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Clean Reinstall of iTunes

I have gone through all the steps to try and reinstall iTunes clean on my system. Uninstalled. Went in and cleared out all the folders and such. I came back in and did the reinstall. Yup, it still has all my preferences and media. Which wouldn't be an issue accept for iTunes will not sort the media. I download a new episode of a tv show I have the season pass to, it creates it into its own season. I download the next episode, yup, it puts it into its own season.


I am getting really tired of having to totally rebuild my entertainment systems every time Apples dumb*** programmer's decide to change things. Programs wont work if you don't update. But if you update, they don't work worse.


All I want is to be able to sort my media, movies, TV shows, and music the way I want them to be, not how Apple things I should.


At this point, anything would help, but I fear the only solution is to get away from Apple.

Windows, Windows 10

Posted on Dec 17, 2020 4:17 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Dec 18, 2020 10:49 AM

Uninstalling and reinstalling iTunes isn't meant to reset the library. General instructions for creating and switching between alternate libraries can be found in Use multiple iTunes libraries on PC - Apple Support, but yes, Apple don't seem to provide a detailed guide to the components of the library.


tt2

3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 18, 2020 10:49 AM in response to NoBigFunny

Uninstalling and reinstalling iTunes isn't meant to reset the library. General instructions for creating and switching between alternate libraries can be found in Use multiple iTunes libraries on PC - Apple Support, but yes, Apple don't seem to provide a detailed guide to the components of the library.


tt2

Dec 18, 2020 7:37 AM in response to NoBigFunny

This is copied and tidied up from an old post. While not quite what you were asking for it may be relevant. Reinstalling iTunes or rebuilding the library from scratch isn't the right approach. It may be that selecting the episodes of the show in question, and using Get Info (ctrl+i) to rename the show as <Show>X, then back to <Show> may link it all together as a single season. That is assuming that the season numbers, episode IDs, etc. make sense. Get info has altered over the years and changing some of the tags I've mentioned below is no longer easy for video content. Hopefully it isn't necessary however my Scripts for iTunes for Windows page has a number of scripts that can be used if needed.




In principle TV Shows are grouped on the Show field and within a show sub-grouped on Season No. In practice recent builds of iTunes and/or Apple TV firmware seem to be taking account of Album, Artist & Album Artist in certain views. For consistency I therefore suggest the following approach:

Show = Album = <Show Name>

e.g. "Heroes"

Artist = Album Artist = <Show Name> or <Show Name> Cast (or something like that)

e.g. "Heroes Cast"

Season No. = <Season No.> or <Blank> (Separate seasons or all listed together)

e.g. 1-2

Episode ID = s##e## (This field, sorted alphabetically, controls order)

e.g. s01e01 - s02e34 (use s##e### when >99 episodes)

Episode No. = Track No. = <Absolute Episode No.>

(Can also be per season, but abs. is better) e.g. 1 - 34

Disc No. = <Season No.> (Can be set even if merging seasons)

e.g. 1-2


Taking this approach you can always merge or split into individual seasons simply by clearing or setting the Season No. field.


So, for example, this:


or this:


can become this:



(The original poster wanted to be able add custom artwork for each episode, so needed to make more seasons.)




For general tips on organizing media in iTunes see Grouping tracks into albums.




tt2

Dec 18, 2020 9:40 AM in response to turingtest2

Thanks for replying so fast.


I tried that on individual files, and full seasons, no luck.


Solution:


However I did figure out the problem after 10 hours of troubleshooting.


After uninstalling iTunes, go into your music folder on drive C. Delete the iTunes folder found there.


the problem is that when Apple did their update it corrupted the media library file. Be deleting the app and file, the install is required to creat a new media library file.


Billion dollar a year company can’t find the time to write a KB article about how to rebuild a media library file. Makes you wonder just how smart they really are.


Clean Reinstall of iTunes

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