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Thursday, May 3, 2007
Some new switchers may be a bit upset when they discover that all their star ratings and play counts will be completely missing when they migrate their iTunes library from their PC to their new Mac (*if their library exceeds the size of their iPods density.) Certainly, not all those waking from the Dark Side will have this issue; however, the few that do will not be happy when they install iTunes 7.1.1 (5). Why? Because the great trick of corrupting your iTunes Library.itl and changing the path information in your iTunes Music Library.xml file no longer works for easy migration. After attempting this trick myself and it failing, I spent the last three nights looking for a fix or even an ITL editor. I found neither. I then called AppleCare and stumped Ben. I pleaded with him to find someone that knew if there was an ITL editor “or something,” and he put me on hold. He came back five minutes later after speaking to someone “that works on this stuff” and told me that all my tricks I had attempted where the only ones this high-up guy could suggest. He acknowledged that my 140 GB Library would not transfer via the official Apple way. Ugh.
Apple really needs to stop breaking things. The “trick” was a wonderful way of moving libraries around, but for some reason, Apple thought it wise to stop that from happening. Now I’m seriously considering keeping my stupid PC around just for maintaining my iTunes library until a fix for the transfer comes around. I mean, is that lame or what? But what’s an anal guy to do who likes those stars? I’m sure there’s some copyright issue Apple is trying to avoid here and it probably figures using the iPod as a transfer device keeps them legal, but come on, at least let us use an external hard drive if you won’t let us simply say “Hey, I no longer use this path but now use this path for my music files”. Makes no sense why I can’t just change my path, but I guess there’s some deeper reason for that (or just a lame one.)
Now, if you let iTunes organize your library and keep it order, moving the iTunes folder from one OS to another may work though I have not confirmed this. Ben at AppleCare told me that OSX can understand Windows paths for conversion and it should work; however, I think he meant local paths (if that) as it did not understand my network path when I attempted this. If the music was local to the drive, again, maybe it would work but I haven’t found any other forum or blog posts to indicate this.
So, now why doesn’t Apple support network storage of music? Nearly every one that I know stores all of their music files on a network drive. I have mine on a NAS RAID5 set-up. It just makes more sense to put all of your valuable assets on such a set-up and I can’t understand why Apple won’t code into iTunes the ability to import and make changes to the settings file (ITL). Then to go one more step and break the ITL corruption trick is even worse!
I really hope there is a way around this problem because I’m dying to get my iTunes on my soon-to-be purchased Mac Pro. I want to keep all my music on the NAS for back-up purposes (I also use Amazon S3 for off-site protection.) Maybe one of you know of a fix? Tell us about it then in the comments.
May 3rd, 2007 at 10:43
I suggest the following method of transferring the iTune Library from one location to another, irregardless of OS …
Merely physically copy the iTunes folder to a adequate-sized transfer media (CD, DVD, USB Thumb Drive, USB/Firewire external drive).
On the destination drive (whatever OS) - with iTunes installed and accessed at least once, replace the existing iTunes folder with the relocated iTunes folder.
Next time starting up iTunes it will read in the iTunes Library - COMPLETELY - no translation required!!!
Note: the default iTunes filename is “iTunes” and the default location is in the [username]/Music (or My Music on a PC)
I really don’t understand what all of the fuss & fear of switchers/recoverers is about. This simple process has worked everytime!!!
May 3rd, 2007 at 12:01
Thanks for the info, Charles; however, I did try that (and neglected to put that in the post) and this does not work, either. Two reasons, first the 7.1.1(5) version doesn’t correct corrupted ITL files anymore and iTunes (Mac) doesn’t understand or translate my Windows network path . In fact, when I opened the xml file, the path hadn’t even been changed. Maybe since I use a network drive, that’s part of the issue. Either way, if your music is on a network drive, you’ve added some major complexity to the issue apparently.
