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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TACD: Oct 27, 2000

My God, I hate iTunes. I hate it so much. Is it so absurd of me to expect to be able to just plug in my phone, back it up and change the music on it, without that being my whole day? And after wrestling with iTunes for literal hours, I'm still no better off.

I really, really want to see how the people who develop iTunes use their personal copies of the software, because it sure as poo poo isn't the same as any other person I've ever met. It's just repugnant that Apple has been making phones for the better part of a decade and this is still apparently the best they can do.

I think I need a drink

# ¿ Oct 20, 2015 16:55

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 02:12

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

IUG posted:

Have you tried another cable for it? Or another USB port? I don't know what those console messages are, but checking the connection is the first thing I think of when I read that something was disconnected.

I'd already done these; it ended up being some sort of conflict with an existing backup (or at least, deleting my previous iPhone backups fixed it). Now I'm back to the regularly scheduled programming of sorting out duplicated / missing tracks, and albums splitting themselves in two for quite literally no reason. :sigh:

# ¿ Oct 21, 2015 00:41

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

doctorfrog posted:

Prob because I'm on Windows 7, I only get two: the default one, and the old one that used to be the default one. :-\

If you're on Windows you can still install Winamp and get Milkdrop, the One True Visualizer.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2015 01:46

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

doctorfrog posted:

Tell me how to load it into iTunes, and you've given me new information. I'd love me some milkdrop.

I've been trying to find out how to do exactly this for years. At one point I came across an iTunes port but whatever plugin support it relied on had long since been removed from iTunes

Honestly, I wonder if the Milkdrop dev could be talked into setting up a Kickstarter for an iTunes port, because that's something I'd definitely throw down some money for.

Edit: Actually, I might be thinking of ProjectM. Could never figure out how to get it set up.

TACD fucked around with this message at 20:47 on Dec 13, 2015

# ¿ Dec 13, 2015 20:42

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

I've cleaned out all my music from iTunes and starting importing only stuff I actually listen to after cleaning up the tags, and I've already hit a problem. Does anybody know what causes a compilation album to appear under the 'Compilations' heading in iTunes, like so?

It's not the 'Compilation' checkbox under song info, because I have a whole lot of other albums that are marked as such (and are sorted under 'Compilations' in the filesystem) but don't appear under the heading:

It's not having the 'Artist' field set to 'Various Artists', or (as far as I can tell) having any of the 'sort as' fields set, or any of the ID3 tags iTunes doesn't display. What the gently caress does it take to get this program to behave?

# ¿ Sep 18, 2017 20:14

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

Minidust posted:

Hmm, so you have albums with the Compilation checkbox that [I]don't]/I] show up under the Compilations heading in iTunes album view? That seems odd. As far as I can tell, that checkbox get prioritized over the Album Artist field (i.e. an album with specific Album Artist metadata will still get pulled into Compilations if it has the checkbox checked).

Are your albums properly displaying with all their tracks together at least? It's a common tagging problem to have a compilation incorrectly split into like a separate album for each track, but it sounds like you're past that.

Yes and yes. And just for funsies, I tried unchecking 'Compilation' on a single track in an album; for an album under the 'Compilation' heading it will pull the entire album out into the main list and for an album already in the main list it does nothing. In either case the whole album is displayed together even though the individual track gets moved to its own directory. :psyduck:

# ¿ Sep 18, 2017 21:36

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

IUG posted:

What if you check the entire album a compilation, and then turn it off for the entire album? Maybe that will force it off. Works for me when albums "split" (one or more track goes off and becomes a second album of just a few tracks).

I can force the albums out of the Compilations section by unchecking the box, but checking it won't force them in to that section.

Chris Knight posted:

Check for the Album Artist tag as well, or the sort by section.

The Album Artist field is set properly on all of them... however, I did discover that I can make iTunes put them into the Compilation setting by (incorrectly) setting the Album Artist to 'Various Artists', which will have to do I suppose. I can't believe there's a single iTunes developer who actually has a properly organised and categorised library, iTunes just doesn't allow it.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2017 21:35

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

pmchem posted:

Also, what in the flying gently caress, they removed the app store browsing from the desktop itunes app? Why, just why? They removed two features I loved.

What's even better is that if you'd downloaded apps to your computer they don't get removed even though they're (presumably) useless now. Get rid of your Mobile Apps directory and reclaim potentially gigabytes of space.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2017 17:07

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

I bought an album from iTunes today and before the purchase completed there was an extra dialog warning me that "I acknowledge that if I download or listen to this album within 14 days of buying it I will no longer be eligible to cancel this purchase."

