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[prod]

How do we figure out what to put on command line switches for LibraryIndex?
I've tried 0 through 4 and none work.
Get timeout searching for specified library.

It's the zero-based (first item is 0) sequential order of the listing in Library Manager in MC. If you are using /LibraryName in conjunction with it, this must be the exact name of the library and it is case-sensitive. If using /LibraryPath it is not case sensitive but must match the entry in Library Manager.

[zxsix]

It's the zero-based (first item is 0) sequential order of the listing in Library Manager in MC. If you are using /LibraryName in conjunction with it, this must be the exact name of the library and it is case-sensitive. If using /LibraryPath it is not case sensitive but must match the entry in Library Manager.

Turns out I had the library name and index correct.
It works if I use just those settings.
But when I try to add on the viewscheme setting, it throws up the usage window trying to show me the correct syntax.
Here's what I'm using:    /ViewScheme:"Audio\Tools\MCItunesSynchronizer"
That is the way it shows on the tree in MC and it's a match for case sensitivity.

ETA:  I tried to simplify and tried /ViewScheme:"Audio" and that didn't work either.

[prod]

It's working fine here... sure you've no spelling errors in the arguments? What's your full command line?

[Magic_Randy]

You should be able to get the gforce viz working in MC14 with a few registry edits and copying the .dll files from MC12's visualizations subfolder to MC14's visualizations subfolder.

Thanks...

I'll try to figure out the registry edits.

[Magic_Randy]

A few tips for speeding up sync'ing;

• Retrieving lyrics from iTunes can be a costly business and slows the sync down - so only check the lyrics option if necessary

Just confirming things...

In the options there is a list of "Fields to export from MC to iTunes". But in the tips, it says Retrieving lyrics from iTunes can be costly. I thought the only things coming from iTunes to MC were the the things under "Fields to aggregate" and "Fields to export from iTunes to MC" options.

[zxsix]

It's working fine here... sure you've no spelling errors in the arguments? What's your full command line?

E:\Program Files\J River\itunessync\MCiTunesSynchronizer.exe /LibraryIndex:0 /LibraryName:"NASLibrary"    this works.
E:\Program Files\J River\itunessync\MCiTunesSynchronizer.exe /LibraryIndex:0 /LibraryName:"NASLibrary" /Viewscheme:"Audio"   doesn't work and pops up the Usage info window.

[prod]

Just confirming things...

In the options there is a list of "Fields to export from MC to iTunes". But in the tips, it says Retrieving lyrics from iTunes can be costly. I thought the only things coming from iTunes to MC were the the things under "Fields to aggregate" and "Fields to export from iTunes to MC" options.

Yep that's right, but I still have to retrieve the selected fields from both libraries so I can compare their values.

[prod]

E:\Program Files\J River\itunessync\MCiTunesSynchronizer.exe /LibraryIndex:0 /LibraryName:"NASLibrary"    this works.
E:\Program Files\J River\itunessync\MCiTunesSynchronizer.exe /LibraryIndex:0 /LibraryName:"NASLibrary" /Viewscheme:"Audio"   doesn't work and pops up the Usage info window.

 ? I'm scratching my head. This works OK for me. What about using /Viewscheme:"Audio" on its own?

[Magic_Randy]

Yep that's right, but I still have to retrieve the selected fields from both libraries so I can compare their values.

Got it....

I have my lyrics embedded in the file anyway. So I will turn this field off.

[prod]

Got it....

I have my lyrics embedded in the file anyway. So I will turn this field off.

Just for info, when I switch lyrics on, it takes around 4 times longer to do a sync (around 8 mins instead of 2!). Doesn't make a hell of a difference in many cases, but it's just something I noticed when I was developing it.

[Magic_Randy]

When you sync Playlists, it looks like the MC Smartlists are brought over as regular Playlists in iTunes. Is it possible to convert a Smartlist in MC to a Smart Playlist in iTunes?

[prod]

When you sync Playlists, it looks like the MC Smartlists are brought over as regular Playlists in iTunes. Is it possible to convert a Smartlist in MC to a Smart Playlist in iTunes?

Short answer is no. 

