Hi Greg, This result is still very weird, but at least more understandable. So my understanding is that on about the first 30 albums you imported from CD, possibly dating from the inaccessible days, iTunes suddenly swapped the metadata fields for song and artist. Everything else sounds as though it is behaving correctly, and that you have the default library location, "Keep iTunes Music folder organized" option checked, "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" checked, and (on the importing pane) "Create file names with track number" checked
Are any other metadata tags missing or in the wrong place for these files? My guess would be that something, maybe an additional invalid data character or too long entry from the inaccessible iTunes period might have caused the database to "hiccup". I once had some odd results when I tried to put in too much information into a comment field. There is an AppleScript to swap song name and album name, I think, and that might be usable. Is the above a fair description of your current problem? Cheers, Esther On Dec 02, 2007, at 10:01AM, Greg Williams wrote: >Hi Esther, >I was going to reply when I noticed something. I had only scrolled >down through the first 30 or so folders in the itunes music folder, >and they were as I had described, but further down the list, I found >albums that were still organized correctly. I looked at the info >dialog in itunes for songs that were organized correctly and for >songs that weren't. It looks as though itunes did exactly what it >should have done. On a number of albums, the meta data for "name" >and "artist" have been switched around which explains the problem. >Now the question becomes "how did the data get switched?" I re- >imported one of the affected CDs, and the info shows up correctly for >the songs. I will have to try some more CDs, but it would appear >that I somehow managed to change something. I can't think of how it >would have happened, but it seems to have affected the albums which I >imported when I first got my Mac. I tried messing with itunes a lot >when it was still pretty unaccessible and must have unwittingly done >something wrong. >Any ideas as to how to switch columns of data for an album? Thanks >and sorry for sending people on a wild goose hunt. >Greg > >On Dec 2, 2007, at 8:23 AM, Esther wrote: > >> Hi Greg, >> >> On Dec 02, 2007, at 01:30AM, Greg Williams wrote: >>> Hi, >>> I had my itunes music folder all nice and organized into >>> artist:album:song hierarchy, and itunes put newly imported CDs in >>> that structure. Well, somehow the "organize library" preference >>> became unchecked, and I imported a couple of CDs whose files just got >>> thrown into my "itunes music" folder. >> >> This sounds bizarre. A few quick questions: what version of iTunes >> are you running and are you using Tiger or Leopard on your Mac? >> Is your iTunes Music folder location set to your local hard drive >> (default >> is "Macintosh HD: Users: <username>: Music: iTunes: iTunes Music") >> or are you using an external hard drive? If you rip music from CDs, >> the >> new tracks should be organized by Artist: Album: Song -- just as you >> wanted -- regardless of your "organize library" preference settings. >> >> To clarify, when you say that you "imported a couple of CDs whose >> files >> just got thrown into 'your iTunes Music' folder", were these files >> that were >> already ripped from CD (such as compressed AAC or MP3 files) that you >> were adding to your music library, or did you insert an audio CD and >> import its contents? I'm going to distinguish "importing" from >> "adding to >> library" here to learn how the tagging information got added. When >> you >> rip (import) an audio CD, iTunes looks up information on the >> Artist, Album, >> and Song from the CDDB (CD database at gracenote.com) and uses that, >> unless you input your own edits with Get Info (Command+I). When you >> add a music file on your hard drive to your iTunes library, iTunes >> reads the >> tags in that file to insert the Artist, Album, and Song information >> into its >> database. And when the music you imported got "thrown into" your >> iTunes >> Music folder, how was this organized, if at all? >> >>> I went investigating why this happened and found the unchecked >>> organize preference. I checked, and then began my problems. When I >>> quit out of preferences, itunes kindly asked me if I would like my >>> library organized, and I blithely responded yes. When I looked at my >>> itunes music folder in the finder, I found that my music was now >>> organized in song_folder:album_folder:track_number+artist_file. This >>> is not at all what I wanted, but I could not find any obvious way to >>> undo it in itunes. The puzzling thing is that when it imports CDs, >>> it does it in the hierarchy I had expected. This might be mildly >>> annoying but amusing except that I often use VLC to play albums >>> because I can just navigate to the album folder in the open dialog >>> and play which is easier than itunes. I have tried to find scripts >>> online to undo this mess, but I have not had any success thus far. >>> Does anyone have any suggestions short of deleting all of the music >>> and re-importing the CDs from scratch? Thanks. >>> Greg >>> >>> >>> >> I have a few ideas, but await your answers. One possibility is that >> you simply have a corrupted preference list file. I've never been >> asked >> by iTunes whether I "would like my music organized" when I uncheck >> and then later check "Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized". I think >> that might happen if you consolidate a library that contains both >> items >> in your iTunes Music folder and files that you added that you kept >> outside >> the folder (by unchecking the "Copy files to iTunes Music folder >> when adding >> to library" before doing an "Add file to Library"). >> >> Could you read back the first preference settings on the General >> tab of the >> Advanced dialogue of your iTunes preferences? (Command+comma to >> bring up preferences, Command-6 for the Advanced menu, Item chooser >> to select "General, <selected> tab 1 of 3"). These will be >> 1) Your iTunes music folder location (you can just say default, if >> you haven't >> changed this) >> 2) "Keep iTunes Music folder organized" (checked or unchecked?) >> 3) "Copy files to iTunes Music foder when adding to >> library" (checked or >> unchecked?) >> >> And do you remember what the prefs were when you followed up on the >> CDs >> "thrown into" your music folder? That could have been because of >> poor tagging >> in the CDDB. >> >> Cheers, >> >> Esther >> > > > >
