What I have not discoved yet is the bit that used to be at the bottom telling you overall size and number of tracks on itunes, but I suspect it is there somewhere
It is, in Windows, press Alt to get the menu bar, then "View" -> "Show Status Bar" or Ctrl + / - but clicking on the figures does not cycle through the different views - in the album view number of albums, number of days, and GB, switching to songs view gives number of items. All that disappears when you go to playlists - but number of Songs and duration is visible in the banner - but I want to know many albums I have in some playlists
Also pressing Ctrl + S brings up the sidebar, so it is still there if you want it.
Thanks for the ctrl-S trick, that helps me put things back the way I had them before. I never used coverflow, so no loss there and I do like the new "pretty" album view. I do not like the search function which forces me to type the whole name. Used to be if I typed "Bob Blonde" got me right to Blonde on Blonde. This is not helping me be lazy.
I read there was a mini-player, but I thought there was always a mini player.
There was, but it wasn't as pretty - wasn't there a minimize to mini player option, or am I thinking of a different player...
The only problem I find with search is that it stutters, but finds most things (so far) with just a few letters - but would be better if "part" also found "p
Well. I will upgrade on the Mac where I don't care about the library, before I upgrade my main windows install. Also check out some apple discussion fury to see what I'm in for.
Something I had not noticed before, and see no mention of on the Apple site. If you click on the album cover in the player at the top of the normal window, or in the mini-player, you get a cover art window.
I need help from some of you iTunes guru (Katrina, are you there?). I am trying to clean up the tags on some of the songs in my library and I find that a lot of songs are "greyed out" when I click the "info" tab in iTunes -- including both albums I have ripped from CD's and albums I have purchased from eMu. Some are greyed out and some are not. I am using Vista (yeah, I know) and iTunes 8.2.1.6 (leery about updating. Thanks for any help.
Thanks, Doofy, but it turns out that was not the problem. Apparently I needed to right click itunes.exe and select "run as administrator". That seems to have solved it.
SecretDrummer, yes that is a Vista permissions issue if you can only edit them when itunes is running with admin privileges.
When they are greyed out, that usually means either itunes or your windows user ID doesn't have permission to change them.
You can keep remembering to start itunes to run as admin, or if you want to change the permissions for your windows userID, take full control & ownership of the itunes folder & all its subfolders, as explained in this webpage:
Don't worry about the title being about how to delete files or it being for WIndows 7. Getting the permissions right is the same process as in Vista, and this is a pretty easy explanation.
This is the default folder where itunes has all its files:
C:\Users\username\Music\iTunes
Make sure to check the box "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects" so it will do all the subfolders.
Computer people, if my PC boot process fails at an early enough stage that I can't even yet use the F keys to get into boot options, I presume that's not good. Anything creative I should try? I would be using Win 7 if it were in the land of the living.
OK, this is a new one on me. Took the PC in to Best Buy. They plugged it in, it booted first time. Told me maybe my mother board was dying and I could spend $80 having them confirm that. Decided to bring it back home if it was now booting and get all the backups bang up to date (only a couple of days unbacked-up). Brought it home, cleaned it out for good measure, plugged it in, boot process froze at exactly same point as before. Aaagh.
Thinks, other than the magic aura that technicians have that makes things start working again when you try to show them the fault, what was different at Best Buy? Answer: only the monitor was plugged in. Unplugged everything else. It booted further, gave me a keyboard error message, then booted all the way. Now experimenting with unplugging and replugging things and rebooting; hypothesis right now: some weird thing between the computer and the keyboard was making the boot freeze? (Which might explain why I couldn't press F2 to get into Bios?)
Update: Isolated the variable in the end (after lots of combinations) to a Kingston SD card from a camera that had been left plugged in a SD card reader that was plugged into a multi-USB hub that was plugged in to the back of the PC. Remove that and it boots. So not the keyboard after all. Still a little puzzled as to why the PC would be looking at that so early in the boot process.
ETA thanks, Thom. No, when it was freezing it would not let me into bios. All working now though.
Everyone, if your backups are not up to date DO IT NOW. Your number might be up tomorrow.
If I turn off my computer and I have left my ipod connected, it won't restart fully next time until the ipod is disconnected. My techie brother-in-law says that it goes back tot he old days of Windows when software was added on start up from disk, so windows looks at such externals first before going to the hard disk. The same thing happens if I leave my external hard disk connected via the front USB on my Dell, but not if plugged into the back.
