Favorite ID3 tag utility?
I've just moved about 6 gigs worth of music from my PC to my Mac, and with the exception of the song name, all the other information seems to have vanished (album name, artist, etc.).
After manually typing in one, 16-song album's meta data, I'm looking for the best way to automate this process.
Suggestions appreciated.
-G
PowerBook G4 800Mhz Mac OS X (10.4.2)
It's possible--even likely--that your files are tagged with something other than ID3. Depending on the software you used to create the MP3s, they could have, for example, APE tags (technically better than ID3, but not supported by iTunes).
What I would do is use your Windows machine to convert the tags to ID3 version 2.3. Assuming you're using some decent software like foobar2000 or Winamp, this shouldn't be a problem at all. Once the tags are converted/rewritten to ID3 format, you can test how this works by transferring one or more files to your Mac and seeing what happens in iTunes. Or, assuming you're running Windows 2000/XP on your PC, you can test the files with iTunes on that computer before transferring the whole lot of files.
Similar Messages
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Itunes, ID3 tags, & hard drive corruption
My wife is having a strange problem with her iMac, and it’s got me a bit mystified. I’m hoping someone here can shed some light on what might be going on. I apologize in advance for the long post.
The problem is that when she plays some songs in iTunes, and entirely different (wrong) song plays instead. Most songs play fine, but some just play entirely different songs (or sections of a song or podcast). All of the tracks are MP3 (either 192 kbps or 256 kbps) and almost all of them were encoded using Windows Media Player on an XP machine. Initially, I copied the music over from an NTFS drive to a newly formatted (Mac OS/HFS+) drive on the Mac, then I ran iTunes and created the library. At that point, everything seemed fine. All the meta data (song title, album title, artist, album artist, genre, album art) showed up in iTunes, and everything played correctly.
Now we’re getting this weird behavior where we play some songs and get the wrong music. At first I thought the iTunes library files (ITL and/or XML) had been corrupted, but it seems on closer inspection that the entire hard drive has been corrupted. When I look at the files on Mac hard drive via the Finder, all seems ok – the directory structure is intact, the file names and sizes are all correct, and a Get Info on any MP3 file shows that the ID3 data is all there and seems accurate. This is true even for the songs that play wrong, but if I play one of those songs using the little mini player in the Get Info dialog, the wrong song plays (the same wrong song as in iTunes). So now I’m getting the behavior straight off the drive, with iTunes closed and the iTunes library completely out of the equation.
Some other interesting clues/evidence:
* This has happened before. When her first hard drive got corrupted (in the same way), I was mystified but chalked it up as a bad hard drive and got her a new one. Then we started over with a clean HFS+ formatted drive and clean music files and built a new iTunes library. And now the same thing has happened again. So I don’t think it’s just a bad hard drive.
* It seems to be progressive. That is, everything was fine in the beginning, but over time more and more files get messed up. We know this because we have a backup that’s about a month old on which we can locate files that are fine (on the backup) but that are messed up on her connected day-to-day drive. So it seems like some activity on the drive is causing problems that are growing over time.
* There is some weird meta data (ID3) behavior. I copied a few hundred MP3 files from the Mac drive back to the PC (over our home network) and looked at them in the Windows Explorer. The first thing I saw was that the same (wrong) music played for the bad tracks as had on the Mac. And I also saw that a lot of ID3 tags were not showing on the Windows side. Lots of tracks have no ID3 data (album, artist, genre, etc. is missing) when I look at them on the PC. There are many albums where tags show up correctly for some of the tracks but not for others. In fact, the number of files where the ID3 tags aren’t visible on the PC far exceeds the number of songs that play incorrectly on the Mac. When I look back on the Mac at the songs that have no ID3 data on the PC and do a Get Info, I see the ID3 data.
* Often, though I can’t say always for sure, the wrong music that plays on the Mac is stuff that has been recently added. Either podcasts or music that my wife has added since the initial library was established.
