Very odd ownership on FW drive: possibly iTunes-related

A FW drive I have attached to my AL iMac is behaving very oddly in 10.4.11: it's Info window shows ownership/permissions as it would be displayed in Leopard (I have admin access.) I "You can read and write" followed by a list with 'group' mini-icons on the left. The only item in this list is "admin' with the privilege "Read attribute…ete contents", and I can't edit anything.
Most folders and items inside the drive reveal normal 10.4 ownership/permissions info, except for my iTunes folder, which displays as described above.
Any ideas????? This is new to me.

BD: I have an off-topic question for you: is there a way to reach you?
John, only via PM or email from my BBS... http://x704.net/bbs
I'd look for Leopard stuff on the drive, When I did it with Leo, some Chipsetted FW drives were marked Read Only, others as unmountable... real mess getting them straightened out in Tiger.. I think it took DiskWarrior more than one pass at the Files tab to return it to Tiger use.
Not sure whether iTunes on there would do it, but with today's DRM, I consider it a possibility that it may wish to have complete control of it.

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Very very strange issue: no more activation possible (iTunes 8.2.1 on a G3)

At first, i came back to iTunes 8.2.1 because using 9.1 is no fun on a G3 PowerBook (the loudness adjustment makes the computer unusable for hours, then the vents roar and the machine crashes!).
OK, because i still wanted to remote the G3 with my iPod touch, i got iTunes 8.2.1 wich runs very good on such an old computer. I am pretty shure that i already had this version on this computer, because i made almost every update... I use this computer just for listening Music! This Computer was activated all the time and with all Versions of iTunes - from 4.0 to 9.0 !!!!
What happens now is very VERY strange and i am loosing my mind. The apple support can't help me (they also resetted all my activations).
It sounds simple, but i am no more able to activate this iTunes!!! Everything is typed well, but no chance. It says everytime that the name or password is wrong. I also can't activate Genius!
I promise, tried everything: my last attempt was to make a complete Reset of the machine (i erased the whole disk and installed everything(!!!!!) from scratch!)
But with no luck - this machine will not let me f*/("&§ng connect to my account were i payed lots of euros for my music!!!!!!!
This is in fact the strangest thing that i ever gone through on computers (and i've seen lots of strange things, believe me!)
I hope that somehone could give me a hint...

I actually found the window hiding at the bottom of my screen, being covered by my dock, and was able to drag it up.
You can also go into System Preferences, then dock and then move your dock to the left or right to find the window.

After Drive Replacement, iTunes Points To Wrong Folder Even After Adjusting Settings

I moved my music to a new hard drive. I then adjusted settings within iTunes to "point" to the folder on the new drive. The folder name is identical as are all the files within it. I did this a few months back and had no issues once iTunes "located" my files. All files played, playlists remained intact. This time however only a small portion of my files successfully "located" and the remaining 75% are unplayable. When "shown in finder", the unplayable tracks point to a completely random folder within my mail folder of obviously non-music files. I've been searching for weeks how to fix this to no avail. I definitely do not want to lose my playlists, play counts, etc. so starting from scratch with iTunes is not an option for me. Please advise how to fix this very odd issue!
iMac 3.4 Ghz i7
OSX 10.8.5
iTunes 12.0.1.26 (just updated)

To resolve this we will need details. I don't know exactly what is where. Even though it "worked last time" I see people post with that and almost invariably there is something different in the scenario this time.
The iTunes application alone has no idea where media files are. You could drag all the media folders you like to the Media folder and it won't know. You could "point" iTunes to that folder in preferences and it still will never look there. iTunes knows where files are because as you add them to iTunes it puts them in the Media folder and makes a note in that .itl file where the files are located. When you try to play a track iTunes looks up in the .itl file which media file it should try to play when you request the track and goes to that location to play the file. If there file isn't there you get ! You have to mend the links one by one, or iTunes might try, based on you repairing links. to repair other links, but it doesn't usually work that way and is only partly successful at times (as we have already discussed). If you have ever walked into a store and see an empty shelf but their web site says they have 3 in stock and the sales person says all their stock is out on the shelf, iTunes is like that.
Here's a bunch of links on how iTunes works. As you can see, an entire library is a whole bunch of files and support folders working in concert and when they get split up iTunes starts misbehaving.
What are the iTunes library files? - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1660
More on iTunes library files and what they do - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes#Media_management
What are all those iTunes files? - http://www.macworld.com/article/139974/2009/04/itunes_files.html
Where are my iTunes files located? - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391
iTunes 9 [and later]: Understanding iTunes Media Organization - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3847 - plus supplemental information about organizing to new structure https://discussions.apple.com/message/26404702#26404702
Image of folder structure and explanation of different iTunes versions (turingtest2 post) - https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-7392 and making an iTunes library portable.