An hour or so ago I connected ny ipod to my computer for the first time in a month or so. perhaps two months. In doing this I realised that around 50 or so tracks have disappeared from my computer - mainly complete albums but also a few isolated tracks. A did a full back up recently so I should be able to recover most, and many I still have as zip files, but some are either downloaded from emusic, including a full album, and several tracks are from CDs. It is the first time I have connected my ipod since upgrading to the latest version - there was also a more minor upgrade this morning. But at least one album is still on my ipad and that was connected to the computer last week and no problems with syncing and lost albums. In the end I don't think I will have lost anything, but it is the inconvenience of going into my back up to find those tracks and reload into itunes. Anybody have any suggestions about what has happened/happening?? I'd obviously like to avoid more problems. It would, of course, be easy if emusic allowed redownloads. I have been back to my emuisc files on my computer and those from emusic have vanished from there if it helps.. I have tried searching my computer too, but with no success.
That's pretty worrying, because I doubt I would notice very quickly in many cases if something got deleted in the sync process, since the collection is so big and the playlists are designed to retire stuff regularly anyway.
Anybody have any suggestions about what has happened/happening?? I'd obviously like to avoid more problems.
There are gazillions of posts on the apple boards about this. Like Germanprof said, it's pretty worrying. I also would not notice if something got deleted in the sync process for the same reason - my smart playlists rotate things around.
However I am not sure I would blame itunes. If itunes is going to delete something, it deletes it off the ipod because it can't find it on the hard drive. This is what a lot of the apple posts are about - folks only have the one copy of the content on their ipod, and that is now gone. But - they just clicked through all the messages, and one of them said the ipod was going to be synced to the new library, which is a bullshit message, but anyway. They said yes and the content's gone,gone,gone.
In doing this I realised that around 50 or so tracks have disappeared from my computer - mainly complete albums but also a few isolated tracks.
How did you realize this? Was there an error message in itunes?
Do the tracks still show in itunes with a ! not found, or have you already restored them from your backup?
I have no catastrophes to pine about, but, anal as I am about this smart playlist business, this irks me: I have a smart playlist synced to the iPhone, and, while it's connected post-sync (when, by all definitions of "synced playlists" things should look exactly the same), the contents of the playlist on my iPhone and on my iTunes display ARE DIFFERENT. This is not user error - while connected, after sync is completed, the iPhone and iTunes show me different listings FOR THE SAME SYNCED PLAYLIST.
W T F.
Yes, this is a first world problem, and I am GOING TO OWN IT. APPLE, GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS AND FIX MY DEVASTATINGLY SEVERE PROBLEM.
@Katrina - you get an exclamation mark in the first column on the left in itunes. The interesting thing is that as long as you leave the tracks ticked they remain on ipods/ipads, itunes will even note, eg, when they have been played. I hadn't thought about looking at an itunes forum, thanks, I'll look. Two thirds of those missing are things I have downloaded from Bandcamp or Noisetrade, so I have been able to go back to the zipped file, and ther remainder I' will retrieve from my last back-up when I get round to it. the connection appears to be that I either downloaded or lastr played around the time I did a new complete back-up on a new extrnal drive. But many others from that time are still there. Strange
greg, the itunes forums are pretty useless these days. I didn't mean that to be an advertisement for them ; ) Just that many folks on those apple forums say itunes has deleted their music. There are years of posts saying that.
However, if it is showing in itunes with the !
then it doesn't follow that itunes deleted it from the hard drive; the ! simply means itunes cannot find it where it is supposed to be on the hard drive. This happens a lot when folks move files around in windows explorer without telling itunes.
Another common scenario is the itunes library database gets corrupted and itunes starts with a new blank library database. To the user, it looks like itunes deleted all the music, but the underlying music files are still there on the hard drive. They are just looking at an empty itunes database.
the connection appears to be that I either downloaded or lastr played around the time I did a new complete back-up on a new extrnal drive
well, not sure what happened but since you've found some sort of connection then maybe it was some kind of move vs copy issue?
How do you back things up? I use Sync Toy with the echo option.
