Topic: MC iTunes Synchronizer (using MC with an iPhone or iPod Touch) [v6.0.2] (Read 495089 times)

dcpete · « **Reply #500 on:** January 17, 2010, 02:00:15 pm »

Thanks for your comments. I am paying attention, but as I said, it truly is taking 3 days (24/7) to convert the lossless files. I now have 13 hours left, so I decided to just bite the bullet and let it keep running. The first evening I let it run, I discovered the next morning my computer overheated and shut itself down. I hadn't really thought about the fact I was running it fully pegged out on cpu utilization for an extended period of time. This is the first time this has happened to this computer. It's been pretty stable until now. Fortunately I have adjustable fans in this computer and was able to crank all the fans full speed and it's going great now.

The second time I ran it, I noticed it was not converting the embedded mp3 files from the lossless collection. It was just uploading to the iTunes directory. I'm not sure what I saw the first time. It seemed then that it was converting the mp3's twice. But now I think I may have been mistaken. I've stopped and restarted a few times and each time it picks up where it left off. So things seem to be going fine.

One thing I'm noticing that I am not thrilled about is how these rules treat multiple artist albums. The naming rule I set up is "Audio Path=\[Artist]\[Album]\" This is what I want for all but compilation albums. Compilation albums with multiple artists I have in my "Various Artists" directory by album name, at the same level as the artist name. For example,

Van Morrison
Vangelis
Various Artists
Alive and Accoustic
...
Vince Gill

Now I find those compilation albums scattered all over the place under the artist name instead of the album name under "Various Artists". I presume I can hand tweak the rules for these compilation albums to go under Various Artist directory? That would be a different rule than the rest of the collection I guess? Maybe in the end it doesn't really matter since the sync is now automated. But it would be nice if the mp3 version of the database matched exactly the directory structure of the master lossless database.

Your thoughts?

Thanks, Chris

prod · « **Reply #501 on:** January 18, 2010, 03:27:54 am »

Instead of using the naming rule;

Audio Path=\[Artist]\[Album]\

use;

Audio Path=\[Album Artist (auto)]\[Album]\

or perhaps even (if you prefer "Various Artists" to "(Multiple Artists)");

Audio Path=\If(IsEqual([Album Artist (auto)],/(Multiple Artists/)),Various Artists,[Artist])\[Album]\

dcpete · « **Reply #502 on:** January 18, 2010, 09:15:45 pm »

Ok, thanks for the naming rule. I have been working on this all day just cleaning up the mess I made after not using the right rule. After 3 days of processing, I really didn't want to start all over. And it looks like I finally have the mp3 database looking very close to my wma database in terms of organization.

Moving onto iTunes and MCiS. What a pain. I was trying to clean out all my files in iTunes, but I was left with one album from before (zz top) that refuses to be removed. It throws an exception every time. I've un-installed twice, but iTunes refuses to completely clean itself up. It remembers all my settings even after removing every Apple program installed. It apparently does NOT clean out the registry keys when uninstalled. What a PITA. I really hate iTunes (have I said that yet)?

So I just forged forward in spite of not being able to start completely clean. Unfortunately MCiS crashed when importing songs. I found some corrupted songs and fixed them. But MCiS was going sooo slow, that I decided to just import my library directly with iTunes (initially). This went relatively fast (a couple hours at the most). But now I am running MCiS after a successful initial loading of the mp3 database into iTunes and it seems to want to touch every file. Is it doing something with the iTunes tags? At this rate for 25,000+ songs, it will take another 7 or 8 hours for MCiS to process the files.

Seriously, it will take me 5 days of massive computing time and personal time to get this whole thing set up. It's pretty painful. I know maintanance will be better in the long run and it will be much quicker once I've gotten through the initial steps. If I had to do it over again, I would have done this in smaller chunks and tested each chunk along the way. I've been running the tool already and know it works fine once everything is initally set up. Many thanks for both of your help.

Chris

BartMan01 · « **Reply #503 on:** January 18, 2010, 09:50:37 pm »

Any suggestions on how to handle 'enhanced' iTunes downloads when working from a 'lossless' process (sycning MC library to a separate iTunes folder and set to delete tracks that don't exist in MC)?