My best guess (though still full of holes):
Something is confusing the Mac OS into writing on top of occupied space on the hard drive or into mapping files incorrectly in the drive’s allocation table, and chaos results. The Mac doesn’t think anything is wrong, and it shows everything as being clean in the Finder. So I started thinking about the kind of reads & writes my wife is doing on that drive. She rips new CDs to add to the library, she downloads new Podcasts and deletes old ones, and she changes ID3 tags.
I’m focusing on the changing ID3 tag activity. My wife doesn’t like the way I tag genre. I like big broad categories, an she likes smaller, more specific categories. So she has gone through the initial library of 42K+ songs and changed the genre on thousands of songs. She’s change some from Pop to Power Pop or from Pop to Indie Pop or from Rock to Indie Rock, etc. Both WMP (where the tags were created) and iTunes support ID3v2.3, and so these two programs ought to be able to change tags in a totally interchangeable and safe way. But what if iTunes writes its new genre tags in a way that’s slightly different from WMP? Could iTunes be writing to memory/disk locations that are outside the boundaries of the file and thus creating some kind of buffer overrun?
It really doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it does tie back to the evidence that this has something to do with meta data, gets worse over time, happened on more than one disk, and seems to be a file allocation table issue.
Even if I get to the bottom of this, I think my wife’s HD is toast for sure. Here’s what I think I will do: I’ll reformat the drive, re-copy the music over from the PC, and build a new iTunes library. Then, first thing, I’ll open iTunes, select all the songs in the new library, and run “Convert ID3 Tags” to ID3v2.4. If that works and everything behaves correctly, I’ll try to change some genre tags and test the results. The problem is that the library is so large that problems can go undetected for a long time, so maybe I should do this first with a small subset of the music as a trial run.
The thing I want to avoid is having to do this (ever) again, so I’d feel more comfortable if I understood the bug/problem before just following this guess (which feels like a roll of the dice). If anyone has seem similar behavior or has heard of any IDS incompatibilities between WMP 11 and iTunes 7, I’d love to hear about it. Any help is appreciated.
JimWow, that was a long and detailed post. I haven't the energy to reply in equal fervor, but I will just say that lately these boards have been peppered with posts from people whose MP3s are being eaten alive by iTunes. What I don't get is why you suspect the hard drive is at fault. Unless the rest of the system is caving in, I don't think there's any reason to suspect a failing drive. Check the S.M.A.R.T. status in Disk Utility if you haven't already, and perform whatever maintenance you believe is in order.
For the most reliable ID3 tag editing, I'd certainly recommend using foobar2000 on a Windows PC (or a Mac with Windows installed) or MP3Tag. I would definitely, at least for the time being, not put your huge music collection at risk by doing any further editing of the tags in iTunes. -
Having imported my music library and converted ID3 tags to version 2.4, when I view the files in Windows Explorer all the tag information has been deleted. This problem stays even when files are converted to AAC format (also, rather than AAC the files show as M4A in Windows)
Please can anybody advise me as to what I need to do? I don't have an iPod just yet (will be purchasing the 80Gb version if I can be sure this problem can be solved).
Thanks In Advance
AndrewPlease install the old utility.. 5.6
I am not at all sure 6.2 or the new firmware on the TC if you upgraded are not the cause of the problem..
If you upgraded the TC downgrade again.. simply hold the option key when you select firmware.. 7.6.3 is full of bugs.. for now it is not worth the pain.
There is nothing wrong with your setup that I can see.. so I really suggest the older utility.. and then you can track the log of the TC.. no longer available in v6 utility. It is a toy.
How to load 5.6 into ML.
1. Download 5.6 for Lion.
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1482
Click to open the dmg but do not attempt to install the pkg.. it won't work anyway.
2. Download and install unpkg.
http://www.timdoug.com/unpkg/
Run unpkg on the desktop.. it is very simple.. drag the AirPortUtility56.pkg file over to unpkg.. and it will create a new directory of the same name on the desktop.. drill down.. applications utilities .. there lo and behold is Airport utility 5.6 .. drag it to your main utilities directory or just run it from current location.