An explanation though; considering the gulf between the power of MC's smartlists and the power of iTunes smartlists this would be an impossible task. Besides, I don't see any benefit because in all cases once the sync is finished they will contain exactly the same tracks, regardless of their being smart or normal.

[Magic_Randy]

Short answer is no.  

An explanation though; considering the gulf between the power of MC's smartlists and the power of iTunes smartlists this would be an impossible task. Besides, I don't see any benefit because in all cases once the sync is finished they will contain exactly the same tracks, regardless of their being smart or normal.

I guess I knew that. The iTunes Smart Playlists are not very smart.

I know the results are the same anyway. Are the iTunes Playlists from MC Smartlists rebuilt from scratch every time I sync? The reason I ask is the sync of the playlists is taking longer than the sync of the libraries.

[prod]

Unless you check the "Rebuild playlists from scratch" checkbox or use the RebuildOnSync: Yes option they won't be rebuilt. Second time round should be a hell of a lot faster.

[zxsix]

? I'm scratching my head. This works OK for me. What about using /Viewscheme:"Audio" on its own?

Tried
"E:\Program Files\J River\itunessync\MCiTunesSynchronizer.exe" /ViewScheme:"Audio"
and
"E:\Program Files\J River\itunessync\MCiTunesSynchronizer.exe" /ViewScheme:"Audio\Artists"
Both pop the info window.

[prod]

Tried
"E:\Program Files\J River\itunessync\MCiTunesSynchronizer.exe" /ViewScheme:"Audio"
and
"E:\Program Files\J River\itunessync\MCiTunesSynchronizer.exe" /ViewScheme:"Audio\Artists"
Both pop the info window.

I'm stumped. Try downloading again, perhaps a rogue version escaped. 

[Magic_Randy]

Everything appears to be working perfectly

Even when I clean up my MC library by fixing a track name and renaming the files, all of my history is still maintained. Even using multiple utilities before I would lose the last played info in iTunes.

Anyway, this is great. From what I can see this solves the problem that the iTouch and iPhone users have.

Even for iPods, this works fine for syncing. The biggest issue I had if I used iTunes is lack of good smartlist functionality. I would use smartlist in MC and use them to sync the iPod. Now I can use the smartlist in MC and send it to iTunes to be used for syncs. That way all of my syncs (iPhones & iPods) can be done with a single method.

Randy

[zxsix]

I'm stumped. Try downloading again, perhaps a rogue version escaped. 

That did it. I was on 3.5.  Upgrading to 3.5.1 worked fine without any changes to my shortcut.

[Magic_Randy]

You should be able to get the gforce viz working in MC14 with a few registry edits and copying the .dll files from MC12's visualizations subfolder to MC14's visualizations subfolder.

Thanks... that worked.

So now MC12 & MC13 are retired. All that is left is MC14.

[prod]

question:  do you expect podcast management to happen in itunes or in MC?
If podcasts exist in MC, does your util put them in itunes so that they show up on iphone as a podcast?

Just to let you know I've looked at this and it's not workable. Both MC and iTunes make it impossible to put together a decent implementation from a third party app ... I did the best I could muster but I deemed it bad and scrapped it. if you want podcasts in the Podcasts section of your iPod, you have to manage your podcasts from within iTunes (which ain't all that bad a podcast interface, imo).

[prod]

v3.5.2 logs the name of the specified view scheme and fixes a minor logging bug; an incorrect analyzed total was being reported.

[lOth]

here's a question and maybe an idea for a new feature: would it be possible to export MC's calculated album rating to iTunes' album rating? My reason for wanting to do this is that iTunes initially calculates album rating based on an average of individual tracks ratings, but I don't think it ever updates the album rating afterwards when you change the rating of individual tracks. You can manually change the album rating (change hollow stars into full stars) but it has the annoying effect of changing individual tracks rating to match the overall rating of the album.
Hope you see what I mean (and hope it can be done, which I'm not sure since it looks like it's impossible to use album avg rating as a field for searches and smartlists in MC).

[prod]

As far as I'm aware, there is no MC calculated album rating?

I don't think it ever updates the album rating afterwards when you change the rating of individual tracks.

iTunes does recalculate that album rating (as long as it has not been set manually) when you change individual track ratings.

