Help required with iTunes

[Roshi]

For some kind of reason, iTunes refuses to play 3 tracks from BSG's Season Two soundtrack (Colonial Anthem, One Year Later and Black Market). The other mp3s I got on my library are perfectly played but those three won't play. Where the hell does the problem come from?

May I add those tracks come from my legitimally acquired CDs.

Help me TrekBBS, you're my only hope!

 

[ATimson]

We need more detail than this.

Does iTunes try to play the file, the timer passes, but you get no sound? Is there an error box? Does the error exclamation mark icon show up next to the track in your library when you try? What error message do you get when (IIRC) you double-click on the exclamation mark?

When you look at the properties for the track, is the file where iTunes thinks it is?

 

[Roshi]

We need more detail than this.

Ok!

Does iTunes try to play the file, the timer passes, but you get no sound?

Nope. Not at all. When I click on the track nothing happens. You just see the apple on the upper display (see picture here)

Is there an error box? Does the error exclamation mark icon show up next to the track in your library when you try?

Nope. Even if I click on the previous tracks (Season 1, for instance) iTunes skips the Season 2 tracks and goes directly to the Season 3 tracks.

What error message do you get when (IIRC) you double-click on the exclamation mark?

No error message whatsoever.

When you look at the properties for the track, is the file where iTunes thinks it is?

Here's what I get. Some characteristics have disappeared. It already happened last week (with those same three tracks). I deleted them, took my original CD and ripped them once again on my iTunes library. I could play them (as you can see on the pic, I last played them on July 8). But as of today, nada!

 

[ATimson]

It sounds to me like something else on your computer is corrupting those music files. (A false positive from your virus scanner, maybe? Odd that they're three sequential tracks. But since it's being repeated...) They're there, iTunes tries to play them, but it doesn't work.

You're almost certainly going to have to rerip them. But a couple of suggestions to try to avoid this in the future:

1) Try marking the files as Read Only in Explorer.
2) Rip at a different bitrate, or in a different format.
3) Keep a copy of the files in a ZIP file, and then unzip them and replace them when they go bad.

Oh, one other thing: try deleting them from your library (but not your hard drive) and readding the files. I expect that iTunes will have no idea what to do with them, and not know what the title/artist are, but I'm curious.

 

[Roshi]

Ok, so now even the background picture has just disappeared...

 

[ATimson]

Ok, so now even the background picture has just disappeared...

It disappeared without you making any changes?

 

[Roshi]

Nope. Just double-clicking on the track...

 

[ATimson]

iTunes must've had the art and/or album ID cached, and is no longer able to read them from the still-corrupted file. So, likely nothing new is broken.

 

[Roshi]

Ok, thanks, I'll do what you told me. I'll tell you what tomorrow.
Thks.

 

[Hermiod]

Re-rip them in iTunes.

Oh, and do it in Apple Lossless - Battlestar Galactica soundtracks deserve it!

 

[Roshi]

Forgive the neophyte question but what is Apple Lossless?

 

[ATimson]

Forgive the neophyte question but what is Apple Lossless?

Ripping to an MP3 file or an AAC file shrinks the sound down by throwing away data that's theoretically not audible. Apple Lossless is a format that can't compress anywhere near as well as MP3 or AAC, but it doesn't throw anything away either.

 

[Bisz]

iTunes is the least user friendly, least intuitive software I have ever had the misfortune of using. I am an engineering working in an office full of engineers (so we're not all computer illiterate) and I've never heard anything but bitching about this piece of crap software. I hate it and I wish there was another way, any other way, to manager the mp3s on my iPhone... anyone know of one?