Some audiobook tracks grayed out in audiobook section

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Level 1

1 points

Some audiobook tracks grayed out in audiobook section

I have imported two different audiobooks into iTunes.

I am using itunes 10.3.6 on a macbook pro, mountain lion osx. I do have itunes match, and I turned off match to import the audiobooks so that I could go in and change the "media type" to audiobook. However, now some of the tracks (not all) are grayed out and inaccessable on my iphone. When trying to play the audiobook it just skips the tracks that are gray and moves on to the next black track. I've tried resyncing and it doesn't help. What did I do wrong?

Posted on Jun 29, 2012 7:55 AM

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Answer 1

Alderete

Level 1

89 points

Jul 1, 2012 3:16 PM in response to scrappylaw

Without more details, it's hard to say what has gone wrong. How did you import those audiobooks? What format? Were they already in iTunes when you turned ON iTunes Match? Did they get uploaded? Etc. Lots of details required to troubleshoot this, you might consider taking your computer into the Genius Bar for help.

If I was going to guess, it sounds like some of your audiobook tracks were elegible for uploading to iTunes Match, which removes them from consideration for being sync'ed directly via iTunes. When you turned off iTunes Match, you lost access to them.

Go in and set the metadata for all of the audiobook's tracks using the File > Get Info panel, making sure you're setting (at least) both the Album (book title) to the right title, and the Other > Media Kind to "Audiobooks". Then go to the Books sync settings tab, and make sure the book is selected to sync in the Audiobooks section (scroll down to find it).

HTH!

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Answer 2

Alderete

Level 1

89 points

Jul 1, 2012 3:19 PM in response to scrappylaw

Oh, other note. In theory, audiobook tracks are not affected by or elegible for uploading via iTunes Match. They should be ignored, whether you have it turned on or off. But until you set the Media Kind to Audibook, iTunes can only guess about the type of the track, based on the encoding bit rate, and the length of the track. So that's how a few tracks might get caught by the iTunes Match service.

At any rate, once you've got the tracks set to the right Media Kind, you can just turn on iTunes Match and leave it on, you don't need to toggle it to import new audiobooks.

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