You can manually change the album rating (change hollow stars into full stars) but it has the annoying effect of changing individual tracks rating to match the overall rating of the album.

Yeah I noticed that and got round it ... MCiS only sync's individual track ratings that have been set by the user, the computed ones are ignored. Checking "Album Rating" in MCiS sets two fields in MC - Album Rating and Album Rating Calculated - with this combination you can set your views or smartlists accordingly. However, this is a one-way sync so changing the values of those fields in MC will cause them to be overwritten on your next sync.

Back to that "annoying effect of changing individual tracks rating" in iTunes - MCiS sets the field Category (an iTunes field) to "Calculated Rating" if the rating is zero. This allows you to set up smartlists in iTunes that give you your desired results when ratings are used in the rules - you add another rule to say Category does not equal "Calculated Rating". That filters out the spurious tracks where the individual rating has been influenced by the album rating.

[prod]

v3.6;

• Speed improvement in sync'ing playlists
• Playlists that are flagged to be rebuilt are presented as bold in the tree

[prod]

v3.6.1 fixes a very minor logging-only bug regarding track numbers.

[Hertz2]

I was about to say that it didn't work on my system, but it just did! On Windows 7RC, it just seems that you have to run the app as administrator. It took me a few days to discover that.

It is amazing what a good night of sleep can do for the mind ...

[broncodan]

Hey Prod,

running 3.6 - I still get an error when syncing playlists.  The program freezes up and when I push the stop button - it doesn't stop.  If I close down Itunes - it doesn't stop.  I did go to the task manager and shut down a program listed as "Mediac~1.exe".  Once I do this - the program stops and provides the following error message:

  <Result EndDateTime="2009-07-13T07:45:43">The remote procedure call failed. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x800706BE)</Result>
</MCiS>

Please let me know if you need anything else.

[prod]

Hey Prod,

running 3.6 - I still get an error when syncing playlists.  The program freezes up and when I push the stop button - it doesn't stop.  If I close down Itunes - it doesn't stop.  I did go to the task manager and shut down a program listed as "Mediac~1.exe".  Once I do this - the program stops and provides the following error message:

  <Result EndDateTime="2009-07-13T07:45:43">The remote procedure call failed. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x800706BE)</Result>
</MCiS>

Please let me know if you need anything else.

Hey dan - "Mediac~1.exe" is J River MC, it must be stalling during the playlist sync - and it shouldn't do that. When the sync freezes up, what is the progress text above the progress bar exactly?

[prod]

v3.8.1;

• Added option to sync to the iTunes "Sort" fields
• Added ability to edit the expression that is used to retrieve the value of a field from MC, thus allowing the user to control exactly what is sent where in iTunes - please heed the warning below

To use expressions, right-click on the field checkbox you wish to edit the expression of. Any questions let me know.

From the top;

From v3.8, MCiS includes the ability to sync using MC expressions. However, this should be used with the utmost care. Remember that altering a field in iTunes will in many cases write the value to the tag of the physical file also - and this in turn may be then picked up in MC, overwriting your original values! The outcome depends on your configuration in iTunes, MC and MCiS. You need to know exactly what you are doing to use this option, if you are not sure, please ask about it here on the MC forums or leave it alone. This option is included to allow the user to swap fields over, for instance use Composer for Artist, Album Artist (auto) for Sort Album Artist or such like. That's not all though, any expression, simple or complex, may be entered to be sync'd to the destination file. I personally recommend using this mainly with the iTunes Sort fields or when using the Use Alternative File Keys option.

[broncodan]

Hey Prod,

I don't exactly remember the wording - syncing playlist or something -  but the problem seems like it could be related to directory depth - I have previously had this happen before and it seems it hangs when the playlists jump from 2 or 3 folders deep and then the next playlist is back at the main level (e.g. playlists/folder/folder, then the next playlist is located at the playlist level).  
I unchecked the playlist that it was hanging on and it seemed to be working.

