iTunes question: why can't I play a CD in my drive directly from the program?

April 22, 2004 10:13 AM

Yet another iTunes question: why can't I play a CD directly from my drive via iTunes? (more inside)

I have iTunes set to "play CD". It lists all the tracks and has accurate info and run times for them. But when i hit the play button it just goes through the list one by one and never actually plays anything. The CD plays fine via WMP.

I miss my Roxio CD program but not enough to shell out $60 for the version that works with XP.

posted by JoanArkham to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

I can play CDs fine through iTunes. When you say it goes through the tracks one by one do you mean instantly, like 1 second per song or do you mean it plays the full running time of the song but you don't hear anything?
posted by dobbs at 10:52 AM on April 22, 2004

Response by poster: It goes through them instantly. I rarely even listen to CDs on the computer, it just bugs me.
posted by JoanArkham at 10:56 AM on April 22, 2004

Is it one CD or all of them? Is it a protected CD? Is it a custom-burned CD or a store-bought one? If it's custom-burned, are you certain the formats are iTunes-compatible (MP3, AIFF, AAC)?
posted by Mo Nickels at 11:12 AM on April 22, 2004

Response by poster: I tried 3 CDs, all regular off-the-shelf music ones. One was old, but the other 2 were fairly new. The same thing happened with all of them.
posted by JoanArkham at 11:35 AM on April 22, 2004

It looks like you're Importing them and not playing them. The first time through would take longer, but thereafter the importing process would just see that the tracks are already in your Library and skip them.
posted by grabbingsand at 11:40 AM on April 22, 2004

Does iTunes correctly import CDs, or does it choke on that as well?

You might want to try going to Edit -> Preferences -> Importing and turning off 'Use error correction when reading Audio CDs'. This sometimes fixes playback problems as well as importing problems.
posted by chrismear at 12:37 PM on April 22, 2004

have you tried double clicking on the songs? If so, does it do the same thing?
posted by rorycberger at 6:34 PM on April 22, 2004

Response by poster: Double clicking does the same thing. I imported it, then tried to play the songs form the importrd playlist, and nothing.

The CD drive itself is pretty old. Maybe it's one of those PC vs. Mac type bugs.
posted by JoanArkham at 5:13 AM on April 23, 2004

Did changing the error-correction setting make any difference? Apple have specifically stated that there are issues with some models of CD drive; if yours is particularly old, then that could well be it. In fact, I seem to remember that they were asking people to submit the model details of CD drives that didn't work with iTunes, so that they could try and do something about it.

You might also want to try searching the Apple Support website.
posted by chrismear at 7:31 AM on April 23, 2004