Assigning two different drives to iTunes...

hi everyone
so i have space for all of it , i got 2 X W.Digital My Book 1TB each : one for music another for video, why such big drives ? i keep my music in high quality,lossless formats. the one with music is assigned in iTunes preferences as it's iTunes music folder location & it works fine . now ...how do i assign the 2nd drive ( the one w/ video ..) so iTunes gets the videos from there ? no matter what i tried, it seems iTunes doesn't provide for this 2nd drive to be ''iTunes Video folder location'' !?
should i/is it possible to download a second iTunes so i can assign the 2nd drive as iTunes video folder location ? or should i just download a video specific ''librarian'' ( if this is the correct word..). by the way can someone tell me what video formats can iTunes ''handle'' ?
any help will be very appreciated, thank you so much
Nuno Baptista

hi Neil
it sounds SO simple i feel like slapping myself !...LOL...now just to make sure : when i import more music into iTunes i have to check back the ''copy files to iTunes Music Folder'' box so the music department of it keeps working as it has until now, right ?
this was aggravating me so much because i really have grown accustomed to ''iTunes's ways'', feel comfortable with it & quite like it's deceptively simple interface. besides i tried a few dedicated video iTunes equivalents ( what's the right word ? a manager software, librarian ?..) & most where clunky at best
I'm going to try it immediately.
thanks so much, cheers
Nuno

Very Odd WiFi connection problems - plus crashes

Since Firefox 2.0.0.9 crashed yesterday, I have had very odd problems with my WiFi (Earthlink through an Apple Airport). Network Diagnostics says everything is okay, but Safari can no longer connect to the internet, and after Firefox crashes I can not even send Apple an error report. Yet I can get online with Firefox, as I am now.
The problem apparently started EITHER when I upgraded to the latest Firefox or when I tried to place an order at <http://www.senacases.com/> (or both). After Firefox crashed multiple times while trying to place an order at <http://www.senacases.com/>, I opened Safari, which would not connect.
I ran Network Diagnostics which said everything is fine. But Firefox continually crashes trying to place an order at <http://www.senacases.com/>, Safari continues not connecting, Network Diagnostics continues to say everything is fine, and now I can't file an Apple Error Report and trying to connect to some of the library services at Notre Dame (something I have always been able to do before), makes Firefox crash.
The only other possible symptom I have noticed is that I could not connect to a Late Show video this morning. Otherwise, I can browse the web in Firefox, I can pick up my email with Entourage, etc.
How do I fix this?

PS: I once had a similar problem that was fixed by a simple restart.
I have restarted numerous times now, with no change. My MacBook was off over night.

External Hard Drives and iTunes, on Mac Book Pro and PC?

If you transfer your iTunes library from PC to an external hard drive, can you use itunes, from the external hard drive when you plug it into Mac Book Pro?
I'm very confused about this!
All my music is on PC and I want to save it to my external hard drive. But I will no longer be using that PC afterwards.
I would like to use itunes on my Mac but it only has 128 Gb, not enough storage for my iTunes library.
So, can you use your transfered itunes library from the PC to external drive on your Mac?
Another question I have is, when your itunes is on your external hardrive can you still sync, make playlists and add new songs?
I don't know very much about external hard drives, but I need the space.

No. Likely the drive is presently formatted NTFS which is no good on a Mac unless you want to buy spcial software to enable it (given your scenario it is not worth it). The best format for Mac use is MacExtended, but your PC cannot write files to that. The intermediate solution is to reformat the drive to DOS FAT, but as I already said this isn't ideal.
If it were me I would:
1) With the PC copy the entire iTunes folder to the current external, presumably formatted as NTFS.
2) Buy the new second drive I know I will need for backing up both my computer and my old external drive. Format it as Mac extended. In the long run you want to configure this for use with Time Machine but I can't help you with that because I can't run TM. For the time being you are using it to temporarily store files.
3) Using the Mac make sure the new drive is formatted to Mac extended.
4) On the Mac copy the entire iTunes folder from the old drive to the new.
5) With the Mac reformat the old drive to Mac extended.
6) With the Mac copy the entire iTunes folder from the new drive to the old one which is now in the Mac friendly format. Start iTunes with the option key held down as described earlier.
Others may be able to help with some details on formatting drives because I use an older system. I know with my system version when you reformat or partition you lose all files on a drive which is why you have to have somewhere to temporarily store your library. I think they did some changes but I am not sure of the details.

