilynne — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 08:49:09 -0800

Can you help me figure out this math question related to probability? I feel like my college course in probability should have enabled me to figure this out for myself, but clearly, it did not.

I have an iTunes playlist with 500 songs on it. Once I've listened to a song, it disappears from the list, and is replaced by a new song from my library. Songs that have been on the list once can not reappear on the list, and for the purposes of this question, you can assume the library from which the replacement songs are drawn is infinite.

The list is selected randomly and then sorted in alphabetical order, and I start at the top and play my way through it alphabetically until I reach the 500th song. But because of the replacing of songs, which might appear in the list after the song I just listened to (and thus I will have to listen to them before I get to the end of list) or might appear in the list before the song I just listened to (and thus will not get listened to before I get to the end of the list) I actually listen to way more than 500 songs on the way through. What I'm trying to figure out is how many songs I'm likely to listen to in a single pass.

I know that when I'm listening to the first song, there's relatively high odds that it's replacement will belong later in the list. I assume this to be 499/500 -- if the replacement song gets slotted into the list pretty much at random, it could end up in any of 500 slots, and one of them is before the point I'm at in the playlist, while the other 499 after. And when I'm done listening to the 373rd song, then, the odds should be down to 227/500 that I'll have to listen to the replacement song. So, I can figure out the odds that I'll have to listen to any given replacement song.

But I can't get from there to an overall expected number, because I can't figure out how to account for new songs I've already had to listen to vs. the ones I haven't. Say I've listened to 100 songs, and 90 of their replacements ended up later in the list than where I was at the time. That means that while I've listened to 100 songs, I'm only at position 10 on my list -- a long way from the 100 I'd be at if I wasn't replacing the songs.

This is obviously not earth shattering, and I don't need to know this. But it's been nagging at me because I can't figure it out, and I feel like I should be able to.

How can I fix an aborted iPhone restore?

Captain Cardanthian! — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 23:01:20 -0800

Restored my iPhone to factory settings (after backing it up) in an attempt to fix an app updating issue. Now I can't restore all my previous stuff because iTunes says "the backup session failed." Please help. My (non-jailbroken) iPhone 3GS backed up normally in its previous sync, and the restore was going smoothly until I got to the "set up your phone" step and chose to restore from backup. It got up to the point of actually starting to put things back on my phone after the preliminary set-up kind of thing, then there was a problem: It said the restore had failed because the phone had been unplugged. (I didn't unplug it, but I may have jostled the cord.) I then started over with trying to restore from the backup and, after a few minutes, got the error message saying it couldn't be restored because the backup session failed. Another attempt (and another) got the same error. I am super freaking out here. How can I get my iPhone back the way it was? If I can't get it back, what do I do now? Can I get anything back? My contacts should still be on my SIM card, right?

Second time's the charm?

The Winsome Parker Lewis — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:58:36 -0800

Please help me rearchitect my Apple-specific wireless home network and iTunes library! Eleven paragraphs of geeky details within (sorry!). I have a big (~100GB) iTunes library I've been accumulating over at least a decade of ripping all my CDs and, in more recent days, my DVDs as well. That project is still ongoing and may never end. I've invested a lot of hours in encoding and cataloging my physical media, and I want to keep it safe for, well, forever. I'm motivated by a teeny bit of paranoia that my discs will scratch and I'll lose something. I keep a tidy house but I guess you could call me a data hoarder. ;-)

This summer I decided to free up room on my MacBook (occupying that much disk space just for iTunes was pretty ridiculous). I bought a WD My Book Mirror Edition and moved the library to it. I configured RAID mirroring for the dual drives so I'd have a backup in case one failed. Before the move, I regularly backed up the library onto my Time Capsule (using Time Machine) along with all my other non-iTunes stuff; the RAID mirroring made that seem redundant so I deleted the backup and excluded it from all future backups. Also, instead of connecting the MyBook straight to my computer, I plugged it into the Time Capsule USB port so I could carry the laptop around the house and still use iTunes wirelessly.

