how to stop iTunes duplicating songs added via Home Sharing ( Network)?

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how to stop iTunes duplicating songs added via Home Sharing ( Network)?

In my iTunes Prefs, under "advanced" I have deselected "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to Library".

I have all the iTunes music on an external RAID Volume acessed via Ethernet. This is the Media folder location set in the iTunes Prefs, of course.

After adding tracks dragged over from a shared Playlist, the files appear double (duplicated) in their artist/album folders (with a 1 added to the new file name).

Worse than that, the songs purchased on the other computer have been added, because "automatically transfer new purchases" is on, but these songs have also been duplicated.

I can't believe that Apple haven't figured out how to avoid song duplication under Home Sharing - is there something else I need to do?

Thanks for any help!!

Nigel

G5 Quad /6.5 GB RAM, Mac OS X (10.4.11), RME Fireface

Posted on Jan 5, 2010 5:57 PM

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Answer 1

Jan 13, 2010 8:37 AM in response to Nigel Watson1

I am getting duplicate files (duplicate songs) when I use the "Add to Library" feature.
iTunes is supposed copy the file once only per song when "Copy to iTunes Media Folder" is checked.

For me, the issue occurs when adding many folders of songs from an external drive via firewire 400 (about 300 folders, about 3,000 songs).
During the import, I've noticed the first 15 folders transfer okay (no duplicates). But, duplicate files(songs) start occurring around the 16th folder. Duplicate files are noticeable because they transfer in alphanumeric order and are appended with 1 in the filename.

To be sure, there are no duplicate files in any the source folders.

I am using a iMac 27", OSX 10.6.2, iTunes 9.0.2(25). All default settings.

A problem like this might occur if iTunes was a multi-threading application where ONE "copy file" thread starts okay and later (about 16 folders deep in the process) TWO "copy threads" run simultaneously thus copying files over each other in duplicate (a race condition). If this were true, it might happen only to the newest Macs (multi-core processors) with imports from slow external drives. I doubt that the home sharing feature is related to the importing feature. So, I'm guessing this is just a importing issue. I'm not sure yet... just started troubleshooting. Back to check the discussion soon.

Cheers,
Will

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