Using external drive for itunes

Hope someone can help with this: I am going travelling and want to take my music library, at present in itunes on my desktop G4. I have copied this library onto a 100GB portable hard drive, and would now like to get itunes on my macbook to refer to this library on my hard drive. I tried going to preferences and changing the itunes music folder location to
Lacie Drive:music:itunes:itunes music:
but after I okay this, nothing happens, the itunes on my macbook is still full of the few songs I have put there, and no sign of the 2.99GB of music that I copied off the G4.
Ideally I want to keep the hard drive of the macbook as empty as possible, so would like to use itunes just from the external drive, plugging it in whenever I want to use itunes.
Many thanks,
Hugh
G5, macbook pro, G4 Mac OS X (10.4.7)

By changing the location, you only told iTunes where to store the next ripped CD or purchased music. iTunes doesn't know where your music is.
The song locations are stored in the 'iTunes Library' file.
If you're using iTunes 7, there could be an easy fix.
First, copy the entire iTunes folder from the G4 to the external drive (not just the iTunes Music folder inside it).
Then connect the drive to the MacBook and hold the Option button down when you run iTunes. Keep holding it down until a window pops up that lets you choose a library (or create a new one).
Choose the iTunes folder on the external.
iTunes now should recognize it.
Hope this helps.
M

Using Time Capsule as External Drive for iTunes Music Folder in iTunes 9

First, prior to upgrading to Snow Leopard and iTunes 9, I had my 210 GB of music on a 1TB Time Capsule which I accessed wirelessly through my Macbook Black and I set my path to the "iTunes Music (External) Folder" I created on the Time Capsule as the default path for iTunes to access the iTunes Music (External) Folder. My iTunes Library and Album Art reside on the Macbook hard drive. Unless I opened iTunes when the Macbook was disconnected from the Time Capsule (e.g., not at home), it always remembered the drive path the next time it was opened and would play music fine. If I had to reset the drive path, iTunes would remember it (again, unless I was disconnected from my Time Capsule). Now, under iTunes 9.0.1 and Snow Leopard, iTunes always defaults back to the iTunes Media Folder on the Macbook each time I open iTunes even if I set the path to the Time Capsule. The TC is also used as my airport connection to the cable modem and Home Sharing is enabled. Oddly, iTunes seems to play music just fine even though the drive path to the iTunes Music (External) Folder is not being utilized, which it would not do under the old version of iTunes. A screenshot is below. Anyone know what is going on here?
/Users/seanrichardson/Desktop/Screenshot_1.png

Make sure the Time Capsule is ready and mounted before launching iTunes.
You can add it (the Time Capsule) to your Login items in System prefs -> Accounts.

How do I transfer songs from an itunes program saved on a thumb drive to itunes on a new computer

I am scrapping my old desktop computer for a new laptop. I copied the entire itunes file on to a thumb drive before getting rid of the old computer. There are almost 200 songs contained in itunes file that I copied. I want to transfer the songs in itunes file on the tumb driver to itunes on my new laptop - how can that be done? I know it's probably very simple but I am ignorant and stuck. Please help.

If the actual iTunes folder from the <user>/Music folder was copied to the flash drive, simply copy that to the new computer.
If the folder copied was the Program Files\iTunes folder, there is no media there.

My hard drive was replaced last week. The geek squad from Best Buy backed up all my information prior to replacing the hard drive. they reinstalled everything on the new hard drive including iTunes. When I opened I tunes, my playlists were missing

My hard drive was replaced last week on my macbook pro. The geek squad from Best Buy backed up all my information prior to replacing the hard drive. They reinstalled everything on the new hard drive including iTunes. When I opened I tunes, i had some but not all my songs listed. All my playlists and purchases were missing. I attempted to sync my iPod so my playlist and information would be reinstalled but iTunes does not recognize the iPod to allow it to sync.

