Victory! I deleted/re-added that album, it didn't help. No consistency in which track it failed on. In the end, re-adding the artwork to each track on that one album from within iTunes fixed it. Syncs fine now. Three lessons of the morning:
(i) it's ridiculous that iTunes deciding not to like the cover art in possibly one song in a library of 20,000+ songs can crash the entire sync process. Surely it's not beyond Apple's wit to create a sync that isolates tracks it can't sync?
(ii) I really wish iTunes had some diagnostic capability.
(iii) Every student in school should learn about the process of logical elimination.
GP That is frustrating. I had that happen before to some extent. It almost made me go back to manually syncing songs. I think just clearing and having it start over worked for me, too.
I have a smart playlist designed to pick up a selection of things not played in the last three years. It has a "Last played is not in the last 36 months" rule )along with some other filters to exclude Christmas songs and podcasts and so on.) Today it added an album to that list that I only acquired in February and ripped from the CD (so it's not one of those "if you bought it on iTunes it keeps resetting" issues). And I know I have played the album. And the album does not appear on another smart playlist designed to pick up everything with a playcount of zero.
Thinks: so iTunes has now invented a category of albums where playcount = greater than 0, date added = in the last 36 months, but last played = not in the last 36 months. That's pretty clever.
So I go into song info, and on this album every track says "Last played: Not Available." Not seen that before. Classified information, or what? And a quick burst of googling is not really turning up anything.
Solution is to play the album, and the play count updates. Not a show stopper. But weird, and potentially annoying if it happens more often.
Interesting, so last-played=not-available and playcount>0? Well, obviously some data corruption, but hey, bright side - your smart playlists are working correctly!
Any chance these tracks are marked as "read-only" files? I've had that issue, leading to inability to edit tags. But I don't think it affected play counts.
I'd try re-importing the album. It seems like weird things sometimes happen with iPod touch. I wonder if the play counts change if you play the songs on the computer?
I don't think it can be a write protect issue, as when I played the album on the computer the last played date immediately updated to an actual date, and it has stayed that way. Maybe something weird happened in the last transfer of data back to the computer.
Talking of weird, this afternoon I paused the song I was listening to, left the ipod touch to charge, and went to have supper. 15 minutes later I hear music - the ipod touch had suddenly turned itself on and begun to play a song from a totally different album. I think my ipod touch is haunted.
I use some standard tags in otherwise unused fields to help manage my library (e.g. I use the "Sort Show" field for a "FullAlbum" tag to designate albums where I have all the tracks). Until recently that field would autofill as soon as I typed "F", making it easy to add albums. An update or so ago that stopped happening. Does anyone know if that is a setting somewhere? Some other fields (e.g. genre) still seem to autofill, which makes me think more likely a bug, but I thought I would ask in case anyone knows something and can save me a small slice of my life typing "FullAlbum".
So, I don't know if this has been dealt with earlier the thread (I don't think so). I noticed new music wasn't syncing to the iPod even though it says it syncs. Somehow my settings had changed to manually add music. I switched it back to auto sync all checked music to no avail. Tried resetting the factory settings on the iPod and now it says it syncs, but still doesn't do anything and now there is no music on the iPod.
Then my diagnosis is, That's the damnedest thing I ever heard of. If you reset the iPod and it won't sync, I don't know what to thync. I am verging toward thinking the iPod has gone bad, except (1) still don't know what you mean by "it says it syncs" and (2) it could be a Mac issue, in which case I'm no help. Time to call in Katrina!
If you're using a Macintosh, and you've already reset and cleared out the iPod, try unplugging it and then dragging the "com.apple.iPod.plist" file out of Library > Preferences and into another folder (or the desktop). There might also be another file called "com.apple.iTunes.plist" - if so, drag that one out too. That should properly reset everything on the Macintosh side so that it thinks it's never seen this particular iPod before, at which point you'd plug it back in and (in theory) it should behave like a brand-new Mac with a brand-new iPod. (Not that that's necessarily good either, but it might work. If not, you can always put the original files back.)
For Windows, I think there are registry keys you have to delete, depending on what version it is, etc... in addition to the various configuration files and such. Oddly enough I never had a problem with the Windows version, not once, but with the Mac version I've actually had to reset everything twice in just 2-1/2 years. You'd think it would be the reverse, but I suspect that when Apple found out I had bought one of their computers, they fired their entire QA department in response, "just to be sure."
