dcjohn62

Q: Front Row Incorrectly Reads iTunes Metadata under Snow Leopard?

There is a serious problem with Front Row under Snow Leopard. The program is unable to correctly read the TV metadata from iTunes and does not correctly filter/organize the data. TV episode/season/title data is not read resulting in a completely disorganized library. All files are viewd as "movies" whether they have been tagged as TV shows or not. I had a sizable libray of videos that was perfectly organized under Tiger. Under Snow Leopard my entire database has been blown up- most TV shows appear as "Untitled". I'm sure they are MacMini users who have integrated their computers into their media playback systema s I have and am hoping Apple will provide a fix for this issue which totally undercuts one of the main reasons for integrating the Mini into one's home theatre system. Does any have a fix or simple work around. Come on Apple-- don't turn into Microsoft on me!

Mac Mini, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Jun 19, 2010 11:40 AM

Close

Q: Front Row Incorrectly Reads iTunes Metadata under Snow Leopard?

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

  • by Jere Krischel,

    Jere Krischel Jere Krischel Jul 3, 2010 9:02 PM in response to dcjohn62
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jul 3, 2010 9:02 PM in response to dcjohn62
    Same problem here. Just bought a brand new Mac mini Server, moved my iTunes library over from another box, and it's completely disorganized and improperly labeled. TV shows are "untitled", and they also show up in the Movies list.

    Patch, please!
  • by Jere Krischel,

    Jere Krischel Jere Krischel Jul 4, 2010 1:32 AM in response to Jere Krischel
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jul 4, 2010 1:32 AM in response to Jere Krischel
    Fixed the problem. Go to your iTunes Preferences, Advanced, and uncheck "Keep iTunes Media folder organized". Click OK. Then go to your iTunes Preferences again, Advanced, and check "Keep iTunes Media Folder organized". Click OK.

    Apparently toggling that triggered a reorganization of my iTunes Media folder, which had become discombobulated. TV shows which had proper tagging in iTunes were in the wrong folders, and this fixed it.

    Hope that helps!
  • by Jere Krischel,

    Jere Krischel Jere Krischel Jul 4, 2010 1:42 AM in response to Jere Krischel
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jul 4, 2010 1:42 AM in response to Jere Krischel
    Well, I guess I spoke too soon...things no longer show up as "Untitled", but there is still a lot of cruft when I navigate to "Movies" in front row...ghosts of a presence on the file system that is no longer there.

    Oddly enough, this behavior persists even after I deleted ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.frontrow/Cache.db - I thought for sure that would clear it up.

    So half fixed, at least, but not all the way there.
  • by dcjohn62,

    dcjohn62 dcjohn62 Jul 7, 2010 8:52 AM in response to Jere Krischel
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Jul 7, 2010 8:52 AM in response to Jere Krischel
    Nice try man. I followed your steps but to no avail, my movies folder is still blown up and my TV Shows folder is worse. There have been a couple of software upgrades since the initial problem occured, non of which seem to address the issue. Short of using a third party soulution (like dumping Front Row) I'm at my wits end on this one. Come on Apple... do the right thing and fix this!
  • by Chrysanthemummy,

    Chrysanthemummy Chrysanthemummy Jul 18, 2010 9:40 PM in response to dcjohn62
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Safari
    Jul 18, 2010 9:40 PM in response to dcjohn62
    I recently purchased a used iMac (from 2006), that the previous owner had upgraded to Snow Leopard. I already have a MacBook Pro. To explain, I purchased the iMac to set it up as a media center computer, connected to my external hard drive and synced with AppleTV. I used Migration Assistant to move my files onto the iMac, but Front Row is now showing all the errors you described.

    1. It is VERY slow to open. Clicking Menu on the remote, and you wait 15 seconds or more for Front Row to open.

    2. Even though iTunes is directed to my external hard drive, Front Row shows Source as my Macbook Pro.

    3. TV shows are out of order. On my Macbook Pro (10.5.8) all shows are listed from first to last, from top to bottom. On the iMac (10.6.4) they are listed last to first, top to bottom.

    4. Some TV shows that are clearly in iTunes (purchased from iTunes) do not appear in Front Row at all.

    5. The unwatched content blue dot remains even after watching something all the way through to the end. After watching them in Front Row, iTunes does not show them as watched either, but instead has the half blue dot, as if they were unfinished.

    6. iTunes is also badly affected: I now have a large number of TV shows in the Movies section, and attempts to reorganize them in the folders on the external where they are store fails. It's a complete mess, and it seems like its deliberate that we cannot reorganize it ourselves.

    So what used to be a very lovely program has become a horribly messy, PC like, application. Which made the whole point of setting up a special computer just for media a total waste of time and money with Snow Leopard installed.

    If a fix is not forthcoming, I'm probably going to uninstall Snow Leopard, and reinstall Leopard. Everything worked fine there for me.
  • by Chrysanthemummy,

    Chrysanthemummy Chrysanthemummy Jul 18, 2010 11:11 PM in response to Chrysanthemummy
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Safari
    Jul 18, 2010 11:11 PM in response to Chrysanthemummy
    Okay, I was able to go through each incorrectly organized TV show and by going to Info (Command I), then Options, reset them as TV Shows. But some still appeared as Untitled, or Various, or Unknown. For each of these I had to play around with editing the metadata in the Info page. Some wanted a TV Show name in Sorting, others didn't. Some required and Artist name (AKA the name of the show, not the episode). After messing with them for a while I was finally able to get each one to appear in Front Row, with their correct titles.