The PDF files, videos, and .itlp folders need to stay with the .m4a files, so I am thinking the only option is to leave true iTunes downloads separate and maintain them in both iTunes and MC independently.

BartMan01 · « **Reply #504 on:** January 18, 2010, 10:20:08 pm »

Occurred to me to use a 'hybrid' setup, with part of my library working the lossless way and part of my library using the same file for both applications:

Modified the iTunes File Key field to use the original filename for files in my iTunes Downloads folder and will exclude them from the handheld sync.
If(IsEqual(FilePath(),E:\Audio\iTunes Downloads, 8 ), [Filename], E:\iTunes Library\Replace(Replace(Replace(Replace(Replace(Replace(Replace(Replace(Replace(Replace(Replace(Replace(Replace([Artist]|||[Album],<,_),>,_),:,_),",_),\,_),//,_),?,_),*,_),|||,\),|,_)\Replace(Replace([Filename (name)],.ape,.mp3),.ac3,.mp3),.\,\),\\,\),\...,\) )

dcpete · « **Reply #505 on:** January 19, 2010, 08:57:42 am »

Ok, sorry this has been such a long drawn out process. I really had hoped this would have been easier. Anyway, I let MCiS run overnight and now I have 35,000 tracks in my iTunes library, but only 25,000 tracks in the mp3 directory. After investigating, I see that many albums have been duplicated in iTunes. When I look at the information on them. it looks like MCiS has added the mp3's that were in my original lossless database, along-side the identical album in the mp3 database. It looks like it has duplicated only the mp3 files that are in the original "mostly lossless" database. I'm thinking the iTunesFileKey is screwed up. I guess I need to understand exactly how this field works to resolve this.

Here's an example. A song in my original "mostly lossless" database has this for a iTunesFileKey tag -

E:\My WMA Music\Jamiroquai\Dynamite (mp3)\101-jamiroquai-feels_just_like_it_should.mp3

The corresponding iTunesFileKey tag in the iTunes database is this -

E:\My MP3 Music\iTunes\Jamiroquai\Dynamite\101-jamiroquai-feels_just_like_it_should.mp3

There is no lossless equivalent for this file. In this case the mp3 file is the original. The calculated data expression under "manage Library Fields" in MC is "Replace([Filename (path)],e:\My WMA Music ,e:\My MP3 Music\iTunes\)Replace([Filename (name)],wma,mp3)".

Thanks, Chris

P.S. Is anyone else having issues with this forum software? I am and it's really annoying. It keeps loosing the focus on longer posts and I'm typing blind most of the time.

BartMan01 · « **Reply #506 on:** January 19, 2010, 12:31:45 pm »

If you used itunes to import the initial files instead of the sync tool (which I did because it was faster with my 10,000+ track library), be aware that it will load the songs twice - once from the file itself and once from the playlist MC creates in the 'handheld' directory. You need to delete this playlist first if you want to use iTunes to do the initial track import instead of the sync tool.

dcpete · « **Reply #507 on:** January 19, 2010, 12:42:07 pm »

Yes, this is exactly the problem I ran into. Good to hear I wan't the only one that did it this way. Now to clean up my mess....

Thanks, Chris

BartMan01 · « **Reply #508 on:** January 19, 2010, 12:46:24 pm »

Quote from: dcpete on January 19, 2010, 12:42:07 pm

Yes, this is exactly the problem I ran into. Good to hear I wan't the only one that did it this way. Now to clean up my mess....

Thanks, Chris

Delete the imported playlist and see if that fixes the duplicates.
If not, it might be faster to just start over from scratch. I had to do that about 3 times before I had all the kinks worked out of my process, but I am dealing with multiple lossless file types from multiple disk locations. I had issues with special charcters messing up my itunes file key field which is why it is so full of replaces (in the post above).

dcpete · « **Reply #509 on:** January 19, 2010, 01:46:24 pm »

Ok, I am starting over from the initial iTunes state. I cleaned out the database, but not the files. The files as created by MC seem to be fine (if I got the iTunes File Key correct). I will take a close look at the playlists before running MCiS. I also found the m3u file you were talking about under "iTunes\ASX, relative paths" and deleted it.

