Itunes from networked drive?

Okay, so I have a powermac and a macbook pro and until now I've had copies of my music library on each but the MBP drive could use a little cleaning so I want to dump the itunes music from there and then connect to the powermac over the network.
Two reasons for this:
1. less space on my MBP hard-drive. 100GB compared to 1.3TB
2. Adding a song or changing my library on one or the other computer reflects on both.

Yes, you can keep your music on a networked drive - my wife and I are doing this at home with our MacBooks, keeping only a small amount of our music on the MacBooks themselves. Keeping the larger library online makes syncing our pods more convenient.
But there's two caveats. First, since my wife and I have different, but overlapping musical tastes, we keep our library files on our own computers. This keeps her Rachel Wilson off my computer and my Dropkick Murphy's off hers. For this reason, we have to make sure the network drive is mounted before starting iTunes. Second, I've never attempted keeping the iTunes library file on the network drive so I don't know if that is doable or even desirable.

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Newbie - loading music to itunes from Network drive

I just bought my first mac and I'm attempting to start using itunes with my Ipod touch and load music from a network drive that I have both of my PC's music backed up to.
In itunes, it sees some of the music from the network drive but not all of it. The folders/music are all available and I can see them in Finder but Itunes doesn't find all of the music.
Is there anyway to point itunes to the appropriate folder so I can add the music?

Welcome to the Forums, Scott!
You can add a folder of music to iTunes by pressing Command-O or going to iTunes-> Add To Library...
Hope this helps!
-Nate

Quicktime 7.2 (and up) slow playout from network drive

Does anybody has a problem with all versions of Quicktime 7.2 (and up) where Quicktime Player doesn't play or open files very slowly from network drives? 7.1.6 works fine. This happens on all my machines.

Hey Germac,
For me these invisible files were not stored on the desktop as the files i was working with were on an external drive but i guess if the file you are converting is located there or if the desktop happens to be where the resulting file is saved, it's likely these invisible .QT temp files will be created on the desktop.
I've sent info of this to apples quicktime feedback so hopefully they'll look into it.
Here are some apps that will allow you to view invisible files without using the terminal, i've been using the InvibliX app as it seemed to be the most recent and/or up to date but there are plenty to choose from.
http://www.macupdate.com/search.php?arch=intel&keywords=invisible&os=macosx

Followed cnet direct. to move itunes from c drive to ext. drive, worked, deleted off c, still worked, now says AVFoundationCF.dll not found-reinstall, don't want to lose data

I recently followed cnet directions to move itunes from c drive on pc running xp pro, to external drive, for space reasons. Process worked. I tunes ran from e drive, verified data on e drive, deleted all apple applications on c drive so I could remove itunes and recover space. Verified itunes still worked off of new short cut and and that target was e drive. Now itunes won't open and get message "AVFoundationCF.dll not found - reinstall", or "not installed correctly Error 7 (windows error 126) - reinstall." Tried download, install from apple.com for itunes on c drive, but message "library can't be read because it was created by a newer version of itunes." How do I fix this without losing all of our "material" saved on the itunes program?

Thank you for the reply, but so far no go. I tried through control panel and add remove programs with repair option as suggested but got error..."C:\programs......AppleAplicationSupport.msi cannot be found." This was after I have done new download and install of itunes to the c drive. I have not taken any steps to try use that down load or reload any material on it. I changed path to external drive an folder, E:\ itunes and got the "error not valid installation package." Still looking for answers...

Streaming video from networked drive to iTunes stutters!

So, my brand new iMac with the optional graphics card can't play movies bought from iTunes without stuttering a little. We store the movies on a recently bought ethernet-capable 250GB drive which communicates with the iMac through a new 100Mbps switch. iTunes plays these movies flicker-free from the local HD, but not over the network. Quicktime has the same issue. That networked drive is the "iTunes Music Folder Location" specified in preferences. This is iTunes 7.0.2. Music streams fine. I've set iTunes' preferences for "streaming buffer size" to "large."
We want to store the movies on the networked drive so we can easily add capacity and access them from other machines on the network. Sounds logical, right? Isn't that what these drives are for? Help! I want my Media Server!
We also watch TV on the iMac, using an Elgato eyeTV 250. It's fine, and caches 2GB of video during playback. When we tell it to write to the networked drive, it stutters a little too. Like one 'jag' every 10-20 seconds. When we use the local disk, it's seamless.
One thought: the iMac is cabeled to that switch with a 100-foot cable. A problem?

