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Problem with automatic downloads on multiple computers with shared storage

I have a main Windows computer I use to rip my CD's, download Digital Copies from DVD's, buy iTunes movies, and sync my iPhone/iPad. My iTunes library points to a shared location on a MediaSmart Windows Home Server as "\\mediasmart\itunes\music". I have turned on automatic downloads on this computer so it downloads music/apps/books if I buy something on one of my other devices.


I also have iTunes installed on the above mentioned MediaSmart Windows Home Server to serve content to my Apple TV's throughout the house and I point the iTunes library to the same location as the above Windows computer - which is local to the MediaSmart server - as "d:\itunes\music". I do this because the main Windows computer is also used as the main system for the house - quicken, AnyDVD, etc. and I don't want to impact performance on that computer if I decide to watch a movie on one of my Apple TV's. Anyway, to avoid having to manually copy music and books to the MediaSmart server, I enabled Automatic Downloads. In short, it works as advertised. Now, if I buy a song on the main Windows computer it gets automatically downloaded to the MediaSmart server and added to the iTunes library in the Purchased playlist - which is exactly where I want it to go. However, I just noticed last night that I now have multiple copies of those songs that are "Automatically Downloaded".


As an example, on the main Windows Computer I recently bought the song Gasoline. It was placed in a folder named "\\mediasmart\itunes\music\kicking harold" and the song was named "01 gasoline.mp4". Then....within a few minutes the MediaSmart iTunes automatically downloaded the song Gasoline and placed it in "d:\itunes\music" BUT named the song "01 gasoline 1.mp4". I figured iTunes would be smart enough to actually check for the physical song before re-downloading it and creating another copy of it.


Is there anyway to fix this or some setting I am missing? I hope the above makes sense.


Thanks for any assistance.

Posted on Jan 5, 2012 7:38 AM

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Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Jan 5, 2012 8:10 AM

GoHerdIBG wrote:


As an example, on the main Windows Computer I recently bought the song Gasoline. It was placed in a folder named "\\mediasmart\itunes\music\kicking harold" and the song was named "01 gasoline.mp4". Then....within a few minutes the MediaSmart iTunes automatically downloaded the song Gasoline and placed it in "d:\itunes\music" BUT named the song "01 gasoline 1.mp4". I figured iTunes would be smart enough to actually check for the physical song before re-downloading it and creating another copy of it.


Is there anyway to fix this or some setting I am missing? I hope the above makes sense.

Yes it makes sense, and no I don't think you're missing some obvious setting. I think iTunes needs to gain some optimisation in this area. For instance if I make a purchase on my iPad I see iTunes downloading an independent copy instead of letting the download complete on the iPad and then copying it over to the PC via Wi-Fi. Hopefully these issues will get tidied up as iTunes in the Cloud meets the real world, though it probably wouldn't hurt to add your feedback.


tt2

1 reply
Question marked as Best reply

Jan 5, 2012 8:10 AM in response to GoHerdIBG

GoHerdIBG wrote:


As an example, on the main Windows Computer I recently bought the song Gasoline. It was placed in a folder named "\\mediasmart\itunes\music\kicking harold" and the song was named "01 gasoline.mp4". Then....within a few minutes the MediaSmart iTunes automatically downloaded the song Gasoline and placed it in "d:\itunes\music" BUT named the song "01 gasoline 1.mp4". I figured iTunes would be smart enough to actually check for the physical song before re-downloading it and creating another copy of it.


Is there anyway to fix this or some setting I am missing? I hope the above makes sense.

Yes it makes sense, and no I don't think you're missing some obvious setting. I think iTunes needs to gain some optimisation in this area. For instance if I make a purchase on my iPad I see iTunes downloading an independent copy instead of letting the download complete on the iPad and then copying it over to the PC via Wi-Fi. Hopefully these issues will get tidied up as iTunes in the Cloud meets the real world, though it probably wouldn't hurt to add your feedback.


tt2

Problem with automatic downloads on multiple computers with shared storage

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