I was really proud of this setup until a couple issues reared their heads:

Latency. Playing music in iTunes over this network works mostly fine apart from the occasional stutter. There's also often a very long delay (30 seconds or more) between when I tell a new song to play and the audio actually begins. Similar delays between when I "get info" on a file and the info window appears. iTunes beachballs frequently now, completely unresponsive while it does... stuff. If I wait, it eventually takes care of whatever it was doing and becomes usable again. So annoying.

Latency's an even bigger issue when watching movies. By default, the Time Capsule was configured for 802.11b/g/n compatibility and movies were unwatchably laggy. I found that forcing pure 802.11n improved performance a lot and movies ran almost as smoothly as music, with only occasional, forgivable hiccups and long delays for play/pause, scrubbing, etc. The downside of killing 802.11b/g compatibility is that my iPhone 3G can no longer use the network, as it only goes up to g. I really miss that functionality, for things like Airfoil Speakers and iTunes Remote.

Another issue is the unfamiliarity of maintaining a network drive that's out of sight, out of mind. Whenever I want to use iTunes I have to mount the drive (I run a script to do it automatically at logon). Whenever I leave the house I have to unmount it. I've forgotten a couple times and disconnected improperly. There were also a couple times when I had trouble getting online and reset the Time Capsule, forgetting that the disk was mounted. Which leads us to the next sad, sad paragraph...

This past weekend, tragedy struck. I think it was related to an improper disconnect while data was being written. Suddenly iTunes refused to read the drive at all. Time Capsule reported a "problem" with the drive. I plugged it into the MacBook and ran Disk Utility. It failed to verify or repair the disk and said I would have to format it. What's worse, the mirrored drive was identically corrupted too. I lost my whole library and the supposed "failsafe!" Crap! I really botched this one up.

I'm investigating data recovery options. I should be able to restore my files. Not sure how this is going to play out but it makes my heart ache. Any suggestions for cheap-as-in-free ways to get my library back in working condition would be appreciated.

But what I'm really asking for in this question is the best way to prevent this from happening again and in a way that works better than my first attempt. Assuming the drive is not mechanically broken and I'll be able to get my files back, how can I redesign my network to do all of the following:

Access my iTunes library wirelessly
Minimize latency
Keep a backup of the library that's actually safe and won't give me any more headaches
Use my iPhone on the network
Require no additional hardware purchases if at all possible

I can't think of a single way to fulfill all of those requirements. Maybe it's impossible. But you are smarter than me, I trust. If it makes a difference, the MacBook is a late 2007 Santa Rosa model, 2.2 GHz, running Snow Leopard. Let me know if I've left out any other details that could be helpful. Thanks!

iTunes fails to launch in recently upgraded Windows 7

mgarnhum — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 04:52:59 -0800

Why won't iTunes start after I've upgraded to Windows 7? I've just upgraded to Windows 7 and my iTunes won't launch. I've uninstalled and reinstalled and still no luck.

I have tried to troubleshoot from ITunes and Windows support sites to no avail.

Any suggestions?

Can I force the new iTunes visualizer to ALWAYS display the current track info? Failing that, any recommended alternative visualizations?

thisisnotbruce — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 20:18:23 -0800

Can I force the new iTunes visualizer (magnetosphere) to ALWAYS display the current track info? Failing that, any recommended alternative visualizations for iTunes on Windows? I really like the updated visualizer that comes with iTunes these days and like to have the visualizer displaying on my monitor / TV / projector at home while I'm doing other work.

What often happens is that I or somebody else is curious on what track is playing, leading me to either rush over to my computer to check or annoying rack my brain for the answer. It would be great, instead, all I have to do is turn my head.

The new visualizer doesn't have to option to "Always Display Song Info" like the classic visualizer does. So I'm thinking I'll need an alternative iTunes visualization.

Are there any out there that are similar to the new iTunes visualizer (magnetosphere) with the option to "Always Display Song Info"? Note that I'm on Windows XP.

