The All Things Apple (Only) Topic

[blandy]

 

Shouldn't have to - mp3 and m4a work in most everything don't they? - more than the other types, anyway.

Most of the players that only play wma or ogg or whatever have withered away.

mp3 will play anywhere, pretty much. There are threads down below (and many, many online guides) which explain to peiople how to convert music in itunes to mp3 as it used to be such an issue. Perhaps things have changed, but Apple hardly have a good track record in making it easier to use non-Apple stuff, so I expect that an export (conversion) is needed.

It's possible, but in terms of car radios and such like, most that I've come across in recent years will play m4a files. I think things have changed, largely because iPods/phones etc are much more ubiquitous than they once were.

 

Basically if there's enough users of a file type, then manufacturers will make kit that'll work with it - so they can sell their own gear - in this case car stereos.

Additionally windows iTunes used to convert sac to wmv (and probably still does) "file" "create new version"

 

I think m4a/acc is was a successor to mp3 anyway - better sound for the same file size.

[limpid]

Well yes. mp3 is a lossy codec designed to squeeze audio alongside a video stream. It was never a good choice for music and so inevitably it became ubiquitous. Like VHS did.

 

I'm glad I don't have to deal with this kind of thing any more. I stream everything and where I need local storage I playback through audio leads or bluetooth.

[blandy]

Yeah it looks like that's the future. But not yet - there are still gazillions of people and devices without 3 or 4G and for them, digital file storage is still the way. I think I read earlier that Warner Music now makes more money from streaming than from sales of mp3 type files or CDs. So it's on its way.

[limpid]

I am living in the future  (without Apple)

[blandy]

That's nice.

I'm living in the present, with Apple. Which is nice, too.

[Risso]

That's nice.

I'm living in the present, with Apple. Which is nice, too.

 

iTunes is fundamentally broken.  If you've ever encountered the dotted circle of hell problem, then you'll know what I mean.  I'll never have another iPhone after this one, the software is just too dismal.  

[Stevo985]

I never had a problem with iTunes.

 

In fact, as a music management programme I thought it was excellent.

 

The only problems I ever had with it were when I moved onto android and had to convert a load of music. Which is a big problem, imo. But still, the actual using of the programme always seemed fine to me.

[Risso]

I never had a problem with iTunes.

 

In fact, as a music management programme I thought it was excellent.

 

The only problems I ever had with it were when I moved onto android and had to convert a load of music. Which is a big problem, imo. But still, the actual using of the programme always seemed fine to me.

 

There's a bug now, where if you end with duplicate copies of a song, which sometimes happens just because of a glitch, it appears with a dotted circle next to it, meaning that you can't transfer it from your library to your phone.  You can't delete the dotted line version, absolutely nothing works.  If you're now on Android, when did you last use iTunes, as the last few updates have made it progressively worse, to the point now where it's almost unusable.

[Risso]

The following article explains it very well:

 

http://robservatory.com/a-nasty-little-itunesios-bug-may-be-causing-media-sync-issues/

 

"I have not seen a progress bar that busy since the day I brought my iPhone 6 back home. Whatever I tried, iTunes simply would not sync everything in my library. In the end, the problem turned out to be as simple—but as deadly—as this:

In the current version of iTunes/iOS, there’s a bug that only appears when you have duplicates of purchased songs. When encountered, a duplicate of a purchased song will (almost always) cause iTunes to silently stop syncing.

This is a known-to-Apple issue, and it will be fixed in a forthcoming update. I’m fairly certain it’s an iTunes bug, but as Apple didn’t clearly state which it was, I’m calling it iTunes/iOS. Either way, until it’s fixed, it’s a really bad bug.

Here’s what happens: If you have duplicates of purchased songs, iTunes simply silently stops syncing when it hits one of those duplicates. From your perspective, it will look like everything is working—iTunes never throws an error, and it proceeds through all six (or seven or whatever) steps of the sync process, as seen in the status window of iTunes.

But behind the scenes, nothing is happening—at least, nothing relative to syncing your files. As seen by my troubles, this can be incredibly frustrating and hard to fix."

 

And apparently that's just one of many syncing problems between iPhones and an iTunes library.

[Stevo985]

 

I never had a problem with iTunes.

 

In fact, as a music management programme I thought it was excellent.

 

The only problems I ever had with it were when I moved onto android and had to convert a load of music. Which is a big problem, imo. But still, the actual using of the programme always seemed fine to me.

