iTunes randomness.

paradigm · 5 Jan 2009 at 21:42

Didn't know whether to post this in W&OS or the Apple forums, but seeing as I use it on Vista Ultimate x64, I've shoved it here.

I'm experiencing something I can't quite understand. I'm sat here browsing my library (which I strive to keep tidy, all details correct, all album art in place etc), when I realise that random songs seem to be missing number of tracks in the disk.

For example:

Track 1 Title, Track 1 Artist, Disk 1 of 1, Track 1 of 9
Track 2 Title, Track 2 Artist, Disk 1 of 1, Track 2 of 9
Track 3 Title, Track 3 Artist, Disk 1 of 1, Track 3 of 9
Track 4 Title, Track 4 Artist, Disk 1 of 1, Track 4 of 9
Track 5 Title, Track 5 Artist, Disk 1 of 1, Track 5
Track 6 Title, Track 6 Artist, Disk 1 of 1, Track 6
Track 7 Title, Track 7 Artist, Disk 1 of 1, Track 7 of 9
Track 8 Title, Track 8 Artist, Disk 1 of 1, Track 8 of 9
Track 9 Title, Track 9 Artist, Disk 1 of 1, Track 9

Now, I KNOW that I put the details in correctly, but a good 50 or so albums randomly seem to have detail omitted that was there at some point :confused:

Anyone know of any bugs or issues that would cause this?

I'm stumped.

I've just spent a good two hours putting everything right again :mad:

EDIT: GAH, they are going missing again, every time I double click a track to play it! :mad:

gillywibble · 5 Jan 2009 at 22:05

I have the same problem. Would be interested in a solution.

paradigm · 5 Jan 2009 at 22:13

A few people seem to think that its WMP doing it, but I've disabled all the settings that would cause this (keeping library information up to date using the interwebs).

I'm just going to check if Media Center is doing anything similar.

Hxc · 5 Jan 2009 at 22:31

When I used Zune (which is based on WMP) it occasionally mucked with my tags until I told it not to.

iTunes on windows is a horrid program, though.

paradigm · 5 Jan 2009 at 22:40

Hxc said:
iTunes on windows is a horrid program, though.

No it isn't, its superb.

How anyone who uses WMP can say iTunes is horrid is beyond me.

Hxc · 5 Jan 2009 at 23:08

I don't use WMP. I use Foobar. I use Zune, based on WMP to manage my zune.

iTunes seems to suck for me regardless of PC spec, taking up wads and wads of memory when you've got an 8000+ song collection :/

paradigm · 5 Jan 2009 at 23:19

Yeah, you're right, I really don't know how I put up with 118MB of RAM usage and 2% CPU.

It's such a resource hog.

FYI: 8961 tunes in library.

Hxc · 5 Jan 2009 at 23:20

I was getting 700mb on an 8000 song playlist when I last used it! Might have to try it out again...

paradigm · 5 Jan 2009 at 23:21

Something isn't right there! NO way it should use that much!

Strife212 · 6 Jan 2009 at 10:35

I dislike iTunes on windows and I use WMP to listen to my music

I have to put up with iTunes to put music onto my iPhone, it would be ok if it didn't lag so much and drag and drop support for iPods is poor to say the least!

The album art on iTunes looks nice I'll give it that. However I never open my whole library, only the album I want to listen to. WMP is better for that.

Nikumba · 6 Jan 2009 at 21:45

I use itunes, but I really hate its smug attitude, in it will let you import a folder of music, but if you try and tell it to go fetch album names it tell yous you go import it again, I mean grr

Furton · 6 Jan 2009 at 22:12

My iTunes collection is 11,000+ and uses about 100MB ram, but it just runs like a dog, a horrible piece of software full with niggly bugs like what you've discribed. My new problem is that it plain out refuses to put some albums on, even though there ripped the same way as the same of my collection

jas72 · 7 Jan 2009 at 14:58

paradigm said:
No it isn't, its superb.

How anyone who uses WMP can say iTunes is horrid is beyond me.

I like iTunes but it's not very friendly to use.

It's set up to use with ipods if you don't have one it can be quite difficult to transfer songs on to other MP3 players from it.

I also need help backing up the itunes. I've done it several times but it simply doesn't want to restore

Sorry going off topic in this thread the ops problem is a beauty never seen that before.

paradigm · 7 Jan 2009 at 15:49

jas72 said:
I also need help backing up the itunes. I've done it several times but it simply doesn't want to restore

There is nothing particularly hard about backing up an iTunes library. I've managed to back up and restore (as well as duplicate for laptops and the like) my library countless times.

I have two music stores:

#1 - C:\Users\User.Name\Music\iTunes
#2 - D:\Multimedia\Music

The library file "iTunes Library.itl" (as well as purchased from iTunes store, and ripped within iTunes) is stored in #1, and music sourced from other places is stored in #2.

To back up my library, I copy #1 to my backup device (network drive), and install iTunes on the new PC/OS/Whatever. Run iTunes and let it set itself up. Replace #1 with backed up folder.

Job done.

#2 is static as D:\ is a network drive and thus always available.