Quote

I had issues with special charcters messing up my itunes file key field which is why it is so full of replaces (in the post above).

Ok, I was wondering why that key field seemed so complex.

Chris

dremo · « **Reply #510 on:** January 19, 2010, 09:00:16 pm »

Is there a way to find out which files are synced between the Itunes and MC libraries? I swear they are both looking at one single library location, but the # of files are not the same. I'd like to see which ones are in my MC library and are not in Itunes.

dcpete · « **Reply #511 on:** January 20, 2010, 01:55:35 pm »

I've made a huge amount of progress but still something is fundamentally wrong with MCiS (or my process). For some reason I can't fathom, MCiS is replicating a bunch of my mp3 files when trying to sync up. So I end up with a bunch of duplicates. Here is a summary of what I did since the last post.

1. Deleted the entire iPod library, but not the actual MP3 files in the iTunes directory. I did determine that the end result of the MC synch to the iTunesSync handheld is essentially a perfect copy of the original mixed lossless database.
2. Use MCiS to initially sync the iTunes database. This worked, but it took a long time to process and the number of files in the iTunes library did closely match my original MC mostly lossless library. It was looking good at this point.
3. Changed the tags on one album in master database.
4. Synced to iTunesSync handheld and determined only those files that changed were updated. This step looks good.
5. Ran MCiS and was alarmed to see it adding a whole bunch of duplicate albums. When I look at the info on the duplicates in iTunes, I see one pointing to the iTunes directory, the other pointing to the MC library.

Obviously something is wrong with a setting. Maybe the iTunesFileKey field is not set right? Can someone explain to me exactly how that field works so I can troubleshoot this problem?

Update: I believe the duplicate file problem is only happening on the files that are originally mp3's in the master database - if that helps.
Update 2: When I saw duplicates were being created on the iTunes side, I aborted MCiS. So if it was going to start fixing broken links, I didn't let it go that far. Otoh, I didn't change any of these files, so wouldn't expect the name or locations to have changed.

Thanks, Chris

dcpete · « **Reply #512 on:** January 20, 2010, 07:29:57 pm »

Looking at the log. I am guessing my Calculated Data formula is wrong in the iTunesFileKey tag field in MC. Quick question. Given a file (song) in the original lossless database, should the resultant path be pointing to the iTunes directory? For example,

Original File name and location (lossless wma file)-

E:\My WMA Music\Various Artists\Alive and Acoustic\Greg Lake - Lucky Man.wma

iTunesFileKey value = "E:\My MP3 Music\iTunes\Alive and Acoustic\Greg Lake - Lucky Man.mp3"

Where E:\My MP3 Music\iTunes\ is the iTunes library directory. Would this be the correct value for iTunesFileKey?

Thanks, Chris

dcpete · « **Reply #513 on:** January 21, 2010, 12:09:48 am »

Solved the problem. Yes, the calculated data formula was wrong for iTunesFileKey. The mp3 directory was not getting substituted for the lossless directory because the drive letter was lowercase and the replace() function is case sensitive. It didn't match the uppercase drive letter MC was retrieving. That's why I was getting duplicates.

Chris

BartMan01 · « **Reply #514 on:** February 19, 2010, 09:31:01 am »

Quote from: dcpete on January 19, 2010, 01:46:24 pm

Ok, I was wondering why that key field seemed so complex.

If you have album names, track names, or artist names with special characters in them or that start/end in periods (AC/DC, "Weird Al" Yankovic, R.E.M., ...And Justice For All, etc) you will find that the MC either drops them (periods) or replaces them with '_' when creating the file name on the 'handheld' folder. My calculated field does the same logic that I was seeing MC do with file names.

lOth · « **Reply #515 on:** February 19, 2010, 03:28:59 pm »

Everything was running smoothly but I just upgraded to Windows 7 and now something is broken. I can't seem to run MCiTS from the command line with the /StartSync argument (the program starts but crashes immediately ("MC & iTunes Synchronizer has stopped working"). It seems to be fine with the other argument I've tried (/RunMinimized). Any idea what might be causing this?

prod · « **Reply #516 on:** February 20, 2010, 04:54:53 am »

Might be a permissions thing...? Try running it as administrator to test it.

lOth · « **Reply #517 on:** February 20, 2010, 07:41:14 am »

Quote from: prod on February 20, 2010, 04:54:53 am

Might be a permissions thing...? Try running it as administrator to test it.

