itunes help

Restart your comp, usually helps for me! :-)

i lost all the music off my itunes the other day (not the problem, i had it all backed-up), but i also lost all my playlists, including "recently added", "recently played", "top 100" etc. i want these playlists back. how do i do this?

all that info is held in one or two preference files, I had to deal with this when rebuilding my system recently and found the info by googling moving iTunes (and mail) to a new computer.

thx dan.

Dan, which files are those?

OK, so I recently moved my iTunes library to a new computer. Apart from losing some files due to a corrupt hard drive, it worked fine. But now, after a couple of days, any mp3 that I try to play prompts the exclamation mark icon and the message "The song ____ could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?" The iTunes Music Folder Location (in Preferences>Advanced) is correct, and if I do locate it there, the song plays fine. But I've got over 10,000 mp3s in my library, and there's no way I'm doing that for each and every one.

What could be the problem? I'm sort of tempted to just delete everything in iTunes itself and repopulate my iTunes with the mp3s, but I also don't want to lose the library data (playlists, play counts, date added, etc.) if I don't have to.

Also, I feel a bit sheepish admitting this, but while trying to troubleshoot on my own, I accidentally moved all the mp3s to the trash; I was able to move them back to the iTunes Music Folder, but they're no longer in folders and subfolders. Not sure if this is fixable.

(Part of the reason I'm asking here is so I don't do anything stupid like that again.)

Unless you're prepared to deal with telling iTunes where each and every one of your exclamation-marked files is, I think you'll have to rebuild the iTunes Library file.

So yeah, your play counts and playlists might be toast.

Have you got the "keep music organised" option checked? Try moving all your music files out of the iTunes Music folder (but not the iTunes folder within that folder), then add them again en masse. iTunes will make new copies of all the files in proper subfolders and such, and with some luck it may even keep your existing library entries intact (preserving your play counts). I tried to test this with my own library, but iTunes kept finding the files no matter where I moved them.

I can't remember, if I update to the newest itunes, do the "dated added" fields remain unchanged?

(it's how I keep track of all the bullshit i download)

If I have to rebuild the library, then as far as I know, the folders and subfolders will be created automatically since I have "Copy files to iTunes Music Folder when adding to library" checked. I was just hoping that I didn't have to rebuild the library.

1. Drag all of yr MP3s onto "library" on the left panel. This will add them back into iTunes.
2. Get Super Remove Dead Tracks. This will remove the !'d tracks.

Super Remove Dead Tracks.

As long as you have "let iTunes keep yr files organized" or whatever, they will be re-sorted by iTunes according to the ID3 tags.

Yeah, that's what I was planning to do before posting here -- no way to preserve library data then?

(If I drag mp3s into the library and delete the !'d files, I lose my playlists, the playcounts are all reset to zero, and all the songs show up as having been added 8/25/08.)

(Super Remove Dead Tracks is great, btw. I used that to get rid of all the songs in my library whose files were lost on my external HD.)

Oh, OK. I don't think I've lost playlists doing this, since the files are restored to the orig location. The other stuff, I dunno. There are a zillion files on that guy's site which might help.

if you hold down shift when itunes is starting, it'll prompt you to choose your itunes library. browse to your itunes library, and it should restore everything to the way it was.

I bit the bullet and rebuilt the library. There were some other problems not worth getting into that made this necessary. But thanks for all the suggestions!

So I'm trying to burn a CD, as I've done a hundred times, and suddenly I get, "Disc burner or software not found."

What gives??

Yesterday it was burning tracks at between 10 and 12x, today nothing quicker than 3x and mostly 1.6-ishx. Anyone had this? Or is it usual?

So I'm trying to burn a CD, as I've done a hundred times, and suddenly I get, "Disc burner or software not found."

What gives??

^^^^^ this, except it just won't burn on my discs. Wrong brand?

in the past, when i've had a playlist i've wanted to be able to turn into a zip file for sharing, i've had to change the album names so that the whole playlist has the same album name and then mark it as a compilation so that they would all stay together in an "album" for me to convert into a zip. is there a better way to do this yet or is this still how people do it?