Trying to sync over 100 playlists and it is taking forever though....  I started last night:

<MCiS Version="3.6.0.0" StartDateTime="2009-07-13T18:33:51" Options="FFC0280000800000" ImportFileTypes="mp3;wav;m4a"

and pushed stop this morning and it wasn't completed:

<Result EndDateTime="2009-07-14T07:43:50">User aborted.</Result>

One thing I noticed that seems weird is that there are several files the program is adding to a playlist and then for some reason deleteing:

  <AddFileToPlaylist Playlist="Dan's Smartlists\Artist Hits Smartlists\The Who Hits" Filename="K:\Music Collection Share\Music Collection\The Who\The Who - My Generation - The Very Best Of The Who\ (04)  Substitute.mp3" />
  <AddFileToPlaylist Playlist="Dan's Smartlists\Artist Hits Smartlists\The Who Hits" Filename="K:\Music Collection Share\Music Collection\The Who\The Who - My Generation - The Very Best Of The Who\ (13)  Baba O'Riley.mp3" />
  <AddFileToPlaylist Playlist="Dan's Smartlists\Artist Hits Smartlists\The Who Hits" Filename="K:\Music Collection Share\Music Collection\The Who\The Who - Who's Better, Who's Best\02 - Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere.mp3" />
  <AddFileToPlaylist Playlist="Dan's Smartlists\Artist Hits Smartlists\The Who Hits" Filename="K:\Music Collection Share\Music Collection\The Who\The Who - My Generation - The Very Best Of The Who\ (07)  Happy Jack.mp3" />
  <AddFileToPlaylist Playlist="Dan's Smartlists\Artist Hits Smartlists\The Who Hits" Filename="K:\Music Collection Share\Music Collection\The Who\The Who - My Generation - The Very Best Of The Who\ (08)  Pictures Of Lily.mp3" />
  <AddFileToPlaylist Playlist="Dan's Smartlists\Artist Hits Smartlists\The Who Hits" Filename="K:\Music Collection Share\Music Collection\The Who\The Who - Who's Better, Who's Best\01 - My Generation.mp3" />
  <AddFileToPlaylist Playlist="Dan's Smartlists\Artist Hits Smartlists\The Who Hits" Filename="K:\Music Collection Share\Music Collection\The Who\The Who - Who's Better, Who's Best\05 - I'm A Boy.mp3" />
  <DeleteFileFromPlaylist Playlist="Dan's Smartlists\Artist Hits Smartlists\The Who Hits" Filename="K:\Music Collection Share\Music Collection\The Who\The Who - Who's Better, Who's Best\07 - Pictures Of Lily.mp3" />
  <DeleteFileFromPlaylist Playlist="Dan's Smartlists\Artist Hits Smartlists\The Who Hits" Filename="K:\Music Collection Share\Music Collection\The Who\The Who - My Generation - The Very Best Of The Who\ (03)  My Generation.mp3" />
  <DeleteFileFromPlaylist Playlist="Dan's Smartlists\Artist Hits Smartlists\The Who Hits" Filename="K:\Music Collection Share\Music Collection\The Who\The Who - My Generation - The Very Best Of The Who\ (05)  I'm A Boy.mp3" />
  <DeleteFileFromPlaylist Playlist="Dan's Smartlists\Artist Hits Smartlists\The Who Hits" Filename="K:\Music Collection Share\Music Collection\The Who\The Who - Who's Better, Who's Best\19 - Baba O'Riley.mp3" />
  <DeleteFileFromPlaylist Playlist="Dan's Smartlists\Artist Hits Smartlists\The Who Hits" Filename="K:\Music Collection Share\Music Collection\The Who\The Who - Who's Better, Who's Best\06 - Happy Jack.mp3" />
  <DeleteFileFromPlaylist Playlist="Dan's Smartlists\Artist Hits Smartlists\The Who Hits" Filename="K:\Music Collection Share\Music Collection\The Who\The Who - My Generation - The Very Best Of The Who\ (02)  Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere.mp3" />
  <DeleteFileFromPlaylist Playlist="Dan's Smartlists\Artist Hits Smartlists\The Who Hits" Filename="K:\Music Collection Share\Music Collection\The Who\The Who - Who's Better, Who's Best\04 - Substitute.mp3" />


I don't know if this is because these are smartlists and when MCSYNC looks at them - the playlists are "re-generated" by MC and the due to the way the playlist is set up - to only select one song with the same artist/name - that the playlists is update and this causes a change from the previous version that was synced?