You cannot uninstall 6.1 (now 6.2) so don't try.. and you cannot or should not run them both at the same time.. so just ignore the toyland version.. the plastic hammer.. and start using 5.6.. a real tool.
For screen shots see this post.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4668746?tstart=0 -
I just learned that you can convert ID3 tags to Unicode right in iTunes. I used to use Unicode Rewriter, but now I can't convert them in either - it just stays the same! I don't know what's different in my computer now, but I did a complete system restore from my recovery partition since then! Please help! Thanks in advance.
version 7.5
and yes, I did verify/repair permissions with the utility disc.
Should I not have? -
I wonder if you can help me...
Does anyone know of a utility that will place the rating, play count and last time played information from the iTunes library into the ID3 tag of a music file?
Does anyone know why this information is only stored in the iTunes music library when ID3 supports storing the information and its use has been exploited in other music players?
ThanksWhilst I take your point about the information not really belonging in the files metadata, I would still like the option somewhere in iTunes to store this information within the file thus removing the dependency on the library.
The information is representative of the file, and my listening habits. I don't share my files with anybody so the information isn't describing anybody elses musical tastes.
My main problem, other than losing information if I forget to backup my iTunes libary is that if I were to import the files into a different player, WMP or Windows MCE for example, I loose the information.
I will keep on searching for a suitable utility - before I have to write one myself!! -
When I rate a track in iTunes, does it write the info to mp3 ID3 tag? I want to make sure the rating info is not lost when I move around the mp3 file from one to another computer.
Dell Inspiron 6000 Laptop Windows XP ProWhen I rate a track in iTunes, does it write the info
to mp3 ID3 tag?
No.
I want to make sure the rating info
is not lost when I move around the mp3 file from one
to another computer.
The rating will be lost when you do that. Unless you use some other utility to save and restore it, like this one: http://ottodestruct.com/blog/2006/02/03/itunes-saveratings-script/ -
Rhythmbox 0.13.1 not handling ID3 tags properly from mt-daapd server
I have an mt-daapd server (Firefly) serving a music library to various clients on my home network. My wife's Ubuntu desktop with Rhythmbox 0.13.1 reads the ID3 tags of files served with no problems (screenshot below):
My Roku SoundBridge device can also access the files and read the ID3 tags without issue, as can iTunes on a Windows XP machine.
However, since the the 2010-10-04 update of Rhythmbox on Arch x86_64, ID3 tags on files served by the mt-daapd server appear to be only partially readable (just the title and the genre), which results in all tracks being categorized as "Unknown" artist, album, etc. in Rhythmbox (screenshot below):
Until the Oct 4 update, things worked well. Any ideas as to what may have changed? It does NOT appear to be an ID3 support issue on the host computer running mt-daapd, as other client devices on my network can read the tags just fine, and things only went awry after the latest update.
Any help is much appreciated. Cheers.Hmmm ... PKGBUILD listed the dependency as musicbrainz-2.1.5 without any editing needed:
pkgname=rhythmbox
pkgver=0.13.1
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc="An iTunes-like music player/libary"
arch=('i686' 'x86_64')
license=('GPL')
url="http://www.rhythmbox.org"
depends=('libgpod>=0.7.93' 'libsoup-gnome>=2.31.92' 'gnome-media>=2.31.6' 'totem-plparser>=2.31.92' 'musicbrainz>=2.1.5' 'libmtp>=1.0.2' 'libnotify>=0.4.5' 'lirc-util$ ...
I removed libmusicbrainz3 (and sound-juicer, as it depends on it) anyway. Then I rebuilt Rhythmbox with abs and reinstalled (largely because I hadn't done this sort of thing in a while), but no change.
Thanks in advance for any other suggestions. -
Export Ratings to ID3 Tag? iTunes Macro?
I've got a reasonably large music collection, and decided to get it a bit more organised by using ratings to create dynamic playlists, rather than manually creating playlists only occasionally.