Hello there, Myrte.
The following Knowledge Base article covers the steps on importing content into your iTunes library:
iTunes 11 for Windows: Import music and video already on your computer
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH12493
Additionally this article provides information on iTunes compatible video formats:
iTunes: Frequently asked questions about viewing and syncing videos
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2729
What video content works with iTunes and mobile devices?
iTunes:
Video content purchased from the iTunes Store.
QuickTime and MPEG-4 movie files that end in ".mov", ".m4v", or ".mp4" and are playable in QuickTime Player.
Video podcasts.
iTunes Digital Copies.
iTunes Store Movie Rentals (Requires iTunes 9 or later).
Thanks for reaching out to Apple Support Communities.
Cheers,
Pedro.

Best way to move iTunes library from network drive to NAS drive?

Hi all,
I need to move my iTunes library which currently lives on a Buffalo network drive to a new Synology NAS drive.
What is the best way to move the library?
Thanks,
Ed

iTunes: How to move [or copy] your music [library] to a new computer [or another drive] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527 - a somewhat bewildering and not always easily understandable set of options.
Quick answer if you use iTunes' default preferences settings: Copy the entire iTunes folder (and in doing so all its subfolders and files) intact to the other drive. Open iTunes and immediately hold down the Option (alt) key (shift on Windows), then guide it to the new location of the library.itl file in the moved iTunes folder.

Moving iTunes to network drive - Seagate or WD

I need to move my 800G iTunes library off my iMac (external USB drive) to a network drive. This is a migration for which I don't have a budget so I am looking for a low-cost solution.
My Gigabit network is fed by a Netgear WNDR3700 router, to which a USB drive can be attached, with ReadyShare software built in to manage it. So I have two options
attach a 2Tb drive to the router - the choices are WD MyBook or Seagate Expansion
ignore that and buy a standalone networked drive - WD MyBook Live
These particular drives are on special offer, which makes them just about affordable!
Option 1 is cheaper. BUT the drive does not support HFS+. So I will have to use it as FAT32 which limits filenames to 32 characters. Which means I will have to rename hundreds of iTunes track names.Some of these are quite complex, such as
Overture in the French Style in B minor, BWV831:10 Gigue.aiff
Option 2 appears to be plug and go - I know of two users who use WD MyBook Live in this way, but it is 30% more expensive
So: Two questions:
Which option for hard drive is likely to be the most reliable and be fast enough to stream iTunes music to my (wired) Airport Express which feeds my hifi
If I go the router/USB route, what is the easiest way to rename the track filenames?
Complexity means they cannot simply be truncated. So I was thinking of using Better Renamer or similar on an album-by-album basis altho' this breaks the "never edit filenames in the iTunes folder" mantra .But does this matter since I am moving them to a new location which will have to be "recognized" as the new iTunes folder.
Any and all help appreciated

If you want to make another drive (direct or portable) on your PC the main music location for iTunes, move all song files there, as well as any future imported music from CDs, here is one method (see the links below):
You will maintain your playlists, ratings, comments, etc. This will only move your music folders location, NOT your iTunes program files. It is my opinion that programs (i.e. – iTunes) work better when installed on your main hard drive. At the very least, it makes it easier to manage all your programs if they are centrally located on one hard drive (the Windows default standard).
See these links for some step-by-step info:
iLounge: Moving your iTunes Library to a New Hard Drive
MacMuse: iTfW: Move iTunes music/Library to new drive
iTunes: Moving your iTunes Music folder
If you are moving the music to an external hard drive or network drive, after the transfer (and to work correctly), the drive must be running prior to your opening iTunes. If not, iTunes will reset the location of your music folder location to the default location (usually: ‘C:\...My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music’). If this happens, you need to manually change the path back to your external location, or future CD ‘Imports’ will be deposited on your internal HD.

Syncing photos from network drive

all my photos are stored on a network drive and itunes successfully syncs all photos from this drive to my iphone. however, the next time i turn on my computer and re-sync, i see from the photos tab that the location of my photos has been changed to the iphotos library, which i don't use.
this may be happening because i run itunes so soon after booting that the computer hasn't had the chance to find the network drive yet. and that's fine. but if i re-select the source of photos to the same network drive, itunes insists that it is a different library than on my iphone and wants to sync all the photos from scratch.
is there a way to indicate that this is the same source and not a new source?