Help with a simple Visual C# coding problem?

kbanas — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 08:07:28 -0800

Oh God. Where to start? This is, at its heart, a programming question about C#. It's probably not a very hard programming question, either. Although it is against my nature, I will attempt to be brief. I recently built a Windows Media Center PC and hooked it up to my TV and I'm really loving the Windows 7 media center experience... except that all the music I've accumulated for the last 10 years or so is in iTunes. So, while I can watch movies and TV shows and browse my pictures and be a multimedia guru, if I want to listen to music I have to get up off the couch, close media center, launch iTunes and then pump up the volume.

On some level this really irritates me.

I explored exhaustively solutions that exist out in the wild. MCE Tunes looks like a great application that will basically allow you to access iTunes from inside WMC, but it doesn't work with Windows 7, and they have stopped supporting the product.

So, I set upon the idea of importing all my iTunes music into Media Player - thus making it accessible to my Media Center interface. Since Media Player can handle mp3 and m4a files (and thus, 99% of my collection), I figured it wouldn't be a really big deal. But the problem as I understand it is that Media Player can't read meta data from m4a files, and so this would cause a digital divide - I would then have two music programs pointed at the same library of music and I would have to update information in both libraries and make changes and corrections in both libraries and basically this felt like a major hassle. Plus, I would have to re-enter all the meta data for my m4a files!

There's another application called Sound Bridge that takes your iTunes library and dumps it into Media Player, but, again, this doesn't work with Windows 7 and an update does not appear to be on the horizon.

Great!

Well, I thought about it and, you know, hey, I have a CS degree - admittedly a little rusty, but I have one - so I was all like, "Hey, you know what, fuck it, I'll fire up Visual Studio 2008 and I'll just write my own program!"

So, I set out to write a C# program that would take my iTunes library file and collect all the track information and meta data and file info and then build a Media Player library out of it.

And, even though I was 99% sure I would fail miserably, I've actually made some progress.

I have, at this point, a console application that reads in my iTunes XML library, parses it, and then adds all the files and meta data to a Windows Media Player playlist. Except that, for some reason, on some files, while setting the meta data in Windows Media Player, I'll get a permission denied error, as if I do not have access rights to set a specific attribute (like, say, genre) for a specific track.

I've done some investigating and it looks like I may be able to resolve this issue by way of a function called requestMediaAccessRights() - apparently according to all the demos and code samples I can find, I should be able to do the following:

myMediaPlayerObject.settings.requestMediaAccessRights("full");

Except, for some reason, Visual Studio can't find that function. I can access a host of different functions for myMediaPlayerObject.settings, but requestMediaAccessRights just isn't one of them, and I can't for the life of me figure out why. I'm adding the Media Player COM object to my project, and I can do everything else with Media Player.... that specific function just seems to be missing.

Does anyone have any idea why that might be?

The other thing I'm toying with is transferring the album art. I see from the MSDN that a Media Player media object has a "WM\Picture" attribute, which references a piece of album art, and I can get the album art out of iTunes, but I can't seem to figure out how to set the WM\Picture attribute.

Any clues?

How to get my iPod to sync in the order I want.

tonylord — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 08:10:04 -0800

I can't figure out how to get my ipod to sync an audiobook playlist, a podcast playlist and then fill up with music from another playlist. Can you help? Hi there,
I'm running a MBP with Snow Leopard and the latest version of iTunes.
My questions is about syncing itunes with my 2G iPod nano. I have the iPod to sync automatically with a podcast smart playlist, an audiobook non-smart playlists, and a non-smart music playlist.

Each time I sync, the size of the podcasts/audiobook playlists changes (either because I have made changes, or because new podcasts have been downloaded). This sometimes goes over the free space on the iPod and sometimes Itunes tells me this and says "Itunes will sync as many songs as possible", sometimes it just tells me there isn't enough free space and cancels the sync and sometimes it volunteers to turn off podcast syncing, which is what I specifically don't want. I haven't been able to figure out why I get different messages at different times.

What I'd really love is to get iTunes to be able to sync first the audiobook playlist, then the podcasts smart playlist and then fill the rest of the iPod from my music playlist. Is there a way of doing this?