All of my music is in my own folder structure, with its own file names, etc - and I want to keep it like that. I'm a little concerned therefore with the idea of spending a long time rating songs in iTunes since if I later have to rename tracks or move folders, as I understand it iTunes will lost those songs and when they're re-imported will lose my ratings!
So, what i'd like to do is to be able to export ratings from iTunes to the ID3 tag (all of my music is MP3), and i'll also need to be able to do the same in reverse, ie import the tracks and automatically set the rating based on what is in the tags.
One thought was that I could just use the "Year" field (which is empty on all of my tracks), however i'd rather keep using the proper ratings field in iTunes so that I can change ratings on my iPod directly.
Is there such a thing as an iTunes Macro? Is there another way to do what I want? I'd happily settle for a function that could copy the ratings (1-5) into the Year or Comments field, and back again.Whilst I take your point about the information not really belonging in the files metadata, I would still like the option somewhere in iTunes to store this information within the file thus removing the dependency on the library.
The information is representative of the file, and my listening habits. I don't share my files with anybody so the information isn't describing anybody elses musical tastes.
My main problem, other than losing information if I forget to backup my iTunes libary is that if I were to import the files into a different player, WMP or Windows MCE for example, I loose the information.
I will keep on searching for a suitable utility - before I have to write one myself!! -
Converting ID3 tags on iTunes/Folder problems
I just go my nano and am setting up the music files I've been collecting over the years, some of which don't have ID3 tags.
It seems when I load my libray it automatically converts the files, but it drops them into their own folder (artist, album name etc).
I would rather keep all my music files in the one root directory for easier access. Can anyone tell how I can do that through iTunes?
I've gone to the Preferences --> Advanced page and set up my iTunes folder and checked the "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" box.
But when I add the files on the library, it sets up these folders I don't want.
Thanks] I would rather keep all my music files in the one root directory
Disable "Keep iTunes Music folder Organized" & "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to Library" in iTunes Preferences, Advanced tab. Future files added to the library will stay right where they came from. The setting for "Music folder location" will only apply to new imports from CD and music purchases through the store. Setting this value to an existing folder of music will not tell iTunes to "discover" the music that already lives there.
iTunes relies exclusively on ID3 tags. If your files don't include tags, then you need to get a 3rd party tag utility like "Tag & Renamer" or "ID3-TagIt" and get those V2.3 tags loaded into all your files. Those utilities can even generate the tags based on the folder names containing the files. -
Does anyone know a good utility for syncing ID3 tags in batches?
I have about 18000 mp3s, on which I have painstakingly regularized the tags in iTunes. The trouble is that some of these files have ID3v1 tags, and some have ID3v2, and some have both. In many cases the information in the two tags disagrees, particularly for genre.
What I want to do is sort of a "smart update." If the file has an ID3v2 tag, I want to leave it and remove the ID3v1 tag if it exists. If the file has only an ID3v1 tag, I want to convert it to ID3v2 and remove the ID3v1 tag. My goal is for all the files to have only ID3v2 tags.
I have experimented with the Convert ID3 Tag selection in iTunes, and found that if I convert to ID3v2, it does create an ID3v2 tag, but it leaves the ID3v1 tag appended. If I convert to ID3v1, the resulting file has no ID3v2 tag; but if I then convert it back to ID3v2, the file's original ID3v1 tag is restored, complete with mismatched genre information. I have to assume that it's getting this from its xml database.
Most of the third-party apps I've seen require you to go through the files one at a time. For 18000+ files that would take me until I die. I need something I can batch in command-line mode. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?The app I used back in my Windows days was TagScanner</
a>. I'm almost positive it can handle that.
Perfect, exactly what I needed. Thanks! -
what is the best id3 tag editor?
i used id3 tagit for pc and was pleased...anything like that for mac?Jaikoz...hands down.