One suggestion I have - would be a "Pause" button - as the program is pretty memory intensive and it would be nice to be able to pause it if I needed to free up some resources - but still have the ability to restart from where I left off - so that it doesn't have to start at the beginning again.

[prod]

I don't exactly remember the wording - syncing playlist or something -  but the problem seems like it could be related to directory depth - I have previously had this happen before and it seems it hangs when the playlists jump from 2 or 3 folders deep and then the next playlist is back at the main level (e.g. playlists/folder/folder, then the next playlist is located at the playlist level).  
I unchecked the playlist that it was hanging on and it seemed to be working.

Next time make a note of the exact text and let me know. If it was something to do with your folder structure MCiS wouldn't fill the tree with your playlist structure on startup so it cant be that. From the sound of it MC is causing MCiS to sit there waiting for a response when requesting the files within the playlist, but I can't be sure at this point.

Trying to sync over 100 playlists and it is taking forever though....  I started last night:

The sync shouldn't be slow.... For me, playlist sync processes about 400-500 files per second, sync processes at about 150 files per second when doing a "subsequent run", i.e. where there aren't many changes to be made. If you have thousands of changes per sync it will take much longer, but why would there be so many changes in between syncs?

One thing I noticed that seems weird is that there are several files the program is adding to a playlist and then for some reason deleteing:

That's not weird it's doing what it's supposed to do.... MCiS is noticing changes to your smartlist and syncing the changes to iTunes. From looking at your log I can see the files added to the playlist were different to the files later removed.

One suggestion I have - would be a "Pause" button - as the program is pretty memory intensive and it would be nice to be able to pause it if I needed to free up some resources - but still have the ability to restart from where I left off - so that it doesn't have to start at the beginning again.

The sync is supposed to be a merge of the current state of your libraries at a moment in time.... imo a pause button doesn't really fit into that context. If you're having problems with a large sync, you could split the files you want to process into several views in MC and do a sync for each view using the argument /ViewScheme. Sorry don't do that, it'd screw with the playlist sync.

[prod]

Just to reiterate please be careful with the new expressions options - if misused it has the potential to muck up your library. But, that said, it adds an extra degree of flexibility to how you sync your stuff over.

A quick tip - it is quicker (on sync'ing) to create a calculated field in MC with your expression and then reference that field in MCiS, than to put the full expression inside MCiS. You then have the added benefit of being able to "debug" your expression within MC before sync'ing.

Also, you may want to make use of the Run in Test Mode option in MCiS in order to make sure your expressions are correct.

[prod]

v4.0;

• Added option Synchronize On-The-Go playlists from iTunes to MC - this synchronizes all On-The-Go playlists from iTunes to MC under the MC playlist group "On-The-Go" (directly under the playlist root). Caution: if you already have an "On-The-Go" playlist group directly under the playlist root in MC, rename it or it will be lost when using this option.

[zxsix]

Having trouble getting the latest build.
Fileqube download link hasn't worked all day from here.

[prod]

Having trouble getting the latest build.
Fileqube download link hasn't worked all day from here.

I've added an extra download link to RapidShare.

[prod]

v4.0.1; UI tweak - expression menu header was behaving like an actual menu item.

[steveklein]

a few questions...

do itunes and mc14 have to both be running for the sync to work?

i have selected my mc smartlist which is all songs rated 3+ stars, and is about ~1400 songs. When I go to iTunes, no playlists from MC are synced. I have the box synchronize MC playlists to folder MC Playlists checked. But I can't seem to find this folder anywhere on my computer to manually import them into iTunes since they aren't showing up automatically.

Also, of the 1400 songs I have rated 3+ stars, only 1290 are rated as such in iTunes when I create a smart playlist manually in there for songs of 3 or more stars.

Any ideas?

[prod]

do itunes and mc14 have to both be running for the sync to work?

The sync will load them both up if they are not already running.

i have selected my mc smartlist which is all songs rated 3+ stars, and is about ~1400 songs. When I go to iTunes, no playlists from MC are synced. I have the box synchronize MC playlists to folder MC Playlists checked. But I can't seem to find this folder anywhere on my computer to manually import them into iTunes since they aren't showing up automatically.