Ugh, I hate that.

every time i start itunes now it starts 'determining song volume' of some random number betwenn 800 and 1000 songs, wtf, it ties up the processor something rotten and how do i make it stop?

there should be a little 'x' at the bottom right of the 'lcd' panel, hit that

It will try every time you launch though. If you let it finish it won't do it again. (Well, it does it for each new song added)

I think you can turn it off by taking the tick out of the Sound Check box (Edit|preferences|playback on windows). might be wrong though.

fuck dat shit. why now? why only for 800? i guess i wouldn't mind some volume equalisation but ON MY OWN TERMS goddamnit. plus it really does slow up my (shit) pc.

xp yeah i found that from google but it ain't ticked ;_;

oh i think it's cause i ticked 'use sound check' last time i burnt a cd. THAT WAS JUST FOR THE CD YOU DOUCHE.

Why does the "outline" view - that thing at the top that groups your Library by artist, album, etc - now ALWAYS COME BACK EVEN WHEN I'VE COLLAPSED IT GOD DAMMIT I HATE YOU SO MUCH

^ anybody else??

have you tried view-->hide browser?

I HATE YOU SO MUCH

i mean, thanks, that worked

itunes has been randomly crashing on me. when i reload it, it takes a couple minutes to appear. does anyone know if something can be done about this? i have a pc, not a mac

anyone?

Maybe just delete and download again?

(I have recently acquired a PC and god damn I prefer it on Mac.)

you can try to rebuild your library file:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1451

hi i know this is v simple and I remember doing it previouslty but why cant i shift songs around in a playlist>?

you using the new itunes? i just tried dragging some songs around and it didn't work

yeah wtf. i vaguely recall adding in a certain column meant i could move songs around.

The settings are same as ever.

Files I added this morning are appearing normally, too.

I mean, the problem I am describing applies only to these three albums I added last night.

Well that's good news. Chalk it up to some Tron battle that took place in your HD last night I guess.

did you copy them off a data CD or a DVD?

files from CDROMs/DVDs can end up on your local hard drive write-protected

Yes, I did. Mystery solved! If I copy the files from the DVD to my desktop first, would this avoid the problem?

^^^wow that explains a weird problem I have had w a particular album!

is there a quicker way to do this?

http://www.wikihow.com/Duplicate-MP3-Files-On-iTunes

OK i have an inexplicable issue. i want to retag some mp3s (for er last.fm reasons don't judge me). when i do it manually it looks like it's fine - they're not locked or anything and i have reading & writing permissions. but when i play them they revert back to their shitty original tags - can't seem to change the tags permanently...?

i can sort that one out

excellent thx! non-urgent but baffling

Actually sorry was just about to write something about permissions somehow missed that in your post

when you say "revert to their original tags", do you mean in iTunes, or as they show up in last.fm? because if the first, totally baffling, but if the second, last.fm "auto-corrects" tags.

no, in itunes! it looks like it's changed but as soon as you play them it changes back.

Why would a podcast not be able to get copied onto an iPod from iTunes? Downloaded four new podcast episodes tonight, three of them copied over to my iPod as usual - but one won't. Its definitely not a space issue, plenty of free room. I've tried ejecting and restarting the iPod, even unsubscribed, deleted, and resubscribed to the podcast - but it still won't copy to the iPod. Really annoying.

have you tried renaming the file? i remember having this problem with a podcast before that used a filename character that my ipod didn't like.

I'll give that a shot, doesn't seem to be any weird characters but maybe that will do the trick.

That didn't work, but I was able to convert it to AAC and copy it over so it showed up in the music instead of podcasts. Annoying, but it worked.

I bought music on my ipod through itunes and downloaded it onto my ipod but I want to take this music off my ipod for a while - can i store it elsewhere or will itunes let me download it again without paying for it the second time? Or is it a case of delete and you have to pay again?

bump

If you sync with iTunes, the purchases will be transferred to your music library.

Regardless, they now offer the ability to redownload things you've bought onto up to 5 different devices; I think it's in the iTunes store under a "purchased" link in the upper-right corner of the main screen.

ty

wtf with this:

track info says the song length is 21:37, but actually the song is only 6:34, and when it gets to that spot, it skips to the next track. how do I fix this?

Right-click the track and go to Get Info, go to the Options tab, does the Stop Time say 6:34 and is it ticked?

Usually that happens when the vbr header is messed up, you need to find a tool that does it for your OS.

does the Stop Time say 6:34 and is it ticked?

