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Post by drtrey3 on Feb 15, 2013 11:27:31 GMT -5
My iTunes problem is that it lists duplicates of all my files. Sometimes MULTIPLE duplicates. There are no duplicated files, just duplicated listings. So iTunes is just for my car and office and Jriver is for home and HD.
Trey
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DYohn
Emo VIPs
Posts: 18,352
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Post by DYohn on Feb 15, 2013 11:29:36 GMT -5
The key is to let iTunes manage your files 100%. Don't try to out-think it or you will have problems.
I run iTunes on both a Mac and on a PC, with storage on a Vortexbox server and playback through a Squeezebox, through an Apple TV device and through a PonoPlug VAMP running Squeezelite, and also sometimes accessed through a DirecTV Genie DVR. I also access the library using an iPad or iPhone and send to the Apple TV via airplay. No issues what so ever, with over 7Gb of music files in Apple Lossless, FLAC and MP3 formats mixed in the Vortexbox. Also, I've had this same or very similar setup for several years now through several iTunes updates.
All I can say bommzilla is you must be trying to do something that iTunes doesn't like 9such as ma nually managing file locations) or your system setup is such that there is an incompatibility such as FAT32 disc formats as mentioned above. I hope you get to the bottom of it.
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Post by Chuck Elliot on Feb 15, 2013 11:35:31 GMT -5
The key is to let iTunes manage your files 100%..... +1
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Post by GreenKiwi on Feb 15, 2013 12:49:07 GMT -5
^^^I've done that and it works for me... with 25K files.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Feb 15, 2013 13:03:20 GMT -5
> The key is to let iTunes manage your files 100%.
How is it NOT a fault with iTunes, if iTunes is unable to remember where the files are? Just askin'...
/b
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Post by AudioHTIT on Feb 15, 2013 13:07:34 GMT -5
> The key is to let iTunes manage your files 100%. How is it NOT a fault with iTunes, if iTunes is unable to remember where the files are? Just askin'... /b I think his point was that its possible to play with the files 'under the covers', in which case iTunes may not have properly registered them in it's database and hence might forget where they are.
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Post by Boomzilla on Feb 15, 2013 13:17:04 GMT -5
Yes, I learned EARLY on to let iTunes manage the directory structure, the locations, and the metadata. All my music was ripped directly via iTunes. When ripping, I turn off all "rider software" such as Pure Music. When playing, I normally forget to turn on Pure Music, so iTunes has control of that as well.
I'm absolutely positive that my discs are not corrupted. In addition to running the "verify disc" software from within Apple OS-X (Mountain Lion), I also have the security of the MediaSonic Raid 10 array that is formatted in OS-X, extended, journaled. Further, the MediaSonic itself does parity bit checking, internal diagnostics, and mirroring.
When I look at the media drive (which is a dedicated media drive for iTunes - nothing else on it at all) with OS-X "Finder," I can see that the files and directories still exist for the missing music. iTunes, however, does not see the files or directories until I let iTunes add the files again.
Enough for now - I'm leaving for my monthly pilgrimage to the Apple Genius Bar where the poor technician who happens to get me will (again) be totally mystified.
I've learned that Pure Music software (which I already own) will operate as a "stand-alone" program. I may just keep iTunes off & let Pure Music take a try at indexing and serving the media library. It can't do any worse...
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Post by savjac on Feb 15, 2013 13:45:33 GMT -5
I have had good luck with iTunes but I also like JRiver very much. It just works great and has better control of the computer output. It is on sale today for the Mac for about 25 bucks. Might be worth a try ??
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Post by drtrey3 on Feb 15, 2013 14:05:54 GMT -5
I bought the Mac version for my daughter. It is not quite released yet, but at half off, I pulled the plug! She has a dragonfly and the Jriver will let her play her files at full res instead of being downsampled.
Trey
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Post by Chuck Elliot on Feb 15, 2013 14:13:25 GMT -5
Broom,
When you say a song disappears, do you mean that it is no longer listed or that it will not play?