I should have said I had tried that. First of all, when I run as administrator a user account control window pops up ("Do you want to allow the following program from an unknown publisher, etc."), which is not going to work out for me since I want to use command line for unattended sync.
I click yes, the program starts and then gets stuck on "Looking for MC" for a while and then "Synchronize unsuccessful". Here's the relevant part of the log:

Code: [Select]

 <Result EndDateTime="2010-02-20T08:35:31">Could not access J River Media Center. Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {572802D5-FBF6-4C30-89CA-BDF2CE4AEC2B} failed due to the following error: 80080005.</Result>

Magic_Randy · « **Reply #518 on:** February 20, 2010, 08:42:20 am »

Just feedback...

I just upgraded to Windows 7. MCiS works perfectly for me.

I'm not doing anything with command line, so I can't comment on lOth's issue.

prod · « **Reply #519 on:** February 20, 2010, 01:27:22 pm »

For whatever reason, MC isn't properly registered for COM. Reinstalling MC should sort it out.

EDIT: I mean reinstalling as in simply running the MC build exe, not uninstalling then installing, if you catch my drift.

lOth · « **Reply #520 on:** February 20, 2010, 03:44:42 pm »

Caught your drift.
I reinstalled and what I get now is this (error message within MCiTS):

"Invoke or BeginInvoke cannot be called on a control until the window handle has been created"

The sync doesn't start and if I click synchronize, I get stuck with the same "Looking for MC" as before

prod · « **Reply #521 on:** February 20, 2010, 05:33:15 pm »

Weird. What happens without /StartSync argument? Make sure to give yourself read/write/create permissions in the MCiS folder. The app doesn't need any special permissions to run, but it does create and maintain a log and settings file in the current folder. Like Randy, I've not had any troubles myself from within win7.

lOth · « **Reply #522 on:** February 24, 2010, 07:12:30 am »

I have checked the permissions for the folder and they are fine.

Everything works as expected when I launch MCiTS without an argument or with an argument other than /StartSync (e.g. "C:\Program Files\MCiTunesSynchronizer\MCiTunesSynchronizer.exe" /RunMinimized works)

prod · « **Reply #523 on:** February 26, 2010, 09:19:00 am »

I believe I've isolated your problem, although I can't reproduce it. The next release will have a fix.

lOth · « **Reply #524 on:** February 26, 2010, 02:59:44 pm »

Quote from: prod on February 26, 2010, 09:19:00 am

I believe I've isolated your problem, although I can't reproduce it. The next release will have a fix.

Awesome.

I don't know if it's related but I found out another problem when trying to launch MCiTS as an external program from TheaterView. Here's what I get when I launch MCiTS in this way (without an argument) and click Synchronize:

Access to the path C:\Windows\system32\MCiTunesSynchronizerSyncLog.xml

I assume that this xml file shouldn't be in this folder and that it's a TheaterView issue but thought I might point it out here in case you have an idea on how to work around this one.

prod · « **Reply #525 on:** February 27, 2010, 06:57:19 am »

Quote from: lOth on February 26, 2010, 02:59:44 pm

Awesome.

I don't know if it's related but I found out another problem when trying to launch MCiTS as an external program from TheaterView. Here's what I get when I launch MCiTS in this way (without an argument) and click Synchronize:

Access to the path C:\Windows\system32\MCiTunesSynchronizerSyncLog.xml

I assume that this xml file shouldn't be in this folder and that it's a TheaterView issue but thought I might point it out here in case you have an idea on how to work around this one.

