The iTunes thread: iTunes version <insert number> is out: Tell us how much you hate it

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The iTunes thread: iTunes version <insert number> is out: Tell us how much you hate it

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benisntfunny: Dec 2, 2004; I'm Perfect.

smackfu posted:

Stupid iTunes, "Bedroom Speaker" is too long of an Airplay device name to fully show?

Based on that image -- yes. With the volume bar you'd get maybe Volume Speak and then have no room for ...

# ? Jan 16, 2014 06:14

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# ? May 15, 2024 09:33

Cenodoxus: Mar 29, 2012; while [[ true ]] ; do
��pour()
done

I have a 550GB iTunes Library on Windows 7 comprised of about 30GB of music, 138GB of movies, and 382GB of TV shows. All videos are in M4V. I have one Apple TV (3rd gen) and I'm home sharing over 802.11n with excellent signal strength.

When I select a movie or TV show, I get the spinning wheel of death. It seems very intermittent - some shows load after 15-30 seconds, some take a full 5 minutes. Only after that will it prompt me to resume or play from the beginning (if applicable) and then start playing.

I've reset the Apple TV a few times now, and even tried serving the library from another computer (An XP virtual machine), but nothing has improved the wait. I would run a wired connection to the AppleTV, but they're not on the same floor. Is this par for the course with such a big library? Is there anything I can do to alleviate the long load times?

# ? Jan 16, 2014 19:33

Thwomp: Apr 10, 2003; BA-DUHHH; Grimey Drawer

Cenodoxus posted:

I have a 550GB iTunes Library on Windows 7 comprised of about 30GB of music, 138GB of movies, and 382GB of TV shows. All videos are in M4V. I have one Apple TV (3rd gen) and I'm home sharing over 802.11n with excellent signal strength.

When I select a movie or TV show, I get the spinning wheel of death. It seems very intermittent - some shows load after 15-30 seconds, some take a full 5 minutes. Only after that will it prompt me to resume or play from the beginning (if applicable) and then start playing.

I've reset the Apple TV a few times now, and even tried serving the library from another computer (An XP virtual machine), but nothing has improved the wait. I would run a wired connection to the AppleTV, but they're not on the same floor. Is this par for the course with such a big library? Is there anything I can do to alleviate the long load times?

I've got a similar set up and I find that most times I encounter this, it's a router thing.

Just recently I couldn't see any ATVs on my network and just resetting the router didn't work. I had to turn the router off, cable modem off, unplug the ATVs, and then turn the modem and router back on (and allow them to establish the network again) before plugging the ATVs back in.

# ? Jan 16, 2014 19:50

spaced ninja: Apr 10, 2009; Toilet Rascal

Cenodoxus posted:

I have a 550GB iTunes Library on Windows 7 comprised of about 30GB of music, 138GB of movies, and 382GB of TV shows. All videos are in M4V. I have one Apple TV (3rd gen) and I'm home sharing over 802.11n with excellent signal strength.

When I select a movie or TV show, I get the spinning wheel of death. It seems very intermittent - some shows load after 15-30 seconds, some take a full 5 minutes. Only after that will it prompt me to resume or play from the beginning (if applicable) and then start playing.

I've reset the Apple TV a few times now, and even tried serving the library from another computer (An XP virtual machine), but nothing has improved the wait. I would run a wired connection to the AppleTV, but they're not on the same floor. Is this par for the course with such a big library? Is there anything I can do to alleviate the long load times?

I get this as well (but with around a 1TB library on a Mac). Sometimes hitting stop and play again will cause it to load much quicker other times I have to restart all my devices (my Mac iTunes is on, my airport express and my lovely lovely router from my phone company) before everything gets back to normal.

# ? Jan 16, 2014 19:56

Schpyder: Jun 13, 2002; Attackle Grackle

The Milkman posted:

How does matching treat clean vs original versions?