I mean that it's telling you how many songs it's syncing, what the titles are, etc. Maybe that's also different on a Mac.
I suppose you might try reinstalling iTunes? As to iTunes on PC, I have been shuffling the same *.itl file across a series of computers, replacement hard drives, and OS upgrades for 9 years now. Would be bummed if I ever lost all those playlists, play counts, and especially tags
Why hello there!
What version iTunes & what version Mac and what gen iPod.
Doofy, thank you for the compliment. I too, have had success at maintaining my iTunes library on a windows machine since 2004.
Mac has made me lose it several times, just like ScissorMan said.
Although, I know how to put the windows thingy back on the Mac thingy. So I always guinea pig the Mac to the new release.
Sorry to ask such boring questions about what versions, cafreema, but it's the basics of tech support, yanno.
And no matter what OS or ipod, doing an iPod reset while it's connected to the PC/Mac can do wonders.
They do play in iTunes and will move to the iPod if I manually do it. I'll try a separate library, but I'm not holding my breath. The fact that when I connect the iPod it still talks to the computer enough to update play counts and scrobble to last.fm tells me there is likely just an issue in the iPod.
and to make a temporary new library to see if it's a library issue, on a Mac you open iTunes and immediately hold down the option key switch iTunes library
then after you're done testing with the temporary new library, repeat the open > Option sequence but choose your original library location
It's hinky at any rate - when ipods are manually managed they don't update iTunes as a rule. You must have some special mojo going on to get it to do it.
Any suggestions on software or tricks to move music from my iPhone to my Mac? I know it's not supposed to happen, but my music HD crashed and there is stuff on my phone not on my computer.
My advice is get a 3rd-party program to do it, such as TouchCopy or CopyTrans. They've been around a long time and while I've never used them, have read good feedback on them.
This article has been around for years but it still applies. I gave the link to page 3 where it discussed the 3rd party software. You can read the 1st two pages for background and decide if you're brave enough to try it manually. iLounge article
Apple has only made it easy to copy iTunes store purchases to another computer. Anything you've ripped yourself or downloaded elsewhere doesn't get copied with their setup.
The iTunes defaults are to autosync any device connected, so MAKE SURE you don't connect your iphone unless you are sure this option is turned off. You might want to start a new iTunes library to make sure this doesn't happen, as mentioned on pg 1 of that article.
Thanks, Katrina! I've been avoiding connecting my iPhone for this very reason and have nearly rebuilt my music library, but I know there are still a few tracks and albums not on there.
Germanprof, I went back a re-read this thread and it seems you have been having iTunes issues for quite some times. Issues that have been tied to using iTunes store artwork. When I rip CDs I change them to no MP3 tags. Then I change them to v2.3 tags. iTunes by default uses v2.2 tags which cause a lot of problems later. Also if you leave them at v2.2 and just update them to v2.3, they just add onto the tag and the problem is still there. So it's important to go to the no tag and then switch to v2.3, the industry standard. I debated this with a few iTunes level 5 people and have sent numerous feedback to no avail. They still tag at v2.2 when you rip in iTunes.
Also some of your problems also sound like you're on a windows machine and the windows media manager is screwing with your library every few months like it did with mine, before I learned after every windows update, to look at and turn off windows media player privacy options to zero access if they changed with the update. Before I learned this, I spent hours changing genre & # of tracks due to WMP jacking with my settings because an update told it to get internet updates without my knowledge.
Comments
(i) it's ridiculous that iTunes deciding not to like the cover art in possibly one song in a library of 20,000+ songs can crash the entire sync process. Surely it's not beyond Apple's wit to create a sync that isolates tracks it can't sync?
(ii) I really wish iTunes had some diagnostic capability.
(iii) Every student in school should learn about the process of logical elimination.
I have a smart playlist designed to pick up a selection of things not played in the last three years. It has a "Last played is not in the last 36 months" rule )along with some other filters to exclude Christmas songs and podcasts and so on.) Today it added an album to that list that I only acquired in February and ripped from the CD (so it's not one of those "if you bought it on iTunes it keeps resetting" issues). And I know I have played the album. And the album does not appear on another smart playlist designed to pick up everything with a playcount of zero.