The best tag editors (like the defunct iEatBrainz) use the muscibrainz data base. Essentially, by using an evolving list of proprietary softwares a song can be given an "acoustic fingerprint". This means that it can take an audio file with no information and sometimes deduce what the track is (along with retrieving it's metadata). There is a huge open and evolving database (musicbrainz) that it accesses to get your info. (Kind of like a wikipedia concept for music release data).
MPFreaker just fills in blanks if you have some info. Jaikoz is a very powerful, customizable ID tag editor. I'll warn you though, there's a bit of a learning curve. While it is user friendly, there is a lot to to learn. Try the 'getting started' tutorial and just start messing around. You'll get the basics soon enough.
I use Jaikoz a lot and have gotten my money's worth out of it. AND, it's free upgrades for life. Can't beat that. Combined with a few favorite scripts from "Doug's Applescripts" I finally feel like I can edit tags with abandon for iTunes.
Try Jaikoz, and try these scripts" from Doug's...
"Remove N characters from front or back"
"Proper English Capitalization"
"Find Album Art with Google"
And if you haven't discovered this yet, check it out...
"Add-Subtract half a star" -
Creative Mediasource ID3 Tags - Edit more than one year at a ti
I use a 60gb Zen Xtra with Mediasource. I take pride in the ID3 tags of all my files especially those of my Jazz collection and my player is well organised. The only thing I have to ask is - is there any way of editing the year of, say, an entire album that was recorded in 959 for example all at the same time. It lets me do this for Artist, Album and Genre but not year. Is there any upgrade in software I can get or am I just missing something here?
Thanks in advance for your input,MattShucks, I tried and you can't seem to do it. A curious oversight.
You can either use another copying program like which will let you do it, or simply get a mass tagger (but you will need to edit the tracks on the PC first, then copy). For some mass tagger recommendations look here in the Zen FAQ at Nomadness.net. -
Archiving cds and why do i need id3 tags
here comes another one of those questions looking at which codec to use to store music.....i also have tag questions.....
i'm about to (re-)rip my cd collection and looking at some info re codecs and id3 tags
now.....i believe i understand the benefits of alac (lower file sizes, keeping id3 tags, lossless compression) v wav(no compression)
however (and for some out there) if we just entertain the fact that wav may have some minute benefit for me depending on my questions and answers given.....and yes i know wav and alac will sound the same to the human ear - i accept that as a given of lossless compression ......
points i'd like to outline:
i am looking to rip my cds, firstly and mostly, for an archiving purpose!! purpose numero uno!!
i could well want to re-create cds with these archived records in the future
size of files is of no concern to me at all
i'm using a mac nowadays
i will convert most of these files, where needed, to use with a portable music player (i'm not bothered with having, say a wav file and then also converting and having an alac file, as crazy as that sounds)
this is where i ask for info re the benefits of embedded tags that are found in alac:
are these tags that important?
where do they come into play in ripping and later converting music?
are these uses just bells and whistles that have no benefit to my needs?
if i rip cds to wav (or aiff), say, using itunes, will cd info and track listings be available on the downloading database (eg itunes) to name these wav files?
if i then ensure these song files are kept under the album's folder, have i just done what tags do? surely not. that is all i have needed in the past.
this is where i feel i may be really missing what id tags (can) do
are tags more than just managing song files and where they belong and where they have come from?
is it just a convenience of not personally managing your song files (as per previous paragraph)?
(in the past i had ripped cds to mp3 codec. i think i used "cd rip" or something like that on my pc.
my mp3 files were individually named and sorted and kept under album folders under artist name folders.
apart form the very odd occasion all track and album info i needed was found on a database that was attached to the ripping software.
i never had a problem managing/maintaining these files and folders.)
i welcome some enlightenment on some of my questions above and other info that may be relevant
and yes, i understand that music will sound the same as a wav file or alac file - but humour me re using wav and tell me why i need id3 tags
i guess the crux of it is:
why do i need id3 tags?
does my managing of my song file in the album folder do what tags do?
what problems/shortcomings/headaches may i encounter by not having those tags if i use wav as opposed to alac?
what do i not know about these little buggers?
what codec is best for my purpose of archiving and re creating of cds (for playing in cd players)
thanks in advance for your input and any clarity that i may experience through this
peter t
excuse my long windedness (i have spent some time editing this entry)Crows2012 wrote:
as mentioned earlier if i just have songs (wav) in album folders, when i import these albums into itunes, do you know if these will come up under AN album with their file names purely using my filename setup (but with no artwork)?
