iTunes 11.0.3 Songs view, show artwork + sort by that column = a bit of chaos

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Level 3

785 points

iTunes 11.0.3 Songs view, show artwork + sort by that column = a bit of chaos

I have in recent months recreated my iTunes library, in iTunes 11, partly from backups from older libraries and partly with higher quality rips from CD. In the various views, everything looked great and organized. All songs neatly grouped in their Album with cover art applied. Took a little time and tweaking here and there as the CDDB sometimes has bad info, or lacks it. Anyhow. Even in Songs view, nothing was amiss.

Just updated to 11.0.3

Trying out the new Songs view with Album art (show artwork, always show).

When I now use that left column to sort albums by title; or other selection; several albums are split up into individual songs? Some albums get split into two. Another view two albums with the same name, the view will show one song for each album from each artist as an album, going up one number at a time. Another album, the last n songs get split off?

Manually created albums from stuff that predated iTunes suddenly get split up into little bundles of 1 or 3? Tried correcting by setting track # and disc #. Converting ID tag. Changing album name. Artist name. Finally setting Artist Album kicked that bunch together. But, that is something I have never had to set?

Most of these were carefully ripped in iTunes and then Get Info verified ensuring they all had the same artist, etc. and I overwrote stuff with disc 1 disc 2 as Album 2CD.

I just don't understand why it suddenly seeds the need to split it up, when in the regular album view or artist view everything is A OK.

Unless, of course this new view is buggy.

Posted on May 19, 2013 12:01 PM

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Answer 1

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icerabbit Author

Level 3

785 points

May 19, 2013 12:37 PM in response to icerabbit

After a bit more fiddling:

It seems that anything that may exist in a duplicate or does not have an absolutely unique title - like albums with titles : Best Ballads, Best Of, Christmas, Greatest Hits, Hits, (the) Platinum Collection, Unplugged, (the) Very Best Of, ... will turn to chaos and get split down to single tracks.

Setting the Album Artist on those Albums; solves the split.

It may be unrelated to 11.0.3 and have existed before without my knowledge. It just came into view with 11.0.3 for me.

I do still have another mystery with some Compilation Albums that are split partially (first three, last three songs); but at least I'm still a step in the right direction again.

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Answer 2

SkyHook17

Level 1

105 points

May 19, 2013 1:58 PM in response to icerabbit

Using Album Artist to fix the split has been that way for a very long time. Don't know why you just turned it up now for you.

I've never had a compilation album in partial form, typically all or nothing for me. There are situations where I force a split by adding Album Artist to specific tracks, usually classic composers being covered by modern artists where I'd rather keep my authors together over of my performers.

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Answer 3

icerabbit Author

Level 3

785 points

May 19, 2013 5:18 PM in response to SkyHook17

I'm not sure why it just showed for me either.

I litterally have been rebuilding my library fresh on a new system in iTunes 11 from hard drive backups, optical discs and from fresh rips of our favorite music at higher bit rates. Been adding art work from the web or self scanned. Making sure all tags are correct and to my liking. Correcting some things from CDDB or typing it all out if it couldn't find it.

So in 11.0.2 everything looked 100% per album and per artist, both locally on the system and via iOS remote.

Out comes 11.0.3 with its new song view with art work ... and dozens of albums went haywire.

I understand this may have come about way back, but I'm hardly a music library novice and I go back from before we had iTunes 🙂 So, it had me scratching my head, why stuff that was fine yesterday, and actually still today in the artist view or album view (via the chicklets) would turn on its head all of a sudden in song view, which has always been my default view! Sorted by album title (column 4 or 5) I can only conclude something is different with this new artwork + sorting column.

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