    Sometimes while I was working through this, I would be able to get the show the play in Front Row if the title was "Various", but when I initially changed them to their correct name, then suddenly they would not play in Front Row. It seemed kind of hit and miss. I just had to adjust each one, adding a title here, and artist there, removing data here and there, until the show appeared and played correctly. It was a very illogical process.

    The one thing I could not correct was a single episode I purchased as part of a season that sorts by itself. All data matches the rest of the season, but it refuses to merge with them. I reported the problem to iTunes three weeks ago and have had zero response. So my opinion is they have some issues with metadata, and they are avoiding addressing it until they have figured it out.

    But the listing of the episodes upside down persists. I have not found any setting to reverse it. It's bizarre and annoying.
  • by dcjohn62,

    dcjohn62 dcjohn62 Aug 27, 2010 3:45 PM in response to dcjohn62
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Aug 27, 2010 3:45 PM in response to dcjohn62
    To get all of my movies separated I had to change them to TV shows then I used the word "Feature" as a key word in the Show Title, Artists and Album fields. This tricked Front Row into thinking all my movies were a TV show called "features" and subsequently add them to the TV Shows flder under a subheading called "Features". If you tag your movies correctly you'll only see one item in Cover Flow listed as "Features", however when you open Front Row and navigate to the TV Shoes folder, all your movies will be there in the "Features" sub menu. Hopefully this is helpful to all. What would be more helpful would be if Apple addressed this isue with Snow Leopard. Come on guys!
  • by Christopher Mercer,

    Christopher Mercer Christopher Mercer Sep 13, 2010 4:27 PM in response to Chrysanthemummy
    Level 1 (34 points)
    Sep 13, 2010 4:27 PM in response to Chrysanthemummy
    I have been having the same issue as #5. Content watched in Front Row is not showing up as watched in iTunes. It is showing a half blue dot and I have to manually clean up the watched podcasts after the fact.
  • by Mollusc,

    Mollusc Mollusc Nov 10, 2010 3:48 AM in response to Jere Krischel
    Level 1 (30 points)
    Nov 10, 2010 3:48 AM in response to Jere Krischel
    Oddly enough, this behavior persists even after I deleted ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.frontrow/Cache.db - I thought for sure that would clear it up.



    I can see errors in my front row cache.db file which are causing front row metadata problems.

    I want to correct these errors but i don't know which master file generates the cache.db file

    (no use deleting the cache.db file because its just a cache file and gets automatically regenerated with the same errors)


    Does anyone know which master file generates the cache.db file?

    I've tried deleting and re-installing every file i can find concerned with front row and itunes but it hasn't helped...
  • by MooMuir,

    MooMuir MooMuir Nov 13, 2010 2:13 PM in response to dcjohn62
    Level 1 (50 points)
    Nov 13, 2010 2:13 PM in response to dcjohn62
    Hi.

    I had the same problem, and found the only fix was to set the media type to TV Shows BEFORE importing into iTunes. The only way I'm aware that can be done, is using an application called iFlicks (www.iflicksapp.com/). Jendrik Bartram is the developer, and having used the tool for 2-3 years now, I can vouch for his support of the app. Well worth the few $$ it will cost you once the trial runs out.
  • by m0thr4,

    m0thr4 m0thr4 Nov 23, 2010 2:24 PM in response to dcjohn62
    Level 1 (123 points)
    Apple Watch
    Nov 23, 2010 2:24 PM in response to dcjohn62
    Here's what fixed it for me (i.e. TV Shows appearing under Movies, incorrect show names like Various and Untitled):

    1. Delete the TV Shows that are causing problems from iTunes, but *choose the option to keep the files*!
    2. Open Front Row and check that they are really gone (if not, see below for remedial actions)
    3. Open the real files in MetaX, choose TV Show as the type and then write your changes.
    4. Drag the files you've changed back into iTunes and wait for them to import
    5. Open Front Row - your fixed TV Show files should display correctly under the TV Shows section and not in Movies.


    _Remedial actions_ - if step 2 doesn't work, here are some things you can try before step 2. Try one, some or all of the following (all should guarantee success!).

    a) delete ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.frontrow.plist
    b) delete ~/Library/Application Support/Front Row
    c) delete ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.frontrow
    d) reboot
  • by m0thr4,

    m0thr4 m0thr4 Nov 23, 2010 2:33 PM in response to MooMuir
    Level 1 (123 points)
    Apple Watch
    Nov 23, 2010 2:33 PM in response to MooMuir
    MooMuir wrote:
    Hi.

    I had the same problem, and found the only fix was to set the media type to TV Shows BEFORE importing into iTunes. The only way I'm aware that can be done, is using an application called iFlicks (www.iflicksapp.com/). Jendrik Bartram is the developer, and having used the tool for 2-3 years now, I can vouch for his support of the app. Well worth the few $$ it will cost you once the trial runs out.


    Or you could save a few $$ and use the free program MetaX. I've been using this for about 5 years now - it's a fantastic piece of software and also plugs into iTunes, giving you an extra "Edit tags in MetaX" option when you right-click on any of your content.

    Message was edited by: m0thr4
  • by Morgan75,

    Morgan75 Morgan75 Feb 14, 2011 2:57 AM in response to m0thr4
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 14, 2011 2:57 AM in response to m0thr4
    Hi guys, is there a chanche that Apple corrects the bug? After all iTunes and Frontrow are Apple's software that should work together...
  • by Geoponic,

    Geoponic Geoponic Jun 11, 2011 10:21 AM in response to dcjohn62
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 11, 2011 10:21 AM in response to dcjohn62

    I think I know the problem.

     

    When the files are imported to iTunes, the files are moved to the iTunes movie folder and are then not moved once you change the meta data.

     

    Consolidating the libary and toggling the 'keep my itunes organised' fixed this for me.