The sync-to "folder" isn't a folder on your hard drive - it's referring to a playlist folder in iTunes. Have a look and see if your playlist structure exists in the Playlists section of iTunes. There should be a playlist group called "MC Playlists" in there.

Also, of the 1400 songs I have rated 3+ stars, only 1290 are rated as such in iTunes when I create a smart playlist manually in there for songs of 3 or more stars.

Only tracks are sync'd that exist in both your iTunes library AND your MC library & viewscheme (if specified).

Let me know if this helps any...

[prod]

v4.1 has a couple of more UI tweaks

[steveklein]

prod -- the playlists that im suppsosedly syncing do not appear in the iTunes structure

[zxsix]

prod -- the playlists that im suppsosedly syncing do not appear in the iTunes structure

How about the tracks themselves?  Are they both in MC and also in iTunes?
If not, do you have the "import files to itunes" setting checked?

You might wanna post a screenshot of your settings and a copy of the log file.

[prod]

prod -- the playlists that im suppsosedly syncing do not appear in the iTunes structure

In that case;

• You have Run in Test Mode checked in the Settings dialog, or;
• You do not have Synchronize MC playlists to folder checked, or;
• You do not have any playlists selected in the tree - note that for a playlist to be selected for sync, it must be checked, not just selected

Failing these, post your log file or send it to me and I'll have a look (my email address is in the Settings dialog).

[steveklein]

prod-- i emailed you.

i also see that it's going alphabetically and when it gets to a song by The Who, it fails. And then it never gets to syncing the playlists (I assume that's done after all the songs individually are done). I looked at the log and couldn't immediately tell why it is failing, but that does seem to be the problem.

[prod]

Steve I've had a look at your xml log and it appears that the error is occurring whilst the log is being written. This could happen for a few reasons, for example the disk on which the program is being executed runs out of space, or the network connection to the drive is lost.

Make sure MCiS is running on a local fixed drive with plenty of space. In the meantime I'll make a change to how these kind of errors are handled and release it later today.

[prod]

v4.2; Added Log to Clipboard option in Settings dialog

[prod]

In the meantime I'll make a change to how these kind of errors are handled and release it later today.

Decided to add a new option to log to the clipboard instead .... I decided that if logging fails the sync should stop - otherwise you'd end up with no log.

[steveklein]

Not sure what the issue causing my sync to fail was, but it is gone in v4.2. Sync worked great, playlists are there, was able to update my iphone. Thanks a ton...


EDIT: okay, not quite perfectly. the sync appeared to finish this time, and the playlists are there. but there are some oddities. a handful of songs are missing, and it appears that there are thousands of duplicates. i am first going to just restore my MC library to a few days ago and then delete my iTunes library and go from there.

do i have to import all my folders into iTunes before i run the sync, or will it detect the ~70,000 songs in my MC library and import them all on its own?

[prod]

EDIT: okay, not quite perfectly. the sync appeared to finish this time, and the playlists are there. but there are some oddities. a handful of songs are missing, and it appears that there are thousands of duplicates. i am first going to just restore my MC library to a few days ago and then delete my iTunes library and go from there.

do i have to import all my folders into iTunes before i run the sync, or will it detect the ~70,000 songs in my MC library and import them all on its own?

Before doing anything drastic you could try checking the "Import files to iTunes" and "Remove Broken Links in iTunes" options and running a sync  ....  that should sort out the handful of songs that don't exist in your iTunes library, and may sort out anything a little bit off in iTunes. Not sure why you'd have duplicates ... do you mean in your library or your playlists?

MCiS will import those files automatically for you, may take some time though ... if you're going to do that you should download v4.2.5, you reminded me that MCiS won't continue if the iTunes library is empty - I'd been meaning to take that condition out but forgot, thanks for the reminder.

[prod]

v4.5; some UI changes to the Settings dialog, put tooltips in there to describe each option.

[zxsix]

v4.5; some UI changes to the Settings dialog, put tooltips in there to describe each option.

Error on two of the tooltips.  They reference comma-delimited list of file types.
Should be semicolon-delimited.