Hello Boylen33,
I was very disappointed to read about your experience when taking your phone in to the Geek Squad for service. I agree with avm5689, purchasing the Geek Squad Protection plan is a great way to protect your investment in a product that is so necessary to our everyday lives. The agent should have known exactly what steps to make the exchange an easy, and smooth process, and I sincerely apologize for the frustrating experience you received instead.
I assure you every single post on the forum from our customers is of utmost importance to us, and we are always happy to help in anyway we can. As per the terms and conditions of your Geek Squad Protection plan, you should receive one battery per the life of the plan, and you can order it simply by calling our Partstore. As I mentioned previously, this is something the Geek Squad agent should have explained to you, or as the mobile specialist did, call them for you, and I'm truly sorry this wasn't handled in that manner causing you to waste a lot of time at the store. Using the e-mail you registered on the forum, I was able to locate the service order, and I will be documenting your experience for further training opportunities.
Once again, I am very sorry for any disappointment this has caused, and I appreciate very much you bringing this to our attention. I hope you will give us another in chance to offer you a much better experience.
Respectfully,
Maria|Social Media Specialist | Best Buy® Corporate
Private Message

Apple TV sync problems when using external drive in iTunes

I have my iTunes library on an external drive in order to save HD space. Unfortunately the external driver some times get disconnected and I need to mount it again.
Since iTunes can not find the songs when the drive get disconnected, all songs are marked with an exclamation mark . So far no problem as the song will play immediatelly when i click on it.
The problem is now with the Apple TV. It seems that as soon as a song get an exclamation mark it get removed (!!!) from the Apple TV playlists. I would expect that the song is still available in Apple TV although in iTunes is marked with an exclamation mark, as this is only a temporary non availability.
The consequence is that one song in Apple TV may or may not be available for playing in dependency of the availability of the original song and its external drive in iTunes.
may be "its a feature", but a very annoying one..
Alex

I believe you created this problem at the very beginning by not letting iTune to manage your iTune folder. When this occurs iTune can only play songs when your external HD is connected.
You mentioned you want to save HD space. The better solution will be to put the most played songs in your HD and let iTune manage the folder and backup all the other songs to your external HD. Best way to find out is to check out the most played from your list and backup the least played to your external HD. Better yet, backup all songs.

An Entire cup of coffee was spilled on the side of my MacBook Pro, it was in my purse, port side up. They were filled. I'm assuming the board or whatever is fried. If I go to apple tomorrow, what are the odds that my hard drive will be salvageable?

I'm usually good at backing up my photos and documents, but the last 2 months of pictures and videos are on there and not backed up anywhere. I'm heartbroken.

"What are the odds that my hard drive will be salvageable?"
Very very good, it's all sealed and only a large electrical surge or dropping it while running could do some damage.
Take it and use a SATA to USB adapter you can get online for $12-$40 and hook it right up to the new Mac and use Setup Assistant or Migration Assistant to transfer files.
OR you can access the drive directly and on a PC with MacDrive installed.
However the Mac itself is likley a goner.

Can I play my music from external hard drive through itunes?

If this is possible How would a (NEW TO iMac) user do this? Otherwise if that is not possible, how do you export music files from a seagate external hard drive to itunes.

Expanding Niel's answer a bit...
in iTunes, go to iTunes->Preferences->Advanced and insure that "Copy files..." is NOT checked. Then you can add all your music to your iTunes library by dragging the parent folder into the "library" window at the upper left (if you're using iTunes 11, do View->Show sidebar first). You can also do "File->Add to library...".

A very odd OS problem

I've encountered a very odd problem with a computer at work. It's a G4 733 mhz, running os 9.1.0, and at my insistence, my boss has agreed to let me install os X, but only on an external drive. Right now this thing has all kinds of weird going on. First off, it never remembers the startup disk, it always starts up with a question mark for a minute before finding the internal os 9.1 disk. (This is an old problem, not a result of my attempt to install os x.) It starts up off the tiger disk fine, but it won't recognize the firewire disk as the start up disk. (In OS 9's startup disk control panel it will see the the folder, and it lets you select it, but it always reverts to the internal drive with OS 9 on restart. Same thing when selecting it with the startup disk options from the OS X Install Disk.) To make things weirder, holding down option on startup lets me see the CD System folder, and the OS 9 System folder, but not the firewire drive. I hooked the same drive up to my laptop, and booted up off the drive fine. I tried giving the PRAM a zap just for fun , and then it didn't see anything till I started up off the CD and told it to startup in OS 9. My mind is boggled, anyone have any idea what this is a symptem of?