Much better than it used to be, but still messes up from time to time. I'm still stuck with clean versions of the last Beastie Boys album (purchased from Amazon MP3) and System of a Down's Hypnotize/Mesmerize (ripped from my own CDs), despite numerous times removing them from Match and rematching them.

Still, it's waaaaay better than the multiple dozens of albums I had censored by Match back when the service launched.

# ? Jan 16, 2014 21:52

ConanThe3rd: Mar 27, 2009

So, apparently iTunes shits itself if you attempt to buy an album with a lot of tracks, like, say, the soundtrack for Pok�mon Heart Gold / Soul Silver (sitting at some 200 odd tracks).

Which is hilarious because just hours previous it took like three minutes at most to get the Metal Gear Revengence Soundtrack off Amazon.

One requires a client to buy music, the other doesn't.

Object lesson.

# ? Jan 16, 2014 22:26

PRADA SLUT: Mar 14, 2006; Inexperienced,
heartless,
but even so

Is it just me, or has anyone else just never had any problems with iTunes?

It doesn't crash, it doesn't go slow, it doesn't do any crazy poo poo when you buy music (including massive albums) or redeem codes or whatever. It doesn't gently caress up my library, mis-tag items, slow sync, or anything else. I've used Match and reinstalled, and downloaded my entire library again just fine.

I'm not sure if it's just because I let iTunes do its own management instead of trying to gently caress with every little thing. It seems like a lot of problems people have are because they're trying to force some sort of weird-rear end personal library management, then can't figure out why it doesn't do what they want.

I use OSX though, so maybe it's a Windows thing.

# ? Jan 16, 2014 22:36

smackfu: Jun 7, 2004

benisntfunny posted:

Based on that image -- yes. With the volume bar you'd get maybe Volume Speak and then have no room for ...

Oh yeah, I just think the popup window that holds this stuff is unnecessarily small if it cuts off stuff that isn't very long. You can't even have something like "Living Room Apple TV."

PRADA SLUT posted:

Is it just me, or has anyone else just never had any problems with iTunes?

Well now you jinxed yourself.

# ? Jan 16, 2014 23:05

IUG: Jul 14, 2007

PRADA SLUT posted:

Is it just me, or has anyone else just never had any problems with iTunes?

It doesn't crash, it doesn't go slow, it doesn't do any crazy poo poo when you buy music (including massive albums) or redeem codes or whatever. It doesn't gently caress up my library, mis-tag items, slow sync, or anything else. I've used Match and reinstalled, and downloaded my entire library again just fine.

I'm not sure if it's just because I let iTunes do its own management instead of trying to gently caress with every little thing. It seems like a lot of problems people have are because they're trying to force some sort of weird-rear end personal library management, then can't figure out why it doesn't do what they want.

I use OSX though, so maybe it's a Windows thing.

Also me, and I've been using it since version 1.0 or whatever. Plus, I even spent about a year in the Windows environment, and still no problem. My worst problem is when I delete the songs in a playlist, instead of just the playlist itself, and I have to go into Time Machine and restore stuff.

# ? Jan 16, 2014 23:50

benisntfunny: Dec 2, 2004; I'm Perfect.

smackfu posted:

Oh yeah, I just think the popup window that holds this stuff is unnecessarily small if it cuts off stuff that isn't very long. You can't even have something like "Living Room Apple TV."

Given the icons why do you need to specify it's an Apple TV vs. just noting the location "Living Room"? Do you have multiple devices sitting in the living room that have AirPlay and also do audio/video?

Just name them rooms in the house I don't think it's any mystery what they are.

# ? Jan 17, 2014 00:21

DarkJC: Jul 6, 2010

PRADA SLUT posted:

Is it just me, or has anyone else just never had any problems with iTunes?

...

I use OSX though, so maybe it's a Windows thing.

I'll chime in and say I haven't had any, and I use it on Windows.