I then received separate emails with the same warning for every track on the album. :stare:

I haven't bought anything from iTunes in a while; is this a UK thing or new in 12.7 or what?

# ¿ Sep 26, 2017 11:47

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

My new gripe with iTunes is that after carefully sourcing huge clean album art images for all my albums, the thumbnail that iTunes shows in the main window appears to be downsampled to something like 500x500

# ¿ Jun 18, 2018 08:04

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

Any ideas about what to do about this fresh bullshit?

The tags are all fine, and as you can see the 'now playing' screen knows perfectly well what the songs are called (and the 'Up Next' list is fine too). I've tried removing the tracks and re-adding them, and to be honest I don't even know how to Google for this problem without pulling up home remedies for the thousand other similar issues iTunes and Apple Music has.

I'm just so very, very tired.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2018 13:48

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

The Modern Leper posted:

Check your "Grouping" tag in iTunes.

Thank you so much! This wasn't quite the problem but it was close enough that it helped me quickly find the solution: for some reason the 'Work' tag (which I had no idea existed as iTunes helpfully hides it behind a ticky box) had been filled in with the artist name.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2018 12:38

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

I'd love to know how iTunes developers use the product they create since they presumably have the Golden Music Workflow that avoids all of these issues.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2019 19:40

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

Minidust posted:

What I'll probably end up doing is liking/disliking individual tracks to tailor my own personal listening, and using stars as more of a popularity measure for use in different "general audience" settings.

FYI I don't think there's any way to access star ratings from within iOS, if that matters to you. It wouldn't surprise me if they get removed entirely from whatever music app replaces iTunes since the like/dislike measure is newer and it doesn't really make sense to have both.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2019 19:31

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

Henrik Zetterberg posted:

You can rate songs in the Music app by hitting the "..." button.

Oh, I�d just disabled star ratings in the app settings :downs:

# ¿ Apr 30, 2019 20:45

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

Rick posted:

The one thing you can say about the music app is it is way better and more ready for this than the podcast app, which is almost useless. Somehow worse than the iOS version it's a port of. Listening to podcasts on your computer wasn't a thing I did so it's hard to be too mad at it but yeah it's bad times.

gently caress poo poo, I was stupidly hoping that a standalone podcast app would be able to simply sync podcast episodes and play location with my phone without duplicating them or marking random episodes as Saved or perpetually resetting the view mode or

# ¿ Aug 19, 2019 14:11

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

Here's something fun. I got a new computer and transferred over my music library (i.e. the entire Catalina 'Music' directory) on an external hard drive. On the new computer, none of the album art shows up, despite very clearly still being embedded in each file. Does anybody what exciting trials I have to endure to get the album art embedded in the file to actually show up?

Edit: As usual, posting the question means I immediately discover the answer myself :cool:

TACD fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Feb 19, 2020

# ¿ Feb 19, 2020 21:05

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

Violator posted:

Does anyone manually manage song data like Genres? With Apple Music, I have a poo poo ton more songs now and browsing is becoming difficult because everything is so spread out. I don�t need five different sub genres of Raggae listed, and I don�t need an artist to have music in several genres if it�s all the same god damned stuff.

Yea, when I rebooted my library (i.e. starting from scratch and only importing music I actually listen to) I decided to actually do genres properly. I just stick the artist names in Every Noise at Once and go with what it suggests, though I now have the opposite problem to you where I only have one Synthwave genre and I probably need half a dozen.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2020 09:43

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

Or the much cheaper iTunes Match

# ¿ May 4, 2020 14:37

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

It's actually all incredibly simple. Apple Music plays your music, either from Apple Music or from ~/Music/Music/Media/Music (as long as there's no problem with your Music Library stored at ~/Music/Music/Music Library.musiclibrary). Using Apple Music for Apple Music incurs a monthly fee, or you can purchase music outright from the� iTunes Store.

# ¿ May 17, 2020 19:38

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

I just tried out the Podcasts app on Big Sur for the first time and holy lmao. As far as I can tell there is literally no way of seeing individual podcast episodes that have been downloaded but not subscribed to, and there is no way of ordering subscriptions with the newest episodes at the top. It used to revert to oldest-at-top all the time when they were still part of iTunes too; am I really the insane one for not wanting to have to scroll through ~600 past episodes of a show to look at the newest episode�s info?