 

There's a bug now, where if you end with duplicate copies of a song, which sometimes happens just because of a glitch, it appears with a dotted circle next to it, meaning that you can't transfer it from your library to your phone.  You can't delete the dotted line version, absolutely nothing works.  If you're now on Android, when did you last use iTunes, as the last few updates have made it progressively worse, to the point now where it's almost unusable.

 

Fair enough.

 

it's years since I used it. I'd have carried on using it on my laptop but it wasn't worth it given the hassle of talking to itunes with an android phone

[blandy]

... iTunes... last few updates have made it progressively worse, to the point now where it's almost unusable.

Yeah, it's definitely got worse. I had various syncing issues when iOS8 and iTunes 12 came in. The various point updates since then have made all the problems I had go away, but it shouldn't be the case that when you introduce a new version things get worse and less useable. Their software QA has dropped right down.

 

I think iTunes tries to do too much and has become way too unwieldy.

When it just did music it was (at least on a mac, I never tried it on windows) excellent.

Now it's music, podcasts, TV, films, Apps, and all the rest - basically 50% shop 50% media management software it's got a bit pants. Perhaps they should split it up into smaller programs for the different functions.

 

I tried various equivalent type applications on Linux and they were all worse, mind, though one or two had some good features.

[Risso]

Yes, it used to be great ages ago, when Apple stuff still "just worked".  iTunes was really intuitive and easy to use.  Now only does it not "just work" there often isn't a fix until they get round to sorting it out in a future patch.  Over the past two years there have been all sorts of major issues with the software, eg not working in cars so you can't play music, and now I've downloaded several albums only to be able to not play them on my phone at all.

[villaglint]

Agreed I have been on iPhone for years (through laziness and fear of change more than anything) and I avoid iTunes like the plague, incredibly bad piece of kit.

I'm a spotify man so rarely do I need to use iTunes

[Kingman]

In the last few months, Ive gone from spinning wheels and egg timers to spinning multi coloured beach balls! 

 

This apple crack is over rated!

[Risso]

Carrying on from the Consumer Rights thread, which Simon correctly pointed out had gone massively OT.

 

I did everything in your detailed instructions Pete in delting and reinstalling iTunes, then delting all of the various pref files etc, and it made no difference.  As soon as I connected the phone to the Mac via a wire, the same old problem with dotted grey circles appeared.  I wiped my iPhone as well, which then gave me a clean phone, and with the reinstalled iTunes it was working fine, but then I'd lost all of my emails and text messages etc.  When I restored the phone from a back up, the problems were still there.  Any further ideas?

[blandy]

Carrying on from the Consumer Rights thread, which Simon correctly pointed out had gone massively OT.

 

I did everything in your detailed instructions Pete in delting and reinstalling iTunes, then delting all of the various pref files etc, and it made no difference.  As soon as I connected the phone to the Mac via a wire, the same old problem with dotted grey circles appeared.  I wiped my iPhone as well, which then gave me a clean phone, and with the reinstalled iTunes it was working fine, but then I'd lost all of my emails and text messages etc.  When I restored the phone from a back up, the problems were still there.  Any further ideas?

I do have a couple of other ideas.

Firstly though can you explain the above specifically as I read it there's something not consistent.

You reinstalled iTunes - problem still apparent.

Wiped phone - problem solved "working fine".

but then you restored the phone from a back up to get your e mails back and it became duff again?

If so, that's kind of evidence that the problem is with the software on the phone (iOS) - something's corrupted in there - when you backed it up, you backed up the corrupted setting and then when you put the back up, back on the phone, so you put back the problem.

So, the solution looks like you'll have to start from a "clean" phone, but maybe there's a way not to have to do that.

There's a few ways to go, thinking about the simplest first. How about this? which doesn't involve wiping the phone, to start with

Note: if your e mail provider doesn't currently keep e mails on the server, change the server settings in your e mail programme. That way they'll be there, and you can have your phone "clean" without losing them forever. it's usually done in the mail programme (on the mac)  preferences, advanced.

Anyway, simplest things first.

on your phone, in settings - music - Show all music - turn it OFF. I just wonder if that might be the cause. Anyway..

Turn off wi-fi on phone.

on mac, make sure all purchases you've made and want to keep are downloaded in iTunes. then turn off mac wi-fi.

On phone, go to settings - general - usage - storage: manage storage - music and then the > next to music. then EDIT, then "-" "All songs". It will then seem like nothing happens for 5 minutes while the phone deletes all the songs on the phone. Time will vary depending how much space is taken up by your music.

Once the phone has erased all the songs on it, turn it off, turn it on again.

Plug it into itunes, and without immediately syncing it, on iTunes go to the Summary settings, make sure "automatically sync this phone when connected" is OFF.

