Upload Issue

There are several methods, according to the nature of the problem with the track or an album, but only you can decide what to do. Each song may require a different method, according to what you know about it and how complex the issue. You may be able to bulk edit songs, see below. A daunting prospect perhaps, but if it helps, look at this as a fun project that gets you closer to the music you like; you get to play songs while you're editing. What a result!

Using the tips listed below, try experimenting - carefully! Tip: Do not try editing anything in Windows Explorer; if you do, you will make the issue worse as it may cause iTunes to lose track of songs. Do this editing in iTunes, unless recommended otherwise.

• Checking one album:

Select all the tracks that you know are on an album. Look for the tracks that are missing. Now you know what you're looking for on that album. If you can find the missing ones easily in your "unknown" list, you're halfway there.

• Song in your Library that has no (or limited) information:

if you can identify a song from the information that you do have, you can edit it in your iTunes Library and add missing information. Select a track and click on iTunes' menu Edit/Song Info. You will see a panel like the one shown below:

On the File tab, there is information about the location of the file for that track. It may give you a clue about the song; i.e. it's in a folder with songs from the same album. Tip: the way to ensure that iTunes correctly groups songs together in their respective album is to ensure that the text in the album box is exactly the same. Use copy-and-paste if it helps, copying the album title from a known good track and pasting it into the track that you're revising. Also make sure that the artist's name is typed the same way for each song by an artist.

You can select multiple songs and bulk edit: Here's the same album used above:

Note the differences between the two screenshots. (The iTunes menu command for multiple selections is Edit/Get Info.)

• Deciding that an album is missing too much (or unable to find the missing songs):

if you decide to replace the missing songs by re-ripping from a factory-made (commercial) CD, using iTunes, then iTunes will pick up the information about the CD just before you import it. You can select individual tracks on the CD for importing, you don't have to import the whole CD. (We can go into more detail about this if you need it, in a separate post.) Once you have imported missing songs on an album, check the album to ensure that all the tracks are together. If they are not, edit the album to group them. Again, the tip is to ensure that every song has the exact information in the common fields, such as Album Title and Artist name.

If you're re-copying from other sources, such as a home burnt CD, then as above, you can edit individual tracks, or re-copy from the CD using File/Add to Library. Once you've added the album (or specific tracks), you can edit them to ensure the information is the way you want.

• Compilation Albums - special note:

as far as iTunes is concerned, a compilation album is one on which each song is by a different artist. That is, a "various artists" album. This means that a "Greatest Hits" album by a specific artist is not a compilation album (but record companies sometimes mark such albums as "compilations"). So to ensure that a various artists album is correctly grouped together, select all the tracks on that album and make sure that the Album Artist field (2.) has the text Various Artists in it and that the compilation flag (3.) is "on". Specifically, the compilation flag needs the tick (check-mark) in it, a dash is not the check mark:

Note that in the screenshot above, both the artist (1.) and the genre fields have the text Mixed in them. This is correct, it means that there is different text in the individual songs that have been selected.

If I give you too much information in one go, you may feel overwhelmed, so for now this should go a long way towards fixing the issues. Once you understand what iTunes is expecting, it will make it easier for you to decide how to proceed. If you need more information, let us know.

I'm not sure that I can come to a conclusion about what has happened, so let me clarify the various scenarios and then you can hopefully decide what actually happened in your case.

• If you used iTunes to copy the music from a factory-made Audio CD (i.e. not a home burnt one), then iTunes would have looked to a website called Gracenote for the information for that CD and therefore all the titles etc. should be there with each song. The process would have been the Import CD route
• If you used another programme (not iTunes) to copy from the factory-made Audio CD, and if that programme did not fill in the information about the tracks, then when you subsequently used your iTunes to File/Add {File or Folder} to Library, then all it would have done is added tracks without information in the tags. Hence, "unknown" xxx. At this point, you need to be precise; do the songs have no information at all, not even a song title, or is it just some of the information that's missing
• If a factory-made Audio CD was copied by iTunes as .wav files, and subsequently copied from one computer to another (and therefore, one iTunes to another), you would have needed to use File/Add to library to add the songs to the second iTunes. In this case, there would be no, or incomplete, track information and tracks will be listed in part or in whole as unknown
• If you used iTunes to copy a home burnt finalised Audio CD, by using Import CD, then all the tracks would be unknown. This is because a home burnt CD would not have a recognisable fingerprint. In other words, it would not match a factory produced CD, and therefore Gracenote would have no record of it. Hence, unknown
  • (leading on from the above scenario); a home burnt CD, that is in fact a data CD with audio files on it (and therefore it is not an Audio CD), cannot be copied into iTunes by using Import CD. Instead, you would have to have used File/Add to library. This type of disc can have track information contained within each file, so every song would then appear in your iTunes Library with the correct information - providing (and this is the crucial part) that each file had its tag information complete before the burn
• A home burnt CD, which has not yet been finalised, cannot be read by iTunes

donmus wrote:

I did try to re-upload a disc with a missing song and nothing changed.

"Up-load" doesn't tell me how you were trying to add the music to iTunes. Are you saying that you attempted to copy again, from the CD, but even the new copy still didn't have any track information? If yes, then:

1. 1. what type of disc was it? Was it a factory-made CD, or a home burnt one?
   2. was it a data disc, with audio files on it? If so you would have had to use File/Add to Library to add the songs to iTunes
   3. was it a home burnt Audio CD, that you used Import CD to copy into iTunes?

1. Are the rogue songs in .wav format?
2. Did you copy from the CD using iTunes, or were the songs already in digital format and you used File/Add File to Library or File/Add Folder to Library to add them?

You're welcome.