Same results here... I have an Infrant ReadyNAS RAID file server that I bought to be my 'master' vault for all my data. My computers don't store any important data locally. Their "My Documents" shortcuts point to the fileserver.
When I tried to sync Apple TV to the My Pictures folder, iTunes would think for a few seconds and then give me the little exclaimation mark inside the triangle instead of the synching icon, and would go no further.
I was occasioanlly able to sync very small picture subfolders from under "My Pictures", but that was it.
Since I don't plan on moving the master copies of my photos off of the fileserver, I am just going to use a batch file to periodically mirror the x:\mypictures folder to c:\appletvsuckspicturemirror. Then I'll just set up Apple TC to go get the photos there instead.
robocopy "x:\my_documents\mypictures" c:\appletvsuckspicturemirror /e
I use robocopy for lots of other stuff because it only copies new or modified files (it's a free microsoft utility)
-Brian
XP Windows XP Pro

Very Slow to Add Songs from Network Drive

My library has reached 12,800 tracks. Because my hard drive is just about full I'm now storing music on a network drive, which is accessed wirelessly (at 54Mbps). Once the music is added to the library iTunes plays it quite happily without any lag. BIG problem though is the time it takes to add songs from this hard drive to the library - it can anything from 20 seconds to a minute PER SONG! And that's after I had to roll back to iTunes version 6 since the gapless playback determination loop took even longer once the songs were in there.
Is this normal? Can anything be done? What's it actually doing when adding a song to the library that could cause it to take so long? Even if it has to read the whole file into memory it should still be quicker than this.
NB. I've tried adding using a mapped drive (H:\...), machine name (\\qnap\music\...) and IP address (\\192.168.1.34\music\...) and it makes no difference.

Did you find a solution?

Problem putting songs on shuffle from network drive

Hi - I was hoping someone here might have an idea on a frustrating problem I've been dealing with since I purchased a Network Attached Storage Drive.
Prior to having the drive, I had my music on my laptop and it x-ferred to the 2G Shuffle no problem at all. Once I've moved my music to the Network drive, synching is next to impossible. If I select a playlist w/about 200 songs or so, it will not transfer. I let it run overnight and it was not finished after over 8 hours. Itunes keeps saying updating ipod, do not disconnect. If I cancel it, I'll have about 15 songs on the ipod and the remainder did not transfer.
If I do one or two songs at a time, I have a 50/50 chance of it working one or two songs at a time, it won't change from the updating songs do not disconnect message if it doesn't work.
Does anyone have any ideas? The song bit rates are anywhere from 128 to 320, but has no bearing on what will end up working and what will not. Thanks in advance

well, i just do it the way i always do. I check all the songs I want updated (which includes the ones that dont work) and hit the update all button. All songs will show up except the ones i got off my website. No message will appear saying it did'nt work or anything. I tried just adding the songs that dont work and still they dont show up in my ipod.

Problem importing from network drive???HELP

I have all my photos on a networked drive (pc network)
I want to be able to access the photos from my ibook wihtout putting them on the internal mac HD (would fill it in no time flat).
When I try to import the files i get an error "The volume for "@#!@#" cannot be found....Insert the disk or connect to the server volume and wait for it to appear on the desktop, then try again." The drive is accessable from the mac, and is on the desktop, and if I keep hitting 'cancel' for the error message about 8 times the photo loads.
I have over 7500 photos, that is almost 50,000 times to hit 'cancel'
PLEASE HELP!!!
Nate
ibook Mac OS X (10.4.8) networked to win xp

I've had similar problems, I'll see if this advanced setting thing will help. My objective is to have my "Master iLibrary" on an external hard drive connected to a new airport extreme wireless network in my house. Then all three household laptops can access our extensive ilibrary without using hard drive space on the laptops, and wirelessly to boot. In addition I want to be able to connect all three ipods (and hopefully an iphone come June:) to any one of the three laptops to access this very large music library (50GB). It seems to me that by trying to protect copyright for the artist the honest end consumer gets hosed. I can't seem to get the album art for many of my songs seemingly because of my unwillingness to re-import hundreds and hundreds of CDs that I have boxed up in the attic. The album art isn't anything more than an issue of asthetics where as deleteing ten thousand songtitles when itunes repopulates my library is enough to make a laptop grow wings and fly across the room. I hope that technology heads toward more continuity for music junkies. I've been trying to find the right device, software and format for my extensive collection of music. I started with musicmatch jukebox and got agrivated then used WMP out of forced convinience. Now I have moved to itunes because apple "seems" to be developing what the consumer wants instead of telling the consumer what they are going to get. I haven't even begun to convert my cassettes, vinyl, or 8 tracks. That is a nightmare waiting in the wings. Anyone with advice in the way of a turnkey operation for my planned setup? I believe that what I am trying to do is very likely the desire of most consumers. If Apple gets this worked out and user friendly I'd bet they'll take over the majority marketshare as fast as they can handle it if not faster.