If it is the second, it might be worth looking in the XML file to see what it says about the file.
Chuck
PS: The following is the XML entry in the iTunes Library database for one of the songs in my library:
<dict> <key>Track ID</key><integer>12561</integer> <key>Name</key><string>Carribean Queen (No More Love On The Run)</string> <key>Artist</key><string>Billy Ocean</string> <key>Composer</key><string>K. Diamond/Billy Ocean</string> <key>Album</key><string>Billy Ocean - Greatest Hits</string> <key>Genre</key><string>R&B</string> <key>Kind</key><string>Apple Lossless audio file</string> <key>Size</key><integer>29072413</integer> <key>Total Time</key><integer>247600</integer> <key>Disc Number</key><integer>1</integer> <key>Disc Count</key><integer>1</integer> <key>Track Number</key><integer>3</integer> <key>Track Count</key><integer>13</integer> <key>Year</key><integer>1984</integer> <key>Date Modified</key><date>2011-08-21T04:47:01Z</date> <key>Date Added</key><date>2011-03-27T18:27:03Z</date> <key>Bit Rate</key><integer>938</integer> <key>Sample Rate</key><integer>44100</integer> <key>Play Count</key><integer>2</integer> <key>Play Date</key><integer>3399109259</integer> <key>Play Date UTC</key><date>2011-09-17T18:00:59Z</date> <key>Sort Artist</key><string>Ocean, Billy</string> <key>Persistent ID</key><string>B94651C3C14A985F</string> <key>Track Type</key><string>File</string> <key>Location</key><string>file://localhost/I:/Music/Billy%20Ocean/Billy%20Ocean%20-%20Greatest%20Hits/03%20Carribean%20Queen%20(No%20More%20Love%20On.m4a</string> <key>File Folder Count</key><integer>-1</integer> <key>Library Folder Count</key><integer>-1</integer> </dict>
As I said above if it just won't play check the location in the 3rd from last key for the song.
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Post by maximumkahuna on Feb 15, 2013 14:50:29 GMT -5
Alas - It looks like the Logitech Squeezebox Touch is no longer an option. LTech has discontinued it, and the only remaining ones sell on Amazon for between $500 and $800 (for a $299 list device)! I'd sure like a hardware solution that gets the laptop out of the chain completely. Other than the high-$$$ items like Meridian & Soloos, does anyone else make a device with the same capabilities as the discontinued Squeezebox? Man, If I could get $800 for my SB Touch I be tempted to sell and try something else. If I could find anything remotely as convenient and reasonably priced. Oh yeah, there really isn't any such animal! An SB Touch will do what you want. I love mine and am not giving it up. Come on Emotiva, if you're working on something new, give us a SB Touch replacement!
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Post by Porscheguy on Feb 15, 2013 15:04:11 GMT -5
I will say that iTunes does look at different songs within an album differently. Sometimes its sorting. If I burn a CD into iTunes and it has two songs that might have a solo artist those songs many times are not included with the album and I have to go looking for them. They might just end up at the bottom of iTunes under "various artists" or some other title. I then look at the "info" of the song to see how it might differ from the CD its on and its usually the artist, or performer name etc. Once that is fixed, it usually coalesces back to the right album..
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Post by GreenKiwi on Feb 15, 2013 15:04:43 GMT -5
If you can wait, the olive one looks to be one such animal.
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Post by Boomzilla on Feb 15, 2013 17:16:55 GMT -5
Hi Y'all -
At the Apple store, I spoke with a young lady who had worked with me twice before on this exact problem. She says:
1. I know you well enough to be certain that you didn't inadvertently delete the files. Proof of this is that the missing files aren't on your external drive, on your internal drive, or in your trash folder.
2. iTunes is NOT supposed to do this, but in your case, it is. There is no question that iTunes is deleting data from your external drive.