It's using the folder from where it's run rather than the folder where the .exe is located. That'll get fixed as well.

prod · « **Reply #526 on:** March 03, 2010, 11:20:24 am »

The latest version of MCiS improves the speed of creating playlists in iTunes. This is noticeable if you have a lot of iTunes playlists and sit around watching it

. There are a couple of bug fixes in there also.

Improved: Playlist creation speed in iTunes
Fixed: When /StartSync specified as a command line argument, this sometimes produced a crash in Windows 7
Fixed: Playlists were sometimes created in the wrong folder in iTunes, where two playlist folders existed with the same name
Removed: /LibraryIndex and /LibraryPath parameters, only /LibraryName is necessary
Fixed: Log was being created from where MCiS was executed, now it is always created in the MCiS folder

MCiS is now hosted from my own website http://www.misterpete.co.uk. There's another app for MC (for those with or looking to develop SQL skills) I've written on there that I've personally been finding pretty useful. I'll be posting another topic about that later.

MCiS from this version is trialware (30 days), though you're very welcome to continue using the versions before this for free. Everyone who has donated in the past (thanks!) should have already received a license key - if you haven't received one yet let me know.

lOth · « **Reply #527 on:** March 04, 2010, 01:46:20 pm »

Quote from: prod on March 03, 2010, 11:20:24 am

Fixed: When /StartSync specified as a command line argument, this sometimes produced a crash in Windows 7

I can confirm this is fixed for me, thank you very much!

prod · « **Reply #528 on:** March 05, 2010, 02:50:45 am »

Quote from: lOth on March 04, 2010, 01:46:20 pm

I can confirm this is fixed for me, thank you very much!

Thanks for confirming that... which reminds me I'd forgotten to add this to the fix list;

Fixed: Log was being created from where MCiS was executed, now it is always created in the MCiS folder

This fix is in v5.4 I just forgot to include the info in the report.

prod · « **Reply #529 on:** March 11, 2010, 07:16:54 am »

MC & iTunes Synchronizer v5.5

Added: Support for custom DPI settings - i.e. sizeable windows and scrollbars. Window sizes are remembered for next time.
Added: Replace forward slashes checkbox to settings - this replaces forward slashes in MC playlist names to backslashes when they are created in iTunes.
Fixed: iTunes playlists with the same path and name (yes, iTunes allows this!) were causing the synchronization process to fail.

TXgary · « **Reply #530 on:** March 12, 2010, 03:29:13 pm »

Prod,
I am using 5.0.1 what is required to upgrade to 5.5

prod · « **Reply #531 on:** March 12, 2010, 07:56:56 pm »

Just download the zip from here, and extract the contents into your current MCiS folder. Note that it's since gone trialware rather than freeware so after 30 days you will need to register to continue using it.

prod · « **Reply #532 on:** March 17, 2010, 06:07:04 pm »

MC & iTunes Synchronizer v5.5.5

Added: "Check for updates" checkbox to settings. If checked, will check for updates to the software once every week.

laerm · « **Reply #533 on:** March 28, 2010, 05:30:27 pm »

Hey all —

I am using this app for the first time, and I've got a question or two. Bear in mind my library lives on a NAS when considering my speed questions. (The media pc is not wireless, though, so I am getting full speed there.)

I just got an iPhone, so that meant I had to install iTunes on the media pc to sync.*

I've been running the first sync with MCiS on my media pc, and we're coming up on about 24 hours of it running. I had read the first sync can take a very long time, especially with large libraries (I've got about 62000 tracks that iTunes will handle (in other words, not counting FLACs)). At about 2am last night, it finished the synchronizing stage and since then it has been importing tracks into iTunes. When I built the iTunes library the first time, iTunes had about 1500 less tracks than MC, so that makes sense that MCiS will need to add some tracks. However, I would expect adding ~1500 tracks wouldn't take as long as ~16 hours.

The other reason I'm wondering about how long this would take is because last night, when MCiS was running, I was paying attention. Well, I was paying attention up until I just needed to go to bed and I missed the transition from syncing to adding to the iTunes library. The status message when syncing says something like "XXXXX of XXXXX tracks analyzed, 0 tracks synchronized". (If I remember correctly.) Does it "analyze" and then "synchronize" as two halves of the same step? In other words, did I miss a stage where the status message would have said something like "62000 of 62000 tracks analyzed, 10000 tracks synchronized"? Or does it analyze and synchronize concurrently, meaning that nothing was synced?