Hi, Geoff -
OS 9.1 can be used as Classic with OSX, although OS 9.2.x provides better compatibility in that mode.
However, the original OS 9.1 installs (whether from a CD or the result of a download update) have an issue - the version of Startup Disk control panel that comes with OS 9.1 and earlier can not recognize OSX as a viable Boot OS, hence will not make it available for selection. The solution for that is to update the OS to 9.2.x, or at least update just that control panel. There is a specific download available for just the control panel -
Startup Disk 9.2.1 Document and Software
There may be another problem. You stated -
I hooked the same drive up to my laptop, and booted up off the drive fine.
That would indicate that the install of the OS on the firewire drive may have been done when it was connected to the laptop. If that was the case, it may not be suitable to boot a different model, such as your G4/733.
Most OS installs are specific to the hardware of the machine whose boot OS is running the installer. There is a way to do a universal (boot any Mac) install of OS 9.x, but I don't know if there is a way to do that with OSX.
To make things weirder, holding down option on startup lets me see the CD System folder, and the OS 9 System folder, but not the firewire drive.
Booting up using Startup Manager (which is what appears when you hold down the Option key during boot) will display only those OS's valid for that particular machine, and only one OS per volume (volume = an unpartitioned drive or disk, or the partition of a partitioned drive or disk).
Sometimes Startup Manager does not 'see' all bootable volumes immediately; clicking the Rescan button (the round arrow) will make it recheck all buses for a bootable volume.
First off, it never remembers the startup disk, it always starts up with a question mark for a minute before finding the internal os 9.1 disk.
This could be indicative of a weak or dead internal battery. Since your G4/733 is running a version of OS 9.1 it must be a Digital Audio model (the G4/733 QuickSilver models originally came with OS 9.2, and can not use any version of OS 9.1); this means it is about 5 years old now, which is about all that can be expected from an internal battery even if the Mac is left connected to live power when it is shut down.
When the battery is too weak or dead the Mac will not remember PRAM settings between boots or restarts, and may have difficulty booting to some drives (particularly to external ones).
Suggest you replace that battery - you can get one at places like Radio Shack for about US$15, cheaper on-line.

After hard drive replacement, iTunes points to wrong drive

I have my iTunes media on an external drive, and the drive failed. Luckily I had a backup, and I also had a spare drive to replace the bad one with. So I set up the replacement drive on my Mac Mini, naming it the same as the old drive (iTunes Library). I then copied the data from the backup onto the replacement drive. I then connected the replacement drive to the Mac, and started up iTunes. From the looks of everything, it looked like all was good, all of my Music, Movies, etc. was there. So yesterday I happen to look at the path for one of my Music files, and I see that now iTunes is pointing to my iTunes Backup drive, named "iTunes Backup", instead of my regular iTunes drive, named "iTunes Library".
I had thought that iTunes would still know that the replacement drive, named the same as the old one, would still point to it, but apparently I was wrong. I even went to "Preferences" and pointed the Media location to the replacement drive, not the backup.
So, my question is: How can I get iTunes to point to the right drive? Do I have to open iTunes with the "Option" key and have it point to the replacement drive? Is there something else?
At least I had a backup, and both replacement and backup drives seem ok...
HELP!!

Well, it is complicated in the way your public library does things is complicated. iTunes keeps a catalog of media files and assumes from that catalog that the file exists where it was noted to exist when it was added to the library. Just as with my public library, there can be off-site storage too, but they have to make sure somebody hasn't moved their books without telling them or they are in a mess. As I said earlier, I have no idea how your catalog on the internal drive got into its head to use the files on the backup drive. That goes completely contrary to how iTunes has ever operated from all the topics I have seen on this site for 10+ years, unless there was something else you did that I am not hearing. No matter, if this is truly the scenario. What I am having you do is deliberately break all the links to the files on the backup drive and hopefully rebuild links to the files on the new library drive. Then you will be using the other document to change the location of the rest of your non-media library files so it is all together on the library drive for easier moving in future. I guess you could do it in either order. The thing is, the library file (iTunes library.itl which ties all iTunes together) is telling you (according to what you report) that when you request track XYZ in iTunes it should be going to the backup drive and play file xyz, but you want it to go to the library drive and use the file there. If you simply copy the library file to your library drive it will still be trying to find the music file on the backup drive. The only ways to change the designation are to either breaks the links and take advantage of iTunes' re-linking tool, or to use the editable .xml version of the library file to hand-edit the file paths and use that file to rebuild the library file with come concurrent loss of data that is only in the .itl version.
What are the iTunes library files? - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1660
More on iTunes library files and what they do - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes#Media_management
What are all those iTunes files? - http://www.macworld.com/article/139974/2009/04/itunes_files.html
Where are my iTunes files located? - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391

Very odd ownership on FW drive: possibly iTunes-related

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