I changed it to 6:34 and checked the box. no change.

yeah google "id3 repair mac" or "id3 repair windows" depending

I have 2 hard drives on my computer. HD1 is running Vista and it's really bogged down. HD2 is running Windows 7 and is clean. I'm going to start using HD2 exclusively, but I don't know how to copy my iTunes library over. I copied all the files into the correct directory but iTunes doesn't see them. I can obviously just add them to the new library, but then I'm missing all the metadata like ratings/play counts, etc. Does anyone know how to do this?

wow, I just copied the itunes directory with all the music/xml to the new drive and it worked!! this is literally the first time an apple product has done something intuitive for me

I'm angered by all the expert transfers of old classical 78s which teh britishes can buy through the UK itunes store while (er, whilst) we americans are forbidden. Anyone know how to set up a UK account from the wrong side of the pond?

sigh what does it mean when itunes refuses to play the full song on certain mp3s and just skips ahead to the next track even though there's around a minute left to go

i thought the first time it did this the mp3s were dodgy but it's done this on three separate albums this week so maybe it is an itunes issue?

no seriously does anyone know, this is wrecking my life like technology ALWAYS BLOODY DOES

another weird thing it's doing with some other mp3s: it'll automatically change the end time to 2:47 (WHY) but still play the whole thing - the little ticker will just freeze at 2:47 and say there are 0:00 secs left but the music will carry on

WHY IS IT BEING LIKE THIS????!!!

it does that to me too, i think it means the file is somewhat corrupt

sometimes with DJ mixes, iTunes will think the track is like 36 hours long, making it impossible to move around within the mix, i.e. skip forward five minutes or whatever

basically iTunes is terrible

but it only started doing it last week to multiple mp3s, i can't only be downloading corrupt files all of a sudden?

what does it mean when itunes refuses to play the full song on certain mp3s and just skips ahead to the next track even though there's around a minute left to go

delete the offending track to the Trash, drag it out of the Trash and double click it when its on the desktop. That reloads it and it should play to the end. Its worked for me on the few tracks its happened on.
― Bloody Snail, Thursday, November 22, 2012 12:27 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

omg thanks so much this actually works!

for the two i've tried so far anyway, fingers crossed

http://twitter.com/jessicalessin/status/273962659278360576

My #1 wish concerns the manifestation of itunes that operates onboard the ipod classic. I've wanted this for years and it's never gonna happen.

If I click through 'Artists' i get a tree of artist names>album names>tracks. If I click Genres, it proceeds to artists>albums>tracks.

Why the fuck can't I have the option of this kind of menu for playlists? All I want is to be able to view the contents of a playlist in Artist>albums>tracks form instead of one long scroll of tracks. You can do this in iTunes proper, of course. Why not on the fkin ipod?

(can you do this in whatever itunes thingy operates in iphones?)

Yeah, that would make large collections way easier to manage. I don't think Apple spends a lot of time thinking about how to help people navigate huge collections of music. Actually I'm not sure anyone does, even Spotify.

It's basically the annoyance of having only three ways to menu-organize (artist, genre, composer) when onboard the ipod. Some things are psych AND exotica AND soundtrack AND chamber music!

what does it mean when itunes refuses to play the full song on certain mp3s and just skips ahead to the next track even though there's around a minute left to go
I've had this problem. I read a fix for this on an Apple support forum: delete the offending track to the Trash, drag it out of the Trash and double click it when its on the desktop. That reloads it and it should play to the end. Its worked for me on the few tracks its happened on.
Update to this. I've found this happening more and more since I've decided to play thru' my whole collection. I've also found that:
(i) if it happens on one track on an album, there's a good chance it'll happen on all the tracks on that album
(ii) if you don't update your iPod after deleting the offending track on iTunes on your main computer it doesn't see it as a new track and still cuts out, so to update both iTunes and iPod do the following;

- delete track or album from iTunes on computer (taking note of play counts if you're worried about that)
- plug in iPod and update
- drag deleted track(s) from Trash to 'Automatically Add to iTunes' folder. much quicker than double clicking them all on the desktop (if you're concerned about such fripperies, update play counts - there's a script you can download for this at Doug's AppleScripts site)
- update iPod again
- Voila! Songs that don't cut out anywhere from two seconds after they start to two seconds from the end!

'update' there ^ when used in conjunction with 'iPod should of course simply read 'synch'

Does anyone know what's going on in my iTunes?

When I play tracks, the last two seconds over every song skips a little. If you move the song to a PLAYLIST it doesn't do this though?

It's very annoying and Googling is just giving me a bunch of other skipping problems

:(

just a guess, but maybe it has to do with crossfade? do you have anything set for the crossfade time? maybe toggling it on and off might reset it or something

have you tried reinstalling it? sorry if obvious

ARGH WHY IS ITUNES SO SLOW ARGH