Hm, I hope I've made myself clear. Thanks for any and all advice you may be able to give.

Micah

* Sorta unrelated information: Instead of dealing with syncing with iTunes on my media center, I'm just going to use my MacBook. It makes a lot more sense to me to sync there anyway, as I do my email, calendar, contacts, etc from the MacBook. That's all no worries, no concerns there. I'll be using TuneRanger to keep the iTunes libraries on the MacBook and media pc synchronized.

prod · « **Reply #534 on:** March 30, 2010, 04:33:51 am »

Hi Micah

OK, first the speed issue on importing - you must make sure you're not trying to import any invalid file types (e.g. flac, avi) into iTunes, although it doesn't do any harm, it slows the import process down greatly. Review the log to see what files are being imported.

The "analyzed" portion means MCiS has compared a file to another file, the "synchronized" portion means there was a difference between those two files and that the difference was put right. So if synchronized is zero, no differences have been found so far.

laerm · « **Reply #535 on:** March 30, 2010, 08:22:11 am »

Quote from: prod on March 30, 2010, 04:33:51 am

OK, first the speed issue on importing - you must make sure you're not trying to import any invalid file types (e.g. flac, avi) into iTunes, although it doesn't do any harm, it slows the import process down greatly. Review the log to see what files are being imported.

I had set it to only deal with mp3 and m4a files (of which I only have a couple hundred). I found it was taking a long time because it was reimporting my entire library thanks to iTunes having *slightly* different path names to the NAS. I opened the XML iTunes library, did a find-and-replace, and made them equal. I reimported that library last night (took about 10 hours!) and am now running MCiS again.

Also, iTunes just seems to be really slow on my machine. It only uses 7-10% of processing power when importing files, so it takes about 20 seconds to do each file. I wish I could tell it to floor it.

Quote

The "analyzed" portion means MCiS has compared a file to another file, the "synchronized" portion means there was a difference between those two files and that the difference was put right. So if synchronized is zero, no differences have been found so far.

Ah, great! That makes total sense, as I've never used iTunes to listen to any music; therefore, no play count stats to update.

The only thing I am unclear on at this point is the "alternative file keys" switch. I've been checking it, because somewhere back in this long thread I saw someone say it helps the sync run faster...

Thanks!
Micah

prod · « **Reply #536 on:** March 30, 2010, 09:51:07 am »

Quote from: laerm on March 30, 2010, 08:22:11 am

Ah, great! That makes total sense, as I've never used iTunes to listen to any music; therefore, no play count stats to update.

MCiS should sync the play stats from MC to iTunes in that case though, and that would count as a +1 on the "synchronized" count. Make sure the path & filename held in MC correctly matches the path & filename in iTunes, as this is how MCiS knows the file in each library are the same and should be sync'd.

Quote from: laerm on March 30, 2010, 08:22:11 am

The only thing I am unclear on at this point is the "alternative file keys" switch. I've been checking it, because somewhere back in this long thread I saw someone say it helps the sync run faster...

Checking this allows you to sync a file in the MC library with a different file in the iTunes library - for example "D:\iTunes\Bob - Whatever.mp3" with "D:\My Music\Bob - Whatever.flac". To use this you need to create and populate an iTunesFileKey field in MC with the alternative path & filename - look at Zxsix's Guide to Syncing Lossless (PDF) for more info. Checking this checkbox without utilizing the iTunesFileKey field will cause no harm, and MCiS will just ignore the setting. It won't make the sync faster, if anything it may be a very tiny bit slower.

laerm · « **Reply #537 on:** March 30, 2010, 11:57:51 am »

Quote from: prod on March 30, 2010, 09:51:07 am

MCiS should sync the play stats from MC to iTunes in that case though, and that would count as a +1 on the "synchronized" count. Make sure the path & filename held in MC correctly matches the path & filename in iTunes, as this is how MCiS knows the file in each library are the same and should be sync'd.