May 4th, 2007 at 1:58
“and this does not work, either”
didn’t you mean, “and did not work for me, either”
his method has worked for me many, many times
May 4th, 2007 at 7:21
Bill, what version of iTunes are using? This post mainly focuses on iTunes 7.1.1 (5) which is all anyone can download from Apple anymore. If you’re using an older version, than my statement is still applicable.
May 4th, 2007 at 10:04
This is actually pretty easy to do:
1. Make a copy of the iTunes Music Library.xml file from the PC and open it in a text editor.
2. Do a find and replace to change the Windows paths to Mac ones:
localhost//COMPUTERNAME/SharedFolderName/
localhost/Volumes/SHARING/SharedFolderName/
3. Save the modified XML file to your network share.
4. Delete the iTunes Library and iTunes Music Library file on the Mac.
5. Open iTunes.
6. Choose Import from the File menu and navigate to the modified xml file.
Ta da!
May 4th, 2007 at 10:11
Oops, omit the SHARING from the Mac path name. It’s just:
localhost/Volumes/SharedFolderName/
May 4th, 2007 at 20:20
That didn’t work, Roy. It gave me radio waves (thinking it was an Internet Station) for every song and of course it wouldn’t play any of them. However, when I did file://localhost/Volumes/NetworkShareName/PathOnServer/Song, it worked. Kind of. It failed to import all 19660 songs (only got about 3,000) but it’s better than all my previous results. I’m trying again plugging my MacBook Pro directly into the switch and see if that helps (as opposed to using the biscuit.)
May 5th, 2007 at 10:13
OK, well what is different about the path listed for the files that don’t get imported or get imported incorrectly?
May 7th, 2007 at 6:37
It seems my older library is the missing amount. The ones that do make it are in the path:
file://localhost/Volumes/NetworkShareName/iTunes Music/Artist/Song
as opposed to:
file://localhost/Volumes/NetworkShareName/MP3’s/Category/Artist/Song
May 7th, 2007 at 9:00
Ah, I think I understand. By default, iTunes for Windows does not copy songs from their original location into the iTunes Music folder when you add them to the library. So only the songs that you buy from the iTunes Store or import from CD in iTunes will be in that folder, and the other songs will be in their original locations. You can change this setting in iTunes preferences > Advanced > General. Also, if you have the disk space on your server, you can choose Consolidate Library from the Advanced menu. This will copy all of the files that are elsewhere into the iTunes Music folder.
May 7th, 2007 at 14:12
I’m thinking I’m close, Roy. Real close.
So if I do the Consolidate Library, it won’t move all my files locally but just move them on the server? I’ve been wanting to do this for some time now, but I was afraid it would bring everything local even though my settings clearly show the mapped network drive as the iTunes folder location. I have 350 GB free on the server (more than enough for the move) so I’ll try this. It’ll be nice to have everything in one path.
Roy, what part of Apple are working in? Please, forward your information to AppleCare. It’ll be a great help!
May 7th, 2007 at 14:29
The Consolidate Library function will put a copy of all of the files in your iTunes library in the Articst >Album folder hierarchy in whichever folder you have designated to be your iTunes Music folder location in iTunes preferences > Advanced > General. It will copy (not move) the files, so you’ll need to have enough space on the server for two copies of all the files in the “MP3’s” folder. After the consolidation is completed, verify that all the files got copied, and then you can trash the “MP3’s” folder.
What you’re doing is pretty edge case, but I’ll see what we can do about our documentation.
May 9th, 2007 at 7:46
Thank you, Roy. I got them all but 30 files. Don’t know why those 30 didn’t make it, but I’m going to do a diff between the iTunes XML and the imported one to see which files didn’t make it. But heck, 30 out of 20k works for me!
I figure what I’m doing is a rare thing, but as more Windows users come to the Mac, I figure it’ll become more common. Hopefully with your documentation, AppleCare will be able to better handle this with the next call.
Again, thank you Roy. Once again, you proved why Apple is different than any other company.