In iTunes, the artist for a selected song will be filled out, but I can't see it on my iPod Touch (iOS 5). It just says "unknown" for the artist and album, even though the song title is still there. The "park of a compilation" box isn't checked, so it can't be that.
iPod touch, iOS 5.0.1
kythrash wrote:
... they sure have some really basic and annoying bugs they won't let competitors fix; meaning, no other music players in the apple store.
What on earth are you talking about?
kythrash wrote:
And how about being able to list year in the "Now Playing" window? Or does Apple know what's best for me so that such a basic customization isn't available?
I believe they've ever claimed to. One option would be to submit some feedback at http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipodtouch.html and use the Feedback Type as Enhancement Request.
Or you could simply whine on about your obvious dislike of Apple here
Your choice.
Ah! But non-IT people will tell you that they prefer to simply plug their iPods into iTunes and let iTunes synchronize everything.
Synchronize =
So the data goes in both directions;
... but users do not need to know every little detail about what's going on or why. That's known as under-the-hood stuff. You, as an IT professional, may want to know all this, but the average Joe Public doesn't. They don't care. They wouldn't understand it and as a consequence they would be less likely to use an iPod.
Let's face it, who does Apple hope will buy iPods? Several thousand IT professionals or, millions of other people? Especially when you consider that an IT person becomes Joe Public when he walks into an art gallery.
None of us, either geeky or non-geeky need to know exactly the order of the sync process, only that it happens. Although if you watch the small yelllow window at the top of iTunes while Sync is in progress, you will see brief details of what is going on and when. The point you make about the order is very complex. To achieve "synchronization" between iTunes and the iPod, there needs to be consensus about which data takes priority over the other or whether they are equally important. Apple has done all that work for us. Wow! Thanks Apple, saves me time and leaves more of it to enjoy listenting to the msuic I've put on it.
For instance; I play a song on my iPod, and while it's playing, I change the rating from none to three stars. I also notice that the spelling of the album name is incorrect. So immediately before my next Sync, I correct the album name for that song - in iTunes - so that it matches the rest of the album (I have had to correct spelling in this way). At Sync, iTunes has to correctly "Synchronize" both the iPod and iTunes so that all the information that each has about the song is the same on both devices. And if I've played that song twice on my iPod, I expect iTunes to increase the Play count by two. (It does, I checked! 😁 )
But I don't want to muck about with all that FTP stuff, I don't want to know how iTunes works it all out, I simply want it to happen. And I've spent my entire career in IT and other technical roles.
Having used other media players, that do not have the benefit of a dedicated piece of software like iTunes to enable co-ordination between the computer with the music on it and the MP3 player, I can assure you that iTunes is a much better way of managing things.
Kythrash, try it this way:
Imagine that iTunes is the master version with everything in it. The iPod is simply a copy of what's in iTunes. (Because I've had iPods since before the Touch with it's Wi-Fi capabilities, I had to rely on iTunes as the "controller".) I do almost everything in iTunes and let the Sync make those changes onto the iPod. Then, when the iPod becomes corrupted, or when I replace my iPod, then all I need to do is plug the iPod into iTunes and let the Sync put my iTunes Library either, back onto the restored ipod or, onto the new iPod without any mucking about remembering what went where.
Yes, of course I make changes on my iPod. I even have to remember to do some things myself. But I still prefer the iTunes way of managing my iPod than all that FTP malarky.
Ah, well! I must admit, I don't like the Cover Flow view that much on the iPod Touch. So I tend not to use it.I actually use my Touch mainly for Podcasts, since it is so much easier to use for them than my iPod Classic. So my experience of Cover Flow is very limited and my first statement will make that apparent.
As far as I can tell, the Cover Flow is displayed in artist order, correct? (If there's any other order for it to be displayed, I am not aware of it.) It seems that the iPod Touch uses the field Album Artist to sort the artist name, but if that field is empty, the iPod will use the (I think) the Artist field instead. So if a song by "Artist X" is on a compilation album, then that artist for that song will not be shown in the Cover Flow list - because it's list of albums, by artist. And - here's the point - compilation albums are listed under V for Various Artists and the Album Artist should therefore say "Various Artists". But I haven't finished yet.
It is not unknown for a "Best Of band X" or "Greatest Hits Of band X" to be labelled in the Gracenote database (where iTunes gets the CD info) as a compilation album. Problem is... iTunes thinks a complilation album has different artists for every song. In addition, other fields used by iTunes for sorting etc. may not have been filled in by the record company.
But with Mp3s, purchased from iTunes or Amazon, I've noticed that some of those additional fields are filled in, such as Album Artist and the corresponding Sort fields.
So the problem you have may be because the information in the album fields is incorrect or missing.
Take one album that you're having problems with:
If it's a single-artist album, then in iTunes, check the following by selecting the complete album and selecting File/Get Info/.. :
If it's a proper Compilation album ("Greatest Hits of the 90s"), again check the following by selecting the complete album and selectingFile/Get Info/.. :
After any changes like this, you need to Sync the iPod for the changes to be on there as well.