# ? Jan 17, 2014 00:31

Dren: Jan 5, 2001; Pillbug

DarkJC posted:

I'll chime in and say I haven't had any, and I use it on Windows.

I've always used it on Windows and my only problem with it is that transferring songs to an ipod/phone is needlessly complicated and involves a bunch of lovely DRM. You know what had a better software interface? My Diamond Rio (like the 3rd mp3 player ever). It showed up as a hard drive, you dragged and dropped some mp3's to it and you were good to go.

# ? Jan 17, 2014 04:00

IUG: Jul 14, 2007

Why not just make a simple playlist and have the iPhone/iPod sync from that? Then you can manage the devices via those playlists, even when you don't have the device plugged in. For example, I use a smart playlist for my iPhone (as it can't hold all my music) that is basically the 2000 least recently played songs. I plug it in and it automatically syncs the songs for me then without the drag-and-drop. I do also have some static playlists, so I manage those in iTunes and then plug in to sync.

It basically has the same drag-and-drop, but instead of dragging it onto a device, you're dragging the songs into a playlist. And you can have as many playlists as it'll fit.

# ? Jan 17, 2014 05:04

beefnoodle: Aug 7, 2004; IGNORE ME! I'M JUST AN OLD WET RAG

Dren posted:

involves a bunch of lovely DRM.

Not in years.

# ? Jan 17, 2014 05:10

chocolateTHUNDER: Jul 19, 2008; GIVE ME ALL YOUR FREE AGENTS

ALL OF THEM

PRADA SLUT posted:

Is it just me, or has anyone else just never had any problems with iTunes?

It doesn't crash, it doesn't go slow, it doesn't do any crazy poo poo when you buy music (including massive albums) or redeem codes or whatever. It doesn't gently caress up my library, mis-tag items, slow sync, or anything else. I've used Match and reinstalled, and downloaded my entire library again just fine.

I'm not sure if it's just because I let iTunes do its own management instead of trying to gently caress with every little thing. It seems like a lot of problems people have are because they're trying to force some sort of weird-rear end personal library management, then can't figure out why it doesn't do what they want.

I use OSX though, so maybe it's a Windows thing.

I've been using iTunes since 2007 and have never really had a problem with it. All on Windows.

# ? Jan 17, 2014 05:29

The Modern Leper: Dec 25, 2008; You must be a masochist

Everyone who has never had a problem with itunes and have iTunes Match:

1) make a smart playlist of recently added songs (say, the last two weeks).

2) open the playlist on your iphone

Congratulations, you've got a problem.

For extra points, make a playlist that refers to that last playlist (e.g., Recently added playlist, and not played in the last 3 days).

I don't feel these are extreme use cases, especially since Apple always promoted the smart playlist model.

# ? Jan 17, 2014 06:19

Dren: Jan 5, 2001; Pillbug

beefnoodle posted:

Not in years.

lovely DRM:

Authorizing your computer with your iTunes account.
Having your iPhone linked to one PC such that you have to format the phone to transfer a file from another computer or copy over the iTunes library folder from the computer your phone is linked to in order to use it with another machine.

# ? Jan 17, 2014 06:25

Last Chance: Dec 31, 2004

Been (somewhat shamefully) using iTunes for Windows since 2003 and it's worked just fine.

Never had to gently caress with it much except when moving libraries to new computers. Nowadays that's a non-issue with iTunes Match.

# ? Jan 17, 2014 07:19

PRADA SLUT: Mar 14, 2006; Inexperienced,
heartless,
but even so

While we're at it, it's bullshit that I have to log in to Steam to download my Steam games, stored in the Steam cloud, that I bought on Steam.

# ? Jan 17, 2014 07:21

beefnoodle: Aug 7, 2004; IGNORE ME! I'M JUST AN OLD WET RAG

Dren posted:

lovely DRM:

Authorizing your computer with your iTunes account.