Yep, I see that now. I started it up again before I left this morning and it was chugging along, "65 of 62095 tracks analyzed, 64 tracks synchronized." Whee!

Quote

Checking this allows you to sync a file in the MC library with a different file in the iTunes library - for example "D:\iTunes\Bob - Whatever.mp3" with "D:\My Music\Bob - Whatever.flac". To use this you need to create and populate an iTunesFileKey field in MC with the alternative path & filename - look at Zxsix's Guide to Syncing Lossless (PDF) for more info. Checking this checkbox without utilizing the iTunesFileKey field will cause no harm, and MCiS will just ignore the setting. It won't make the sync faster, if anything it may be a very tiny bit slower.

Oh, ok, I see now. I suppose I didn't need to turn this on, then, but maybe I did: I make use of stacks, so I have a hundred or so albums where I have MP3 versions as well as 24 bit, 96KHz FLACs. Am I correct in thinking that MCiS syncs the iTunes MP3 with the stacked files?

Thanks for answering my basic questions. Now, when this is done, here's hoping TuneRanger does its job well.

Micah

prod · « **Reply #538 on:** March 30, 2010, 04:41:20 pm »

Quote from: laerm on March 30, 2010, 11:57:51 am

Oh, ok, I see now. I suppose I didn't need to turn this on, then, but maybe I did: I make use of stacks, so I have a hundred or so albums where I have MP3 versions as well as 24 bit, 96KHz FLACs. Am I correct in thinking that MCiS syncs the iTunes MP3 with the stacked files?

Yes it'll do that, you put the path & filename of the file as it is known in iTunes into the iTunesFileKey field of the corresponding file in MC, and the two files will be treated the same and sync'd. The most manageable way to do this is to make your iTunesFileKey field a calculated field (i.e. use expressions) that represents how your files are managed on disk. Zxsix's PDF goes through that process - you can pick out the bits that are relevant to your own situation.

laerm · « **Reply #539 on:** March 30, 2010, 05:00:54 pm »

Quote from: prod on March 30, 2010, 04:41:20 pm

Yes it'll do that, you put the path & filename of the file as it is known in iTunes into the iTunesFileKey field of the corresponding file in MC, and the two files will be treated the same and sync'd. The most manageable way to do this is to make your iTunesFileKey field a calculated field (i.e. use expressions) that represents how your files are managed on disk. Zxsix's PDF goes through that process - you can pick out the bits that are relevant to your own situation.

Great, sounds good. Thanks again. Now, for MCiS to finish (approximately 45 hours remaining!)...

Micah

laerm · « **Reply #540 on:** March 31, 2010, 05:09:34 pm »

Ok, so, I ended up getting an error. Status message on MCiS says "The writer is closed or in error state." The log shows no error, it just drops mid-entry. (I guess that's the error.)

Thoughts? Thanks!
Micah

prod · « **Reply #541 on:** April 01, 2010, 04:46:02 am »

Seems there was an error writing to the log .... there's a number of reasons this could happen e.g. you ran out of space, it's writing to a network location and it went down momentarily or something happened that locked the file. Any work the sync had done so far though will be OK, so just restart it - if it keeps happening though try logging to the clipboard instead.

laerm · « **Reply #542 on:** April 01, 2010, 07:55:42 am »

Yeah, I got the same error again... I'll try writing to the clipboard this time, though I can't imagine sending 10+ MB of text to the clipboard is gonna make my machine run very well.

Thanks -
Micah

gigglez · « **Reply #543 on:** April 02, 2010, 03:39:47 pm »

I just found this program that lets you tell itunes to watch folders

http://albumbrowser.klarita.net/itfw.html

Works really well in conjunction with the itunes Synchronizer program.

Magic_Randy · « **Reply #544 on:** April 04, 2010, 08:05:35 pm »

Another fearless upgrade to the latest iTunes (9.1). MCiS works just fine with it.

FYI... iTunes 9.1 modifies the iTunes library. Not sure what it does, but it triggers a re-sync of the iPod. Not so bad on the small ones (just re-synced 1200 tracks on a Nano), but I also have the big iPod classics - they will take some time.

trhunnicutt · « **Reply #545 on:** April 13, 2010, 08:03:47 pm »

Hi Prod,

Great product.