Sharing iTunes from Network Storage Device

Hi everyone,
I'm just new to iTunes and the apple forums, so please be patient with me. ;o)
I have a 2 x PC Windows XP Pro network at home with iTunes 7.02 installed on both. Currently my wife has her tunes on her PC and likewise with mine.
Recently I purchased one of those Netgear SC101 network storage devices so that we can keep all of our important documents, images, emails and so on in a central spot just in case something happens to one of our PC's.
The Netgear has 2 x HDD's which are mirrored for extra protection (to be sure, to be sure)!
What I need to know is whether we can we combine both of our play lists into a single one, and store it on the Netgear so that we can both access it at the same time?
Is this do-able?
Over to the "brains trust". Thank you in advance for your help and advice.
Cheers, Mike

Mike,
I have 3 Windows computers, 2 running XP MCE, 1 running Vista, and also have a MacBookPro. I have a Buffalo Terastation Home server, with the entire iTunes music collection on it. Each computer has the iTunes folder mapped as a network drive, and it has an assigned drive letter. That makes the process so much easier, as you can immediately access anything, each computer can add or make changes (you can block deletion from certain computers if you wish). All computers can access the music simultaneously and I have them streamed to different music sources via airtunes. The playlists are computer specific, so you can keep your playlist on your computer, your wife's playlist on her's. You can update your iPod on yours, and since you can authorize 5 computers via iTunes Store, you can have up to 5 computers in your household using iTunes. So far, no glitches. Hope that helps.

ITunes on networked drive

My household is networked via some Windows NT protocol. I'm the only one in my house who uses a Mac. There is a share which has our music on it (ripped from discs we own, every piece of it legal as church on Sunday).
I can get to the share with the music just fine. I can put all of the songs in an iTunes library, assuming I'm patient -- about 20G of music, and it takes forever and ever, but it can be done. Here are my problems.
The person running the music share claims that iTunes "messes up" the files, it rearranges where the files are within the directories, and even mucks around with the directories. Does this happen when I add files? Can I prevent it?
Music is added to the share directly, which means it doesn't go through iTunes to get indexed -- or whatever you call it -- and I don't know about the new music unless someone mentions it or I go looking. Is there any way to get iTunes, under these circumstances, to add new music that I'm not adding to my library.
Finally, is it possible to switch between libraries? I have a library of just my own stuff that no one else cares about on my private external drive. Can I (easily) switch from the one library to the other.
Thank you.

Here are some answers:
1) to avoid iTunes "messing with the folders": Preferences->Advanced (general)->Check OFF "keep iTunes Music folder organized and "Copy files to iTUnes Music folder"
2) No you can't get iTunes to automatically add to your library new music from the network drive.
3) It's not possible to easily swtich between libraries. What you can do however is have access both to the networked songs and the songs on your external drive at the same time. The way an iTunes LIbrary works is that it indexes songs from various locations, they don't all have to be in one location. So do File->Add to Library the folder from your external drive and then you'll be able to see taht music as well as the other music at the same time. THis will not add those files to the network drive.
Lastly, have you considered using the iTunes Music Sharing feature? Enable "share my music" and "look for shared music" on the computers in the Preferences and then you'll see the other comptuers libraries as playlists in your library, It's much simpler than your setup, but it has a few disadvantages, incuding not being able to add the other computers' songs to your iPod.

Transfer Itunes from old driver?

I recently had a computer hard drive go bad on me and I had to replace it. Sadly I had all my itunes music and videos on that hard drive. I have a new drive installed and ready to go, and have downloaded itunes again. I even managed to set up my old bad drive as an external, where I've been able to extract and save most of the files I need.
Is there a way I can save my itunes library from my old drive?

First of all, you may want to change the subject to say ' old drive' and not 'old driver'. lest people think you are talking about something else and never bother reading your posting.
If your talking about Windows, the iTunes files are usually kept in the iTunes subdirectory: (drive_letter):/users/(user name)/music/iTunes. Under that directory you'll find all the music media files in the folder called 'iTunes Music'.
Hopefully your iTunes directory is in tact and not corrupted. I had a similar experience once but was not so lucky; hence, today I back-up all the valuable file to an external network drive.
Hopefully someone else can tell you how the files should be copied over to the new drive (assuming that hey are intact), I have never tried.

App for streaming from network drive to Apple TV?

I'm looking for an app that can do several things. There are apps that I've downloaded and paid for >:-( that do one or even tow of these things, but I want to:
Stream movies (of different file types) from a network drive (WD MyBookLive) to Apple TV, via an iPad.
There are apps that will stream any filetype from a Mac to apple TV, but they need certain server software running on the Mac, so no good for me with my network drive.
There are also apps that will play any filetype on an iPad, streamed from a network drive. But these won't stream to Apple TV.
Is there something that does both, that doesn't require special software on the drive?
Thanks!

That's a shame.
thanks Rudegar

Itunes from networked drive?

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