Yes, iTunes will read the filename, such as "Track 1" or something else and display it. But nothing else. No Album or Artist.
so the tracks will remain grouped as an album based on their initial folder and the albums and tracks as per file name?
Crows2012 wrote:
also, does aiff have limitations (apart from the full size of the file)?
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. For all practical purposes AIFF and WAV are exactly the same thing. They're just file containers.
i thought that i had read somewhere that aiff tags could run into some issues with its tags - ie may not always be transferred 100% accurately with certain players (or hardware maybe)
Crows2012 wrote:
and how do these codecs work re-creating an album for the purposes of playing in a cd player? - this is a crucial question for the purpose of my archiving/backup of CDs THEMSELVES
That's actually going to depend on what burning software you use. Once you rip the tracks to whatever file container you choose (WAV/AIFF/ALAC) you'll never really exactly re-create the album. But for archiving purposes all three file containers will do what you want, which is to create a lossless archive. AIFF has the advantage of supporting embedded ID3, which ALAC has the additional advantage of the files also being about half the size of AIFF/WAV files.
i was thinking that maybe wav was able to recreate an album (in effect duplicate one) if my cd was lost or damaged in the future. i was thinking this IF when ripping to wav everything is unchanged (unless there is other data on the original cd). and maybe only possible with wav. the purpose for this would be to play recreated cds on my cd player
any idea on this one?
(i havent looked too thoroughly on this angle but i'll keep googling on this one)
much appreciate all info thus far
peter t -
My iTunes library and metadata/ID3 tags issue
Since 2010, iTunes is the only media player I use to play music. My library consists of music purchased from the iTunes Store, CD rips and stuff many artists these days release as freebies on the internet to promote a new album. Also, M4A and MP3 are the only formats I use so far.
Since iTunes, I really got into editing my library's metadata tags by hand, in order to create a custom archive which serves my preferences best. I should mention that besides iTunes being the only software I use to play my music library, it's also the only software I use to edit their metadata. Also, before iTunes – when my library was on different media players – I never bothered with editing them.
A few days ago, I found how a lot of people in forums complain about the way iTunes edits and stores metadata. So, I experimented and moved a few of my songs to other media players after editing their tags within iTunes. And indeed the tags and/or artwork were often displayed messed up and/or incorrect, some times partially and some times completely.
Some people were referring to the version of the ID3 tags being the issue, while others suggested using the "convert ID3 tags" feature. I myself am a little bit confused. "Converting the ID3 tags" wasn't available for my M4A files and once I performed it for my MP3's I didn't know which setting I should apply or what version to choose. I chose one version randomly but I'm not sure what happened.
My goal is to make my music library able to play and display my custom metadata on the majority of the popular media players. I hope that firstly this is possible and that secondly it won't be a solution which requires me going through every single song individually.
I really hope that all those years work on my library wasn't for nothing.
I'm using a MacBook running Snow Leopard 10.6.8 and my iTunes version is 10.7
While my music library is more important that my iTunes version, I do like iTunes 10 more than 11.
I apologize for any grammar mistakes, since English is not my first language. Thank you all for your time and any suggestion is welcome.itsjamesd wrote:
Hello turingtest2 and thank you for your reply.
In response to "a possible cause of problems is multiple embedded tags", what exactly does that mean and how can I avoid doing it in the future?
Anything ripped with iTunes should get a single tag. If multiple tags in some of your older mp3 rips are the cause of the problems when you try to access the files elsewhere then you should apply the suggested remedy selectively, not to the whole library indiscriminately. Once fixed you shouldn't have the problem again unless you use different ripping software. If so check the options to ensure you generate a single ID3v2.3 tag. Downloads from elsewhere are pot luck.