3. Because we can't determine why this is happening (despite the fact that your computer has a new, clean install of OS-X and iTunes, and despite the fact that disk tool shows your drives to be uncorrupted), I recommend that you abandon iTunes and find another software to manage your music.
I concur.
Now to selection of alternate software... What I want to do is:
1. Import my existing iTunes library with no loss of cover art, album names, or song titles 2. Play music from the external drive in AIFF format 3. Rip new music to the external drive in AIFF format 4. Not lose data 5. Have an iphone or ipad app to allow remote control via 802.11
What I don't want the software to do:
1. Synch with any devices 2. Deal with mobile apps 3. Deal with video 4. Deal with books 5. Stream from the internet 6. Do anything else not pertaining to music
Suggestions?
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Post by arthurz on Feb 15, 2013 17:28:40 GMT -5
Why AIFF instead of FLAC/ALAC? Seems like a waste of space. I intend to give www.plexapp.com a try soon. I don't think it does ripping, but that's easily solved.
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plato
Minor Hero
Posts: 47
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Post by plato on Feb 15, 2013 17:30:40 GMT -5
MediaMonkey hands down. It even works with all apple products and all MP3 players known to me.
At work right now so not sure on the remote feature.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using proboards
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Post by paradigmE on Feb 15, 2013 17:40:32 GMT -5
Boomzilla - I was reading this yesterday and was about to jump in but after reading all the other comments I kind of picked to stay out of this fight but now goign to speak up breifly. I figured my problems related to my libraries would not be applicable - but I see it might be....cough and or is the exact same related issue.
My career is in IT, supporting large Simulation clusters, oracle database servers etc..
My home itunes libraries are replicated across 3 machines with the identical library due to the problems Ive run into.
As soon as I saw you said AIFF - all I can say is thats part of the instability I THINK that Ive had to battle with itunes, and why I have 2 redundant full itunes libraries.
Now - My AIFF's are a bit special shall we say....as they are really CD24 24/96 "special AIFF" files that are generated by my Alesis Masterlink - the rest of my library is all WAVE based files.
Not sure what to add other than writing pages and pages on the issues Ive had, but thats not going to help anyone here really.
My tip - your AIFF conversion is more than likely playign a part in the instability that you are seeing.
Note - I have yet to lose my library AGAIN in the last 4 months. And I'm starting to think I wont again as I found I did have some AIFF files which were either a corrupt import into the itunes library, corrupt files when imported, or files that were corrupted once on that set of disks. I did some tests with those files removed and have yet to trigger the problems. As a doublecheck I moved the suspected corrupted files back to one of my secondary systems and did cause the library corruption issue, so have a LITTLE confidence that my issues are sorted for now.
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Post by Boomzilla on Feb 15, 2013 17:44:58 GMT -5
...your AIFF conversion is more than likely playign a part in the instability that you are seeing. That was the conclusion of the Apple store too. Assuming that I'm willing to toss AIFF and convert to yet another format, and also assuming that I want a non-compressed, lossless format WITHOUT embedded metadata, what are my choices? FLAC is reported by "The Absolute Sound" magazine as having inferior audio quality. MP3 is similarly eschewed. Can AIFF be converted to WAV? By what Mac-compatible program? Are other alternatives available?
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Post by arthurz on Feb 15, 2013 17:48:45 GMT -5
FLAC is reported by "The Absolute Sound" magazine as having inferior audio quality. I'm sorry, but this is absolute nonsense. The L stands for lossless. The bit stream is going to be identical.
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Post by Boomzilla on Feb 15, 2013 17:55:39 GMT -5
FLAC is reported by "The Absolute Sound" magazine as having inferior audio quality. I'm sorry, but this is absolute nonsense. The L stands for lossless. The bit stream is going to be identical. Not arguing with you. Just repeating what they said. Another minus for FLAC: It isn't supported by the majority of Mac aftermarket media players, so far as I can see.
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