Trouble with iTunes shared servers on NAS drives

Just to add to what I previously said, if you do have this problem, don't hang around waiting for Apple to fix it because it's just not going to happen. iTunes 10 is NOT broken so there's nothing to fix. Seriously, get onto the manufacturers/suppliers of the third party product and see what they are doing to fix their product. No doubt they are aware of the problem and will be issuing an update so that their product works again as it should.

Some years ago I wrote my own music server that used the iTunes Library backup XML file and often a new release of iTunes would change the format of this file slightly and I'd have to re-write my code to suit. No point in complaining to Apple - not their problem. So I have some experience of the sharp end of Apple's product developments and have some sympathy with the third party developers, but that's life.

So get back to your suppliers and see what's being done. I'm sure a solution will soon be available - from them, not from Apple.

ditto. my media smart server is not working with itunes 10

hal

Message was edited by: Hal Sandick

Sorry, UKenGB, but that is a nonsensical statement. It is like saying Apple could change their implementation of Samba, it then stops working with Windows, so it is up to Microsoft to fix it. Or FTP, or AFP, or any other protocol. iTunes has an ecosystem built around it and it worked just fine for years. If iTunes 10 breaks it it is Apple to blame. Having said that... will Apple fix it. Of course not. This smells much more like another attempt to stop people from using something that doesn't have the Apple logo on it. Do you really think Apple didn't know it would break each and every NAS device out there? Yet no little notice or warning that this would happen when installing iTunes 10. No official way to downgrade. Forked-Daapd is the way to go for now. It works fine in Ubuntu 10.04. People with regular NAS boxes will have to wait for a fix from the respective manufacturers but I am sure it will come.

Hi Sinisgalli, there is one obvious mistake in your thoughts. FTP is open property, SMB is under control of Microsoft (and they changed it quite often). In both cases, Apple has to adapt to bind an outer ecosystem to theirs. iTunes is Apples property. They can do what they want with it. Their goal is to have working solutions in the Apple ecosystem that is under control of them. They do not care for foreign solutions that much. It is fine as long as their products - all that is under their control - continue to work. Apple is not and will never be a part of the big ecosystem. They are one of their own.

So it is up to the developers of the others systems to adapt. Forked-daapd seems to work. It will be possible to install that implementation on some of the NAS. My sparc based ReadyNAS may not be part of it. That means sit and wait or participate in the development.

Same issue on Acer EasyStore. Both on Windows Vista and iMac.

Reverted Windows version back to 9.2 and all works as usual.

Now I'll try to rollback my iMac version. Hope it works too.

IMO Apple needs to fix this by 10.0.1 of iTunes. The NAS Server interface is a de facto standard as the large ammount of supporting servers proves.

I can confirm the same issues exist with the DLink DNS-323 built in iTunes server. Macs running iTunes 10 display an untitled playlist in the "SHARED" section of the sidebar. And those running 9.2.1 can access the server with no problems from the same place. I have seen no indication that clicking the untitled playlist loads anything on my machine running 10.0, it just flashes an empty list then goes back to the Library. This is incredibly frustrating...

Same problem with an Iomega Home Media Newtwork Drive - contains an iTunes server. This needs to be fixed by Apple. It worked fine with all recent versions of iTunes priot to 10.

Unfortunately it looks as though the onus for providing the solution to this problem will lie with the NAS server manufacturers so we are left with the lottery of when or if our particular server will be fixed. UKenGB is right in saying that Apple can change what they like in iTunes but that they should choose to do so in such an arbitrary and cynical fashion without warning or offering any kind of viable alternative shows the worst attributes of the playground bully that Apple sometimes shows itself to be. Songbird software and Zune mp3 player anyone?

@ mod_ebm. SMB has never been modified to the point where other OSes could not connect anymore. Also, Apple is very much after a third-party ecosystem. They license stuff (made for mac, made for ipod etc.), without third party developers and hardware manufacturers their entire proline of applications would be nowhere near where it is today and same goes for the iPhone, iPad and even the Mac itself. This inward spiral of decreasing compatiblity and locked-in features is a bad, bad thing for everybody, certainly for the users, and it seriously starts to annoy me. Apple is super successfull and making big money. It is usually at that point where companies start to go wrong. iTunes 10 is just one of many, many anoying issues with Apple today. There is not much too it to make sure you don't completley break functionality while implementing new features, or at least give people a fair warning before they install new software. Hey, Apple even sells Drobos in their online store. Just look at the feedback regarding iTunes10 and you will quickly find out that people are not particularily happy with it. Not everything Apple does is great, in fact it is getting less and less great these days.

While it is true that Apple can and often will do whatever they like with their property, it is also thrue that they will and often do hear the wrath of customers that they **** off in the process. Will they do anything about it? Hard to say. But look at the new iPod Shuffle. Apple thought it was a great idea to remive the click wheel last year. The customers disagreed. Guess what? The click wheel is back this year. The lesson here is that is the Apple community ******* loud enough and often enough, Apple may just listen. Other times they won't. In the end it's their call.

You ever notice that when Apple release a new product, like the iPad or the iPhone 4 that 3rd part cases and other accessories exist from day one? That means Apple does work with 3rd party manmfacturers to make sure their products fit and work with Apples. They should have done the same thing with iTunes 10. Let the 3rd parties know what changes were going to be needed far enough in advance that they could have had am update in place by the time iTunes 10 released. At the very least they could of warned us this was not the case.

In the end, for me it's not that big a deal. I manage my iTunes library and sync all my iDevices from a single MacBook Pro, which I have running iTunes 10 now. Everything else in the house is running 9.2.1 since they don't have their own libraries anyway. All they do is stream off my HP MediaSmart iTunes Server, so they aren't losing anythng by not upgrading anyway.

@ Sinisgalli: As this starts to be come a meta discussion, only a short reply. I am not a fan of Apples closed box philosophy and their ideology on full control as you are not too. What I wanted to stress was that Apple does things they can do whenever they want to. They changed the implementation of AFP in OSX 10.6 to a degree that causes Problems with some NASes (including the NetGear ReadyNAS Duo I own) and they change the communication protocol of iTunes. It makes some customers angry but since Apple only cares for interoperation between their own devices, they will not change anything. If you do some research in the web, you may recognize some people where aware of the changes even before the release of iTunes 10 and started to adapt the daapd service. I am aware of forked-daapd and fdaapd (the later wants to omit java, antlr and libavl). It may take some time and some hardware may never work, but that is how it always worked, even with MS. They change something and others adapt. The speed of the adaption depends on the urgency and how crucial it is on the market. My guess is that iTunes Server on 3rd party NASes is not as crucial as a SMB/CIFS service or the AFP file shares.

I agree with all of you, but at the end, the third party developer's, the ones that develop mt-daap and other implementations of apple protocol, need to come up with a solution to the problem. At least Apple has provided a way to roll back to the 9x version. Be patient, (open source) developers are busy people and most of the time they make $0 for their time, not even a postcard. Give them time, they have the knowledge and the power to help us again.

same here. Buffalo LinkStation Live sighs

same here! Buffalo Linkstation Live

I've the problem with my samba sharing. When I launch iTunes 10 the rainbow wheel appear for 10 / 15 minutes and iTunes doesn't work.