My first check was to see if the links were broken, but I couldn't find the original file anywhere. For example, all my emusic downloads automatically go into an emusic file, but nothing was there at all - in one casae the album was there minus the three tracks, so someting was going wrong. I've not deefragged in that time as I know that occasionally causes problems. I use the back-up program that came with the hard drive. When I get time I will check that back-up, as my suspicions currently lie with that happening, especiallyy as I did a complete new back-up on a new external drive.
Another thought, keep an eye on Windows Media Player. Even if you never use it, a lot of web pages can launch it in the background without you ever knowing it's been done. WMP can wreak havoc on an itunes library.
On the WMP Library,Privacy, and Security tabs, make sure none of the checkmarks are selected. The defaults have interesting settings like automatically adding any music it finds to its library, auto-downloading track info from the internet, & nicely replacing your info with what it's found.
Check those whenever a Windows update is done that involves Windows Media Center, because those WMP settings can go back to default.
Comments
Also pressing Ctrl + S brings up the sidebar, so it is still there if you want it.
That it is
I read there was a mini-player, but I thought there was always a mini player.
The only problem I find with search is that it stutters, but finds most things (so far) with just a few letters - but would be better if "part" also found "p
Well. I will upgrade on the Mac where I don't care about the library, before I upgrade my main windows install. Also check out some apple discussion fury to see what I'm in for.
When they are greyed out, that usually means either itunes or your windows user ID doesn't have permission to change them.
You can keep remembering to start itunes to run as admin, or if you want to change the permissions for your windows userID, take full control & ownership of the itunes folder & all its subfolders, as explained in this webpage:
windows permissions
Don't worry about the title being about how to delete files or it being for WIndows 7. Getting the permissions right is the same process as in Vista, and this is a pretty easy explanation.
This is the default folder where itunes has all its files:
C:\Users\username\Music\iTunes
Make sure to check the box "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects" so it will do all the subfolders.
Thinks, other than the magic aura that technicians have that makes things start working again when you try to show them the fault, what was different at Best Buy? Answer: only the monitor was plugged in. Unplugged everything else. It booted further, gave me a keyboard error message, then booted all the way. Now experimenting with unplugging and replugging things and rebooting; hypothesis right now: some weird thing between the computer and the keyboard was making the boot freeze? (Which might explain why I couldn't press F2 to get into Bios?)
If you can at least do that, then it might mean that your Windows installation is hosed and a repair via disc might get you back to normal.
ETA thanks, Thom. No, when it was freezing it would not let me into bios. All working now though.
Everyone, if your backups are not up to date DO IT NOW. Your number might be up tomorrow.
LOL, I know. Every time something butt-puckering like that happens, I am really, realy good about backups....for a while.
However I am not sure I would blame itunes. If itunes is going to delete something, it deletes it off the ipod because it can't find it on the hard drive. This is what a lot of the apple posts are about - folks only have the one copy of the content on their ipod, and that is now gone. But - they just clicked through all the messages, and one of them said the ipod was going to be synced to the new library, which is a bullshit message, but anyway. They said yes and the content's gone,gone,gone.
How did you realize this? Was there an error message in itunes?
Do the tracks still show in itunes with a ! not found, or have you already restored them from your backup?
W T F.
Yes, this is a first world problem, and I am GOING TO OWN IT. APPLE, GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS AND FIX MY DEVASTATINGLY SEVERE PROBLEM.
However, if it is showing in itunes with the !
then it doesn't follow that itunes deleted it from the hard drive; the ! simply means itunes cannot find it where it is supposed to be on the hard drive. This happens a lot when folks move files around in windows explorer without telling itunes.
Another common scenario is the itunes library database gets corrupted and itunes starts with a new blank library database. To the user, it looks like itunes deleted all the music, but the underlying music files are still there on the hard drive. They are just looking at an empty itunes database.
well, not sure what happened but since you've found some sort of connection then maybe it was some kind of move vs copy issue?
How do you back things up? I use Sync Toy with the echo option.
Another thought, keep an eye on Windows Media Player. Even if you never use it, a lot of web pages can launch it in the background without you ever knowing it's been done. WMP can wreak havoc on an itunes library.
On the WMP Library,Privacy, and Security tabs, make sure none of the checkmarks are selected. The defaults have interesting settings like automatically adding any music it finds to its library, auto-downloading track info from the internet, & nicely replacing your info with what it's found.
Check those whenever a Windows update is done that involves Windows Media Center, because those WMP settings can go back to default.