# ¿ May 26, 2021 09:23

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

So now that ~~iTunes~~ Music is supposedly native, and since everybody is hating on Spotify and I got another free 6 months of Apple Music to try, I thought I'd give it another go.

Trip report: What� the gently caress is wrong with this? Or me?

If I do "Create Station" from an artist, how do I actually view that station? Am I not allowed to see the upcoming tracks, or save the station for later, or anything? I can view things like my "Favourites Mix" or any other Apple-generated playlist so the functionality to do this clearly exists.
Search either does not work (literally does nothing when I hit Enter) or a dropdown window steals focus after every single letter so I can't actually type anything.
If I keep using this, does it eventually not suck absolute poo poo at recommending me things? Is the 'Browse' view supposed to be completely generic or will it get tailored to what I actually like?
If I click "Add to Library" on something like "Chill Mix" is that going to add it as a playlist, or add each individual song? I really don't want to have 'fake' entries for songs I don't actually own floating around in my library.

Usually I'd be prepared to give things a go the "Apple intended way" but I honestly have no idea how I'm even supposed to listen to the music I want with this, and I'm too traumatised from having used iTunes to experiment. I already have to go in an de-duplicate a bunch of albums even though I've meticulously added every single one by hand on this iteration of my library; Apple's malicious cloud syncing code just can't leave this poo poo alone.

This poo poo still sucks and as ever I'd be genuinely fascinated to look over the shoulder of an iTunes dev for a day and see how they actually use this loving thing.

TACD fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Jan 31, 2022

# ¿ Jan 31, 2022 18:21

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

God loving drat it I wish I could pinpoint exactly when my computer decides to recategorise my purchased and retagged tracks as �uploaded� so it can download a duplicate �purchased� copy with incorrect tags.

I still wouldn�t be able to stop ~~iTunes~~ Music from making GBS threads itself with endless self-generated duplicates but at least I�d know when to scream and swear. It�s like having to constantly bail out a sinking ship.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2022 10:37

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

I'm giving Apple Music another go and I still don't understand how people use this. Like literally, mechanically, how do you listen to an album you've added to your library when they so frequently split themselves like this?

I somehow thought that this was a problem with locally added music and Apple Music albums wouldn't do this but I'm clearly wrong.

# ¿ May 18, 2023 12:28

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

IUG posted:

I don�t have that problem often, but when I do I just select all of the same album and get info on them. If the (sort) artist and albums (or album artist) are already the same, then I add a space to the end of the album name, then do it again to remove it. That usually glues them back together.

Other than that, see if some are marked as �part of a compilation� or not, see if the artist has a track with a featured artist, and then use the album artist field, etc.

Yeah it's fixable, but it's absolutely buck-wild that this happens directly from clicking the "Add to Library" button. Apple's obviously able to keep albums together as a single unit on their backend, so something very stupid must be happening for it to split into two just for my local copy when I've not touched the metadata at all.

Poo In An Alleyway posted:

Unrelated but your taste in music is excellent

# ¿ Jun 9, 2023 15:31

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

I�ve been using Cider on Windows and it�s pretty nice, unsurprisingly way more responsive than iTunes ever was.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2023 10:31

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

I foolishly tried to solve my duplicates problem by interacting with iTunes, and clicked File > Library > Show Duplicate Items. Now my 'Recently Added' playlist is stuck in song view mode and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get the album view back� I'm so, so tired of dealing with this cursed loving application every time I want to listen to music :cry:

# ¿ Jul 25, 2023 10:39

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

Poo In An Alleyway posted:

Does it not still appear under View > View As?

# ¿ Jul 25, 2023 11:19

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

Rinkles posted:

I've been trying to figure this out too, but I'm stuck in Album view

Have you tried clicking File > Library > Show Duplicate Items lol

Edit: Well, I clicked on "Listen Now" and then went back to "Recently Added" and it's changed back to the album view. I would be loving fascinated to spend a day watching how the iTunes / Apple Music devs use this goddamn thing, I assume it has to be where they send new/inexperienced coders to just kind of gently caress around and try things out.

TACD fucked around with this message at 12:59 on Jul 25, 2023

# ¿ Jul 25, 2023 12:53

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 02:12

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

Stare-Out posted:

Also how the gently caress is the default behavior of the podcast section of iTunes "play from newest to oldest" like who in their right mind does that?

I want the play order to be �oldest to newest from the point at which I subscribed to the podcast, and newest to oldest for episodes earlier than that�. Which sounds insane but I am sure is the best way to jump into a non-narrative podcast with a multi-year backlog

# ¿ Aug 30, 2023 00:00

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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