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Dean - I have a growing problem with the trap app and iTunes. I know all of this is about to change so maybe we let this one go, but it is a growing issue. As of about two updates ago by iTunes, I get a large number of tracks not recognized with the app and thus not in the CQC database.
iTunes is running just fine as do other applications that I have used as a test like Squeeze, Foobar, XBMC.
Currently I have 639 titles loaded and 736 ignored, whatever that means. In the iTunes database I have 2490 tracks and 1125 albums. The numbers never exactly lined up as some are M4P. Other programs listed always pick up more than the tray app.
I did notice that I have about 600 MP3's connected to iTunes and none of them get recognized by the tray app.
Where should I look from here? Can I capture a log of the database load somehow?
Thanks,
Dave Bruner
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Do you have all the appropriate metadata set on them? It needs the album artist in particular, and that often isn't correctly set by iTunes. In order to correctly sort things into albums, in the face of collections that have mixed artists, we have to use the album artist plus album name to create a unique key.
Dean Roddey
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Well that is an issue - all Album Artist fields that I checked very quickly are blank. Artist is filled in, but that is not your key field. I will need to locate some third party solution to straighten out the metadata mess.
Also, should the app pick up MP3's that are associated with iTunes? It appears to skip all of them.
...and, I turned the log level up to High and reloaded. It did not log anything. Where does that information go?
Thanks,
Dave Bruner
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If iTunes reports the MP3s to the Tray Monitor, and they have at least the required basic fields required, then it should pick them up. If you have the logging high, bring up the iTunes tab of the Tray Monitor and watch the output there to see what's going on.
Dean Roddey
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ITunes is not reporting the mp3's which is the strange part. When looking deeper into iTunes, the mp3's were not originally imported with itunes, just added later. ITunes apparently has some background field to track that. They showbup in iTunes and play fine, but to not get reported to the query from the tray app. I will keep searching around.
Thanks,
Dave Bruner
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Dean Roddey Wrote:If iTunes reports the MP3s to the Tray Monitor, and they have at least the required basic fields required, then it should pick them up. If you have the logging high, bring up the iTunes tab of the Tray Monitor and watch the output there to see what's going on.
Well, went through and cleaned up all the meta-data and still no joy. Actually it got worse. Now i have 640 tracks loaded / 706 ignored.
I have a track database of 2025 tracks and 1152 albums, so there are apparently some issues.
I loaded up Foobar as a sanity check and got 1988 tracks, 1082 albums, not bad
I loaded up Squeeze and got 1996 tracks and 1110 albums, so really good.
Note that both Foobar and Squeeze use the itunes XML directly.
Interesting results and frustrating if I want to use the itunes driver.
Thanks,
Dave Bruner
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If iTunes reports it, and it has the basic required info, then it should show up. If it doesn't report it, there's not much we can do.
The reasons it would reject a track are:
- No album title
- No track name
- No artist name
- The track number isn't set
- Or it can't query object id info from iTunes for the track
I was actually slightly wrong about the album artist. It's best to have it, but the thing I suggested (using the artist if album artist isn't there) is already actually done.
But, anyway, if it has the above stuff, and iTunes sends it, it should show up. If the tray monitor's verbose level is medium or higher, it should log to the iTunes tab window if it ignored a track due to missing info.
Dean Roddey
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In verbose mode - Ignored tracks are apparently truly ignored as they do not show up in the log. The only items in the log are the expected M4P Drm'd files and video related files. Is there a method of saving the log file?
Also, my guess is related to object ID as all other fields are now populated.
Thanks,
Dave Bruner
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Just a thought - Give the CQC repo the ability to import M4a and MP3 files from disk and all would be great with the world.
Thanks,
Dave Bruner
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Dean-After lots of experimenting, I found that the primary issue with my iTunes metadata is the track number. Artist Name is a close second. If you download a single tune from iTunes, the track number field is not populated. With no track number, it will not import into CQC. The other issue is that if you happen to enter the same track number for a track with the same album name, both tracks then fail to import. Track number must be a key field in CQC land.
As you did say, sorting works better with more fields filled in, but the track will still import with them being blank other than track number.
I still can not figure out the counts in the tray app. They never seem to align with anything. Titles makes no sense, as the driver actually imports both more Tracks and more Albums that the reported Titles. You may want to look at that.
Also, MP3 will import if the metadata is in good shape, otherwise it will not. The driver seems to be more tolerant of bad metadata in M4a files.
Thanks,
Dave Bruner
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