Playlist on iTunes and iPhone have different songs.

You Should See the Other Guy — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:27:01 -0800

I have a smart Playlist on my iTunes which functions properly and has all the right tracks in it. I have it checked as a Playlist to export to my iPhone. The iPhone has a playlist with exactly the same name ... but completely different songs. I've double checked that I don't have two playlists with the same name in iTunes. Not just one track is different--none of the tracks overlap. Why is this happening? So far, I've tried:

- resetting to factory settings
- rebooting the phone
- deleting the playlist, synching, recreating the playlist, and resynching

Nothing works. It's driving me nuts. WTF?!

recommend me a good file transfer thing or something...

osloheart — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:15:21 -0800

How do I transfer music from old iPod to new iPod, without using iTunes? This may have been asked before, but I couldnt find exactly what I needed, so.. basically, I have music on my old iPod that is not in my iTunes library, and I want that music on my new iPod.

The guy at the apple store said "it's possible" but he wasnt allowed to tell me how, and I should google it. But I trust you guys, and there seem to be a lot of options floating around on the internet that I am afraid of just trying out (Im not very tech-savvy), so Im asking here first. How can one go about transferring those files?

Thanks!

Apple is rejecting me

bricoleur — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 07:16:07 -0800

For the past few days (maybe longer, I'm not sure), I have not been able to connect to apple.com or the iTunes store, nor update software with Software Update, on my 10.4.11 iMac, although I can connect to the rest of the 'net. Apple.com just hangs; iTunes and Software Update tell me that there is something wrong with my network connection. I've had my firewall on, but turning it off has had no effect.

I'd scour the Apple forums but I can't get to them.

How to bulk rename itunes files from external data source.

jlowen — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:10:40 -0800

How can I bulk rename files in itunes according to data contained in a separate file? I have 4000-some .wav files in itunes that are essentially field recordings of people talking. The files are named with a 10 digit unique id number and the date acquired. Example: 1234567890_11122009. In a separate csv file I have the identifying information of the individual with the same unique ID number.

I have rated all 4000 recordings based on quality and want to maintain those ratings, but would like to rename the files to drop the unique ID and instead insert the person's name from the csv file. I.e. 1234567890_11122009 becomes Smith_Mary_123_Fake_Street_Anytown_STATE

Can anyone picture a workflow that would accomplish this mass filename change while still maintaining the ratings?

I use a mac and have a decent understanding of automator, grep, csv files etc, but have no real programming skill. I am willing to convert recordings to a different format (mp3 etc.) if that would help. Any ideas?

iTunes keeps reordering my songs!

bluefly — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:06:15 -0800

iTunes won't order/list/play songs in an album in the order of the track number. I have specified the correct track number of the songs in the info thing, but it won't sort according to that field within an album. Is there some way to get around this? I am downloading albums (from friends' bands) to my computer, and then dragging those folders and dropping them in the "Automatically Add to iTunes" folder (which was created by iTunes 9, I think). iTunes then does some magic which makes the songs appear in iTunes (and is organizing them in the iTunes Music Folder). But the songs are in the wrong order. Is there some other way to add albums to iTunes? I thought this drag and drop thing would keep everything nice and organized, but perhaps not. This is only happening with these downloaded albums, not with albums I buy through iTunes. (I searched around for answers, but they were so varied, I wasn't sure what to do. I am not an iTunes power user, but I would like to be).

I have a Windows 7 computer with iTunes 9. Thanks.

iPhone not syncing calendars, photos, and triplicated my notes. Help?

scazza — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:02:40 -0800

iPhone not syncing calendars, photos, and triplicated my notes. Help? I am looking for help with this issue AND/OR great resources to help. There are tons of forums, its difficult to find my answer.

It started with my photos. First iTunes would not sync my selected album. I would sync over and over, and it would say it synced but on my phone it would say "no photos or videos." Then it stopped showing any options or albums under "Selected albums."

Then I noticed that it triplicated my notes.