Thinks: so iTunes has now invented a category of albums where playcount = greater than 0, date added = in the last 36 months, but last played = not in the last 36 months. That's pretty clever.
So I go into song info, and on this album every track says "Last played: Not Available." Not seen that before. Classified information, or what? And a quick burst of googling is not really turning up anything.
Solution is to play the album, and the play count updates. Not a show stopper. But weird, and potentially annoying if it happens more often.
I'd try re-importing the album. It seems like weird things sometimes happen with iPod touch. I wonder if the play counts change if you play the songs on the computer?
Talking of weird, this afternoon I paused the song I was listening to, left the ipod touch to charge, and went to have supper. 15 minutes later I hear music - the ipod touch had suddenly turned itself on and begun to play a song from a totally different album. I think my ipod touch is haunted.
Any ideas?
Craig
I presume you checked that your library location is correct?
Craig
Craig
If you're using a Macintosh, and you've already reset and cleared out the iPod, try unplugging it and then dragging the "com.apple.iPod.plist" file out of Library > Preferences and into another folder (or the desktop). There might also be another file called "com.apple.iTunes.plist" - if so, drag that one out too. That should properly reset everything on the Macintosh side so that it thinks it's never seen this particular iPod before, at which point you'd plug it back in and (in theory) it should behave like a brand-new Mac with a brand-new iPod. (Not that that's necessarily good either, but it might work. If not, you can always put the original files back.)
For Windows, I think there are registry keys you have to delete, depending on what version it is, etc... in addition to the various configuration files and such. Oddly enough I never had a problem with the Windows version, not once, but with the Mac version I've actually had to reset everything twice in just 2-1/2 years. You'd think it would be the reverse, but I suspect that when Apple found out I had bought one of their computers, they fired their entire QA department in response, "just to be sure."
Thanks ScissorMan. Didn't work, but it was something to try. I can move things to the iPhone no problem, so I'm thinking it's the iPod.
Sigh.
Craig
Craig
I suppose you might try reinstalling iTunes? As to iTunes on PC, I have been shuffling the same *.itl file across a series of computers, replacement hard drives, and OS upgrades for 9 years now. Would be bummed if I ever lost all those playlists, play counts, and especially tags
What version iTunes & what version Mac and what gen iPod.
Doofy, thank you for the compliment. I too, have had success at maintaining my iTunes library on a windows machine since 2004.
Mac has made me lose it several times, just like ScissorMan said.
Although, I know how to put the windows thingy back on the Mac thingy. So I always guinea pig the Mac to the new release.
Sorry to ask such boring questions about what versions, cafreema, but it's the basics of tech support, yanno.
And no matter what OS or ipod, doing an iPod reset while it's connected to the PC/Mac can do wonders.
ipod reset
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1320
Have already done a couple iPod resets.
Thanks Katrina!
Craig
My next step would be, make a new library with one song and see if that syncs.
Craig
Also, I would turn off the option to autosync when the ipod is plugged in.
I had more but PC issues erased the message..
Craig
EDIT: Yep. I have no idea why, but the issue seems to have resolved.
Craig
I was gonna tell you about checking the ipod hard drive
check ipod hard drive
and to make a temporary new library to see if it's a library issue, on a Mac you open iTunes and immediately hold down the option key
switch iTunes library
then after you're done testing with the temporary new library, repeat the open > Option sequence but choose your original library location
It's hinky at any rate - when ipods are manually managed they don't update iTunes as a rule. You must have some special mojo going on to get it to do it.
Craig
This article has been around for years but it still applies. I gave the link to page 3 where it discussed the 3rd party software. You can read the 1st two pages for background and decide if you're brave enough to try it manually.
iLounge article
Apple has only made it easy to copy iTunes store purchases to another computer. Anything you've ripped yourself or downloaded elsewhere doesn't get copied with their setup.
The iTunes defaults are to autosync any device connected, so MAKE SURE you don't connect your iphone unless you are sure this option is turned off. You might want to start a new iTunes library to make sure this doesn't happen, as mentioned on pg 1 of that article.
Also some of your problems also sound like you're on a windows machine and the windows media manager is screwing with your library every few months like it did with mine, before I learned after every windows update, to look at and turn off windows media player privacy options to zero access if they changed with the update. Before I learned this, I spent hours changing genre & # of tracks due to WMP jacking with my settings because an update told it to get internet updates without my knowledge.