WANTED: itunes Tutor

[mikehende]

Mike the problem is that you software companies are out there to make money. When they give away a product they provide some sort of reasonable support, meaning taking care of users for major bugs and things like that. Even when you buy commercial software the kind of support you would get is rather limited and they state that in the fine print with things like we cannot guarantee to solve all your issues, etc.
.

That last part is not accurate where all softwares are concerned, I use 3 DJ's softwares [OTSAV, Serato and Virtual DJ] and their Tech support [especially the first] address "every" issue a user will have aside from the community boards. Only reason I have to resort to itunes now is as peterbj7 put it "it is the sole means of communicating with their portable devices" so it's not by choice that I am using itunes.

 

[mrplow]

"it is the sole means of communicating with their portable devices"

But it's not. In peterbj7's case where music isn't involved you can use apps that use webservers to copy content over wirelessly or by using cloud apps or by using a third party manager like iExplorer.

iTunes is only essential for managing third party music on your devices

 

[mikehende]

This thread is long and extensive. Can you post the 2 issues you still have please?

I had created 2 separate threads both here and on the Apple support communities:

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os-x-apps-games/301860-tranferring-music-itunes-ipod-help-please.html


but if ok for me to post the 2 issues here then:

1] I reinstalled itunes as was suggested to me on the Apple support forums, still does not recognize the ipod but no problems when connecting the ipod to my macbook so it does have something to do with my pc but what?

2] When I had first created my playlists in itunes 11, I had done so with my external HDD connected on where the mp3's are located. Upon reinstalling itunes, with my external HDD connected I can see my playlists in itunes but when I click on any song it is asking for the location so I don't know how to relink my playlists to the mp3's on my external?

 

[mrplow]

re: no 2.

a) has the music been added to your library?
b) has the library path in iTunes been changed to point to the external?

 

[mikehende]

As the attached screenshot shows, looks like all music was added to the Music library?

Not sure what you mean by "library path"? I tried pointing the "itunes Media Folder location" as in the screenshot to the main folder of mp3's on the external drive but that doesn't work?

 

[mrplow]

By path I mean your "iTunes Media folder location"

Assuming tracks play ok if you just click on them from the library:

Find a track in your library that also features in a playlist.

For each right-click on and open the file location to see where it is.

Do the locations match?

 

[mikehende]

The tracks don't play, when I click on any of them it is asking for the file location but problem is I would have to go into the folder that track belongs to, to try to find the track, it would be unrealistic to do this for 13k songs which is why I had mentioned a way to "relink" all tunes to their playlists?

 

[mrplow]

If the tracks don't play they aren't in your library, that's your issue. You're seeing the library entries from your previous install. Really depends on what guidance you followed to reinstall.

You may be able to rectify the issue by changing your Media folder location to point at the appropriate folder on your external. I can't tell you which folder eaxctly without knowing the folder structure you've created on the external but using get info on a track should give you a pointer to the right folder. Restart iTunes and try to play a track

If that doesn't work select all tracks in the library in iTunes and hit delete. This will remove them from the library catalogue. No go to file add folder to library and point it at the top level folder where your music is on the external

 

[mikehende]

Making progress, almost there, thanks! Following your instructions, all files in the playlist now plays, other issue I have to deal with is all playlists are empty, I am guessing this means I will need to add all music folders one by one to their respective playlists?

 

[mrplow]

If that's the way you're organised, yes. Unless you still have the playlists backed up somewhere from before the uninstall

 

[mikehende]

Yes, i do, I have backed up both files .itl and .xml library files but I had tried [on my mac] to replace those two existing files form that itunes with my 2 backed up files from my pc and I could not get it to work, come to think of it I am facing the same "backing up playlist files" issue right now here with what we are dealing with, so please tell me, would the procedure for me here be just that? To replace, the two existing files in itunes on my pc with the 2 backed up files then go to file add folder to library and point it at the top level folder where the music is on the external and that should work?

 

[mrplow]

Saving those files will backup the entire library catalogue (including playlists).
But you can export/import playlists to xml too.

Copy the .itl and .xml files in. Start iTunes and check the media folder location. Try and play a track and let's see where we are.

 

[mikehende]

Alright, the backup seems to be a much better procedure. I replaced the default 2 files with the backup, now all playlists are showing and when I click on any playlist the files are showing in the library, when I click on any song, it's asking for the location as the screenshot shows, next step please?

 

[mrplow]

If you right click and get info where is it expecting to find the file?

Have you change the media folder location to point to the external as it was prior to the backup?

 

[mikehende]

When I click on Get Info, it's looking in the correct spot and folder on my external:

 

[mikehende]

I changed the medial folder location to the top level folder "Collection" but it's still asking for location when I click on any song:

 

[mrplow]

When you look at the path of the file on the get info panel you've attached it's not the same.

I think we're back to deleting and re-adding as I posted earlier

 

[mikehende]

I got it working with the help of a member on the Apple support forum who located the problem, I had written:

the path shows the top level folder as "redone mp3's", this was the top level folder's name when I had originally created the playlists but since then it's changed to "collection" on my external but that's not an issue, I can change the name back to original if needed.

His reply was:

Indeed, that is what is needed at this stage. iTunes expects all the folder names on the paths to the media to remain unchanged each time it starts up. Your edit is what has broken things. Close iTunes, rename the folder exactly as before, then start iTunes.

I realize that I had not mentioned that info here, simply did not notice it until after my last post here so I apologize Mr. plow and others. Anyway so here's the gist of it, I created my own tutorial for anyone interested and I would like to suggest that maybe you guys can make a sticky out of this so no one else in the future can suffer the way I did to find an answer to this problem? I will post in a follow up reply.

 

[mikehende]

So here's my tutorial guys:

How to backup and reinstall saved playlists:

1] After creating your playlists, find the 2 files named "itunes library.itl" and "itunes music library.xml", you can find those files on your hard drive in your itunes folder, simply copy and paste them on a USB stick, external drive or anywhere you prefer but remember where you've saved them should you need them in the future.

2] If you should ever need to reinstall itunes, after reinstalling, replace the existing 2 files mentioned above by deleting them them copying and pasting the 2 saved files back into the itunes folder. then close itunes.

3] PLEASE NOTE: Wherever you had your mp3's when you had created the saved playlists, you will need to have the mp3's in that same exact location with same top level name, if you've now changed the location of your mp3's, the you would need to change the location in the "itunes Media Folder Location" window to reflect the new location. You can find the option to change to the new location by going to Edit->Preferences->Advanced and click on the "Change button".

Hope the above helps someone! I am looking into a simple solution when "transferring playlists to new computer', when I get that settled, will report back here with a tutorial for that purpose.

 

[acas7i11o]

mike, also be careful when you reinstall your PC again to make sure the drive letter does not change, since it will make any backup useless. Macs don't have that issue since you access a volume by its name, not by drive letter, which is G: in your case from what I've seen.

The good part about doing the backups with iTunes instead of deleting and adding your library every time is that you don't lose information like tracks you hear the most, star rating, etc. All those smart playlists are features that work a lot better the more information the program has about your usage patterns.