Q: how to delete duplicated songs all at one time?

Hi tt2 whenever i delete a duplicate song it deletes the original too and i have no way of getting it back ive tried to download them from purchases too i have songs on my phone which i cant get back to my computer and vice versa because of this reason

EDIT: i also dont want to sync my phone to my computer because it will wipe those songs

Take a look at one of my recent posts on How to remove duplicate songs, it sounds like you are describing what I refer to as logical duplicates where two or more entries in the library point to the same file. Deleting one of the entries and its file breaks the others.

See Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device for tips on securing the content stored on your iPhone.

Whatever approach you take to duplicates you should start with a backup so that you can recover if you get too enthusiastic.

tt2

I should rephrase this it's not that i deleted them it's that recently ive been getting new computers and everytime it syncs some songs will just disappear and i have no way of getting them back and the only way i can get them back is what seems like rebuying them and i don't want to do that. I haven't found any forums that touch on this topic.

See Backup your iTunes for Windows library with SyncToy and Make a split library portable. My guess is that something in your strategy for moving content between computers is behind the problem. You should copy over a complete working library. Copying the media into a new library, or connecting your devices to an empty library should be avoided.

tt2

ok thanks I'll remember this for future reference. But as for getting them back what should I do

If you've deleted the only working copy of a file then you have to look to your backups, re-rip, redownload from past purchases, or extract from your device. See Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device for more about the last two.

tt2

Hello Mr Turingtest2

As many have said, your dedication and willingness to help so many people, for free no less, to solve these problems (when Apple itself won't, no less!) is unbelievably amazing, and I thank you.

I couldn't find mention of this issue in the 30 pages of this thread (forgive me if I missed it):

everytime I run deduper, it crashes on: "Pass 6, processing 4 of (whatever number was selected)"
Everytime.  I have tried selecting different subsets of duplicate files, within a playlist, with Exact duplicates, regular duplicates, running the script via command prompt vs regular WBSH, automatically delete and manually confirm.

Occasionally it makes it to file 5 (especially with manual confirmation), but it never gets to more than 5 (or less than 4). 

If I only select 6 files (3 dupes), it goes to completion and shows the success screen.
It appears to actually be removing those first 3 or 4 duplicates before crashing.

The short version of the error message:
"AppName: wscript.exe AppVer: 5.7.0.18066 ModName: atl100.dll
ModVer: 10.0.30319.1 Offset: 000042a4"

I could post the technical info, but its quite long, so I'll only do it if it might be helpful, to not clutter up the thread...

Any idea what would cause it to crash specifically on the 4th file it processes?
I'm (still) using XP, itunes 12.0.1.26

Thanks again

Is there a line number associated with the error?

tt2

Afraid not - the only error message comes up from windows, the Microsoft (R) Windows Based Script Host.
DeDuper itself stays open and has no error message - it just freezes at "Pass 6, processing 5 of [however many files I selected]" indefinitely.

The "technical information" begins" Code: 0xc0000005 Flags: 0X00000000 Record: 0x0000000000000000 Address: 0x0000000078a642a4"

and then 78 modules about a bunch of dll's

Nothing about lines.

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I've been swamped at work lately and this one slipped my mind.

I cannot recreate the error at my end and without knowing exactly where in the script it is happening it is somewhat tricky to guess what might be going wrong. Try changing the initialization of archive from False to True on what should currently be line 155:

Archive=False           ' Flag to archive at <Media Folder>\Archive instead of deleting

I'm hoping it is something in the file delete code, so not deleting the files will work around it, and you can clean up the <Media Folder>\Archive folder manually.

tt2

Hey, no worries man!

I wouldn't have had time to try it until now anyway.

So, it seemed it was working at first - it got way past number 5. 
Eventually it still crashed, but with a totally different error message, this one does have a ine number:

Script:  C:\Documents...\Deduper.vbs
Line:     420
Char:     17
Error:     Bad file name or number
Code:    800A0034
Source:  Microsoft VBScript runtime error

It went from 118 duplicates down to 72 before it crashed, so processing 46 is a big improvement from 4 at a time!

Second time I tried, it went directly to the same error.
Next I tried clicking "no" when it asks whether to delete alternate format tracks, and it was able to finish without error.

I tried again with option yes (include alternate dupes), and sometimes it crashes it crashes instantly, other times it processes a few (maybe a dozen) before crashing with the same error as above.

I'm trying to rescue my library, finally, after multiple version of iTunes updates ruined it.  I never stored my files in the iTunes directory, but rather on my D:\ drive and iTunes never seemed to be happy.  Each time iTunes updated to a newer version, it ruined more and more of my playlists.

I've recently fixed my library and re-consolidated how I originally organized it, but want to try to save my 10 years of playcounts as best as I can. 

I was only able to fix 25% of my library with the "FindTracks" tool. The other 75% is still "unfound" in iTunes.

My idea was to add the music from my directory to iTunes and then use the "DeDuper" tool to merge the broken entry with the new filepath entry but it's not working as well as I was expecting.

I think the FindTracks might work better if it only searched for song name and artist.  Some of the album's are different (IE Greatest hits) and I think that's stopping some of the matching.

FindTracks is pretty flexible (see Re: Any software that can rebuild iTunes songs lost to Unknown Artist/ Unknown Album for details) however it expects to find the tracks at a path based on the known properties of the file the last time iTunes had access to it. If a different application/library has both changed the album name and moved the track to reflect that change then the script will fail unless the new and old names are a fuzzy match to each other. Perfect for fixing say Motorhead > Motörhead but not Motorhead > Greatest Hits.

If you could give me a few of examples of the true path of a missing track, and the corresponding location information in iTunes I can see if I can understand why the search is failing and perhaps make some suggestions, or a tweak to the script if appropriate.

DeDuper works with tracks that would qualify as Same Album duplicates in iTunes. If you turn on Track No., Disc No., & Album Artist in addition to Name, Artist, & Album, it may become clear why DeDuper hasn't cleaned up one of those two tracks. It also won't work if all copies are missing in action.

A visit to Repair security permissions for iTunes for Windows might not hurt.

tt2

Try inserting this line as a new Line 419.

Trace T,"Archive from " & L & nl & nl & "to " & NewPath

If you don't have Notepad++ the existing line 420 reads "File.Move(NewPath)" so insert before the comment before that.

This will show what file is being moved from where to where and might help reveal the cause of the problem. In a similar fashion to my comment above to Firebird2k6 it might not hurt to make sure that permissions are correctly set on the media folder. See Repair security permissions for iTunes for Windows for details. What antivirus package do you have, if any? Temporarily disabling it might help if it is locking the files in some fashion when the script tries to move or delete them.

tt2