Itunes help?

splishsplash

I'm not if this is the right board for this, please move if it isn't...

Itunes seems to be working perfectly normally, music can be imported from cds, playlists can be created etc., but when we open it later or the next day, it's been wiped... all the music appears in various folders in the the Music Folder on the laptop, and seems to be stored with MP3 extensions.

Anyone got any idea how to fix this, or how to save all the music files with itunes extensions (if such a thing exists).

Any help much appreciated.

Marty_J

ITunes' default format is AAC. You change what it uses in Preferences > General > Import settings. I wouldn't recommend converting from mp3 to AAC though, as the quality will suffer. If you want your files in AAC format, you should rip them from the original CDs.

As for your iTunes library disappearing, I have no idea why that keeps happening. I would be worried about my HDD though if files kept vanishing. You might want to run Chkdsk to check for any errors.

James_W_4

I'd stick with MP3 format as it can't be copy protected and it is the universal standard so it will play on any MP3 player.

As for why it's disappearing, maybe go to Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced tab. What is 'iTunes folder location'? Then open windows explorer and check if the MP3 files are there.

James_W_4

By the way, for your MP3 format options (under Import settings), I'd recommend 128 or 160kbps for the quality setting. I once ripped loads of my collection using windows media player before realising that the quality setting was way too low :rolleyes:

mluton

Are you manually managing music or letting iTunes control it for you ?

Marty_J

James_W wrote: »

By the way, for your MP3 format options (under Import settings), I'd recommend 128 or 160kbps for the quality setting. I once ripped loads of my collection using windows media player before realising that the quality setting was way too low :rolleyes:

Personally, I'd say 128 kbps is too low for mp3. I would avoid anything lower than 192 kbps.

And you don't have to worry about copy protection if you're ripping your own CDs.

splishsplash

Em, I'm a bit lost with all of this, to be honest. My daughter got a new laptop (Sony vaio if that matters) and is trying to transfer all her music to it. I downloaded itunes, and authorized my account on it. We thought that would pull up old playlists (that are on other computers) but it didn't.

When we lost the stuff she loaded the first time, I had a quick look and changed to manually manage music. In the meantime, my other daughter synced her ipod to the new laptop, I'm not sure if that had any effect. The application manager on the laptop asked to set default account associations and I just accepted the options they offered me. I also made itunes the default player.

The next day, she loaded about five or six cds (her own), but the playlist vanished again. She tried to drag and drop tracks from the music folder to the itunes window, which worked, until she came back to it today to find all lists have vanished again.

I sincerely hope it's not a HDD problem - the laptop is brand new. I'll have a go with the itunes location and import settings tonight, if I can figure out what I'm looking at!

Thanks again... more later!

splishsplash

Hi again,
I've checked the Edit-Preferences and the Itunes music folder location is C:\Users\Hello\Music\iTunes\iTunes Music.

Automatic syncing has been disabled.

Import settings: Import Using: AAC Encoder; Setting: iTunes Plus; Details: 128kbps (mono)/256 kbps (stereo), 44.100kHz VBR, optimized for MMX/SSE2. The 'Use error correction when reading Audio CDs' checkbox is ticked.

When I open the iTunes Folder in the Music Link in All Programs, the songs that were copied from (original) CDs are there.
If I right click and look at properties, they all say saved as iT.tmp; type of file is TMP File (.tmp), and it says it Opens With: Windows Shell Common (there may be more, it's blocked by the 'Change' button).

I've tried changing the Opens With: to iTunes, and that has now changed for all the songs.

I re-booted, but no playlists magically appeared in the library, so I've now imported one file to iTunes, and switched off for a bit. I'll see if it has stayed later or tomorrow.

Fingers crossed! I'm hoping that my daughter just failed to select some checkbox or other, and that they were stored as .tmp files because of that... is that likely, anyone??

M4RKM

splishsplash wrote: »

Em, I'm a bit lost with all of this, to be honest. My daughter got a new laptop (Sony vaio if that matters) and is trying to transfer all her music to it. I downloaded itunes, and authorized my account on it. We thought that would pull up old playlists (that are on other computers) but it didn't.

No... playlists are local to one computer, as the files are stored on that computer.

If you have no music stored on the new laptop, it's not going to show anything there... you need to create playlists on the new computer and have music in the library.

splishsplash

markymoo wrote: »

No... playlists are local to one computer, as the files are stored on that computer.

If you have no music stored on the new laptop, it's not going to show anything there... you need to create playlists on the new computer and have music in the library.

The songs are stored on the laptop, but they have jumped from the playlists they were in to the general music folder - I was hoping that when I changed the extension on the files that they would jump back to iTunes... but they didn't :sad:.

ETA: Sorry, should have explained she added songs to the laptop since she bought it, from her own original CDs. I understand the bit about the old playlists being local to other computers (though I think it's a bit daft, it would be so much better if it could be like an email inbox - local to the account rather than the machine). That was more of a general bit of wishful thinking...

strugglingmum_2

Hi splishsplash, the problem we found was the conflict between the i-tunes and the Vaio, we fixed it by doing the following
1.Open Control Panel
2. Open Vaio Content Analyzer Settings
3. In Music tab, uncheck "Analyze Music Files" and at the bottom uncheck your music folder.

Hope this helps