Having your iPhone linked to one PC such that you have to format the phone to transfer a file from another computer or copy over the iTunes library folder from the computer your phone is linked to in order to use it with another machine.

Neither have anything to do with music file DRM (since iTunes Plus). Authorizing is for Match, Home Sharing, automatic downloads, downloading of past purchases, or access to other purchased media types still locked down by the content publishers. Linking a phone is for transferring settings, backups, etc. which seems to be inextricably coupled to copying music.

Sure, you can't just use an iPhone as a simple USB disk, but then again you weren't running apps or making calls from your Rio either (which really was a great player). There's more in your library than songs.

beefnoodle fucked around with this message at 14:11 on Jan 17, 2014

# ? Jan 17, 2014 14:06

IUG: Jul 14, 2007

Not that it's a fix for the problem, but there's a reason why you can't just plug in your iPhone/iPod into anyone's computer and get whatever music you want. Apple was facing lawsuits about that since day one, since they were the first major mp3 player that was a large hard drive. If they let you just dump whatever music into it, they were going to get sued to oblivion. This was back in the day when USB jump drives weren't even really a thing yet (or as popular).

Also, yes, I don't use Match (yet?). I know that's a buggy system, and I use smart playlists 100% of the time, so I'm wary about using Match.

# ? Jan 17, 2014 15:13

Molten Llama: Sep 20, 2006

Smart Playlists are definitely still... in need of improvement. Namely on iOS, though. The desktop iTunes team seems to have a slightly better idea what they're doing than the iOS Music team.

# ? Jan 17, 2014 17:10

Tenterhooks: Jul 27, 2003; Bang Bang

I'd like to have the same music playing in a few rooms when I'm doing housework. Right now I can simultaneously play stuff from my iMac in the office and the Apple TV in the living room using the 'multiple' outputs dropdown thing in iTunes but can't figure out if I can also play through my iPhone connected to speakers in the kitchen. Airplay (/ bluetooth?) enabled speakers would be an answer I guess, but can I make this work with my current setup?

# ? Jan 18, 2014 15:44

IUG: Jul 14, 2007

When I turn on my Bluetooth speaker it turns off the speakers for the Mac. I haven't tried this while also using Airplay however, so I don't know if it just turns off the computer's output, or turns off all output from the computer and goes directly bluetooth.

I guess you could try to use a phone bluetooth to see if it works the way you want (although with lovely tinny sound on the bluetooth, but just for testing).

# ? Jan 18, 2014 16:35

Bouchacha: Feb 7, 2006

A few questions:

Is it possible to play something in iTunes without adding it to the library?

Alternatively, is it possible to limit iPhone syncing to particular directories?

I have a a long list of subscribed podcasts on my podcast app, how do I transfer them to my iTunes?

# ? Jan 24, 2014 18:52

PRADA SLUT: Mar 14, 2006; Inexperienced,
heartless,
but even so

Bouchacha posted:

A few questions:

Is it possible to play something in iTunes without adding it to the library?

Alternatively, is it possible to limit iPhone syncing to particular directories?

I have a a long list of subscribed podcasts on my podcast app, how do I transfer them to my iTunes?

No.

Yes, sync playlists/checked only.

I thought your subscriptions synced across devices as long as you were using your same AppleID.

# ? Jan 24, 2014 19:19

beefnoodle: Aug 7, 2004; IGNORE ME! I'M JUST AN OLD WET RAG

Bouchacha posted:

A few questions:

Is it possible to play something in iTunes without adding it to the library?

As an aside, you can add something to iTunes without it being copied into the iTunes folder. I don't know if this is what you're after. Option-drag the file into the iTunes window to add it and have the item pointed to the original location.

If you just want iTunes to play it without it adding it to the library at all, you're out of luck as far as I know.

# ? Jan 24, 2014 19:42

Bouchacha: Feb 7, 2006

PRADA SLUT posted:

Yes, sync playlists/checked only.