Most importantly, since I really only got this phone years ago for the calendar and never had problems until now, it has stopped syning my calendar. Like iPhoto it has stopped showing any options under "Selected calendars." I am afraid to restore because I don't want to lose the information on my phone. It says it's backed it up, but obviously it's lied to me in the past.

It looks like there's a communication breakdown between iTunes & these other programs; like iTunes can't see my calendars, photo albums, & notes. Do I downgrade my software? I never had problems before. I upgraded to the latest Mac OS as well and that has made a lot of programs crash that never crashed before, my computer crashed 3x yesterday. My calendar is the most important, vital part of having this phone at all. I am starting to panic. My phone is 3G and I'm wondering if Apple is just dropping the ball on supporting not the latest model of their products.

playlist to podcast

bonsai forest — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:02:53 -0800

I want to turn multiple song iTunes playlists into single mp3 files that preserve the way iTunes crossfades between songs. I would happily pay for a solution that offers quality and ease. I am on a Mac OS running 10.5.8. Also looking for a good online tutorial for turning a file like this into a podcast.

How do I restore my itunes library, songs, movies and playlists

jeffreyclong — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:00:55 -0800

How do I restore my itunes library, songs, movies and playlists from a cloned backup after doing a clean install of Snow Leopard. I've googled this, and checked the archives and when I've tried it it hasn't worked like it's supposed to.

The goal is for my itunes songs, movies and playlists to appear in itunes exactly as they did prior to the clean install.

Can someone give me as simple as possible instructions for how to do this?

TIA

iTunes + new hard drive = headache

jlkr — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:58:22 -0800

MrR moved my music drive (to a larger hard drive yay!) and iTunes is not handling this gracefully at all. (He hates iTunes, will not use it, and therefore did not follow any of the procedures detailed in the answers to this question.) The directory trees are all the same, the only change is the drive letter. How do I get iTunes to look in the right place without losing all the metadata (ratings, play dates/frequency)? (PC; iTunes does not organise my library; the old drive is already removed from my computer and wiped. Changing each file path individually is functionally not acceptable (30K files!), nor is changing the drive letter.)

No more wires please.

Jon-o — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:29:04 -0800

Apple AirPort Express wireless music question. I know iTunes has an option to play music via the speaker-output port on the AirPort Express base station. How do I route all of my computer's audio output through that?

What audio format for remastered Beatles listening on iPod only??

Avenger50 — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 01:11:06 -0800

What audio format would you rip the recently remastered Beatles albums in for optimum iPod listening? Let's say you've got the recently released Beatles in Mono (or Stereo). Let's say you have to use iTunes and you only listen on your iPod, via Sony headphones or the car stereo. And let's say storage isn't an issue. What format would you rip them in? MP3 192kbps? AAC iTunes Plus? Apple Lossless?

I've seen parts of this question answered here, here, here, and here, but not specifically for strictly iPod listeners with something this good.

Maybe with just the iPod, you don't hear the differences anyway.

ipod touch updating error

klangklangston — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:27:22 -0800

Unknown error 0xE8000001 from ipod touch; won't connect. OSX 10.4.11, powerpc.

Last night, I tried to update my girlfriend's ipod touch software so that she could run apps (she'd been wanting it for a while, and I thought it would be a nice surprise). So, I paid my 4.95, downloaded the firmware… and got an error connecting to the iPod (the aforementioned 0xE8000001). I googled around, and it seemed like maybe I needed to update my iTunes version from 8 to 9. OK, so did that. Still, same error.

Fuck.

Now my iTunes says that I need to update my safari so that it can connect to the iTunes store, but I don't believe Safari 4 will run on a powerpc.

How can I: Revert to the earlier version of iTunes and how can I unfuck my girlfriend's iPod before she stabs me in the face?

Help me listen to lastfm in itunes

citybuddha — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 14:33:30 -0800

I just bought a airport express to listen to my tunes on my stereo in the living room. Since the AP-Express will only play music through itunes anyone point me in a direction to do the following: I would like to create a station in lastfm and have it stream through itunes. Anyone aware of a freeware solution. Imac 10.5.8