Is there any chance that you can add "Year" to the selectable fields that can be synced from iTunes to MC?

"Year" and "Rating" are the two main meta-data fields which are not written to tags by iTunes, and sometimes it is easier to modify that field while within iTunes itself.

Since it's an integer, I'm hoping that wouldn't put a large speed hit on the sync, but it would be fantastic if "Year" was added as an opitonal item to sync back from iTunes to MC.

Appreciate the consideration in advance.

TRH

prod · « **Reply #546 on:** April 13, 2010, 10:18:18 pm »

Thanks...

Are you sure? I've just tested this on a random MP3 file and iTunes also changed the Year tag in the file.

trhunnicutt · « **Reply #547 on:** April 14, 2010, 11:53:23 am »

After your post, and a test of my own, no... I'm not sure.

Maybe that's something new in 9.x, as I am sure that didn't happen in iTunes 8.x.

Thanks for pointing that out to me. Much appreciated.

jmone · « **Reply #548 on:** April 21, 2010, 01:44:07 am »

I think I need some help - I just can not seem to get this working (MC15, Itunes, Win7, using UNC shares). Following is a pic of my setup + the contents of a log. I will be trying to sync a lossless library later, but for now I can not even get a simple MP3 folder to sync!
Thanks
Nathan

Log file

Quote

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<MCiS Version="5.5.5.0" StartDateTime="2010-04-21T16:41:44" Options="F7A0A0017EBFFFFF">
<ExportPlaylists iTunesPlaylistFolder="MC Playlists">
<Playlist Rebuild="True" Shuffle="False">Lachlan's iTunesSync</Playlist>
</ExportPlaylists>
<Expressions>
<Expression Field="Name">[Name]</Expression>
<Expression Field="Artist">[Artist]</Expression>
<Expression Field="Album">[Album]</Expression>
<Expression Field="Album Artist">[Album Artist]</Expression>
<Expression Field="Comment">[Comment]</Expression>
<Expression Field="Composer">[Composer]</Expression>
<Expression Field="Description">[Description]</Expression>
<Expression Field="Disc #">[Disc #]</Expression>
<Expression Field="Track #">[Track #]</Expression>
<Expression Field="Genre">[Genre]</Expression>
<Expression Field="Grouping">[Grouping]</Expression>
<Expression Field="Lyrics">[Lyrics]</Expression>
<Expression Field="Year">[Year]</Expression>
<Expression Field="Mix Album">[Mix Album]</Expression>
<Expression Field="BPM">[BPM]</Expression>
<Expression Field="Sort Name">Clean(Replace(Replace([Name],/(),/)),2)</Expression>
<Expression Field="Sort Artist">Clean([Artist],2)</Expression>
<Expression Field="Sort Album Artist">Clean([Album Artist (auto)],2)</Expression>
<Expression Field="Sort Album">Clean([Album],2) - Clean([Album Artist (auto)],2)</Expression>
<Expression Field="Sort Composer">Clean([Composer],2)</Expression>
</Expressions>
<MC Version="15.0.29" LibraryName="Default" LibraryPath="C:\Users\Mum and Dad\AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 15\Library\" />
<iTunes Version="9.1.0.79" />
<Result EndDateTime="2010-04-21T16:42:23" Analyzed="0" Synchronized="0" Imported="0" Removed="0">Successful</Result>
</MCiS>

jmone · « **Reply #549 on:** April 21, 2010, 03:11:02 am »

Just thinking outloud as till I fix above I've no way of testing, but regarding lossless libraries - if I use Stacks to create an MP3 copy, we now have both a compatible file and the Library knows it's location so instead of Zxsix's method, could
1) I just make a playlist of these MP3 instead? or better still
2) Could a future version of MC ITunes Sync just grab the info from MC on where they are stored from the library instead of using the Alternative key approach?

Thanks
Nathan

INTERACT FORUM

Author Topic: MC iTunes Synchronizer (using MC with an iPhone or iPod Touch) [v6.0.2] (Read 495089 times)