I thought your subscriptions synced across devices as long as you were using your same AppleID.

Is it possible to only "check" files that are found within particular directories?

Podcast syncing is not happening so far. Reconstructing my subscriptions on my computer ends up with duplicate entries on my app so I just gave up and use my iphone exclusively.

# ? Jan 24, 2014 20:02

IUG: Jul 14, 2007

I don't think there's any criteria for a smart playlist for the file structure, given that most of the time it just copies the music into it's own file structure. But you could just make a regular playlist instead of a smart one with whatever is in there.

# ? Jan 24, 2014 20:28

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

Bouchacha posted:

Podcast syncing is not happening so far. Reconstructing my subscriptions on my computer ends up with duplicate entries on my app so I just gave up and use my iphone exclusively.

Honestly, you're better off keeping podcasts in one place. I spent way too long trying to get podcast syncing working in any meaningful way, and it is just broken. The answer is Stitcher / Downcast.

# ? Jan 25, 2014 03:22

Goober Peas: Jun 30, 2007; Check out my 'Vette, bro

Hooray!

11.1.4.62 resolves the incompatibility with the Haswell HD4400 video driver that causes Store to crash.

# ? Jan 25, 2014 23:25

got any sevens: Feb 9, 2013; by Cyrano4747

New patch is buggy as hell, don't update yet. I can't even open itunes now, tried reinstalling a few times too.

https://discussions.apple.com/community/itunes/itunes_for_windows

# ? Jan 26, 2014 21:27

Goober Peas: Jun 30, 2007; Check out my 'Vette, bro

Full disclosure:

I had one hell of a time getting it to download, then had a hell of a time getting it to install. Clearing those two huge hurdles, it works like a charm. It's been 7 months since I've been able to open iTunes store without jumping through hoops to keep it from crashing.

# ? Jan 27, 2014 00:25

Bouchacha: Feb 7, 2006

What's the best way to set up "Add whatever is in these specific folders to the library"? I used iTLU but it seems like the API is not compatible anymore with newer versions.

# ? Jan 27, 2014 20:43

wolffenstein: Aug 2, 2002; Pork Pro

Use the Automatically Add to iTunes folder inside your iTunes Media folder.

# ? Jan 28, 2014 18:24

Bouchacha: Feb 7, 2006

wolffenstein posted:

Use the Automatically Add to iTunes folder inside your iTunes Media folder.

Aside from that

# ? Jan 28, 2014 18:28

carry on then: Jul 10, 2010; by VideoGames
(and can't post for 10 years!)

There is nothing else iTunes will do. Find a utility to automatically copy files you put in other folders to the Automatically Add to iTunes folder.

# ? Jan 28, 2014 18:29

Shin-chan: Aug 1, 2008; To be a man you must have honor...
...honor and a penis!

Bouchacha posted:

What's the best way to set up "Add whatever is in these specific folders to the library"? I used iTLU but it seems like the API is not compatible anymore with newer versions.

Create a folder action or a service in Automator.

# ? Jan 28, 2014 20:05

AlmightyBob: Sep 8, 2003

Cool, didn't know it was hosed until I tried to update. How do you push an update this loving broken?

It's so completely hosed that uninstalling and reinstalling doesn't even fix it.

AlmightyBob fucked around with this message at 23:27 on Jan 29, 2014

# ? Jan 29, 2014 23:22

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# ? May 15, 2024 09:33

blackcat12951: Oct 23, 2012; HELLCAT BESTCAT; Doctor Rope

AlmightyBob posted:

Cool, didn't know it was hosed until I tried to update. How do you push an update this loving broken?

It's so completely hosed that uninstalling and reinstalling doesn't even fix it.

https://discussions.apple.com/message/24608551#24608551

This post worked for me, it will keep your library as well.

# ? Jan 30, 2014 15:36

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The iTunes thread: iTunes version <insert number> is out: Tell us how much you hate it

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