About your question concerning tracks being greyed out on the iPod view in iTunes. I guess it's because the idea is you make the changes in your iTunes Library and then Sync the iPod to iTunes to put those changes onto the iPod. Otherwise, wouldn't you have to change things twice, once on the iPod while viewing it in iTunes and then the second time in iTunes itself?
And what would be the point of playing a song "on the iPod" through iTunes? Why not play the song in iTunes?
I never look at the "content" of the iPod while it's connected to iTunes, I always use the iTunes Library.
I have this exact same problem. Artist doesn't show up in list of artists. However, I can find the album, artist is listed as "Unknown." Then I play a song from the album and the artist is visible in the "Now Playing" window. I go back to the list of artists and it's still not there.
For a company so up it's own *** about how perfect its products are, they sure have some really basic and annoying bugs they won't let competitors fix; meaning, no other music players in the apple store.
And how about being able to list year in the "Now Playing" window? Or does Apple know what's best for me so that such a basic customization isn't available?
For what it's worth, the solution I found to make all tags for all tracks show up correctly in the ipod touch music player menus is:
1. Make sure your itunes library is not corrupted.
2. Connect the ipod touch to the computer w/ the standard USB ipod cable.
3. Open itunes.
4. Under the 'Summary' Menu click 'Restore'. Yes, this will wipe all the music off the ipod. It *****.
5. Once your ipod is 'restored', go to 'Music' in itunes. If the 'Sync Music' checkbox is empty, check it.
6. Select the 'Selected playlists, artists, albums, and genres' radio button. The 'Include Music Videos' and 'Include voice memos' are optional and your preference.
7. In the left window pane under the 'LIBRARY' heading, click 'Music' . In the right pane where your tracks show up, check the boxes for around 100 of them.
8. In the left window pane under the 'DEVICES' heading, right-click (I don't know the equivalent of right-click on an apple workstation) on the nickname for your ipod and select 'Sync'. The Sync should start.
9. Once the Sync process is complete, check the ipod menus to be sure everything you just synced shows up.
10. Repeat steps 7-9 with different tracks, until all your tracks are added.
This is tedious, but works. I've found that trying to sync more than around 100 tracks at a time risks getting the "Connection time-out" error, which can corrupt the mp3 database on the ipod.
I think I may have found one cause for this problem (that started happening again for me). There's a setting on the ipod itself "Group by Album Artist". I turned that off and presto, I can see my mp3s on the ipod again. What a stupid, stupid obscure setting.
Sorry to bother you again, but this is driving me crazy. Where exactly do I even go to see "settings"? I can't get to settings, music to even turn this group by thing off. Ugh. Thanks for your help in advance.
No problem. I feel like I've had to spend too much time sifting through documentation, forums and doing trial and error with this iPod to make it work how I want. And I'm hoping the connection errors I keep getting are due to a faulty cable, and not the input on the ipod itself, being that this is a $400 device (I have the 64GB), and I'm really not wanting to have to ship it anywhere. I ordered a replacement cable. Pretty disappointing that such expensive hardware isn't sturdier.
I also find that it is just not as easy to configure with the vague terminology apple uses for features and settings. For instance, the term "sync." Which direction does the data go? From the computer to the iPod, iPod to computer, or both? And if so, in what order? Which data? A standard FTP-ish GUI where it shows the files / configurations on both sides would be so much better than what iTunes has currently.
Why is a single 'sort' setting in the iPod 'Music' settings, where there are a ton of sort settings in iTunes that don't seem to correspond in a coherent way to the iPod?
Why is the concept of the check boxes so abstract? From what I've seen on forums nobody knows what they do, and the people that say they know have a very limited understandin,g and adopt the apple-user culture of elitism when they have the slightest idea of *** this crap is.
I've been doing IT support and server and network administration for over a decade, and have really never had this much trouble trying to get an mp3 player set up.
the fiend:
What you describe of it "just working" would be pretty convenient, but when it doesn't just work, for instance, when I sync a bunch of new stuff in my iTunes library to the iPod, and then can't find the albums in the cover flow view on the iPod and see that the same cover flow view in iTunes has the artist names where the iPod doesn't, I want to know how to fix it. When 'syncing' doesn't do it, I need more detail. Having an all-or-nothing scenario where when syncing doesn't work the only way to fix things is to wipe the iPod and re-sync 40GB of mp3s, it's just too time-consuming and futile. Especially when I don't even know what the point of failure is and if it will or will not occur again. This makes me think - will this thing ever be reliable? Is there another way to get mp3s on this thing aside from syncing? Why are tracks "grayed out" and unplayable in the iPod view in iTunes? Those same tracks are invisible on the iPod itself, and I don't know how to make them work.
Where is the "group by artist" setting at? Can't find it. Thanks.
It's under Settings -> Music. There you'll want to set 'Group By Album Artist' to "OFF."
A troll on an Internet forum? I'm shocked.
On the iPod Touch itself, on the main screen, the "settings" icon with the gears in it. Hope that helps.
Yes Kythrash, thank you. I was looking on the itunes on the computer. Ugh. Found it. Thanks again.
Artist won't show up on iPod