On the music tab, deselect everything. Then select (as a test) just one album, (or just a few songs), and then sync.

If that works, Dependent on the results - sync a few more albums. then everything you want.

 

If that didn't work at some point, either report back, or try the next step, which I'll type in a bit.

[blandy]

The next bit, then, would be as an idea to "delete" all your music from iTunes on your mac, then try and sync your phone.
By the way, on your phone, as well, in settings - music - Show all music - turn it OFF.

So, carrying on from above.
Empty trash on Mac.

with wi fi off on phone and mac, (and with your music backed up somewhere (on an external HD, or a folder on your desktop, or wherever)

on mac, In iTunes, Music, songs - select everything and then delete. And then when it asks if you want to remove the songs from your mac also - hit Yes - they'll all get moved to the trash. Don't empty the trash.
So now you've no music on the mac itunes library.

Close itunes.

Open iTunes

 

Plug in the phone, You've already removed all music from your phone (if not, do it now, see post above).

 

Sync phone and mac.
As there's no music to sync, there should be no issues with music hanging.

Restart mac, restart phone (just to be sure, really)

open iTunes,

Put back some of the music into iTunes (drag it from the back up or out of the trash, onto the desktop, then back into the iTunes window (you can't drag it direct from the trash onto iTunes, I don't think)

sync.

add more music. repeat sync. etc....

If that didn't work, then we'll have to erase the phone...

 

But I think it might work, from what you said in your post.

[blandy]

By "leave it alone", what do you mean?...

Sorry, I meant, once (if) you get it working, don't update the iOS and don't update the iTunes version, or if you do, back up ebverything immediately beforehand, so you can revert if needs be.

I found, though, once I got it working again, cleared out whatever had caused it, it was fine.

I think that's really dangerous advice Pete. I'd only recommend that in a virtual machine dedicated to the single piece of software involved and that's a level of stuff beyond most users.

Always keep your OS and software up to date.

Normally, definitely, yes. However if you have a piece of software that has been very very poor/flaky and then you get it working/get a version that's "good", updating for cosmetic changes, or added features (rather than safety fixes) seems unnecessary/unwise.

Basically if iOS / iTunes hadn't gone a bit/lot crap then sure. As it's clearly caused loads of people loads fo problems, then if you get it working, leave it alone for a bit. Only update once you're sure you can revert if it goes pants again.

[blandy]

And if the steps above didn't work, then sadly it'll have to be a bigger step.

You can do it in one big go, or two less big goes. (i.e. you could try the phone part only, first, but if it doesn't work, you'll have to do the whole thing anyway.)

turn off the phone (or at least turn off wi-fi)

on the mac, back up your itunes media folder ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media

to a HD or the desktop

in itunes "store (menu bar) sign out. Then de authorise the computer (from menu - store - deauthorise this computer)

Close iTunes

then delete ~/Music/iTunes

There's now nothing in iTunes and it's got no library and no store account.

On the phone, completely erase it - settings - General - Reset - Erase all content and settings.

On the mac, In iTunes drop all your files from the back up of ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media into the window - to recreate the library. Playlists etc. won't be there, but all the emdia files will be.

when that's finished, plug in your phone and set up up again.

I hope you don't need to go that far, I really do.

 

Note: if you've got any iBooks, they are stored in Library > Containers > com.apple.BKAgentService > Data > Documents > iBooks Or simply type 'iBooks' in the Finder search (cmd + space bar)  and click on the folder named iBooks. Ones you've bought can also be re-fetched by signing back in to apple store on the phone and/or Mac.

[limpid]

 

 

 

By "leave it alone", what do you mean?...

Sorry, I meant, once (if) you get it working, don't update the iOS and don't update the iTunes version, or if you do, back up ebverything immediately beforehand, so you can revert if needs be.

I found, though, once I got it working again, cleared out whatever had caused it, it was fine.

 

I think that's really dangerous advice Pete. I'd only recommend that in a virtual machine dedicated to the single piece of software involved and that's a level of stuff beyond most users.

Always keep your OS and software up to date.

 

Normally, definitely, yes. However if you have a piece of software that has been very very poor/flaky and then you get it working/get a version that's "good", updating for cosmetic changes, or added features (rather than safety fixes) seems unnecessary/unwise.

Basically if iOS / iTunes hadn't gone a bit/lot crap then sure. As it's clearly caused loads of people loads fo problems, then if you get it working, leave it alone for a bit. Only update once you're sure you can revert if it goes pants again.

Disagree. It's not safe to delay patching any OS or apps. Ease of use is great right up until your device is compromised. Then you're relying on backup services for which your compromised machine has given away the credentials.