If I use Convert ID3 Tags>None before converting to v2.3 as you suggested, how many times is "several times" and why do I have to do it more than once? Also, what are your thoughts on 'v2.3 vs. v2.4'?
Several is at least two, but more could be needed if a file has both v1 and v2 tags in multiple languages. If there are two tags, the first conversion to none should remove the first one, and the second conversion the second. Experiment, And stick to v2.3.
In response to "the process removes any embedded art but otherwise preserves the data that iTunes knows". All fields excluding cover art remain the same? Does that mean that I will have to start from scratch and apply new cover art individually for each album? That would be too time consuming given the fact that I embed custom art.
Yes, everything but artwork is held in the iTunes database and is restored with the final Convert ID3 Tags... v2.3. Use Doug's scripts SaveAlbumArtJpeg before you start and RestoreArtworkFromAlbumFolder afterwards to save and the restore your existing artwork.
Also, what happens with my M4A files' metadata? ID3 tags are only used for MP3's, right?
Yes, m4a/aac files have a different tag mechanism. Multiple ID3 tags is just one possible issue that you might have. You said:
So, I experimented and moved a few of my songs to other media players after editing their tags within iTunes. And indeed the tags and/or artwork were often displayed messed up and/or incorrect, some times partially and some times completely.
It might be worth going into some more detail about exactly what differences you noticed. iTunes can automatically associate (instead of embedding) artwork when it can match the album in the store which could be why some tracks didn't get artwork.
tt2 -
Bad bug with ID3 tags of different case for same artist
My itunes files and music library are on a different drive than my boot drive. It is an internal drive (always on) in my Mac Pro at /Volumes/Media1/iTunes with music library at /Volumes/Media1/iTunes/iTunes Music. iTunes is setup to automatically keep it organized and copy files to the media folder when adding. It has been this way for years, never a problem.
Just recently, and I think this may have coincided (but I'm not sure) with a 10.6.5 Snow Leopard update, my music started disappearing! The entries were still in the library, but with the missing exclamation mark in itunes with it reporting that it couldn't find the files. But only certain artists. After searching my computer, I found the missing files it at the same path, but on my boot drive, at /Media1/iTunes/iTunes Music/<missing artist>!
Trying to add these files back to my library would work briefly, but then they would magically disappear out of /Volumes/Media1/iTunes/iTunes Music and go back to /Media1/iTunes/iTunes Music/
I figured out the one thing the different artists that had this behavior had in common - some of the ID3 tags for the same artist, which are the basis for organization, were in different cases. I think there is a weird case sensitivity bug that is breaking things. When I add back only those songs for an artist with ID3 tags for the artist of the same case, the behaviour stops.
I'm posting less looking for an answer and more to raise visibility and hope this gets a fix.
Example entries from my iTunes Library.xml, notice how the 'k' in OutKast is a different case in the entries.
<key>Artist</key><string>OutKast</string>
<key>Location</key><string>file://localhost/Volumes/Media1/iTunes/iTunes%20Music/OutKast/Speakerboxxx,%20Th e%20Love%20Below%20(Disc%202)/13%20Pink%20&%20Blue.mp3</string>
<key>Artist</key><string>Outkast</string>
<key>Location</key><string>file://localhost/Volumes/Media1/iTunes/iTunes%20Music/Outkast/Aquemini/12%20Spot tieOttieDopaliscious.mp3</string>I'd like to note that I'm experiencing the exact same issue. I'd add to this but petegas4life has it spot on. I'm just replying in hopes this thread gets noticed so the engineers at apple can look into this and hopefully fix it in the next release.
Reproducing the problem is pretty simple too. Just take one song from an album and change the case of the artist name. You'll see the music move to the boot drive and all of the songs from that artist won't work in itunes anymore. And if you're relying on iTunes to edit the tags, fixing the files is a PAIN because they keep disappearing on you.
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